Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: January 14, 2025, 5:15 am

Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 1 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
What would you consider to be evidence for God?
#18
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God?
(June 25, 2015 at 12:25 pm)Psychonaut Wrote: In the history of man, the only thing we've managed to say with 100% certainty is that there is experiential stuff?

I get what you're saying.  And in the case of things outside of our ability to detect, I think it really comes down to whether or not they interact with the world we can experience.  If they do not, then we have no way of knowing if they are real.  In that case, all of the claims of such beings or planes of existence are made up, even if one of them might be accurate, since we have no way of experiencing them.

If they are able to interact with the world we can experience, then we must consider whether it makes sense that they can do so in ways that are consistent and give us a clear indication that (1)they are there and (2)who or what they are and what they want.  If not, we get a world where there are gods/angels/demons that we cannot possibly understand because the best we can get are inconsistent and fragmented experiences that lead us to varied and contradictory conclusions.  That could certainly explain many of the 'unexplained phenomena' that people report, while also explaining the many different varieties of religion and spirituality that people have (and continue to) practice(d).

But what most people seem to believe in (or want to believe in) is a universe with a specific and personable god capable of interacting with us in ways that we can experience.  And that we can share those experiences, whether it is by being with others who verify it, or telling others and comparing.  With enough of those experiences across the spectrum of humanity, it becomes easier to reach a consensus.  If a few people see a man walk on water, we are likely to want to know how he tricked us into seeing that.  If that man is able to repeat his feat regularly and in conditions where we can't duplicate or foil him, we begin to accept that he is doing just that.  Even if we can't explain it.

That latter may shake our sense of order, but we'd eventually accept that certain things are real, and that they are possible.  If the universe that is being claimed really does exist, then there's no reason we can't eventually reach such a level of certainty about things that we dismiss otherwise.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

-Stephen Jay Gould
Reply



Messages In This Thread
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Tonus - June 25, 2015 at 12:53 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Athene - September 7, 2015 at 11:35 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Athene - September 7, 2015 at 11:43 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Pyrrho - September 8, 2015 at 11:25 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Athene - September 8, 2015 at 11:51 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Pyrrho - September 10, 2015 at 11:31 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by IATIA - November 28, 2015 at 11:45 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Heat - November 30, 2015 at 9:20 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by IATIA - December 12, 2015 at 12:44 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by deleteduser12345 - April 1, 2016 at 8:48 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by deleteduser12345 - April 14, 2016 at 9:14 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by deleteduser12345 - July 31, 2016 at 4:09 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Cato - November 2, 2016 at 11:57 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Tonus - November 27, 2016 at 10:38 pm
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Tonus - December 15, 2016 at 10:15 am
RE: What would you consider to be evidence for God? - by Tonus - December 27, 2016 at 12:14 am

Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Veridical NDEs: Evidence/Proof of the Soul and the After-Life? Nishant Xavier 34 3422 July 17, 2024 at 7:34 am
Last Post: arewethereyet
  Dear Atheists: what would convince you God/Christ is Real? JJoseph 209 22364 June 12, 2024 at 10:54 pm
Last Post: arewethereyet
  If you learned that the god of [insert religion] is real, would all bets be off? Sicnoo0 59 8536 June 12, 2024 at 10:38 pm
Last Post: Prycejosh1987
  The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nishant Xavier 38 4237 August 7, 2023 at 10:24 pm
Last Post: LinuxGal
  When were the Gospels Written? The External and Internal Evidence. Nishant Xavier 62 5344 August 6, 2023 at 10:25 pm
Last Post: LinuxGal
  Isaiah 53, 700 B.C: Historical Evidence of the Divine Omniscience. Nishant Xavier 91 7497 August 6, 2023 at 2:19 pm
Last Post: LinuxGal
  Conscience and the Moral Argument as Evidence for the Goodness of God. Nishant Xavier 162 15438 July 9, 2023 at 7:53 am
Last Post: Deesse23
  Signature in the Cell: DNA as Evidence for Design, beside Nature's Laws/Fine-Tuning. Nishant Xavier 54 4827 July 8, 2023 at 8:23 am
Last Post: Fake Messiah
  Why the resurrection accounts are not evidence LinuxGal 5 1303 October 29, 2022 at 2:01 pm
Last Post: LinuxGal
  Can you consider Atheism an ethnicity UniverseCaptain 31 4216 September 27, 2021 at 7:23 pm
Last Post: UniverseCaptain



Users browsing this thread: 16 Guest(s)