What is your best evidence for a god?

[sun rise]

Surely how you treat other people is “how you treat other people”. This seems completely separate from any god.

Not if you understand that "god" is not separate from people in spite of appearances.

 

[ratiocinator]

I said.. God convinced people.

You're not paying attention. Which people do you think god convinced and which do you think are mistaken, because at least most of the people who say they have been convinced by god must be wrong?

For example: you are good singer -- convinced somebody -- singing a beautiful song.
Of course, I can tell someone that you are good singer, but, I cannot convince. Only you yourself can convince by performing.

If you know me, you could introduce me to somebody who wanted to be convinced. I am a real person, where do I look for this "God" of which you speak, if you can't even tell me how to tell which of the many people who say contradictory things about it, have got it right?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Your god cannot be encountered, only wants to meet people who already believe or who are worthy and everybody imagines this being in completely different ways. This does sound like tap dancing around the fact there is no evidence beyond just blind faith.

We all use faith to get out of solipsism and the problem of the external world. Now if you have solved that with evidence and what not, I would like to see the evidence. Your world is in your mind. If you believe I am here as me, that requires faith. You apparently believe in a natural world. I don't in the end.

 

[chinu]

Your god cannot be encountered, only wants to meet people who already believe or who are worthy and everybody imagines this being in completely different ways. This does sound like tap dancing around the fact there is no evidence beyond just blind faith.

Yes that is right. I don't know what made you think God approve application to meet so easily.

 

[sun rise]

A god who is interested in humankind? Who would commit mass genocide and wipe out most of the population of the world because he messed up his original creation. Has the ability to do anything but chooses to play hide and seek and ignore the plight of every human. A tour loving god.

That was, in fact, one of the things I faced as I moved from being an atheist to being a believer.

 

[shivsomashekhar]

The one who has created the whole universe that you see all around you.

You have assumed that the Universe was created.

This is a baseless assumption and therefore invalidates the rest of your premise - including this alleged creator.

Yes that is right. I don't know what made you think God approve application to meet so easily.

Or alternatively, there is no such God. This alternative is far more plausible as it eliminates the need to place faith in books, Gurus and faceless people on internet forums!

 

[sun rise]

Another part of the answer for me that I just remembered is the concept that what we take as reality can be thought of as God's dream. In a dream, all sorts of things happen, both good and bad, pleasurable and painful. When I wake up, I know it's all a dream and nothing of the sort really happened.

Someone once wrote a song that includes "I saw the universe as God's great dream..."

 

[Brookhousek]

Th

If you didn't want some honest detail, why didn't you just say so from the start. The prophecy I quoted, go ahead try to interpret another way the prophecy is proven by our written history and lets not forget Daniel was dead over 2 centuries before the historical fact unfolded. Even Stephen Hawkins stated "its not that I don't believe in GOD I just haven't been presented with facts that do so". So rather than waste anymore time, I place the burden on you to prove with facts that God doesn't exist. Remember, facts not feelings.

There is no burden of proof for a lack of belief. I think you misunderstand Stephen Hawkins. Any skeptic who values the scientific method will refrain from making positive assertions. At most one excepts the most probable outcome based on the available evidence. If new evidence becomes available then understanding changes accordingly. In other words Hawkins could not say there is 100% no god, just not reason to suggest there is. The burden of proof falls to one making a positive claim. Do I need to prove I don’t believe in fairies?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Th

There is no burden of proof for a lack of belief. I think you misunderstand Stephen Hawkins. Any skeptic who values the scientific method will refrain from making positive assertions. At most one excepts the most probable outcome based on the available evidence. If new evidence becomes available then understanding changes accordingly. In other words Hawkins could not say there is 100% no god, just not reason to suggest there is. The burden of proof falls to one making a positive claim. Do I need to prove I don’t believe in fairies?

Do you believe I exist as me? If yes, please give proof of that.

 

[shivsomashekhar]

Another part of the answer for me that I just remembered is the concept that what we take as reality can be thought of as God's dream. In a dream, all sorts of things happen, both good and bad, pleasurable and painful. When I wake up, I know it's all a dream and nothing of the sort really happened.

Someone once wrote a song that includes "I saw the universe as God's great dream..."

So, God is the dreamer? And when he wakes up he realizes that it was all fake? If that is the case, then the Universe and people/souls are not real.

That is not evidence for a God.

 

[Brookhousek]

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
-Bernard Shaw

Edit: Divine Beings, plural, not Being.

Edit 2: What is your definition of Divine Beings?

Never heard that before. Making personal comments still doesn’t prove a god.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

So... the existence of God implies the existence of something that God proceeded from?

No. Science has unwittingly answered that question, in discovering that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” Which means that energy, in some form or another, has **always existed**. This would explain the eternal nature of God.

 

[chinu]

You're not paying attention. Which people do you think god convinced and which do you think are mistaken, because at least most of the people who say they have been convinced by god must be wrong?

Of course, am NOT paying attention because there's NO need. You want to meet God, or People ?

If you know me, you could introduce me to somebody who wanted to be convinced. I am a real person, where do I look for this "God" of which you speak, if you can't even tell me how to tell which of the many people who say contradictory things about it, have got it right?

Now that you have granted me pre-approval that I can introduce you anyone who wish to meet you -- I will definitely introduce you to someone who will be interested in.

But, this is NOT the case God. God doesn't grant any such pre-approval to anybody, or any people. You have to apply of your own.

Do you want to know the application procedure ? I can help if you wish to.

 

[Brookhousek]

Do you believe I exist as me? If yes, please give proof of that.

Assuming you don’t want to play some existential mind games and discuss the origin of consciousness or “soul”, then there is physical evidence that you exist because you are engaging in this thread. I am fairly confident that the iPad I am typing on exists and other tangible object around me. Could we part of some construction like the matrix? - maybe. However, I live in a physical world that follows clear naturalist principles and I have to base my conclusions on what evidence rather than superstition.

 

[chinu]

Or alternatively, there is no such God. This alternative is far more plausible as it eliminates the need to place faith in books, Gurus and faceless people on internet forums!

Who is saying you to place faith in books, Gurus and faceless people on internet forums ?
Its you who yourself want to place faith in.. fake books, fake Gurus and fake faceless people on internet forums, but NOT God.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Assuming you don’t want to play some existential mind games and discuss the origin of consciousness or “soul”, then there is physical evidence that you exist because you are engaging in this thread. I am fairly confident that the iPad I am typing on exists and other tangible object around me. Could we part of some construction like the matrix? - maybe. However, I live in a physical world that follows clear naturalist principles and I have to base my conclusions on what evidence rather than superstition.

Or you could be in Boltzmann Brain universe. You have no evidence what so ever for what the world is in itself external to your mind.
E.g. here is a variant of a Boltzmann Brain universe. It is all natural and physical. This universe consists of a computer and a power source in short. Your mind is a program running on the computer and the rest of the universe as it appears to you, is simulated by the computer. All physical and natural.
All you have are your first person experiences in your mind and the knowledge that you are not alone. But what the rest is, you only have access to through your mind.

Please learn the history of philosophy that let to methodological naturalism and how that can't be proved. Or stop playing burden of proof, like you have won.

 

[Brookhousek]

The human form and human capabilities are the best evidence for a God. But it doesn't quite get all the way there.

Everything humans have is for to do things with. This can be no accident. So amidst the raw violence, toxic gases, and deadly forces of the universe an intelligent organizing principle must exist. But it is not the driving, dominant force in the physical world.

On the contrary- everything points to humankind being an accident. We live in a massive universe, in a very ordinary solar system (universally speaking) Around 9 billion years after the the universe is created the earth forms. Then for 4.5 billion years species come and go on the planet. If just one extinction level event had happened differently an ancestor that led to humans could have been wiped out. About 200,000 years ago against all odds humans appear to live in a world that is mostly too warm or too cold for us to survive, wild animals, disease, ice ages and our own desire to wipe ourselves out make life perilous. A human centric arrogance leads people to believe the world was made for us. However, we have been here for a blink of an eye in the cosmic scheme of things and I would say the dinosaurs have far more claim than us as they existed far longer. We are certainly a unlikely, if albeit lucky accident.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

On the contrary- everything points to humankind being an accident. We live in a massive universe, in a very ordinary solar system (universally speaking) Around 9 billion years after the the universe is created the earth forms. Then for 4.5 billion years species come and go on the planet. If just one extinction level event had happened differently an ancestor that led to humans could have been wiped out. About 200,000 years ago against all odds humans appear to live in a world that is mostly too warm or too cold for us to survive, wild animals, disease, ice ages and our own desire to wipe ourselves out make life perilous. A human centric arrogance leads people to believe the world was made for us. However, we have been here for a blink of an eye in the cosmic scheme of things and I would say the dinosaurs have far more claim than us as they existed far longer. We are certainly a unlikely, if albeit lucky accident.

Proof please! And please bridge the difference between methodological and philosophical naturalism.

 

[The Hammer]

Never heard that before. Making personal comments still doesn’t prove a god.

You still didn't bother to answer my question, ad hominem aside. In what way are you defining Gods?

Oh, I'm supposed to be proving the Gods to you? Why? You asked for my evidence, I presented it.

 

[Brookhousek]

Proof please! And please bridge the difference between methodological and philosophical naturalism.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am reading a paper about methodological and philosophical naturalism.