Challenge to Theists: Prove Your God

[Heyo]

So Pythagoras was deluded when he insisted that the world was round, two centuries before anyone else shared his perspective?

He would certainly have been seen as such by his contemporaries. Definitionally a delusion is a fixed false belief (and the DSM adds, without justification, that that belief has to be of a non-religious nature). Today we know that his belief wasn't false but in his day it would have been seen as such.

 

[Heyo]

Huh?

Argument 1: The God of the Bible is prescient, accurate, specific.

Argument 2: I experience the God of the Bible and no one can debate my inner experience with accuracy but me.

And so you have proved that you believe in "the God of the Bible". That says nothing about that belief being true.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Let's do something new instead of rehashing centuries old arguments.

You might like this. It's not exactly what you asked for, but close. The god is specifically identified:

Spoiler

Do you know my god?
by Richard Banford

"Do you know his name? Sure you do. He talks to you every day. You could not live a normal life without him. You believe in him, whether you like it or not. Unless you abandon him completely, you cannot deny he exists.

"My god is a more personal god than yours can ever be, for if you have enough sense to understand these words, my god lives within you. He lives within us all, to some degree. A heartbreaking few cannot understand him, but this is not their fault. The real tragedy is the multitudes who ignore much of his counsel, particularly when he questions your god too deeply.

"My god has been around longer than your god. He was here before the many other gods that preceded your god. Though you will likely scoff at the notion, my god was the father of your god, as he was to all gods. But that was long ago when he was young and not yet sure of himself. Though many of your god's followers try to hold him down, my god grows stronger and more independent each day.

"When your god expelled us from paradise for eating an apple, my god taught us to grow our own fruit.

"When your god forbade knowledge, demanding we live in ignorance, my god created books.

"When your god smote cities like a tantrum-prone child, my god helped to rebuild them.

"When your god insisted the world was flat, my god showed his followers it was round, to their peril at the hands of your god's followers.

"While your god watched in silence as children sickened and died, my god created medicines to make them well.

"When your god winked and nodded at slavery, my god argued passionately against it.

"While your god represses half the human race, my god considers woman to be the equal of man.

"When your god only helps those who help themselves, my god rolls up his sleeves and actually does help until your god decides to join in, and then steals all the credit.

"When your god inspired great buildings and great art, my god made them possible.

"While your god says we are all born sinners, tainted before we even draw breath, my god says we are all born innocent; a clean slate with limitless potential.

"While your god offers dubious allusions of an afterlife, my god provides for us here in this life.

"While your god makes amazing promises, but offers not a shred of proof, my god performs amazing deeds, and the proof is there to be seen by all.

"While your god demands blind faith and obsequious obedience, my god encourages questions, even about himself.

"When your god says "Thou shalt not," my god says "You can do anything."

"My god is reason. He does more in a day than your god will ever do."

The only way you will gain the answer you looking for is to seek within you, God appear on a personal level. Not a physical level

What will I see within but my own mind? I believe that these subjective experiences of god that many theist report are his own mind being experienced and misinterpreted as evidence of something other than his mind. Something that exists outside the mind ought to be discernible by looking outward, like the sun.

Also, I think the answer he was looking for was a proof that went beyond, "Therefore there is a god" and proved that it was one particular god, the one he believes in. Yours is Allah, I believe. When you say that you discern god within, what's your reason for thinking it's that god?

I thought atheists/agnostics didn't believe in objective truth?

That's not a feature of atheism. An atheist might take either position.

My answer to that issue is that if by objective truth one means facts not dependent on an observer's opinion or personal perspective, then no such thing can be experienced, as we can't get outside of our heads. We can't get around the fact that we cannot experience anything without our minds first rendering it into a phenomenon of apprehension. The word experience implies that it is subjective, a single subject's perspective.

The closest we can get to objectivity is interobserver agreement. If most observers report that there is a warm, bright, yellow object in the sky, we can assume that there is something out there that is subjectively experienced as such by all observers. But if one is on Pluto, that sun isn't warm, and if one is on the moon, it isn't yellow.

We're instead believing in concepts that atheists/agnostics can't see.

We see what you see. We just don't interpret it the same way. I've had the experience that is usually interpreted as evidence of a god, and when I was a Christian, that's what I said it was. I still have those experiences, but now see it as a psychological phenomenon created by my brain.

It's a very human mistake to not recognize that the contents of consciousness are generated by one's own mind. Consider the ancients Greeks, who thought that any creative inspiration they had was whispered to them by a muse. They simply didn't have a concept of a human being inventing a new idea. New ideas were always considered received.

People have premonitions and interpret them as received messages from without. I have them at times, but don't believe that they represent or refer to anything outside of my mind.

Likewise with dreams. To me, they're just stories my brain is creating and have no particular value in prognostication.

Argument 1: The God of the Bible is prescient, accurate, specific.

Argument 2: I experience the God of the Bible and no one can debate my inner experience with accuracy but me.

Neither of those is an argument. They are both unsupported claims. And neither supports your claim about a god. And I just did debate you on the meaning of your inner experience. Nor do I consider your interpretation accurate.

 

[Spirit of Light]

You might like this. It's not exactly what you asked for, but close. The god is specifically identified:

Spoiler

Do you know my god?
by Richard Banford

"Do you know his name? Sure you do. He talks to you every day. You could not live a normal life without him. You believe in him, whether you like it or not. Unless you abandon him completely, you cannot deny he exists.

"My god is a more personal god than yours can ever be, for if you have enough sense to understand these words, my god lives within you. He lives within us all, to some degree. A heartbreaking few cannot understand him, but this is not their fault. The real tragedy is the multitudes who ignore much of his counsel, particularly when he questions your god too deeply.

"My god has been around longer than your god. He was here before the many other gods that preceded your god. Though you will likely scoff at the notion, my god was the father of your god, as he was to all gods. But that was long ago when he was young and not yet sure of himself. Though many of your god's followers try to hold him down, my god grows stronger and more independent each day.

"When your god expelled us from paradise for eating an apple, my god taught us to grow our own fruit.

"When your god forbade knowledge, demanding we live in ignorance, my god created books.

"When your god smote cities like a tantrum-prone child, my god helped to rebuild them.

"When your god insisted the world was flat, my god showed his followers it was round, to their peril at the hands of your god's followers.

"While your god watched in silence as children sickened and died, my god created medicines to make them well.

"When your god winked and nodded at slavery, my god argued passionately against it.

"While your god represses half the human race, my god considers woman to be the equal of man.

"When your god only helps those who help themselves, my god rolls up his sleeves and actually does help until your god decides to join in, and then steals all the credit.

"When your god inspired great buildings and great art, my god made them possible.

"While your god says we are all born sinners, tainted before we even draw breath, my god says we are all born innocent; a clean slate with limitless potential.

"While your god offers dubious allusions of an afterlife, my god provides for us here in this life.

"While your god makes amazing promises, but offers not a shred of proof, my god performs amazing deeds, and the proof is there to be seen by all.

"While your god demands blind faith and obsequious obedience, my god encourages questions, even about himself.

"When your god says "Thou shalt not," my god says "You can do anything."

"My god is reason. He does more in a day than your god will ever do."

What will I see within but my own mind? I believe that these subjective experiences of god that many theist report are his own mind being experienced and misinterpreted as evidence of something other than his mind. Something that exists outside the mind ought to be discernible by looking outward, like the sun.

Also, I think the answer he was looking for was a proof that went beyond, "Therefore there is a god" and proved that it was one particular god, the one he believes in. Yours is Allah, I believe. When you say that you discern god within, what's your reason for thinking it's that god?



That's not a feature of atheism. An atheist might take either position.

My answer to that issue is that if by objective truth one means facts not dependent on an observer's opinion or personal perspective, then no such thing can be experienced, as we can't get outside of our heads. We can't get around the fact that we cannot experience anything without our minds first rendering it into a phenomenon of apprehension. The word experience implies that it is subjective, a single subject's perspective.

The closest we can get to objectivity is interobserver agreement. If most observers report that there is a warm, bright, yellow object in the sky, we can assume that there is something out there that is subjectively experienced as such by all observers. But if one is on Pluto, that sun isn't warm, and if one is on the moon, it isn't yellow.



We see what you see. We just don't interpret it the same way. I've had the experience that is usually interpreted as evidence of a god, and when I was a Christian, that's what I said it was. I still have those experiences, but now see it as a psychological phenomenon created by my brain.

It's a very human mistake to not recognize that the contents of consciousness are generated by one's own mind. Consider the ancients Greeks, who thought that any creative inspiration they had was whispered to them by a muse. They simply didn't have a concept of a human being inventing a new idea. New ideas were always considered received.

People have premonitions and interpret them as received messages from without. I have them at times, but don't believe that they represent or refer to anything outside of my mind.

Likewise with dreams. To me, they're just stories my brain is creating and have no particular value in prognostication.



Neither of those is an argument. They are both unsupported claims. And neither supports your claim about a god. And I just did debate you on the meaning of your inner experience. Nor do I consider your interpretation accurate.

In my understanding no human can "meet" God without letting the self or ego totally disapear, meanin there is no "I" anymore, one become a part of everything, so 8ne identify with creation/God
So each person will understand God different meaning God is not a physical being that can be shown to a disbeliever.

God only become visible to those who can let go of the belief in the physical world. What physical eyes see is not the true existence.

But from within our own being ( not the body) one can realize God.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In my understanding no human can "meet" God without letting the self or ego totally disapear, meanin there is no "I" anymore, one become a part of everything, so 8ne identify with creation/God
So each person will understand God different meaning God is not a physical being that can be shown to a disbeliever.

God only become visible to those who can let go of the belief in the physical world. What physical eyes see is not the true existence.

But from within our own being ( not the body) one can realize God.

I don't see a rebuttal here, just a repetition of your belief that what you are experiencing is a god rather than only your own mind misinterpreted as a god. Yes, you are having experiences, but of what?

Your rules for seeing this experience as a god seem to be to shut off other mental processing. Why would I want to do that? It's like saying that the world is really dark, but one can only experience that by closing his eyes.

The only experiences that I have that I interpret as being of something out there are the experience of my external senses. Other conscious experiences such as memories, desires, intentions, and emotions are created from within and added to the external signal

 

[Spirit of Light]

I don't see a rebuttal here, just a repetition of your belief that what you are experiencing is a god rather than only your own mind misinterpreted as a god. Yes, you are having experiences, but of what?

Your rules for seeing this experience as a god seem to be to shut off other mental processing. Why would I want to do that? It's like saying that the world is really dark, but one can only experience that by closing his eyes.

The only experiences that I have that I interpret as being of something out there are the experience of my external senses. Other conscious experiences such as memories, desires, intentions, and emotions are created from within and added to the external signal

In my understanding and experience it is the right way ( for me as a sufi) and the more I realize my own ignorance and working on removing it, the more clear i understand God.

There is no way to prove God to one who do not wish to change

 

[Earthtank]

This is my second attempt at getting that answer. I tried in From a Deos to Your God but no serious contenders.

So, to all those who like to post and debate about god proves, here is a new challenge:

Assume that any one of the god proofs is correct, the Kalam, the ontological, the moral, whatever argument you find convincing.

Name your argument and try to expand that argument so that you get to a theistic god (any one of those).

I know of no apologist who has even attempted that and I know that no-one did in my first try to get that argument.

If you think that it is impossible, try to prove that.


Let's do something new instead of rehashing centuries old arguments.

 

[PureX]

I don't see a rebuttal here, just a repetition of your belief that what you are experiencing is a god rather than only your own mind misinterpreted as a god. Yes, you are having experiences, but of what?

Your rules for seeing this experience as a god seem to be to shut off other mental processing. Why would I want to do that? It's like saying that the world is really dark, but one can only experience that by closing his eyes.

The only experiences that I have that I interpret as being of something out there are the experience of my external senses. Other conscious experiences such as memories, desires, intentions, and emotions are created from within and added to the external signal

The bottom line is that given your present mindset, God is not available to you. Your mind is closed to it. This isn't something that can be 'reasoned with' by anyone else. It's an internal issue of faith, and of courage, and of profound curiosity.

 

[lukethethird]

I thought atheists/agnostics didn't believe in objective truth?

Regardless of what theists, atheists or agnostics believe or don't believe, an objective truth is something that has been proven to be true, or at least proven to be true until more information becomes available that sheds greater light on a claim that either confirms the claim or rejects the claim as false by providing a better or different explanation. It's a process of understanding what is being considered, not a method of merely believing in it.

 

[viole]

I thought atheists/agnostics didn't believe in objective truth?

Correct. We don't. We think that belief is only applicable, and needed, only to things that have no evidence.

Ciao

- viole

 

[PureX]

Regardless of what theists, atheists or agnostics believe or don't believe, an objective truth is something that has been proven to be true, or at least proven to be true until more information becomes available that sheds greater light on a claim that either confirms the claim or rejects the claim as false by providing a better or different explanation. It's a process of understanding what is being considered, not a method of merely believing in it.

But in this case no such objective evidence or proof is ever going to be available. So it becomes a matter of choice, and of the results that come form the choice you make; i.e, it's an act of faith (trust through action), and of the subjective values of the results that come from that. What you're demanding does not exist. So stop demanding it and accept that you have a choice to make. And that choice will bring consequences. And the only way to find out what those consequences will be, is to choose, and then act on it.

 

[lukethethird]

But in this case no such objective evidence or proof is ever going to be available. So it becomes a matter of choice, and of the results that come form the choice you make; i.e, it's an act of faith (trust through action), and of the subjective values of the results that come from that. What you're demanding does not exist. So stop demanding it and accept that you have a choice to make. And that choice will bring consequences. And the only way to find out what those consequences will be, is to choose, and then act on it.

Not demanding anything, and no, a choice does not have to be made, formulating a belief can be suspended until more information is obtained. Or, in some cases such as this one, to quote Hitchens, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

 

[PureX]

Not demanding anything, and no, a choice does not have to be made,

Even refusing to choose, is a choice. And it will have it's consequences. You can ignore this if you want to, but the fact remains. Everything we do, or don't do when we could have, will effect ourselves and others. We can be mindful of this, or we can be willfully oblivious. That too, is our choice.

... formulating a belief can be suspended until more information is obtained.

No more information is coming. Now it's time to look within. What kind of god would you choose to put your trust in if you were to make such a choice? Once you have determined this, do you have the courage to actually put your trust in that ideal 'god'? Then, having done so, and lived for some time, accordingly, what have you found to be the results? If those results were less than what you'd hoped, how could you change your concept of God, and your way of life in relation to that concept, to perhaps get better results?

And if you reject the whole possibility of god, outright, what will be the consequences of that choice be? And how will you even know, not having ever tested the possibilities? Are you willing to live with such enforced ignorance? Is that who you want to be?

Facing this faith choice, and following the process is the only way you're ever going to gain any experience of God. Just sitting there demanding evidence that isn't ever going to come is a waste of your time and energy.

Or, in some cases such as this one, to quote Hitchens, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”

Any idiot can dismiss anything for any reason they want. So what? (You can quote me on that, if you like.)

 

[Magical Wand]

I experience the God of the Bible and no one can debate my inner experience with accuracy but me.

Well, I admire your honesty, but the atheist can still ask, "Don't many Muslims claim the same thing about their experience of their Islamic god? What about Hindus?"

I mean, I don't want to discourage you, but your experience means little when this information is taken into account. From the point of the view of the objective observer, many believers of contradictory religions feel unshakable certainty of their mystical experiences, which means this kind of experience is not trustworthy.ㅤ:）

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I thought atheists/agnostics didn't believe in objective truth?

Why?
Objective morals are commonly not 'believed' in my atheists, although there is no universal commonality on much of anything.

And personally, I'd say 'truth' is commonly overstated, and applied to way too many things. But in Base 10 number systems, 6 + 6 = 12.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Here's the problem with the statement from @Heyo I previously quoted:

If he doesn't believe in objective truth, then it doesn't make any difference whether God is subjective, as everything is technically subjective.

If on the other hand he believes in objective truth, it won't prove God at all, though I'll continue on thinking that believing in objective truth is the path to starting to believe in God or a god.

Subjectivity doesn't render all things of equal value, nor of equal import or likelihood.
Subjectively I believe people shouldn't torture others.
I believe in it enough that I might protest about the issue, etc. I can be invested despite not seeing it as an objective belief. It impacts on my world.

Other subjective beliefs, not so much.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

There are a lot of misguided or poorly informed people on the internet.

What?!?!?!?!

 

[lewisnotmiller]

God is the creator of this world -> created things exist -> creator must exist.

I don't think you like that so here is another:

God is love according to the Bible -> I know love -> love exists.

He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:8

...God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
1 John 4:16

Respect for responding directly to the OP.
But how would you points above point to the Christian God rather than (say) Aphrodite?

Ultimately, I think it's impossible to 'prove' a particular flavour of God, so I'm not expecting you to, nor would I say that then means your beliefs are wrong. But the OPs point is interesting, in some ways. It's something I've often thought about, but never framed quite in this way.

 

[shivsomashekhar]

There is no way to prove God to one who do not wish to change

What about the opposite?

Is there an option for you to see that all the gods were created by humans or are you completely closed to the possibility?

 

[F1fan]

The bottom line is that given your present mindset, God is not available to you. Your mind is closed to it.

So human minds have the power to displace God's presence?

How do you explain that many folks who were open to an authentic and independent God showing itself, but it never does? Let's note that the 9-11 hijackers were so tuned into God that they all committed suicide for God. They must have been damn certain of what God wanted, right? If you're not doing the same perhaps your mind is closed.

This isn't something that can be 'reasoned with' by anyone else. It's an internal issue of faith, and of courage, and of profound curiosity.

Yet there is no rational and factual argument that a theist can make that shows their faith is reliable.