What would you consider to be evidence for God?

[Kingpin]

Just to clarify, I wasn't intimating that you were misunderstanding the atheist position, simply that your post identified and highlighted it.

No I understood that but thank you for clarifying anyway!

[Simon Moon]

And there's the rub.

People all through history of differing god beliefs claim to have had personal experienced of their god revealing itself to them, yet I'm sure you don't believe their encounters with their god are accurate, correct?

Why should Christian personal accounts of encounters with the god you believe exists, be any more compelling to us than accounts of people having personal encounters with a god you don't believe exist, be to you?

You are correct, the image of a being claiming to be the Christian god as you describe it, could vary well have natural, mundane explanations.

But you claim that your god is extremely powerful, and knowledgeable of all things (the 'omnis'). A being with those attributes would know before his 'angelic appearance' to us would not be convincing (maybe it would convince some of us), and would know that we would not be convinced. Therefore, he would do something else that would convince us.

If he thought that his 'angelic appearance' would convince us, and we were not convinced, he's not much of a god then.

First Simon, I make no such claims of 'omni' anything, you are generalizing there.

Sorry. I have only met a handful of Christians that do not believe their god is omnipotent and omniscient. I'm sure you understand that you are in the extreme minority. 

Second, I also have no qualms with any personal revelations from anyone and their experience with their God.  I've read stories of people saying Krishna came to them, stories of Allah coming, stories of Jesus, etc.  They are everywhere, but those anecdotes are personal and nothing more.  Who am I to claim them false?  Those experience have no bearing on my own beliefs.

I never said you claim that they are false. Only that you are not convinced by them. 

Logic 101 - not being convinced of a claim, is NOT the same thing as believing the claim is false.

I would say that he has revealed himself in history and that our mere existence and this universe speaks to the existence of something greater out there.

Yes, we are well aware of your reliance on flawed and fallacious philosophical arguments for the existence for god. 

It is hard for God to reveal himself meaningfully, harder than we may think.

  

Not much of a god, if has such little power to reveal himself.

If we are willing to simply accept Him then yes of course He can come to us in any way.

Oh, we have to believe in order to believe. 

So, not only does your version of god have difficulty revealing himself (seems he had very little problems revealing himself to a bunch of superstitious Bronze Age barbaric tribes in ancient Palestine, though) to us. But he expects us to believe based on horrible logic? It sure seems like your god only wants to hang out with the gullible and credulous.  

Part of the Christian claim is that God has revealed himself in history, through fulfilled prophecy, through the resurrection, through historical events which are critically examinable.

Yes, claims that have never been proven.

 simply pointing out the conundrum of a God revelation necessarily needing to be supernatural and being skeptics we find natural explanations and easily reject the supernatural.

Not much of a god if he is unable to get around this little problem.

[abaris]

I would say that he has revealed himself in history and that our mere existence and this universe speaks to the existence of something greater out there.

I certainly wouldn't hope so. As far as history is concerned. Takes a real depraved asshole to make human history happen.

[IATIA]

One would think that any god would have no trouble convincing one of it's existence.  The fact that it has failed to do so means either it does not exist or it does not care.

I'm not so sure.  There have been countless personal accounts of God being revealed to people in such that the one person believes but others may call that person crazy.  If you walked in to a room at work and a being appeared to you claiming to be God, floating there angelically and knew things about you no one else did, would you believe?  How do you know the room hadn't been filled with hallucinogenic gas?

I am sure that if there were a god, it would be able to discern just exactly what one needed to convince them.  However, the real problem is that these so called gods that want all this worship, have neglected to procure it or these gods are just so powerless that they are not worth worship, ergo the begging and threats to achieve the end result.

Basically, the theist response to this is that we have to believe first then be shown and that is simply a self fulfilling delusion.  If one truly believes then anything is proof, regardless of facts, evidence and logic.  Any god would know this and I think it highly petty of them to expect that from me.  If god created me, then god knows that i will not believe without logical proof.

[Silver]

Basically, the theist response to this is that we have to believe first then be shown and that is simply a self fulfilling delusion.  

Indeed, many kudos.

[IATIA]

messed up. double post.

[snowtracks]

One would think that any god would have no trouble convincing one of it's existence.  The fact that it has failed to do so means either it does not exist or it does not care.

No one leaves this life in the middle ground between eternal connection with God and eternal separation from Him; and no one just stumbles into that connection or separation without knowing what he or she is choosing. New Testament teaching makes it very clear that His existence, identity, qualities, creative power has been made understandable to all. As God draws persons toward himself, the rebellious autonomous (originating from the human sin nature) impulses draws a person from God. If a person is not convinced of the evidence in the book of nature, their conscience, the book of revelation, the life and message of Jesus Christ, they have at least temporary chosen to listening to their sin nature. The information is out there, it’s a matter of letting it in. Remember the Garden-of-Eden was made very good (not perfect, like some think), and then God made it even better by introducing free will which brings into play beaucoup responsibility.
The universe wouldn't be here if He didn't care, but the universe is only temporary. Once it's purpose is fulfilled, it will be destroyed by fire (sin and evil will have been judged and conquered),  and be replaced by the New Creation where sin and evil will never exist or even it's potentiality.

[IATIA]

The fact remains that your god has utterly failed to convince me that it exists. So again, it is either impotent or non-existent.

[Edwardo Piet]

God is unfalsifiable, there can be no evidence for God.

[robvalue]

Exactly. Until it's defined in a scientific way, it's a badly formed question.