I understand that many Atheists/Agnostics require scientific evidence in order to believe that there is God. My question is as what can be examples of evidences that would make atheist change their mind.
The usual I would imagine... the seas parted at the direction of a person with no possibility of trickery or foreplanning... the direct and observable healing of a serious defect (none of the Rom trickery so easily accomplished even today)....
All sarcasm aside... I understand Faith is supposed to be just that, Faith. Evidence can always be disputed and discredited.
The Nay-Sayers will being saying "Nay" even sitting at the feet of God (if this ever occurs) with all the evidence in the world right in their face.
Posts: 9309 | Location: PA, USA | Registered: 06-05-02
I think it takes a lot less than we might reason. Occasionally, I imagine that one of my future prophecy books will be a bestseller and that GarColga, the agnostic, reads it and falls off of his sofa, only to realize that since he got hit with a Holy Ghost whammy, there must be a God and that juanruiz, the atheist, reads it and throws himself off of his sofa, only to realize that he will never touch another drink. Now, I think that I will also imagine that frankvan joins his brother, who recently found God at his advanced age, and the two of them giggle like schoolboys.
I would pay money to see that stuff. Boys, let me know where I have to be and I will be there to see it happen. Priceless.
Insaf, I think that the evidence required to prove there is indeed a god probably differs from unbeliever to unbeliever. For me, a miraculous recovery for my cousin when so many people were praying to God for just such a thing might have done it. Or perhaps a quicker death for my husband's VERY pious grandfather rather than making him suffer for so long. A tsunami suddenly subsiding before colliding with all the worlds' coastlines... (though that could always be the aliens at work). Or the Rapture. Yeah, I think if all the "good Christians" were Raptured, that might about do it for me.
Posts: 4759 | Location: Rochester, NY, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
It would take a figure floating in the sky, observable to all the world, to even get me to consider belief. And a smile comes to my face as I think of his first words to believers: "I gave you a brain capable of rational thought and this is how your use it? Oy vey!"
Posts: 8300 | Location: On Vacation | Registered: 06-06-02
I'd be pretty open to anything that's obviously and clearly evidence from God. It'd also have to be obvious to anyone other than myself in order to prove that I simply hadn't become delusional. By clear, I mean that, if I were to just have experienced evidence of God, I wouldn't look back and think 'whoa, what was that? Was that what I think it was?' If I was at the feet of God and it was obvious that I was at the feet of God, I think that'd be pretty good evidence. And I doubt anyone experiencing that evidence would doubt it.
Posts: 6701 | Location: Grayson, Georgia, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by Insaf: I understand that many Atheists/Agnostics require scientific evidence in order to believe that there is God. My question is as what can be examples of evidences that would make atheist change their mind.
WITHOUT CONCLUSIVE PROOF, atheists insist that there is no God - a word they can't or won't even define precisely.This is a blind faith position and CANNOT be engaged with rationally.
They are every bit as bigoted as the religious nuts they so bitterly, and rightly, decry.
I'd have to know I was not hallucinating and I don't know how I could be sure. If others were with me at the time of said "proof" I'd have to know that it wasn't mass hysteria or some kind of induced mass hallucination.
The point is, lacking strong evidence or conclusive proof there is no moral/intellectual/philosophical imperative to either assume that a god exists or to think and act in a certain way "just in case."
Posts: 393 | Location: New York, NY, USA | Registered: 06-04-02
Originally posted by XaurreauX: I'd have to know I was not hallucinating and I don't know how I could be sure. If others were with me at the time of said "proof" I'd have to know that it wasn't mass hysteria or some kind of induced mass hallucination.
The point is, lacking strong evidence or conclusive proof there is no moral/intellectual/philosophical imperative to either assume that a god exists or to think and act in a certain way "just in case."
Good! So you, by the same token, CAN'T say with certainty then that a God does not exist, eh?
Originally posted by XaurreauX: I'd have to know I was not hallucinating and I don't know how I could be sure. If others were with me at the time of said "proof" I'd have to know that it wasn't mass hysteria or some kind of induced mass hallucination.
The point is, lacking strong evidence or conclusive proof there is no moral/intellectual/philosophical imperative to either assume that a god exists or to think and act in a certain way "just in case."
Good! So you, by the same token, CAN'T say with certainty then that a God does not exist, eh?
First of all, I apologize for taking so long to respond. I don't check the e-mail inbox where I receive reply notices as often as i do some of my other addresses.
To answer your question, for reasons stated above, I don't need absolute certainty that a god does NOT exist. I can't prove that there isn't an invisible pink unicorn hovering over your head as you read this, but I would not suggest that you adjust your life accordingly or imply that there is some benefit or risk associated with the belief or lack thereof. You would be perfectly justified, for pragmatic purposes, in stating that invisible pink unicorns--or even visible ones, for that matter--do not exist and for not giving the possibility of its existence another thought.
Posts: 393 | Location: New York, NY, USA | Registered: 06-04-02
I would want to interact with the being because I would want to know if it really cared whether humans worshipped it or not.
And why it let people stumble around for hundreds of thousands of years, for as long as the species was capable of forming the concept of 'something behind' the reality we perceive, and not give an unequivocal message.
I would want to find out if it devised the current system in which gullibility is rewarded, or if that just 'evolved'. And if the former, for what purpose.
Because the only gods I have seen are graven images, and the only words I have heard or read were written by men. Some of them made a damn fine living at it, too. Beats farming or mining or otherwise growing callusses on the hands. Seems all some guy needs to do is say he has a pipeline to the gods, with enough conviction, and he has a cushy job for life.
(P.S. I think Zik may have given up on enlightening us further. He has not posted in a few days.)
Posts: 6961 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
Originally posted by XaurreauX: You would be perfectly justified, for pragmatic purposes, in stating that invisible pink unicorns--or even visible ones, for that matter--do not exist and for not giving the possibility of its existence another thought.
Isn't it crazy to not believe in visible pink unicorns, that is, if everyone could see them?
Posts: 1197 | Location: Connecticut, USA | Registered: 06-04-02
When I was a cute little girl in catechism class, Sr. Joseph told us of the miracle at Fatima. The virgin appeared to a huge crowd, who had come because the stories of the miraculous visions of three little shepherd girls. The girls had predicted the virgin would appear again, on a certain day, and the crowds - thousands of people - came.
Many, many of them later told the press they had seen the virgin, and also a miraculous spectacle in which the sun was spinning in the heavens, and then came zigzagging towards the earth, and some people in the crowd started screaming because they thought the world was coming to an end. The three children saw many other visions, such as the holy family, etc.
But many, many people said they saw nothing unusual, except the behavior of some of the spectators. They saw no unusual behavior of the sun except normal weather phenomena such as sunlight breaking through the crowds. Other people in other parts of the world reported no unusual sun activity that day.
My former mother-in-law, a horrible old bat, claimed that she fed her son's spirit (he had died aged three) chocolate, and showed people the tablet of chocolate that had little tooth marks in it where a bite had been removed. He had materialized out of ectoplasm. As everyone knows, a spirit cannot interact with things in the physical world unless he takes the precaution of becoming ectoplasm first. This chocolate she presented as evidence that we should follow the spiritist faith to which she subscribed.
Joseph Smith, Mormon founder, had tablets of gold given him by the angel Moroni, with messages on them straight from god. The tablets were not available for submission to scientists, because Moroni took them back. But some followers of Joseph Smith testified they had seen them. These accounts were written about a hundred and fifty years ago.
Whether such accounts are verbal, as my mother-in-law's was, or written, such as the report of the golden texts of Moroni, and whether the experience happened six thousand years ago or just last week, doesn't matter to me. I have no sense of reverence that increases with the age of the account.
Native American religions routinely had young men go into the wilderness to see visions, and they would report back to the tribe what they had seen.
As a skeptic, I cannot deny any of these accounts. I cannot testify as to what visions some other person may have had.
But also I have to say they all have an equal claim to truthfulness - or to falsehood.
So should I believe all of them?
Can I believe both that Jehovah is the only true god, and that Waheguru is the only true god? Not if I'm trying to be logically consistent. Because if Jehovah is the only true god, then Waheguru cannot be. And vice versa.
Does that mean I'm crazy? Or the people who give accounts of special experiences are crazy?
Or can we just agree that some people have perceptions that are not shared by everyone, and that there is no way of proving either the truth or the falsehood of such accounts?
So the vision-recipient can believe the vision represents reality. But I don't need to explain why I don't accept it.
Posts: 6961 | Location: British Columbia, Canada | Registered: 06-11-02
Originally posted by VelvetVoice: Isn't it crazy to not believe in visible pink unicorns, that is, if everyone could see them?
It would be crazy to disbelieve in pink unicorns if their existence could be verified, yes. It would not be unreasonable, however, to reject or at least not take seriously claims by a few people that they saw pink unicorns, but failed to verify their claims with reliable evidence. Claims by a large number of people should warrant investigation, but with skepticism. It could turn out to be that what is perceived as a pink unicorn could in fact be something else for which there is already a rational, scientific explanation. More than likely--probably soon--the technology to genetically engineer pink unicorns will be available. Unless and until this or reliable sightings in the wild or through detection in non-visble light spectrums occur it is still reasonable and pragmatic to assume that there are no unicorns.
Posts: 393 | Location: New York, NY, USA | Registered: 06-04-02
For me it would take an experience of God. It would not need to be something I could prove to others, but it would have to be something that changes something in me in a way that I couldn't deny. As long as there is a good reason to doubt, I probably will.
I have had two experiences that I think would come close. One was a feeling I had while taking mushrooms in college. I don't really remember the feeling, exactly. I just remember it was something like holiness everywhere. Obviously, I have to discard that. I was on drugs. However, if I had a feeling like that now that I am a responsible sober adult, I would have something to hold on to.
The other was a feeling I had the night after someone I loved kissed me for the first time. You all will probably laugh at this, but I remember looking up into the darkness as I lay in bed and sensing that I was being watched by a protector who loved me very much. Unfortunately, I can also chalk that one up to the rush of falling in love very hard for the first time. And in the end, my heart just got badly broken, so I can't see much meaning in the whole thing. Well, I suppose it's a good thing to have your heart broken at least once in life, but I'm not sure it's evidence of God. Anyway, if I had a feeling like that stick around past the rush of falling in love for the first time, I might have something to hold on to, as well.
So I don't require much. A feeling that lasts, an answer to a question that I can't quite articulate, a story that speaks to me in the right way. You might be surprised to hear that I pray sometimes, like an idiot, hoping something will come of it.
So far, silence. You start to feel a bit silly even thinking about it after a while, like a little kid who just can't give up on Santa Claus.
Posts: 2259 | Location: In between | Registered: 06-03-02
I thought it was a strange comment from Tsaeb also...doesn't make any sense...more like she is just touching base with some pointless comment so we will know she is still around. She made a similar pointless comment on another thread.
Sarai, I think your comment is very poignant and I pray that God will reveal Himself in a way that will be very real and very personal to you. It doesn't make any difference whether anyone else considers it "proof" or not.
DD
Posts: 1037 | Location: The River | Registered: 07-04-02
Originally posted by Sarai: You might be surprised to hear that I pray sometimes, like an idiot, hoping something will come of it.
I think that's funny, and I also think that I should feel guilty for having a bad thought.
Sarai: I think that knowing how often you have written that you are not a believer--more of an agnostic--I correspondingly interpreted your phrase "like an idiot" to refer to your praying, but I now suppose that you meant it to refer to your hoping that something will come of your praying.
You wrote, "You might be surprised to hear that I pray sometimes, like an idiot, hoping something will come of it." I would have been less confused had you written, "You might be surprised to hear that I pray sometimes, hoping (like an idiot) that something will come of it."
I suppose that I felt guilty, because, according to my beliefs, the Holy Spirit was telling me that I had misinterpreted your meaning.
