What would you consider to be evidence for God?

[snowtracks]

Created from a far superior mind.

---

What need does a being which never evolved from a natural animal have for a mind?

Natural animals have organs which provide perceptual input of their environment.  This only does them any good if they also have cognitive capacities to make use of that input.  In multi-cellular creatures of any complexity, those capacities are manifest in brains.  And no mind, has ever been encountered which wasn't associated with a brain.

---

So why would a being that always was .. even when nothing else was .. have any need for a mind?  It didn't arise in answer to any need.  So why?

God nature always included 'mind'. The mind gives consciousness and in term volition, causal powers, and intentionality; these are things likewise that humans process since they are made in the image of God and these attributes will continue to be sustained in human nature by God after death (someone was asking about freewill continuing in the eternal state) since man like God is a spiritually being. Believers currently have two natures : the old (sin nature), and the new nature; upon death the old nature dies; whereas, the unbeliever’s one old nature continues after death. So volition, causal powers, and intentionality will continue after death emanating from whatever eternal nature one’s processes after physical death.

[Heat]

---

What need does a being which never evolved from a natural animal have for a mind?

Natural animals have organs which provide perceptual input of their environment.  This only does them any good if they also have cognitive capacities to make use of that input.  In multi-cellular creatures of any complexity, those capacities are manifest in brains.  And no mind, has ever been encountered which wasn't associated with a brain.

---

So why would a being that always was .. even when nothing else was .. have any need for a mind?  It didn't arise in answer to any need.  So why?

God nature always included 'mind'. The mind gives consciousness and in term volition, causal powers, and intentionality; these are things likewise that humans process since they are made in the image of God and these attributes will continue to be sustained in human nature by God after death (someone was asking about freewill continuing in the eternal state) since man like God is a spiritually being.

More like things God possesses because he is made in the image of Humans.

[Mudhammam]

I wouldn't consider the following "evidence for God," for the two reasons that A) it need not refer to God in the sense of a personal deity or an entity with intentionality or teleology, and B) it wouldn't fall into the category of things for which I would consider a demand for evidence to be appropriate, but certain speculations have led me towards the inclination that materialism is false, and, if materialism is false then it leaves the door open for some thing or things that theologians have traditionally identified with God's essence - I simply insist that they have taken their speculations too far.

I'm inclining towards the belief that materialism cannot be true because 'truth,' 'value,' 'being,' and other such concepts - which comprise the entirety of our mental lives outside of raw sensation - appear to only possess intelligible being, which is to say, these principles, not unlike physical laws, don't exist in material objects. I don't know what it could mean to say that they do. Rather, they exist in intellects. But if they are to have any relation to the external world, if to say 'X is true' is to have any meaning outside of how I, one individual, relates to the world, then the very notion of 'truth' must transcend the intellect. I can see no other refutation of the Protagorean doctrine that "man is the measure of all things' i.e. truth is relative, unless "the true" is an identifier of some abstract quality that subsists independent of my intellect, that is, objectively, by which statements of truth or falsity can be measured against it. And the result of this is the plain fact that nobody, to take one example, can deny absolute truth without affirming it. There are some propositions that are universally, absolutely, objectively true, such as "God either exists or does not exist," and these such statements seem to have a quality to them that is eternal and immutable; another is the fact that 7 has always been a prime number, regardless if any brain sufficiently advanced enough to formulate its truth in language has only recently begun to exist. The same, I believe, goes for morality or, as I said, any other principle that we either have an innate understanding of or know through experience and discovery - yes, discovery - as opposed to invention. I do not believe that humankind invented the truth that 2+3=5, or that causing another to suffer for no reason is wrong, or that two separate events in time and space sometimes have a causal connection, or even reason itself; these are rather ideas that we discovered, using a language that we did, indeed, invent. That much at least I think is defensible. As to what this abstract reality is, how it is connected to material beings such as ourselves, I do not pretend to understand in the slightest degree. Nor do I know what is the difference between saying that something exists in the abstract, and yet is objective, or external, and saying that there is a 'spiritual dimension.' Whatever is meant by these terms, I do know that truth exists in such a way that it is not material on any definition of materialism as I have come to understand it.

[Angrboda]

No, restating the assertion is not the same as answering the question. I asked how it can precede a brain.

In fact, you've hurt your argument far worse than merely restating the point. You're begging the question, presupposing the conclusion in order to make the argument appear to work. "The first brain requiredbe thinking to be pre-existent, therefore thought preceded the first brain." You still need to demonstrate that.

How? Not a problem.  
Created from a far superior mind. Any scientific proof? None. However, it’s inference to the best explanation.

Inference to best explanation is based on the probabilities of the relevant hypotheses with respect to the evidence and with respect to what we would expect given background knowledge. Since the probability of God existing cannot be calculated, hypotheses involving God cannot take part in an inference to the best explanation.

Your ignorance of Bayesian logic betrays you. Nice fail, snowtracks. You always crack me up.

[snowtracks]

How? Not a problem.  
Created from a far superior mind. Any scientific proof? None. However, it’s inference to the best explanation.

Inference to best explanation is based on the probabilities of the relevant hypotheses with respect to the evidence and with respect to what we would expect given background knowledge.  Since the probability of God existing cannot be calculated, hypotheses involving God cannot take part in an inference to the best explanation.

Your ignorance of Bayesian logic betrays you.  Nice fail, snowtracks.  You always crack me up.

 Bayesian logic again? Didn't work before not working now. Probability of God's existing is not being calculated (peculiar response to what was written), but nice try though.

[Minimalist]

The probability of god 'existing' is fucking zero.

[robvalue]

God is so carefully defined to be as ethereal and abstract as possible in order to be undetectable by science that it "existing" doesn't seem to be any different from it not existing from any practical viewpoint.

I miss the old days when he walked around on the Earth.

[snowtracks]

I wouldn't consider the following "evidence for God," for the two reasons that A) it need not refer to God in the sense of a personal deity or an entity with intentionality or teleology, and B) it wouldn't fall into the category of things for which I would consider a demand for evidence to be appropriate, but certain speculations have led me towards the inclination that materialism is false, and, if materialism is false then it leaves the door open for some thing or things that theologians have traditionally identified with God's essence - I simply insist that they have taken their speculations too far.

---

I'm inclining towards the belief that materialism cannot be true because 'truth,' 'value,' 'being,' and other such concepts - which comprise the entirety of our mental lives outside of raw sensation - appear to only possess intelligible being, which is to say, these principles, not unlike physical laws, don't exist in material objects. I don't know what it could mean to say that they do. Rather, they exist in intellects. But if they are to have any relation to the external world, if to say 'X is true' is to have any meaning outside of how I, one individual, relates to the world, then the very notion of 'truth' must transcend the intellect. I can see no other refutation of the Protagorean doctrine that "man is the measure of all things' i.e. truth is relative, unless "the true" is an identifier of some abstract quality that subsists independent of my intellect, that is, objectively, by which statements of truth or falsity can be measured against it. And the result of this is the plain fact that nobody, to take one example, can deny absolute truth without affirming it. There are some propositions that are universally, absolutely, objectively true, such as "God either exists or does not exist," and these such statements seem to have a quality to them that is eternal and immutable; another is the fact that 7 has always been a prime number, regardless if any brain sufficiently advanced enough to formulate its truth in language has only recently begun to exist. The same, I believe, goes for morality or, as I said, any other principle that we either have an innate understanding of or know through experience and discovery - yes, discovery - as opposed to invention. I do not believe that humankind invented the truth that 2+3=5, or that causing another to suffer for no reason is wrong, or that two separate events in time and space sometimes have a causal connection, or even reason itself; these are rather ideas that we discovered, using a language that we did, indeed, invent. That much at least I think is defensible. As to what this abstract reality is, how it is connected to material beings such as ourselves, I do not pretend to understand in the slightest degree. Nor do I know what is the difference between saying that something exists in the abstract, and yet is objective, or external, and saying that there is a 'spiritual dimension.' Whatever is meant by these terms, I do know that truth exists in such a way that it is not material on any definition of materialism as I have come to understand it.

---

Mankind consist of three parts: Body -  for physical perception.  Soul - contacting the emotional, psychological.  Spirit - the part that responds to thing pertaining to God.  Three primary ways this happen 1) Creation - God's eternal power 2) Jesus Christ - the person of God. 3) Bible - purposes of  God. Spiritual discernment is gained thru the spirit of the people seeking Him in these 3 ways. Spirits not seeking have allowed sin to dominate, and in that case, God remains hidden (deus absconditus).

[Mudhammam]

Mankind consist of three parts: Body -  for physical perception.  Soul - contacting the emotional, psychological.  Spirit - the part that responds to thing pertaining to God.  Three primary ways this happen 1) Creation - God's eternal power 2) Jesus Christ - the person of God. 3) Bible - purposes of  God. Spiritual discernment is gained thru the spirit of the people seeking Him in these 3 ways. Spirits not seeking have allowed sin to dominate, and in that case, God remains hidden (deus absconditus).

By what operation or substance do man's "three parts" (which I take you to mean body, consciousness, and mind) interact with one another so as to compose a unified whole? Since I neither believe in God, that Jesus was divine, nor that the Bible has any useful insight into my question, and do believe you lack sufficient reason and evidence to persuade me otherwise, you'll have to attempt to give a demonstration, rather than assert statements and simply expect that I'll embrace them as true.

As to your view that God is only hidden to "spirits" (meaning minds?) that have not sought (God?) or have allowed "sin to dominate" (not sure what causal connection between one's actions and their speculations you're inferring here), you'll have to explain both why I should believe this is so, and then answer for the many people who have apparently sought out God and have lived moral lives, and yet have such violent disagreements with one another about God's nature and existence.

[robvalue]

You have to believe before you'll see the evidence.

In other words, you already have to be deluded, and then you'll experience delusions.