Evidence for God's existence

[Spiderman]

What evidence do you have that God exists? You can share your personal testimony of answered prayers or you can say God left signs in nature or say whatever you feel like saying in response to this op.

I'm just frustrated with God that so many people swear he doesn't provide them evidence of his existence.

I was recently asked to provide evidence of God's existence... I should be able to. After all, Jesus said his followers would do the works that he does and Greater Works.

Yet no one is doing those works.

Jesus said the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains. Not a single mountain is budging, so I assume nobody has the faith of a mustard seed.

I personally think God is a prick for refusing to provide evidence that he really cares about people or loves them. Then he leaves us with a Bible that contradicts itself and has many verses that command people to do the opposite of what other versus commanded... And he leaves us with prophetic visions that lead people astray because they're full of symbolism that is difficult to interpret.

The behavior of God is responsible for atheism, heresy, confusion, and division. He insists that people live by faith, and declares that he loves us so much, while at the same time refusing to do something so little as give some clear instruction or leave the skeptics some evidence.

Then he threatens to toss people into a lake of fire For Eternity for an infraction so small as not believing in him! Please excuse me while I vomit... Sometimes Yahweh makes me sick!

 

[Meow Mix]

A lot of analytical arguments for the existence of God fall flat either for reasons of paradox (transcendental arguments), lack of justification (Kalam/cosmological arguments), definitional trivialities (pantheistic arguments), or the premises being too close to the conclusions (ontological arguments). I can't speak for peoples' experiential arguments for God's existence and don't have a lot of experience with polytheism.

If I were to choose the "best" argument for the existence of God it would be the fine tuning argument -- though obviously, as an atheist, I don't consider it enough to be convincing.

 

[suncowiam]

A lot of analytical arguments for the existence of God fall flat either for reasons of paradox (transcendental arguments), lack of justification (Kalam/cosmological arguments), definitional trivialities (pantheistic arguments), or the premises being too close to the conclusions (ontological arguments). I can't speak for peoples' experiential arguments for God's existence and don't have a lot of experience with polytheism.

If I were to choose the "best" argument for the existence of God it would be the fine tuning argument -- though obviously, as an atheist, I don't consider it enough to be convincing.

The fine-tuning argument can be explained if given enough odds for a fine-tune universe to exist. In a multi-verse where basically an infinite universe could exist, why wouldn't there be a fine tuned universe? Heck I bet there probably are an infinite fine tuned universes out there.

We're so narrow-minded OR full of ourselves that we believe anything to do with us must have purpose and meaning.

 

[Twilight Hue]

There is no evidence. That's the reality.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There is no evidence. That's the reality.

There's actually plenty of evidence. None of it's conclusive, though.

For instance:

- last week, we came home to find mail in the mailbox. I wasn't home when it arrived, so I didn't see who put it there. One possible explanation for how the mail arrived is that God put it there. I have nothing to conclusively refute this hypothesis, so the fact that I have mail in my mailbox could be used - along with some other set of facts that may or may not be true - that God exists.

- I was not hit by a meteor today. One hypothesis that explains this fact is that, out in space decades ago, God tweaked the path of a meteor that would have hit me. What facts I have are consistent with this hypothesis, so me not being hit by a meteor is evidence for God.

 

[osgart]

What evidence do you have that God exists? You can share your personal testimony of answered prayers or you can say God left signs in nature or say whatever you feel like saying in response to this op.

I'm just frustrated with God that so many people swear he doesn't provide them evidence of his existence.

I was recently asked to provide evidence of God's existence... I should be able to. After all, Jesus said his followers would do the works that he does and Greater Works.

Yet no one is doing those works.

Jesus said the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains. Not a single mountain is budging, so I assume nobody has the faith of a mustard seed.

I personally think God is a prick for refusing to provide evidence that he really cares about people or loves them. Then he leaves us with a Bible that contradicts itself and has many verses that command people to do the opposite of what other versus commanded... And he leaves us with prophetic visions that lead people astray because they're full of symbolism that is difficult to interpret.

The behavior of God is responsible for atheism, heresy, confusion, and division. He insists that people live by faith, and declares that he loves us so much, while at the same time refusing to do something so little as give some clear instruction or leave the skeptics some evidence.

Then he threatens to toss people into a lake of fire For Eternity for an infraction so small as not believing in him! Please excuse me while I vomit... Sometimes Yahweh makes me sick!View attachment 19103

now do you believe, lol

 

[sun rise]

Can you imagine what would happen if there was proof of God that satisfied the intellect? Billions of people would demand that God immediately perform a miracle for some limited goal or another. This would include, for example, Republicans and Democrats wanting the other smited at once, national enemies wanting the other side destroyed and so forth down to kids wanting to get A's on their tests without studying, and people demanding that God remove physical defects.

But I've also written here that God does reveal himself but not as a magician waving a wand and doing tricks to satisfy the intellect. To me, God is in every heart and is revealed in acts of kindness and love; acts of beauty and feelings of joy and peace.

This song reveals that God is to be found as one's "best friend" who lives inside of us. God can't be proven to the intellect, only experienced in the heart.

 

[Sunstone]

It seems to me the best evidences for god are -- first -- the mystical experience, and -- second -- some of the makyo, but neither group of experiential events strikes me as conclusive evidence for god. In the case of the mystical experience, there is always the possibility that it is merely a rare function of the brain, and in the case of makyo there is the possibility that some future science will explain them in wholly natural terms.

 

[sun rise]

It seems to me the best evidences for god are -- first -- the mystical experience, and -- second -- some of the makyo, but neither group of experiential events strikes me as conclusive evidence for god. In the case of the mystical experience, there is always the possibility that it is merely a rare function of the brain, and in the case of makyo there is the possibility that some future science will explain them in wholly natural terms.

When intuition starts awakening and you do the right thing with no intellectual knowledge of the choices and this happens a number of times, the experiences are not confined strictly to the brain in the skull. I have not fully experiences the presence of God, but I have experienced that my consciousness is not strictly limited to the intellectual knowledge my brain holds.

This is not strictly speaking evidence of God but it is experiential evidence that the experiences are not "merely a rare function of the brain"

 

[Sunstone]

...it is experiential evidence that the experiences are not "merely a rare function of the brain"

Could you elaborate, please?

 

[sayak83]

What evidence do you have that God exists? You can share your personal testimony of answered prayers or you can say God left signs in nature or say whatever you feel like saying in response to this op.

I'm just frustrated with God that so many people swear he doesn't provide them evidence of his existence.

I was recently asked to provide evidence of God's existence... I should be able to. After all, Jesus said his followers would do the works that he does and Greater Works.

Yet no one is doing those works.

Jesus said the faith of a mustard seed can move mountains. Not a single mountain is budging, so I assume nobody has the faith of a mustard seed.

I personally think God is a prick for refusing to provide evidence that he really cares about people or loves them. Then he leaves us with a Bible that contradicts itself and has many verses that command people to do the opposite of what other versus commanded... And he leaves us with prophetic visions that lead people astray because they're full of symbolism that is difficult to interpret.

The behavior of God is responsible for atheism, heresy, confusion, and division. He insists that people live by faith, and declares that he loves us so much, while at the same time refusing to do something so little as give some clear instruction or leave the skeptics some evidence.

Then he threatens to toss people into a lake of fire For Eternity for an infraction so small as not believing in him! Please excuse me while I vomit... Sometimes Yahweh makes me sick!View attachment 19103

Try some other concept of God maybe?

 

[Twilight Hue]

There's actually plenty of evidence. None of it's conclusive, though.

For instance:

- last week, we came home to find mail in the mailbox. I wasn't home when it arrived, so I didn't see who put it there. One possible explanation for how the mail arrived is that God put it there. I have nothing to conclusively refute this hypothesis, so the fact that I have mail in my mailbox could be used - along with some other set of facts that may or may not be true - that God exists.

- I was not hit by a meteor today. One hypothesis that explains this fact is that, out in space decades ago, God tweaked the path of a meteor that would have hit me. What facts I have are consistent with this hypothesis, so me not being hit by a meteor is evidence for God.

Those are strictly ideas. Conjecture. Not evidence of even the possibility of God.

For a hypothesis you need of course a valid basis by which you can experiment and test including controls.

Of course you already know that. ;0)

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Those are strictly ideas. Conjecture. Not evidence of even the possibility of God.

What are you calling "evidence"?

When I say "evidence," I'm talking about an element in a group of facts that can be used to establish a conclusion: each of these facts is evidence for the conclusion.

For a hypothesis you need of course a valid basis by which you can experiment and test including controls.

Of course you already know that. ;0)

Not every hypothesis can be tested with controls. But the claims I'm talking about are falsifiable:

If no mail has been put in my mailbox, then the claim "God put mail in my mailbox" must be false.

Edit: the fact that there is mail present in my mailbox is evidence that someone or something put it there (and therefore that this someone or something exists). Without having observed the mail delivery, I can rule out some possibilities, such as Donald Trump (his whereabouts that day are pretty well known, and he didn't come near my house) or the Taj Mahal sprung to life (it wouldn't fit down my street), but a number of potential explanations fit the sparse facts at hand, including that it was done by:

- God
- my letter carrier
- a group of squirrels being controlled by a wizard
- the people down the street (sometimes our mail gets delivered to the wrong address), or
- a random gust of wind

I know which option I would bet on, but all of these hypotheses fit the facts I have, so in that regard they're all supported by evidence. I have some ideas about which options would be eliminated if we had more evidence, but I don't have that evidence yet, so assuming what it will say is conjecture.

 

[SalixIncendium]

If you're looking for objective evidence of God's existence, you won't find any. It simply isn't there.

However, there is plenty of subjective evidence vis-à-vis sense experience. These experiences, unfortunately, are neither verifiable nor falsifiable, since they cannot be measured or observed by anyone other than the individual that had such an experience.

 

[Twilight Hue]

If you're looking for objective evidence of God's existence, you won't find any. It simply isn't there.

However, there is plenty of subjective evidence vis-à-vis sense experience. These experiences, unfortunately, are neither verifiable nor falsifiable, since they cannot be measured or observed by anyone other than the individual that had such an experience.

Then said experiences would be contained within such an individual. Being that we are physical people, hence matter, it would follow that there would be some sort of physical interaction involved by which the body reacts with any type of stimuli.

The case for God doesn't look very good at all if a person wants to prove something like that. Maybe for themselves will be sufficient, but certainly nobody else in any deterministic way.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Then said experiences would be contained within such an individual. Being that we are physical people, hence matter, it would follow that there would be some sort of physical interaction involved by which the body reacts with any type of stimuli.

As I wrote this, I was thinking specifically of experiences of "oneness," which is the only "God experience" I can speak of intelligently. This experience is spontaneous and is very brief in duration, and not voluntary (cannot be forced), at least in my experiences, so ability to measure any brain function during such an experience, while possible, is improbable unless one happens to be hooked up to an EEG when the experience takes place.

The case for God doesn't look very good at all if a person wants to prove something like that. Maybe for themselves will be sufficient, but certainly nobody else in any deterministic way.

Precisely my point.

 

[Kenny]

There is always a "rationalizing" away of that which God does even as they did during the times of Jesus.

Lissette had an inoperable brain tumor and was given a death sentence of months. After prayer, it shrunk and then disappeared. Doctors didn't understand why.
Evelyn had stage four cancer and given a death sentence. After prayer, it disappeared... this was years ago. Doctors didn't understand why.

The believer will say it is a miracle. The unbeliever will say that sometimes it just spontaneously reverses itself but that God was not involved.

So, @PopeADope , which one of the two categorie do you relate to?

 

[Polymath257]

Can you imagine what would happen if there was proof of God that satisfied the intellect? Billions of people would demand that God immediately perform a miracle for some limited goal or another. This would include, for example, Republicans and Democrats wanting the other smited at once, national enemies wanting the other side destroyed and so forth down to kids wanting to get A's on their tests without studying, and people demanding that God remove physical defects.

And you think that doesn't happen NOW?

 

[SalixIncendium]

There is always a "rationalizing" away of that which God does even as they did during the times of Jesus.

Lissette had an inoperable brain tumor and was given a death sentence of months. After prayer, it shrunk and then disappeared. Doctors didn't understand why.
Evelyn had stage four cancer and given a death sentence. After prayer, it disappeared... this was years ago. Doctors didn't understand why.

The believer will say it is a miracle. The unbeliever will say that sometimes it just spontaneously reverses itself but that God was not involved.

So, @PopeADope , which one of the two categorie do you relate to?

Let's say Renee has a tumor in her right lung, she prays, it spreads to her other lung, and she dies. Why was a miracle granted to Lissette and Evelyn and not to Renee?

 

[Polymath257]

There is always a "rationalizing" away of that which God does even as they did during the times of Jesus.

Lissette had an inoperable brain tumor and was given a death sentence of months. After prayer, it shrunk and then disappeared. Doctors didn't understand why.
Evelyn had stage four cancer and given a death sentence. After prayer, it disappeared... this was years ago. Doctors didn't understand why.

The believer will say it is a miracle. The unbeliever will say that sometimes it just spontaneously reverses itself but that God was not involved.

So, @PopeADope , which one of the two categorie do you relate to?

How about Tom, who had pancreatic cancer, did NOT pray, and the tumor disappeared? The doctors didn't understand why. Or Mary, who had breast cancer, prayed, and yet the cancer spread and she died?

You pick and choose which are 'miracles' and which are not. The *fact* is that recovery doesn't depend on whether someone prays or not (in some cases, when people know they are being prayed for, it makes it worse). Spontaneous remission rates are unaffected by prayer or the religious beliefs of the patient.

So, yes, it is spontaneous remission and there is no evidence of supernatural intervention.