Non-theists:What does evidence of god look like?

[Yerda]

It's in the title.

 

[Skwim]

It's in the title.

Wanting.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Perhaps something physical.

Perhaps holding back a tidal wave whilst the people by the coast have time to evacuate. Hey here's a thought why doesn't he/she/it not let tidal waves/earthquakes/tornadoes happen in the first place.

How about removing all ilness

Perhaps magically poofing people out of a burning building.

Perhaps feeding the hungry. housing the homeless.

Perhaps manifesting physically and giving some kind of indication that he/she/it exists.

Perhaps ending suffering.

ANYTHING would be better than what we have now which is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Let's face it there is so much that an ALL POWERFUL god could do to better this world or even prove his/her/its existence.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

He/she/it could try explaining women to us.

That would be nice.

 

[Noaidi]

Perhaps something physical.

Perhaps holding back a tidal wave whilst the people by the coast have time to evacuate. Hey here's a thought why doesn't he/she/it not let tidal waves/earthquakes/tornadoes happen in the first place.

How about removing all ilness

Perhaps magically poofing people out of a burning building.

Perhaps feeding the hungry. housing the homeless.

Perhaps manifesting physically and giving some kind of indication that he/she/it exists.

Perhaps ending suffering.

ANYTHING would be better than what we have now which is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Let's face it there is so much that an ALL POWERFUL god could do to better this world or even prove his/her/its existence.

Many theists say that god works through people, so those involved in alleviating suffering, saving trapped people in buildings etc is evidence of god at work.

Personally, I think that's a lame answer. Given what we read in the bible (for example), apparently god was personally performing miracles all over the place. Where's he gone?

 

[LuisDantas]

Non-existence of anencephaly, or of many other patently unfair happenings.

Or perhaps some sort of discernible correlation between belief in God and moral discernment.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Personally, I think that's a lame answer.

Agreed. But they either have to come up with lame excuses or agree with us.

And that ain't going to happen any time soon.

-Q

 

[Willamena]

...with the added benefit that every excuse they come up with will be deemed lame, so they don't have to agree with us.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Absent.

 

[Falvlun]

Well, it depends on what type of God. If it's the kind of God that wants to be a rockstar-- everyone worshipping it, loving it, crediting it with the creation and control of the universe, that sort of thing-- then it would need to unambiguously come down here and identify itself. As it's God, it would know what sort of manifestations it would need to perform to convince humans that it exists and that it is God.

If it's the more reclusive "make it and leave it alone" sort of God, then we might never get evidence that it exists precisely because it has purposefully left no evidence to be found. However, if this sort of God does leave a tag of some sort, I think Carl Sagan in Contact had it right: Leave some sort of message in mathematics or cosmic radiation or something. The example he gave was the number Pi: it's a number that intelligent life will sooner or later discover. It has an infinite amount of numbers after the decimal point. After millions of those numbers-- get a computer to do it and examine the statistical likelyhood of certain patterns-- place some sort of pattern that would be unlikely to occur randomly in nature. And make the pattern intelligible, decodable, like a series of zeros and ones. Thus, we'd have a message from the architect of the universe-- how else could that pattern have occured in a mathematical constant?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What evidence of God would look like depends on what the God in question looks like. Different god-claims have different implications.

 

[Kriya Yogi]

Perhaps something physical.

Perhaps holding back a tidal wave whilst the people by the coast have time to evacuate. Hey here's a thought why doesn't he/she/it not let tidal waves/earthquakes/tornadoes happen in the first place.

How about removing all ilness

Perhaps magically poofing people out of a burning building.

Perhaps feeding the hungry. housing the homeless.

Perhaps manifesting physically and giving some kind of indication that he/she/it exists.

Perhaps ending suffering.

ANYTHING would be better than what we have now which is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Let's face it there is so much that an ALL POWERFUL god could do to better this world or even prove his/her/its existence.

My Guru says that hazards and huge karmic events happen because of man's ignorance and evil actions. God gives us free will to accept him or reject him and to act in the right way. When we don't realize his bliss and love within us and in our lives we are apt to acting in ignorant ways which in turn creates bad karma. This in turn creates bad things to happen to them. Its a boomerang effect of the universe. Unfortunately some of our bad actions in past lives have not returned to us so even if we have been good in this life, catastrophic bad karma can still happen. It's what explains why bad things happen to good people. So God has nothing to do with these actions and reactions since he gave you free will to live how you want.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

My Guru says that hazards and huge karmic events happen because of man's ignorance and evil actions. God gives us free will to accept him or reject him and to act in the right way. When we don't realize his bliss and love within us and in our lives we are apt to acting in ignorant ways which in turn creates bad karma. This in turn creates bad things to happen to them. Its a boomerang effect of the universe. Unfortunately some of our bad actions in past lives have not returned to us so even if we have been good in this life, catastrophic bad karma can still happen. It's what explains why bad things happen to good people. So God has nothing to do with these actions and reactions since he gave you free will to live how you want.

What a load of horse fecal matter. That is one of the most ridiculous posts i've seen so far.

Our ignorance and evil actions cause the shifting of tectonic plates under the sea, which causes a tsunami, which kills thousands of people.

Really? You believe this?

If there was a god, he/she/it would be able to stop all these natural events and stop the death of thousands of people.

What about all the people dying from starvation and exposure, what does your "guru" have to say about that?

What kind of ALL POWERFUL god would let that happpen, ask your "guru" and get back to me.

 

[Falvlun]

My Guru says that hazards and huge karmic events happen because of man's ignorance and evil actions. God gives us free will to accept him or reject him and to act in the right way. When we don't realize his bliss and love within us and in our lives we are apt to acting in ignorant ways which in turn creates bad karma. This in turn creates bad things to happen to them. Its a boomerang effect of the universe. Unfortunately some of our bad actions in past lives have not returned to us so even if we have been good in this life, catastrophic bad karma can still happen. It's what explains why bad things happen to good people. So God has nothing to do with these actions and reactions since he gave you free will to live how you want.

What if I'm good, and Jimmy is a mean little brat all the time, and finally causes an earthquake. And my house gets destroyed, and my kid gets squashed. How is that fair?

Do you really think all those starving kids in Africa deserve to be starving?

 

[Kriya Yogi]

What a load of horse fecal matter. That is one of the most ridiculous posts i've seen so far.

Our ignorance and evil actions cause the shifting of tectonic plates under the sea, which causes a tsunami, which kills thousands of people.

Really? You believe this?

If there was a god, he/she/it would be able to stop all these natural events and stop the death of thousands of people.

What about all the people dying from starvation and exposure, what does your "guru" have to say about that?

What kind of ALL POWERFUL god would let that happpen, ask your "guru" and get back to me.

I appreciate the rudeness. Yes I do believe it. Since there is a God and he is all good he allows us to decide our own lives and fates. Unfortunately for the same reason of freewill he cannot stop these reactions that cause us suffering to stop. Everything that happens to us is based on an action in a past life. If we have lived thousands of lives previous to this one its possible for us to have done something that would create this result later in another life. Man's past lives are filled with dark evil actions since we have to evolve through trial and error, so the bad karma or good karma that comes your way is a direct result of those past life actions. Believe what u will though, but according to my Guru everything that happens to someone is justified. If it doesn't then this world and our lives would be chaotic and unjustified and God would not allow that.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Yes mate

*Pats Kriya condescendingly on the head*

 

[Falvlun]

I appreciate the rudeness. Yes I do believe it. Since there is a God and he is all good he allows us to decide our own lives and fates. Unfortunately for the same reason of freewill he cannot stop these reactions that cause us suffering to stop. Everything that happens to us is based on an action in a past life. If we have lived thousands of lives previous to this one its possible for us to have done something that would create this result later in another life. Man's past lives are filled with dark evil actions since we have to evolve through trial and error, so the bad karma or good karma that comes your way is a direct result of those past life actions. Believe what u will though, but according to my Guru everything that happens to someone is justified. If it doesn't then this world and our lives would be chaotic and unjustified and God would not allow that.

I think it's pretty cruel to make a child suffer for a mistake he made as an adult in some past life.

 

[Kriya Yogi]

I think it's pretty cruel to make a child suffer for a mistake he made as an adult in some past life.

Yes it seems so but unless we saw his karma or past lives we would not know why it happened. Many things will not be fully understood until we can be free and can see into peoples past lives.

 

[Falvlun]

Yes it seems so but unless we saw his karma or past lives we would not know why it happened. Many things will not be fully understood until we can be free and can see into peoples past lives.

What possible purpose is accomplished by punishing someone who has no idea for what they are being punished for? Punishment is only worthwhile as a tool for teaching; if you don't know why you are being beaten, then the beating has no point, except perhaps to make the beater feel better.

And it's particularly horrendous to inflict an adult-sized punishment upon a (relatively) innocent child.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Just out of curiosity Kriya.

How much are you paying this "guru" to tell you this crap?

-Q