Atheism, Evidence and the God-of-the-Gaps

[pocaracas]

I'm late... I didn't read the whole 19 pages... In fact, I read the OP and saw the photo above.

Fátima... that's about 100km away from here... nice place... turned a commercial hub for religious paraphernalia...

Oh, well, here's the original report of the event, published a few days after the fact (I'm hiding, because the pics are huge):

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That's old style portuguese, but comprehensible... not sure about google, though!

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At most, you get people witnessing some strange event with the sun. The trick is... a few km away, people reported that the sun stayed exactly where it should... so whatever happened at Fátima, was only for the eyes of those at Fátima. Or, to put it a bit more bluntly, the Sun didn't move! The people in there saw it "moving". And not all saw the same thing... according to the report, most people there didn't see anything.

Back to the god-of-the-gaps OP...
well, not really the OP...

So, can atheism be falsified? An atheist might say, “Of course atheism can be falsified—just prove that God exists!”

But how exactly is the theist supposed to do this? Usually atheists demand some kind of over-the-top display of power to confirm God's existence. The late N.R. Hanson gave one such piece of evidence that would convince him:

Suppose...that on next Tuesday morning, just after breakfast, all of us in this one world are knocked to our knees by a percussive and ear-shattering thunderclap...the heavens open—the clouds pull apart—revealing an unbelievably immense and Zeus-like figure, towering above us like a hundred Everests. He frowns darkly as lightning plays across the features of his Michaelangeloid face. He then points down—at me!—and exclaims, for every man, woman and child to hear "I have had quite enough of your too-clever logic-chopping and word-watching in matters of theology. Be assured, N.R. Hanson, that I do most certainly exist. (N.R. Hanson. What I Do Not Believe and Other Essays. Springer, 1971)

If God did this, then surely we would know he existed, right? Well, why wouldn’t this kind of evidence also be subject to the “God-of-the-gaps” objection? Just because we don’t know how a giant man can appear in the sky doesn’t mean there is no natural explanation for him. Maybe aliens or time-travelers are at work, deceiving us?

Aye, it would be possible...
But what religious people fear is that, would a god actually show himself to exist, religions would become obsolete. Everyone would be atheist.
Belief would be unnecessary.
Everyone would know that god exists, obviously, look at him telling us all the time that he's there taking care of things for us.
No more shepherding, no more priestly fathers, no more theocracies, no more morality from books and interpretations of books. No more theology, no more belief systems, no more faith.

Could that big guy just be caused by some aliens, or could he be an alien himself?... maybe... but I'm sure he would have some ways of showing us his control over time and information... could still be aliens...
Well, isn't god the ultimate alien, huh?
Not exactly a terrestrial being is he? Then, extra-terrestrial seems appropriate.


Of course, were that guy to present himself now, the question would arise:
- What have you been doing all this time, you piece of crap god?!
You let all these people die in stupid holy wars and they're still at it! WTF!?!
Go fix that shit, right now!