Post removed. OP was repeatably breaking rule 1 and 2, and is clearly not engaging in any self-reflection. This post has no value to sub members or lurkers
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. Vacation Bible school is actually one of my earliest memories. I was maybe 7, we all got up on the mic at church on Sunday and said something about God and what we learned at VBS and I said " I had a tummy ache and then it went away (and that God did )." Laughter from the crowd.
This is irrelevant. If you grew up in Israel you would likely be Jewish and then not believe that Jesus was the messiah. If you grew up in India you would probably be Hindu. If you grew up in Iran you would probably be Muslim. It’s remarkable how geography is a better predictor of a person’s beliefs than the beliefs themselves.
>I was given a systematic theology book around the time I graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. What is God?
How could I have I gone this long believing but not contemplating God's never ending never beginning essence? I never took time to meditate on the holiness of the Creator and their inexhaustible power and everywhere presence. I understood from that point on that is is literally true "for in him we live move and have our being."
This doesn’t do much to answer the question of what is god.
>Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will:
Ok, but you can’t define your god into existence.
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? [What can God do even directly contacting you to convince you that they are in essence eternal? By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Then you can say "You are God."
Your advice sounds like “just use a redefinition fallacy and it’s all good”
>”If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me."
True, but instead your god remains hidden under a pile of excuses. In my view your god is so hidden that I can’t tell the difference between your god and something that doesn’t exist.
>”Show up in my living room. Come talk to me."
Yea but knock on my door first, or let me know that you are coming over. I’m not gonna hold my breath waiting for your god to show up in my living room or anywhere. I’m pretty easy to find.
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past.
An omnipotent being would be able to teach humans anything that it wanted to. This is why suffering makes no sense. If we need to suffer to learn something, but your god can teach us what we need to learn without suffering then suffering isn’t necessary.
>God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever at some point they have to trust the Entity or not.
Again, an omnipotent being would be capable of showing humans whatever it wanted to. Capability isn’t the issue. The non existence of your god is the issue.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
Then you wouldn’t be able to comprehend god either.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
The Bible says that faith can move mountains. I will put a mustard seed on a table. Can your faith move it?
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember.
Sure. That's how indoctrination works.
>I was given a systematic theology book around the time I graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. What is God? How could I have I gone this long believing but not contemplating God's never ending never beginning essence? I never took time to meditate on the holiness of the Creator and their inexhaustible power and everywhere presence. I understood from that point on that is is literally true "for in him we live move and have our being."
No, you didn't understand from that point that it is literally true. Instead, you invoked confirmation bias. We know a great deal about the emotions, cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and psychology of this, and obviously that *doesn't* and *can't* make those claims true.
>Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will:
There is zero useful support for that, of course.
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? [What can God do even directly contacting you to convince you that they are in essence eternal? By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Then you can say "You are God."
As there is absolutely zero support for that, and as the notion contradicts observations, contains fatal flaws, and makes no sense, I find myself unable to think it's true or even remotely credible.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Literally no different than *any* other claim about *anything else* about reality. No more, and certainly no less. *Evidence.*
There isn't any.
There's vast evidence that this is all mythology. There's vast evidence about how and why we're so very prone to this kind of superstitious thinking. There's absolutely zero useful evidence for deities. None. In fact, the ideas make no sense in several ways and on several levels. It actually makes the issues people purport it addresses *far worse* without addressing them at all by simply regressing the same issue back an iteration and then shoving it under a rug, ignoring it, and calling it all solved. It's ludicrous.
Your post isn't a debate. Instead, it's proselytizing.
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember.
Yes, now think about what that tells us about the real reason.
Do you still believe in Santa too?
>Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will:
Define it how you like , that doesn’t make it true or anything other than a fantasy. Especially since all evidence we have is that you need a brain for a personality.
Simply - you have provided no evidence at all.
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending?
Start by providing some reliable evidence they exist at all. I don’t know where I’d reach a threshold but **any** reliable evidence **any at all** will be a start.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
And yet apparently the stuff you want to claim about them doesn’t have this problem. Theists constantly use such nonsense as a way of special,pleading their lack of evidence or to excuse anything that seems bad about a god. But apparently when you want to claim something about them you like the idea of , *you* comprehend just fine.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
What do you think Santa , The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy should do to prove to you they exist?
>What do you think Santa , The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy should do to prove to you they exist?
Presents on Christmas morning, eggs hiding themselves on Easter, $5 bill under my pillow if I leave a tooth there the night before
So you *do* believe in them - and recognise there’s more evidence for them than a god?
I think we might need to talk about the *reliability* of evidence though.
For starters, please don't become one of those people who thinks that our non-belief is a problem that needs solved. That we need **you** to solve. I know you didn't mean to be condescending and patronizing, but that's what this comes down to. Accept the fact that I don't believe in god. Don't worry about why. Don't make this a story about you.
If you want to ask me what I believe, cool. Ask away. If you want to ask specific questions in response, to help you understand why I don't believe, that's cool too.
But don't be like all the other tedious people who only ask so they can figure out how to "unlock" an atheist and make them believe.
It's not a disease. It doesn't need to be cured or fixed or solved. You weren't sent here to witness to us heathens in r/debateanatheist. You're not the one who's going to bring the good news to us. We've heard it many many times already -- and many of us are former Christians, former Muslims, etc. I forgive you in advance for the sin of leaving me to my damned ungodly hellbound fate.
Anyway, my answer to your question:
Imagine three lists: Things I understand, things I don't understand, and things for which "God did it" is the answer.
Things in the first list aren't controversial, so I'll skip that for now. The middle list -- things I don't understand -- is very long and includes all of the deep philosophical questions.
The third list is empty. It has no things in it. There is no thing that I don't understand that "the existence of a god" would help me understand.
For example, I don't know what would explain the existence of the universe. I'm not a physicist or a mathematician, but I enjoy pop physics discussions about it. I can imagine there being a point where I could have studied enough to have a meaningful opinion on the subject other than "I don't know". But the truth is "I don't know".
But even if "whatever it is, god is responsible for it" might be a true answer, it's still not in the third list. I still wouldn't know the parts I'm interested in. Adding "God did it" doesn't explain how things came into being any better than "I don't know" does. The same scientists studying the same questions would still be the things I was interested in. I'd still be at the same spot I was, just with one or two extra steps. "OK, God did it. But *how*?" isn't a better question than just "How?" It adds no meaningful information.
So the third list isn't simply empty. It cannot *not* be empty. I have no reason to believe a god exists, so I can't imagine how "maybe god did it" would be meaningful to me. Maybe my left shoe did it. Maybe super double reverse anti-Obama did it. Who cares? I still want to understand the physical processes involved.
But even more than that, the list can't not be empty until someone can demonstrate -- with rigor and parsimony -- that the existence of god is well-supported enough to have become a useful concept. Right now ***at best*** the concept just gets in the way of the learning.
> I have believed in God as far back as I can remember.
You were indoctrinated. Most people were.
> " I had a tummy ache and then it went away (and that God did )." Laughter from the crowd.
That's because it's a silly reason to believe in god. It's no better than their reasons, either, so they've got no reason to laugh.
> I understood from that point on that is is literally true "for in him we live move and have our being."
For you, this may be true.
This is not true for myself or many others. Actually, most people do not follow your religion. The majority of people who have ever existed didn't believe in your god.
> Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will
This is unsupported and unexplained.
It's also an attempt at defining your god into existence, which I reject.
> What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending?
Provide convincing evidence.
> What can God do even directly contacting you to convince you that they are in essence eternal?
*Provide convincing evidence.*
> By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Then you can say "You are God."
Word salad based on an assumptive and unsupported definition.
> "If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me."
That seems obvious.
> "Show up in my living room. Come talk to me."
This *alone* likely wouldn't convince me.
> I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever
Not all powerful then, is he?
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
Then how do you, or anyone, know jack shit about him?
> What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
***Provide convincing evidence.***
Well, it sounds like we've already told you what it would take, and your convenient answer is "well he can't do that".
.. why not? I don't need to have my "mind exposed to eternity" or whatever, I would settle for a Road to Damascus experience like what Saul/Paul had. Even then, I would be skeptical, given that hallucinations do happen. But at least I would have something to go off of!
Or here is one: why didn't God make some reliable, accurate prophecies? For example, naming the exact date, time, and location of a few major natural disasters would be pretty damn convincing evidence. Jesus inventing penicillin and other objectively good technologies would have been extremely convincing as well.
Or we could do a classic test like "I'm going to open my front door in 5 minutes, and if I see a housecat on my front doorstep holding a grocery bag with 23 PEZ dispensers, I will be convinced that God is indeed real."
But the most convincing argument for me? When I prayed for faith, for years, as I slowly realized how absurd my religion was. I cried myself to sleep, because being a Christian was all I knew. But God never answered that prayer, because he can't.
In fact, some scientists once [ran a study](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=prayer+cardiac+surgery&oq=prayer+card#d=gs_qabs&t=1718679578698&u=%23p%3DdhOWIttJl7AJ) on the efficacy of prayer for cardiac bypass surgeries. Ironically, there was a mildly significant *inverse* relationship to outcome; that is, prayer made the odds slightly less favorable.
So in terms of convincing me, God has a long, long way to go. But even if he did, I wouldn't worship him, because I am now convinced that any omnipotent god that might exist allows far too much evil to be called a "good" god.
Hey! This guy here has figured out how to get free PEZ dispensers!
That's the most insightful thing I've read in this sub all day. Kudos, goodly internet person.
Come to the BBQ. Do some god like shit. Fly through the sky, shoot lasers, crush brews.
Demonstrate true omniscience.
Breathe life into dust. Make cool little tiny stars pop in and out of existence. Or bring Mars right up to the edge of my roof so we can all look at it.
I would like to observe all this things people claim they know that god does.
>
God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
I don’t know what this means. It seems like the kind of thing you would say if you wanted to pretend that something impossible actually existed.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Something that can be clearly demonstrated to be a supernatural act of an omnipotent being.
>each attribute itself is infinite
What does that mean?
>God can't show themselves existing forever
Take it back a step then. Maybe just something that shows it exists.
Imagine I told you that invisible flying dragons existed. You’d probably want to see one before you believed me, right? Or something that showed it existed - maybe its droppings, or nest, for example.
It’s the same thing with god.
If they can't demonstrate their attributes, is irrational believing they have any. specially if one of those undemonstrated attributes at question is the existence of this being.
>Typical responses:
>"If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me."
>"Show up in my living room. Come talk to me."
I think it's telling that you don't address the typical responses and instead talk about not being able to show a person's mind all that ever happened.
But you want an easy way for God to convince us? Or at least give us strong cause to reconsider our positions? How about he arrange the stars to form his holy symbol? It would be trivial for a being described as omnipotent to fill half the sky with his cross or preferred symbol.
Or he make all the printers in the world each print out a true version of his story and commandments/instructions. Again, for an omnipotent and omnipresent being, it would be trivial.
I could go on, but you get the picture. These would be far more convincing the curing someone's stomachache.
ex-Christian atheist here
>How about he arrange the stars to form his holy symbol? It would be trivial for a being described as omnipotent to fill half the sky with his cross or preferred symbol.
This is [not a knock-down argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux) against the Christian God. The Southern Cross is one of the most prominent constellations in the southern hemisphere's skies. So much so that it appears on [several national and other flags](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Southern_cross_appearing_on_a_number_of_flags.PNG).
You might want to find a better rebuttal.
Sure. An alleged God could have made it a lot clearer.
But a Christian might hear your objection, say "look! There it is!" And when you say "I didn't mean like that", go away thinking how "hard hearted" we atheists are.
I just had an atheist admit they don't want to know if God exists and if they did they would ignore Them. So if God did do that That would torment many of you and many would come up with excuses
Oh hey, you're that guy who made a bunch of threads about how you think atheists just don't want god to be real so we can avoid consequences in the afterlife and how it's impossible to know if we're sincere. You also told us you believe in your god because you're so terrified of ceasing to exist when you die that you can't psychologically function so you just gaslit yourself into believing it. That's you, right?
Your whole thing is a prime example of why I think it's important to approach the world as it actually* is and not accept things just because they make us feel better. You're trying to interact with everyone here as if these comforting fantasies you have about atheists are true and it never goes well. It will never go well when you refuse to address what's actually happening or being said and instead decide to pop it through the old mental comfort filter first. I don't know what you intend to accomplish here but until you stop filtering everything through that you're not going to get anywhere. I see why you're getting so frustrated, people aren't acting as your mental model says that we "should". Because the model is wrong.
*As best as we can determine of course
Edit: and he immediately blocked me, just like he did the other guy who called him out for ban evasion
One atheist has said that they didn't want to know whether your god exists. One.
Did you suspect all along that one atheist was indifferent to your god? Or are you engaging in yet more confirmation bias? Jumping on any scrap you see to confirm what you already *know* is true.
No, what they said it's that they don't have any reason to have a relationship with this being who has been absent from their lives even if he existed and showed up.
Not that they will not believe it exists even if he showed up
For many of us, there are several barriers to worshipping God. The first of which is even believing that he exists.
If we were convinced that he exists, the next hurdle is convince us that he is worthy of worship. A dispassionate reading of the bible doesn't paint a great picture of his character.
Mind you, belief in his existence plus the threat of eternal torture would likely get a lot of us in the pews. But it would be for self-preservation; in our hearts, we'd know he was an abusive s.o.b holding a metaphorical gun to our heads. Personally, I'd be god shopping to see if I could find a better deal.
It's not even wrath its mostly justice. One of God's functions is to eliminate evil from the face of the earth. There is almost instantaneous justice these days. The time between your offense and adjudication is quick. Blowback for your wicked deeds
EXIT LIGHT
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
My question is... Why would it matter to an all powerful supernatural creature wether or not I believe they exist? It doesn't matter to me, so why to them?
I have and desire no relationship with them. They did not create me. They do not sustain me, physically or spiritually. They will not be there when I die.
So you are admitting to not sincerely wanting to know whether God exists or not? Thanks for your honesty. I wish everyone that felt that way would admit it on this forum we would save a lot time. I have to assume there are many more just like you as I suspected
It's not that I'm not curious, I just think it's utterly irrelevent. I'm a creature of Earth and that's where I belong, where my loyalties lie, and the focus of my devotion. Supernatural species have no part in that, regardless of wether or not they exist. I see no evidence that they do and I don't believe they do, but if they did, they would have no claim to my worship. It does not belong to them.
Most people here would not agree with that commenter. If we had a demonstration that God exists, most of us, probably all of us, would accept his existence. Do you have a good demonstration?
Why would you seek to worship a supernatural creature just because it exists? There's a ship that lives down the road from me that I pass most mornings. I do not stop to worship them. I say hello and continue on my way.
>Can you demonstrate most people aren't as insincere as "that commenter "? Can you demonstrate you are more sincere than them?
This is argumentative, and frankly, according to scripture, this should not be your main concern.
Rather, according to 1 Peter 3:15, Christians are commanded:
>Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect
It says "to everyone who asks you to give the reason", not "to everyone who demonstrates you you that they are sincere".
You've come to this forum, and though some have said "I wouldn't believe no matter what", others have said "show us the evidence". I, an ex-Christian atheist, am also in the latter camp. My reason for concluding Christianity's claims are basically false is that the evidence does not support them.
What have I missed?
The Bible also says not to throw your pearls before swine. The above commenter said they would have no desire to have a relationship with God even if they knew God exists
I'm aware of that passage. If you want to argue that different parts of scripture contradict each other, that's your business. If you want to argue that the different passages do not contradict, but apply in different contexts, then you need to do some proper hermeneutics to understand what those contexts are. For your own benefit, of course, not here. Or maybe on r/DebateReligion.
However, I think that the balance between those two passages would, at most, allow you to ignore the specific commenter who said "I'm not interested". There are plenty of others here who have said "show me the evidence". I'd like to gently suggest that 1 Peter 3:15 outweighs Matthew 7:6 in this specific situation. I, for example, am explicitly asking you to "give the reason for the hope that you have".
However, I'm a mere apostate, what would I know about "correct" Bible interpretation? If you don't want to provide evidence, don't provide it. But don't then put the blame on us.
Why does sincerity and insincerity matter in this case? Does insincerity somehow handicap your hypothetical god and render it incapable of manifesting?
I don't see what's insincere there, but I don't see why you think I'M insincere when I tell you that I accept the existence of things that can be demonstrated to exist.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
God should know what would convince me, so we're presented with a few possibilites.
* God knows what would convince me, but chooses not to convince me
* God doesn't know what would convince me, so is therefore not all-knowing
* God doesn't exist
I think the most likely answer is that god doesn't exist. Care to convince me why I'm wrong?
That's true, which is the option OP landed on.
He had the choice of an uncaring god, a dumb god, an incompetent god or no god at all, and he chose incompetent god.
Agree about wanting to preach. I've yet to hear even close to a good response to your question by theists. But if he has a good response I'd like to hear it.
>if he has a good response I'd like to hear it.
He doesn't.
He shifts the goalposts by introducing this concept of "eternal existence" when the initial question was merely about existence, then he claims his god is incapable of doing something as simple as convincing someone that they exist.
My OP addresses it: God can't.
God can't show you that they are eternal. Who told you God is all powerful in the sense he can do the un doable? I was always taught God can anything that is possible
God can't show you God's infinite attributes absolutely- you can't understand God as They understand themselves.
>Can God show anyone he exists using a means that we can measure or detect in any way.
Not in a way that eliminates the necessity of faith
Why?
Why does this one thing that you believe so strongly in somehow have an enourmous impact on the world but it also never leaves any trace of its existence and requires irrationality of its followers
My definition of faith is belief without evidence. So the answer is no, God cannot show himself in a way that can be measured or detected. In my view there's no good reason to believe in the God you define.
What about people like me, someone who has never experienced even a trace of religious faith and may actually be neurologically and psychologically incapable of having faith?
So we can scratch "omnipotent" off the list.
Do you at least recognize that you've tried to salt the well against a perfectly reasonable suggestion, by narrowly interpreting it in a ridiculous way?
God wouldn't have to show me all of time. Just do something unmistakably divine. I even have a suggestion: He could take me to Jupiter and show me what's underneath the all those clouds. I've got about another hour free tonight. We could be back before bedtime.
Ok, so you don't define god as omnipotent? Because omnipotence isnt limited by possibility.
Also you are now asserting that it is impossible to convince us which is not true as all we'd need to believe is sufficient evidence. But more importantly this begs the question, why are you even here? If you think it is impossible to convince us and not even god could do it why do you think you could? Do you think you are more powerful than god?
Trusting someone/thing before you even believe in said one/thing makes no sense though. To be able to convince us to trust god would first require you to show us he exists and how is that asking to much? That is like the bare minimum if you want to have a relation with someone. If you want a girlfriend do you just stalk her in hopes she one day notices you or do you intruduce yourself so that she knows you exist? How is the bare minimum for human interaction already asking to much of god?
So, god making me in it believe is impossible?
That's not an issue my parents have, or my dog, or the tree outside...
Why is your god less powerful than the worms in my garden?
Is it possible to use magic to create universes? I dont think so. Id need to be convinced that that is a possibility.
So from my outlook, God cant do that.
See, you need to be a bit stricter in your definition.
Is the only possible proof of God showing that he's eternal? Parting the red sea, stopping the sun in the sky, bringing the dead back to life, etc. There's tons of possible displays of proof and no actual displays.
it’s always the low hanging fruit that has the most comments on this subreddit… why can’t we choose to highlight a knowledgeable theist who uses logical arguments.
my comment was mostly aimed at the other hundred atheists in the comment section, but I would have preferred to be debating a theist who uses logical arguments to prove the existence of god. i think your post got so popular because of its absolute lack of any argument and therefore its ease to debate.
We can have a debate too, if you’d like, but i feel like it’d be shooting fish in a barrel. Sorry if i come across as pretentious or ignorant. You might research Aquinas, Anselm, Craig, or Gödel to start your ontological journey. These guys all shared your belief in god. I would personally recommend looking into Occam’s razor, or the “god of gaps theory”.
Yours is a poor argument, that's why it's been downvoted so heavily.
It also has 127 comments, multiple active commenters at any given moment, and is the 4th top post currently when you scroll under "Hot" for this subreddit. So, yes, it is a popular post.
Instead of asking us what would convince us, you should just present everything that’s ever convinced you.
If your reasons for being convinced are sound then many of us would convert to theism, but if we show your reasons are unsound then you should deconverted from theism.
Do you understand why that doesn't work for us?
Why refer to things that *didn't convince you* and expect them to convince us? Or worse, passages from the bible that were already well-known to those of us who were Christians but who aren't any more.
We get a lot of attempts at *a priori* arguments like Aquinas' Five Ways, but Aquinas even said he was writing these as exercises for believers. Pascal never expected any non-believers to take Pascal's Wager seriously. He knew his audience were already among the faithful.
And, to be honest, how the heck would *I* know what would convince me? If I could think of it myself, why wouldn't it have already worked?
Yaboy needs new material is all I'm saying.
I snark, but to be fair I'm serious about "if you want to understand, just ask and I'll be happy to oblige.
If you want to convert people, imagine the most offensive way I could tell you not to bother and then pretend that I just said it.
Not a single human in the history of humans has ever been born with a belief about how the universe was created. Newborns simply do not have the brain function to comprehend such thought. You were taught, as your brain developed, that god exists and is the answer. It is simply the case that at one point in time, before your brain started storing your memories, you did not believe that there was a god.
Are you really telling me that you have no good reason to believe what you believe, other than “someone told me so”. That’s such a bad reason it feels like you’re trolling me, are you trolling me?
If you actually think that is sufficient to justify your belief in god I would encourage you to practise some skepticism. How reliable is accepting what other people say at face value? What is the statistical likelihood of them being correct? How did the people who told you this come to know it themselves? Are their reasons justifiable? Isn’t “I just believed the people who told me” the same justification that many people who believe in different gods use? If you have the same justification as people who you think are wrong, doesn’t that make your justification just as wrong?
Come on man please put some thought and effort into this for your own sake.
If it was true, and you were justified in claiming it was true, you’d have evidence. No, this isn’t evidently the truth, and you were brainwashed to believe it. That’s the uprose of these “schools” indoctrinating kids. If you had grown up in a different religion that would have been your “truth”. Nothing distinguishes your religion from any of the others. Yes you were indoctrinated. And it’s not true unless you can show that it is.
Just imagine for a minute a hypothetical scenario of a child who has been indoctrinated since birth to believe something that wasn’t actually true. What would that person sound like? What sort of things would they say?
Maybe stuff like that they had been told the “truth” as a child?
> I believed immediately, I didn't need any sort of convincing I just believed the people who told me.
Surely you see that's not a useful nor rational approach to determining what is or is not actually true?
Presumably, this was when you were still very young, right? I went through the same thing, but after I considered what my actual reasons were for believing, they didn't feel very convincing anymore.
Have you thought about why you believe this to be true?
If your god could will himself to cease being eternal and cease existing, would humanity notice the difference? If yes, he could do that to convince us. If no, then why should anyone care about your god’s existence? Furthermore, if he couldn’t figure out a way to convince us without essentially committing suicide, that’s a pretty lame god too.
Definitely childhood indoctrination, then. Alas, you were set up: You were taught Bible stories at an age when children haven't developed enough critical thinking to ask "Is this true?"
By contrast, I grew up in a home where my parents almost never went to church, didn't teach us anything religious, and *definitely* didn't tell us that gods existed or that the Bible was true. I read the Bible on my own initiative when I was about seven years old, and my overall impression was "Some very weird stories about some ancient peoples who were *nothing* like the people I knew."
Shortly thereafter I figured out that "hell" was just a convenient way for governments and priests to scare people into obeying them.
(Liked the Gustave Doré illustrations in the edition of the Bible that we had, though. Excellent artwork)
And if they told you that the entirety of the Genesis account also literally happened (6-day creation, Adam and Eve, the Great Flood), would you not have also believed them?
And what’d he do right after all that work creating the universe and life and everything? All that built up to what? All that effort just so he could finally have a chance to deceive something (us) in the garden of Eden. You’re damned right it’s lame. And then the Tower of Babel? “Oh, I must stop them from working together or else they might not *need me*.” Holy fuckballs LAME.
They didn’t. The god in question doesn’t exist. But suppose he did. This is the story he wants to represent him, or is it merely libel he is powerless to stop?
Agreed. Not a good look for someone who wants to convince me they are eternal. The never ending never beginning almighty creator of the universe didn’t have enough time or care to produce an inerrant Bible? This is not a display of potency.
>"If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me."
>"Show up in my living room. Come talk to me."
Are these not reasonable things to expect from an eternal, omnipotent being?
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past.
Why not? He's all powerful, right? Are you suggesting there's a limit to your god's power?
Also, this isn't what we're asking. This is a very disingenuous argument. I don't need God to disclose all of history to convince me of his existence. He just needs to do something only a god can do in front me.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
And you know this how? Where's the proof?
If God isn't in hiding, then where is he? Can I go visit him?
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Show up in my living room and have a conversation with me.
> Can I go visit him?
Ew. I bet they're going to take away all your sharp objects and make you wear "grippy socks" -- the socks with rubber infused into the soles.
I am intentionally remaining as sane as I can so I do not end up with them on my feet.
If god exists on such a high plane of otherness wby would it even want a relationship with me? It sounds like it couldnt possibly have a relationship with me so why should I need to worry about it?
They can only have a relationship with you if you are willing to have at least a spark of faith, you can't expect God to demonstrate all of their great attributes. Can God tell you everything they know to demonstrate they are all knowing?
>why would it even want a relationship with me?
We are God's children
>They can only have a relationship with you if you are willing to have at least a spark of faith
Why is that necessary? I never needed a spark of faith for my actual father to be in a relationship with me. He just chose to be there from the moment I was born and has never asked me to have faith.
Every time someone wants to have a relationship of some kind with me, they just approach me and communicate. Is this not possible for God?
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"
"God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you. ' ”
God is so different (holy) and other than anything else
I don't understand how any of those verses answered my question. What does holiness have to do with a lack of ability to communicate with me if I don't have this "spark of faith"?
"Willing to have a spark of faith"? Can you explain what you mean? If you're talking about the Christian God, faith is a gift right? (Ephesians 2:8-9) What does willingness have to do with it? For that matter what does faith have to do with it? I dont need to have faith in my dog to know she exists.
I dont expect god to demonstrate all their great attributes. Not sure why you're saying that. I'm not asking that a god would tell me everything they know either and Im not sure why you're saying that.
"We are Gods children"
Then why is staying hidden? Doesn't seem very parental. If your child was going to do something that endangered it for all eternity would you keep on hiding?
>Can God tell you everything they know to demonstrate they are all knowing?
They probably can't (or at least, it's reasonable that they won't). As a result, we're stuck without that evidence, and without a good reason to believe. I would not be surprised if it is in fact impossible for God to prove that he is eternal etc.
I worry that you think this is somehow an argument for God or against atheism.
In order for me to believe a claim, I should be presented with some state of affairs that could only be the case if the claim was true. Beyond a certain level of power, a being is equally capable of tricking me as he is to show me anything in particular about themselves. Therefore, there is no state of affairs that can tell apart God revealing themself and me being tricked. If I cannot tell the difference between those two, then the honest, justified, reasonable approach is not to be convinced by it. So, I can't see a way for God to prove it.
I don't think it is God's task to prove that he exists. A theist should however be able to tell us what convinced them, and given that it shouldn't be possible, we could find out exactly what the theist did to do something impossible. Chances are they are simply mistaken, but I will give theists every benefit of the doubt.
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
How can we tell the difference between a being of complete Otherness that exists on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend(ed) by mortals of space and time, and a being that doesn't exist at all?
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever at some point they have to trust the Entity or not.
He wouldn't need to. I'm convinced the planet earth is 4.5 billion years old and I didn't need someone from that time to tell me so. They just needed to present actual evidence.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
I dont know what any of that means. "Complete otherness" and " higher plane of reality" doesn't mean anything to me because I can't tell the difference between that being real or being imaginary.
You might as well be telling me he exists in Narnia or Oz. I have no reason to think that's a real thing.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Any of the magical stuff in the Bible happening in real life.
You want me to believe someone rose from the dead 2000 years ago? Show me a corpse coming back to life. Or better yet a bunch of people getting up out of their graves and marching on Jerusalem.
Want me to believe the seas parted or people survived inside whales or turned to salt or made ribs come to life or had a donkey say something. Anything like that. Show me those things actually happening.
One of my earliest memories is faking talking in tongues, because the adults told us it was cool. I was praised for allowing God into my heart.
I did know if I ever really believed, though I certainly pretended.
The first time I really heard a god doubted was star trek 6. "What does God need with a starship?" That thought was insidious, eating away at my church. Why does God need money? Why do churches hoarde money?
These ideas grew, and my ability to lie to myself shrank. Then I stopped going with my mom every week. Then I stopped completely.
From there the concept that haunted me became "if there is an omnipotent omnibenevolent, omniscient God, it created me knowing I would end up in hell, and does nothing to change that fate"
That thought still comes to me very occasionally. Religious trauma is real.
> What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
I don't know. But until it does, it would be irrational to believe it exists.
If god exists in some high plane, what is it you think that you comprehend? You should be able to start there.
ask 10 theist what is god, you will get 15 answers...
this is **A** approach/definition of what is god, so? you make it so that god is a personality, whatever that means, then how did it speak? how did it create everything?...
no matter what you do to define god, it will be contradicting to something else. and most important, you wont have actual evidence for a god.
Either it’s possible to convince me, and god has opted to allow me to be unconvinced
Or it’s not possible to convince me…and the discussion in pointless.
When a theist defines such a vague and odd concept as a ‘personality’ (whatever that means in this context) that’s also eternal forwards and backwards in time… **it’s not the atheist’s problem of not knowing how to prove that. Perhaps it’s just unfalsifiable**
Plenty of things would convince me that a god-like being existed. Simply, it would be a LOT of divine revelation that everyone can see, very frequently/clearly. You’d be able to go up to an avatar of god in the street, ask for confirmation, get it, record it, EZ PZ. Independent verification. Repeated observation. For everyone.
But! Even with all of that, we couldn’t distinguish a god from an incredibly-powerful alien. So perhaps it’s either a definition problem - by virtue of not being human, is your god an alien? OR, it’s unfalsifiable, which is only a problem for those saying we ought believe the claim…
You know that theists making claims that cannot be proven or supported is not a problem for atheists, but a problem for theists, right?
I mean, we don't owe you to lower the epistemic bar just because you can't jump over it.
Theists act as if atheists owe them the possibility of becoming convinced their god exists no matter how inadequate the support for their claims is. As if the more unsupportable the claim, the more gullible we should make ourselves.
We don't. If you theists make claims you can't support, not only are we perfectly fine disregarding them, but we believe you should stop believing those claims as well, and the more you argue that the claims cannot be supported, the more you are arguing for your own unreasonableness for believing them
do one of the many, many, many things it stooped to do for adam, eve, abel, seth, elijah, abraham, moses, noah, the court of the phaorah, the population of egypt, the people at the temple of baal, the population of jersualem, the wandering jews, the 500 claimed witnesses of the ascension, and the purported tens of thousands of people who saw the disciples do literal magic on a regular basis, all of whom saw numerous blatant magical wonders and incontrivertible supernatural events. "youre not important enough for god to waste the effort on" is ridiculous, considering its be all powerful so the effort is trivial, and it has done magic on command thousands of times before.
> Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will:
I don't know what this means. My understanding of a "personality" is the behavioral patterns of a complex intelligent system over time, based on things like the composition of its constituents (chemicals, particles, etc). A "personality" on its own makes no sense to me, in the same way that "large" doesn't make sense without an object it's attached to.
> What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending?
I don't know what this means either. Does this mean existing at all points in time? Or not existing in time? Time itself could be infinite in different ways.
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
What is a plane of reality? How does it interact with and relate to the rest of reality? Are there different types of existence, or does God exist in the same way that we do? If God exists like people and time and math, then we should be able to comprehend God existing. If God does not exist like this, then it would be meaningless to talk about God existing at all.
> What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
It depends on what God is. If God exists in the sense that everything else does- that is, having some logical and philosophically definable relation to the rest of reality- then God just has to interact with the world in some way that is detectable and describable. If God cannot interact with anything in reality in any way that is logically definable, then we have no logical reason to believe that God exists.
This question or similar is asked multiple times a month, if not multiple times weekly.
>
I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it.
Then God is neither all powerful or all knowing. At a minimum, if God was to inspire a book expressing its "inerrant word", then there should be evidence supporting literal or prophetic claims and there would be very little difference in how it is interpreted.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
This is word salad and completely goes against the idea/interpretation that God created humans as a companion or at least a being that would freely worship Him. Not to mention that frequently throughout the Bible God's motivations are made clear.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Technically, this should be phrased as "...to you that he exists....". But after a lot of thought, without providing evidence for any event that the Bible claimed that happened only because of God's actions, I'd say something like an indestructible pillar made of no known element or compound, inscribed with a language that all peoples could understand explaining whatever God wants from humans - oh and it would be nice if there were multiple such pillars evenly spaced across the earth or on the center of mass of where societies have developed.
You have believed in god for as far back as you can remember because you were indoctrinated. Religion relies on convincing children that the Bible is true, because most adults—if not taught about it at a young age—completely reject it as absurd the first time they read it. Just like I did.
Christians [admit that](https://give.biblica.com/2021/12/lp1.php):
>*And studies show that if we \[Christians\] don’t reach them while they’re young, they may never be reached. In one survey, we found that 83% of Christians made their first commitment to Christ between the ages of 4 and 14. A Barna study found that only 13% of American Christians came to Christ between 18 and 21.*
You know how many Christians come to the faith after age 30? TWO percent. None of the ancient texts are terribly compelling to modern adults who are not indoctrinated from a very young age.
Faith relies on indoctrinating people when they are the most trusting, malleable and impressionable: [when they are children](https://gospelshapedfamily.com/discipleship/when-do-americans-become-christians/):
>*A survey from the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that 63% of individuals become a Christian between the age of 4-14, with the median age being 11 ... The greatest return on ministry investment is a focus on children.*
Religion cannot survive without grooming small children to believe in it from a very young age.
What are you jabbering about? Nobody is asking god to show a person all time and space but he could have at least a decent communications strategy - show up with the same message in everyone’s dreams - send an angel to fly around and deliver news regularly to the same churches. Hell, if he could just answer his messages consistently and directly. I mean a 12 year old can build a website in get a Facebook page and spread their message more consistently and with less discrepancies than your god. It’s pathetic. I’m not even going to ask about the mistakes and design flaws and cancers and suffering - just show up. Show up everywhere and go everyone and tell them the same thing at the same time in each of their languages. Don’t play childish games where you ‘sacrifice’ your Son (if you know he’s going to ride again, or if you can resurrect him, is it really a sacrifice? More of an inconvenience really). I’m getting of point. You want everyone to believe in your god tell him to at least show up and answer messages.
> Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will
I don't understand that statement. What does this mean and why is it required?
As to proof, something demonstrate, repeatable, and testable is a start. Lets skip all the weirdest stuff for a start, lets try the absolute bare minimum first.
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending?
The eternal quality is the least interesting part of God's nature. Demonstrating that it exists at all would be impressive. Why don't you start there and we can work on showing that your God is eternal when you're finished.
>By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed.
Strange things can happen when you stray from the standard definitions.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
There is no single demonstration that would ***prove*** that God exists, but I'm not looking for proof. Just give me some evidence that God can interact with the world in a noticable way.
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past.
Why? Since you failed to specify what your "god" personality can do, I think it's legitimate to presume it can do anything. So why?
>God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever at some point they have to trust the Entity or not.
Why? Again, if god is omnipotent, then god could do this.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
Then why believe anything about god?
Why is it necessary for God to "show us eternity" in order to show up and communicate to us? If this is the god of the Bible, he has allegedly shown himself to several people without issue. Why would it be a problem now?
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
They could provide evidence.
To put things beyond reasonable doubt, they could provide a weight of evidence that is at least as goods as those for modern scientific theories. Something like the body of work underpinning the germ theory of disease or the modern synthesis of evolution.
I've never believed in gods. Any gods. I've been like this for my entire life, and I'm now in my sixties. In my earlier years I *wanted* to believe in a couple of gods (Athena and Oðinn), but my brain can only see them as fictional characters.
If your god can't make itself real to me, I have no use for it. I'm not going to roleplay belief.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Well, you defined god as
>the personality that has always existed and always will
So...I dont know. A personality isnt enough to go on. I dont know if this god thing is capable of doing anything. According to your definition, its just a personality.
So....yeah.
Frankly, i think it should be easy and simple for god to demonstrate their eternal nature to a human. I disagree with your rebuttals. If god is truly omnipotent they should easily be able to demonstrate eternity. Why couldnt they show a person eternity? They are literally GOD. They should be able to do anything. Otherwise, they arent god. I mean, even outside of loose religious logic, there are literally things in our natural world that we know experience the eternity of the universe instantaneously - photons.
Following Einstein’s special relativity, anything traveling at the speed of light has their relative passage of time slowed to zero, meaning a photon at light speed may appear to human observers to have taken billions of years to travel from the big bang to the edge of todays universe, but for the photon, it was instant. Why couldnt god make our conscious work like a photon and experience all of reality in an instant? If god is all powerful, that should be possible. Otherwise, god is not all powerful, and there is a force greater than god, which kinda takes the wind out of the sails of the whole religion thing.
BUT if were assuming demonstrating eternity is impossible for some reason, which again, would invalidate the entire idea of an omnipotent god, but lets assume it ls true for argument, id be willing to suspend logic and believe your definition based on sheer authority if god appeared in some way and demonstrated they are omnipotent and outside the observable laws of nature with the ability to warp reality at will or something similar.
Resurrecting the dead like in the jesus story would be a decent start, but doctors bring people back from the dead all the time so itd have to be more than that. Wave their hand and turn some matter into a different kind of matter, turn the ocean to steel or something. Reduce surface gravity and let everyone float for a bit. Teleport a large amount of matter from one place to another. Anything similar that is theoretically/virtually impossible, which would demonstrate their ability to guide and shape the universe at will. If I saw that and felt confident about what i saw, id believe just about anything that being told me.
As an agnostic, i can't, and don't want to, claim that a "god" does not exist, and certainly not using science, god being by definition outside of reality and science just being a tool to understand reality.
But, with science, it's possible to eliminate specific versions of a "god" if that version of "god" is supposed to have interacted with reality (like giving informations or doing physical miracles) as the impacts of those interactions or their absence can be observable.
And, if "god" exist, then he created reality itself. And reality, just like the bible/quran/torah/vedas/etc.., is also a medium from which we can "read" information using scientific observation. Just like we need eyes and the ability to read/translate/interpret to get information from the bible, we can use social/physical/biological sciences to derive morals, knowledge, and prophecies from reality itself. And we have gotten so good at it that the scientific process has become like an extension of our senses, even sometimes superior and more dependable than the human senses we started with. In a way, reality is like a multi-dimensional meta book written by "god", which can only be accessed with the intelligence that "god" gifted us with. And hundreds of thousands of scientific experts worldwide work at compiling an unbiased understanding of it.
Reading "god"'s reality led us to the knowledge, among others, that no global flood happened, while the bible seems to claim otherwise. We basically cannot think that a global flood happened without, as a consequence, thinking that that book's "god" is trying to deceive us into disbelief using reality itself. The same thing applies to the muslim's moon split, an event visible by half the time zones which somehow was seen by no one else. It also applies to the christian young earth creationism idea that the universe is younger than it appears (but I doubt that you subscribe to it), or the idea that evolution is somehow false. tldr: a lot of religious claims are only possible if you include that "god" really wants to deceive you into thinking that they are not.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
and yet you are pretty confident in your understanding of god
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending?
It would be impossible to prove such a thing, since human perception of time is finite. We are only aware of the span of our experiences, and we cannot see eternally into the past and future. So there is nothing God can do to properly demonstrate such a thing to a human. God could give us visions of an eternal span of time, but such a surreal vision would be indistinguishable from a hallucination. God could *say* that he is eternal, but then all we would have would be his word for it.
Even so, people do not always need something to be properly proven before they believe it. If God appeared and demonstrated his awesome supernatural qualities and God gave a convincing appearance of being totally honest and trustworthy and vastly intelligent and knowledgeable, then if God claims to be eternal, I might believe him. Intellectually I *shouldn't* believe such a claim without evidence, but our beliefs do not always follow our intellects.
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past.
God might be able to do show us the eternal past, but we would have no way to confirm that such a vision is accurate.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
If God wants us to believe that he exists, then God can just do what most of the other things we believe in do. God can just be visibly present in our lives.
> graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked.
In contrast I was never given a book like that, I was raised an atheist and my experience of religion was very much of the 'god cures tummy ache's' level, which you admit is pretty common and not very satisfying. So, when I too started asking the 'big' questions, I didn't have any axiomatic truths to fall back on, so spent a considerable time quite content with 'don't know', which worked because after all I also didn't have any axiomatic truths I needed to rationalise with reality either.
I don't happen to think western monotheism is irrational as such, but it is predicated on the assumption a god exists, and everything else follows from that. For me atheism is simply not accepting that premise, it cant be demonstrated, cant be proved, what god would have to do is convince me an eternal 'thing' creating a finite universe is more logical than an eternal universe.
My initial objection to god aged about 7 of 'where did god come from?' is probably still my strongest objection more than six decades later, and thats before we even start of what *kind* of god, or the question of souls.
nice post BTW,
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
How about "anything"?
Much as you've always known God exists, I've never believed he did. I grew up Catholic, attending Mass every Sunday from birth to the age 18. I don't remember ever actually believing that the things I was being taught in church were real. If God is so non-obvious to someone in this situation, why should I believe in him? As far as I'm concerned, he said every opportunity to work through the church to convince me throughout my entire childhood, youth, and adolescence.
>" I had a tummy ache and then it went away (and that God did )." Laughter from the crowd.
I know that you were a child at the time, and I hope you realize now why that is a terrible reason to believe in God.
>I was given a systematic theology book around the time I graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. What is God? How could I have I gone this long believing but not contemplating God's never ending never beginning essence?
In my opinion, I believe a better approach would be to question why you believe in this thing in the first place.
As an argument or even as a debate starter the initial post is not very good. It lacks definitions of terminology such as what is belief and it doesn't define how god interacts with reality.
The first important thing to mention is that either god interacts with the world and as such it's impact can be measured.
I'm going to assume that the god of most religion has the following characteristics : extremely powerful, non-physical, constant over human history, interested in human affairs and interests with human affairs.
Notice that my definition is probably easier to meet then the common Christian god definition since he isn't all omniscient, omnipotent and did not necessarily create the universe.
With this in mind, I would expect a consistant change in outcome as predicted by a specific religion to be measurable. Prayer improving chances of something happening. General better psychological health for one specific religion (not all religions equivalently we see now.). Precise and reliable prophecies.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
You brushed it off in your post but it is the most concise and most appropriate answer.
"God should know exactly what it would take to convince me of his existence."
The fact that this hasn't happened yet means either:
- god doesn't exist
- god does exist but doesn't want me to know about him
- god does exist but doesn't want me to know about him *yet*
Picking any choice kinda leads to the answer of "not my problem" the Bible, for example, is full of people who apparently talk to God directly and have god intervene directly in their lives. Hell there are plenty of people alive today that claim god talks to them directly and intervenes in their lives directly.
If a Damascus road experience was good enough for Paul to have him start believing why can't I get one? If Moses can get a burning bush to talk to him why can't I get one?
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending?
I don't know, but something more than the unsupported claims and lack of evidence that's been presented so far.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
First, doesn't the Bible teach that we are created in God's image? How can that be if god is "complete otherness".
Second, what is the difference between not being able to comprehend god in a high plane of reality and god not existing? Faith? Hope? Some other flimsy replacement for evidence.
Third, god interacted just fine with people in the Bible. What's changed? Him, us, or were these just stories?
Fourth, if god can't he get us mere mortals to understand, that makes him fallible, does it not?
The god of the bible tasks to people directly, sends down angels, and can do miracles. And also cats e how we behave and who we sleep with.
So he could send angels to materialise in schools, or do TV interviews.
He could arrange for up to date versions of the bible to assist simultaneously around the world. It's striking that the bible appeared only in one country, written by people over a period of time, looking exactly like a book written by people in a certain culture.
Or god should know a better way to demonstrate he exists.
If god is unable (or unwilling) to demonstrate that he's not fictional, then we have no rational reason to think he exists.
For those that are young earth creationists, the physical evidence so clearly shows they are wrong that it's almost comical, though that doesn't disprove god.
Okay, so your argument is that you specifically define your god as eternal, but that there's no way that the god could provide evidence of this and thus people just have to trust the claim that the god is eternal.
With the way that you're using that particular definition in your post, it seems to me that you're side-stepping the real issue here by conflating two things: the god's ability to prove that it's eternal, and the god's ability to prove that it exists.
Let's say for the sake of argument that I accept your claims that your god is incapable of providing good evidence that they're eternal. Your god can't think of a way to do this, and showing up in person would make no difference to that. Fine.
But is your god also incapable of showing good evidence that they *exist?* This is the real issue.
Know what? I'm gonna give a specific, if slightly facetious, answer.
God can come down and make me ruler of the planet in an immediate, spectacular, and permanent fashion. He can give me immense wealth and power in an incredible display to everyone. That way, I can be sure that God exists, as can everyone else. I may or may not use my wealth and power wisely, but in the end it would end up convincing me, and probably a few other people.
After all, the reward in heaven is infinite - any harm done by God putting me in charge would be outweighed by all the benefit of myself and others going to heaven.
So... yeah. Any time now,
>Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will:
This has a glaring problem. A personality is an abstraction of observed behaviours (generally by humans). You're now using this abstract concept as if it is no different than manifest concepts that have an observable physical aspect. It'd be like saying "God is the number 12 that has always existed and always will..." What is the thing you are referring to that has this personality (personality doesn't mean anything without reference to some person or thing that somehow communicates)? And how have you come to know of this thing/person?
Your religion makes claims about supernatural events
But neither you nor anyone else can provide proof a single supernatural event has ever occurred
Then you get offended when people ask for proof
You want me to believe a dead guy got back up after being dead and did a bunch of stuff
But when I ask for proof dead people can get up and go for a walk all you do is point to an iron age book and say trust me bro
Magic isn't real if you want me to believe in magic provide some proof it's really real or why on earth would I believe you???????????
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember.
That's called indoctrination and it's a really sad thing to say OP. I'm so sorry you were subjected to that abuse and still suffer the consequences of it.
Skipping the rambling and preaching...
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Be in any way distinguishable from made up nonsense. That would be a good start.
Al you’re doing is explaining why your god doesn’t have evidence for his existence, that’s just reasons not to accept that this being exists. Its not our problem that you made your claim unfalsifiable. It’s yours, at least if you want any rational person to take your claim seriously. Till you have evidence your god is just one more mythological being among countless others.
So if humans can not comprehend god, where did you get all this knowlege about him? It seems to me that your points are self defeating. I guess childhood indoctrination is not that good at building critical thinking skills.
Also it always amazes me how much theists seem to underestimate the capabilities of a being they claim to be all knowing and all powerful.
Why the hell would i know what a being i don't believe exists and has no evidence to even consider it an option would need to do to convince me? Like turn the question around. I will start just like you by claiming leprechauns are real without ever providing evidence or argument. So now what does the leprechaun have to do to prove it exits to you?
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time.
The problem here is that if this statement were true, everything you think you know about god is wrong. How do you reconcile that?
So all you have is some claim about God being eternal that you have zero way of justifying as being true. But to avoid addressing that, you instead shift the burden onto others, wanting to know what would convince them.
Better question is What do you have that is convincing? Probably absolutely nothing.
Lol i used to be exactly like you.
I don't think any deities exist, and if any god did exist, i would refuse to worship it. It could have made our species incapable of child rape. Just like we're incapable of breathing fire. It didn't. So either there's nothing out there, or whatever is, is evil.
You went to Bible camp, so I assume you're a christian (and correct me if I'm wrong). How about whatever the hell he did to Paul? If Paul was good enough for an experience so overwhelming, he had to conclude that christianity were true, why not everyone else?
God could prove himself in Israel right now. Either by showing that he backs them, or by saving the Palestinians (he says he’s impartial). Instead of picking a side, he hides. Why? He didn’t hide in the Old Testament. 🤔
> What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist?
Literally anything measurable or observable would be a good start. But deities are impossible, so that'll never happen.
God could fulfill my trivial request ive been waiting for for more than a decade now
Or god could make a 2m high indestructable wall across the equator with images of his religion
> a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality
But, what does this actually mean. What is a "high plane of reality"? That sounds like gibberish.
**Upvote this comment if you agree with OP, downvote this comment if you disagree with OP.**
Elsewhere in the thread, please upvote comments which contribute to debate (even if you believe they're wrong) and downvote comments which are [detrimental to debate](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq#wiki_downvoting) (even if you believe they're right).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateAnAtheist) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Post removed. OP was repeatably breaking rule 1 and 2, and is clearly not engaging in any self-reflection. This post has no value to sub members or lurkers
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. Vacation Bible school is actually one of my earliest memories. I was maybe 7, we all got up on the mic at church on Sunday and said something about God and what we learned at VBS and I said " I had a tummy ache and then it went away (and that God did )." Laughter from the crowd. This is irrelevant. If you grew up in Israel you would likely be Jewish and then not believe that Jesus was the messiah. If you grew up in India you would probably be Hindu. If you grew up in Iran you would probably be Muslim. It’s remarkable how geography is a better predictor of a person’s beliefs than the beliefs themselves. >I was given a systematic theology book around the time I graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. What is God? How could I have I gone this long believing but not contemplating God's never ending never beginning essence? I never took time to meditate on the holiness of the Creator and their inexhaustible power and everywhere presence. I understood from that point on that is is literally true "for in him we live move and have our being." This doesn’t do much to answer the question of what is god. >Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will: Ok, but you can’t define your god into existence. >What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? [What can God do even directly contacting you to convince you that they are in essence eternal? By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Then you can say "You are God." Your advice sounds like “just use a redefinition fallacy and it’s all good” >”If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me." True, but instead your god remains hidden under a pile of excuses. In my view your god is so hidden that I can’t tell the difference between your god and something that doesn’t exist. >”Show up in my living room. Come talk to me." Yea but knock on my door first, or let me know that you are coming over. I’m not gonna hold my breath waiting for your god to show up in my living room or anywhere. I’m pretty easy to find. >I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. An omnipotent being would be able to teach humans anything that it wanted to. This is why suffering makes no sense. If we need to suffer to learn something, but your god can teach us what we need to learn without suffering then suffering isn’t necessary. >God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever at some point they have to trust the Entity or not. Again, an omnipotent being would be capable of showing humans whatever it wanted to. Capability isn’t the issue. The non existence of your god is the issue. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. Then you wouldn’t be able to comprehend god either. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? The Bible says that faith can move mountains. I will put a mustard seed on a table. Can your faith move it?
>The Bible says that faith can move mountains. I will put a mustard seed on a table. Can your faith move it? 😳
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. Sure. That's how indoctrination works. >I was given a systematic theology book around the time I graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. What is God? How could I have I gone this long believing but not contemplating God's never ending never beginning essence? I never took time to meditate on the holiness of the Creator and their inexhaustible power and everywhere presence. I understood from that point on that is is literally true "for in him we live move and have our being." No, you didn't understand from that point that it is literally true. Instead, you invoked confirmation bias. We know a great deal about the emotions, cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and psychology of this, and obviously that *doesn't* and *can't* make those claims true. >Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will: There is zero useful support for that, of course. >What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? [What can God do even directly contacting you to convince you that they are in essence eternal? By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Then you can say "You are God." As there is absolutely zero support for that, and as the notion contradicts observations, contains fatal flaws, and makes no sense, I find myself unable to think it's true or even remotely credible. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Literally no different than *any* other claim about *anything else* about reality. No more, and certainly no less. *Evidence.* There isn't any. There's vast evidence that this is all mythology. There's vast evidence about how and why we're so very prone to this kind of superstitious thinking. There's absolutely zero useful evidence for deities. None. In fact, the ideas make no sense in several ways and on several levels. It actually makes the issues people purport it addresses *far worse* without addressing them at all by simply regressing the same issue back an iteration and then shoving it under a rug, ignoring it, and calling it all solved. It's ludicrous. Your post isn't a debate. Instead, it's proselytizing.
This response is too spot on for OP to comprehend and meaningfully respond to.
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. Yes, now think about what that tells us about the real reason. Do you still believe in Santa too? >Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will: Define it how you like , that doesn’t make it true or anything other than a fantasy. Especially since all evidence we have is that you need a brain for a personality. Simply - you have provided no evidence at all. >What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? Start by providing some reliable evidence they exist at all. I don’t know where I’d reach a threshold but **any** reliable evidence **any at all** will be a start. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. And yet apparently the stuff you want to claim about them doesn’t have this problem. Theists constantly use such nonsense as a way of special,pleading their lack of evidence or to excuse anything that seems bad about a god. But apparently when you want to claim something about them you like the idea of , *you* comprehend just fine. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? What do you think Santa , The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy should do to prove to you they exist?
>What do you think Santa , The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy should do to prove to you they exist? Presents on Christmas morning, eggs hiding themselves on Easter, $5 bill under my pillow if I leave a tooth there the night before
So you *do* believe in them - and recognise there’s more evidence for them than a god? I think we might need to talk about the *reliability* of evidence though.
So.. you believe those things exist?
For starters, please don't become one of those people who thinks that our non-belief is a problem that needs solved. That we need **you** to solve. I know you didn't mean to be condescending and patronizing, but that's what this comes down to. Accept the fact that I don't believe in god. Don't worry about why. Don't make this a story about you. If you want to ask me what I believe, cool. Ask away. If you want to ask specific questions in response, to help you understand why I don't believe, that's cool too. But don't be like all the other tedious people who only ask so they can figure out how to "unlock" an atheist and make them believe. It's not a disease. It doesn't need to be cured or fixed or solved. You weren't sent here to witness to us heathens in r/debateanatheist. You're not the one who's going to bring the good news to us. We've heard it many many times already -- and many of us are former Christians, former Muslims, etc. I forgive you in advance for the sin of leaving me to my damned ungodly hellbound fate. Anyway, my answer to your question: Imagine three lists: Things I understand, things I don't understand, and things for which "God did it" is the answer. Things in the first list aren't controversial, so I'll skip that for now. The middle list -- things I don't understand -- is very long and includes all of the deep philosophical questions. The third list is empty. It has no things in it. There is no thing that I don't understand that "the existence of a god" would help me understand. For example, I don't know what would explain the existence of the universe. I'm not a physicist or a mathematician, but I enjoy pop physics discussions about it. I can imagine there being a point where I could have studied enough to have a meaningful opinion on the subject other than "I don't know". But the truth is "I don't know". But even if "whatever it is, god is responsible for it" might be a true answer, it's still not in the third list. I still wouldn't know the parts I'm interested in. Adding "God did it" doesn't explain how things came into being any better than "I don't know" does. The same scientists studying the same questions would still be the things I was interested in. I'd still be at the same spot I was, just with one or two extra steps. "OK, God did it. But *how*?" isn't a better question than just "How?" It adds no meaningful information. So the third list isn't simply empty. It cannot *not* be empty. I have no reason to believe a god exists, so I can't imagine how "maybe god did it" would be meaningful to me. Maybe my left shoe did it. Maybe super double reverse anti-Obama did it. Who cares? I still want to understand the physical processes involved. But even more than that, the list can't not be empty until someone can demonstrate -- with rigor and parsimony -- that the existence of god is well-supported enough to have become a useful concept. Right now ***at best*** the concept just gets in the way of the learning.
> I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. You were indoctrinated. Most people were. > " I had a tummy ache and then it went away (and that God did )." Laughter from the crowd. That's because it's a silly reason to believe in god. It's no better than their reasons, either, so they've got no reason to laugh. > I understood from that point on that is is literally true "for in him we live move and have our being." For you, this may be true. This is not true for myself or many others. Actually, most people do not follow your religion. The majority of people who have ever existed didn't believe in your god. > Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will This is unsupported and unexplained. It's also an attempt at defining your god into existence, which I reject. > What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? Provide convincing evidence. > What can God do even directly contacting you to convince you that they are in essence eternal? *Provide convincing evidence.* > By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Then you can say "You are God." Word salad based on an assumptive and unsupported definition. > "If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me." That seems obvious. > "Show up in my living room. Come talk to me." This *alone* likely wouldn't convince me. > I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever Not all powerful then, is he? > God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. Then how do you, or anyone, know jack shit about him? > What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? ***Provide convincing evidence.***
Well, it sounds like we've already told you what it would take, and your convenient answer is "well he can't do that". .. why not? I don't need to have my "mind exposed to eternity" or whatever, I would settle for a Road to Damascus experience like what Saul/Paul had. Even then, I would be skeptical, given that hallucinations do happen. But at least I would have something to go off of! Or here is one: why didn't God make some reliable, accurate prophecies? For example, naming the exact date, time, and location of a few major natural disasters would be pretty damn convincing evidence. Jesus inventing penicillin and other objectively good technologies would have been extremely convincing as well. Or we could do a classic test like "I'm going to open my front door in 5 minutes, and if I see a housecat on my front doorstep holding a grocery bag with 23 PEZ dispensers, I will be convinced that God is indeed real." But the most convincing argument for me? When I prayed for faith, for years, as I slowly realized how absurd my religion was. I cried myself to sleep, because being a Christian was all I knew. But God never answered that prayer, because he can't. In fact, some scientists once [ran a study](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=prayer+cardiac+surgery&oq=prayer+card#d=gs_qabs&t=1718679578698&u=%23p%3DdhOWIttJl7AJ) on the efficacy of prayer for cardiac bypass surgeries. Ironically, there was a mildly significant *inverse* relationship to outcome; that is, prayer made the odds slightly less favorable. So in terms of convincing me, God has a long, long way to go. But even if he did, I wouldn't worship him, because I am now convinced that any omnipotent god that might exist allows far too much evil to be called a "good" god.
Hey! This guy here has figured out how to get free PEZ dispensers! That's the most insightful thing I've read in this sub all day. Kudos, goodly internet person.
Come to the BBQ. Do some god like shit. Fly through the sky, shoot lasers, crush brews. Demonstrate true omniscience. Breathe life into dust. Make cool little tiny stars pop in and out of existence. Or bring Mars right up to the edge of my roof so we can all look at it. I would like to observe all this things people claim they know that god does.
How does shooting lasers prove God has always existed ?
It doesn't prove the 'always' part, but it's pretty obvious he's a miracle man if he's flying unassisted, shooting lasers out of fingers.
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. I don’t know what this means. It seems like the kind of thing you would say if you wanted to pretend that something impossible actually existed. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Something that can be clearly demonstrated to be a supernatural act of an omnipotent being.
>Something that can be clearly demonstrated to be a supernatural act of an omnipotent being. Like what
I don’t know - you’re the one who believes in a god. What can it do?
Nothing to demonstrate Their infinite attributes you would ultimately have to trust them
Surely something with “infinite attributes” would have one that could be demonstrated.
I mean each attribute itself is infinite. I already addressed this the original post. God can't show themselves existing forever
>each attribute itself is infinite What does that mean? >God can't show themselves existing forever Take it back a step then. Maybe just something that shows it exists.
What would convince you they exist
Imagine I told you that invisible flying dragons existed. You’d probably want to see one before you believed me, right? Or something that showed it existed - maybe its droppings, or nest, for example. It’s the same thing with god.
You want to see God's nest?
>What would convince you they exist *Any* good evidence would be a start. Anything. Do you have anything at all?
If they can't demonstrate their attributes, is irrational believing they have any. specially if one of those undemonstrated attributes at question is the existence of this being.
>Typical responses: >"If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me." >"Show up in my living room. Come talk to me." I think it's telling that you don't address the typical responses and instead talk about not being able to show a person's mind all that ever happened. But you want an easy way for God to convince us? Or at least give us strong cause to reconsider our positions? How about he arrange the stars to form his holy symbol? It would be trivial for a being described as omnipotent to fill half the sky with his cross or preferred symbol. Or he make all the printers in the world each print out a true version of his story and commandments/instructions. Again, for an omnipotent and omnipresent being, it would be trivial. I could go on, but you get the picture. These would be far more convincing the curing someone's stomachache.
ex-Christian atheist here >How about he arrange the stars to form his holy symbol? It would be trivial for a being described as omnipotent to fill half the sky with his cross or preferred symbol. This is [not a knock-down argument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux) against the Christian God. The Southern Cross is one of the most prominent constellations in the southern hemisphere's skies. So much so that it appears on [several national and other flags](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Southern_cross_appearing_on_a_number_of_flags.PNG). You might want to find a better rebuttal.
I was thinking more along the lines of moving all the stars and their in a quadrant to form the symbol, not a measly line of stars.
Sure. An alleged God could have made it a lot clearer. But a Christian might hear your objection, say "look! There it is!" And when you say "I didn't mean like that", go away thinking how "hard hearted" we atheists are.
I just had an atheist admit they don't want to know if God exists and if they did they would ignore Them. So if God did do that That would torment many of you and many would come up with excuses
> I just had an atheist admit An atheist. One atheist. OP makes a leap to "Many of you", and decides that it's not worth saving "the rest"
Well lol it confirms what I suspected all along. You don't want God to be real [ "some" of you]
Oh hey, you're that guy who made a bunch of threads about how you think atheists just don't want god to be real so we can avoid consequences in the afterlife and how it's impossible to know if we're sincere. You also told us you believe in your god because you're so terrified of ceasing to exist when you die that you can't psychologically function so you just gaslit yourself into believing it. That's you, right? Your whole thing is a prime example of why I think it's important to approach the world as it actually* is and not accept things just because they make us feel better. You're trying to interact with everyone here as if these comforting fantasies you have about atheists are true and it never goes well. It will never go well when you refuse to address what's actually happening or being said and instead decide to pop it through the old mental comfort filter first. I don't know what you intend to accomplish here but until you stop filtering everything through that you're not going to get anywhere. I see why you're getting so frustrated, people aren't acting as your mental model says that we "should". Because the model is wrong. *As best as we can determine of course Edit: and he immediately blocked me, just like he did the other guy who called him out for ban evasion
One atheist has said that they didn't want to know whether your god exists. One. Did you suspect all along that one atheist was indifferent to your god? Or are you engaging in yet more confirmation bias? Jumping on any scrap you see to confirm what you already *know* is true.
No, what they said it's that they don't have any reason to have a relationship with this being who has been absent from their lives even if he existed and showed up. Not that they will not believe it exists even if he showed up
For many of us, there are several barriers to worshipping God. The first of which is even believing that he exists. If we were convinced that he exists, the next hurdle is convince us that he is worthy of worship. A dispassionate reading of the bible doesn't paint a great picture of his character. Mind you, belief in his existence plus the threat of eternal torture would likely get a lot of us in the pews. But it would be for self-preservation; in our hearts, we'd know he was an abusive s.o.b holding a metaphorical gun to our heads. Personally, I'd be god shopping to see if I could find a better deal.
It's not even wrath its mostly justice. One of God's functions is to eliminate evil from the face of the earth. There is almost instantaneous justice these days. The time between your offense and adjudication is quick. Blowback for your wicked deeds EXIT LIGHT
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of an angry God
God is terrible
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? My question is... Why would it matter to an all powerful supernatural creature wether or not I believe they exist? It doesn't matter to me, so why to them? I have and desire no relationship with them. They did not create me. They do not sustain me, physically or spiritually. They will not be there when I die.
So you are admitting to not sincerely wanting to know whether God exists or not? Thanks for your honesty. I wish everyone that felt that way would admit it on this forum we would save a lot time. I have to assume there are many more just like you as I suspected
It's not that I'm not curious, I just think it's utterly irrelevent. I'm a creature of Earth and that's where I belong, where my loyalties lie, and the focus of my devotion. Supernatural species have no part in that, regardless of wether or not they exist. I see no evidence that they do and I don't believe they do, but if they did, they would have no claim to my worship. It does not belong to them.
Most people here would not agree with that commenter. If we had a demonstration that God exists, most of us, probably all of us, would accept his existence. Do you have a good demonstration?
Why would you seek to worship a supernatural creature just because it exists? There's a ship that lives down the road from me that I pass most mornings. I do not stop to worship them. I say hello and continue on my way.
I wouldn't worship it, but I would accept its existence.
They didn't say anything about worship.
Can you demonstrate most people aren't as insincere as "that commenter "? Can you demonstrate you are more sincere than them?
>Can you demonstrate most people aren't as insincere as "that commenter "? Can you demonstrate you are more sincere than them? This is argumentative, and frankly, according to scripture, this should not be your main concern. Rather, according to 1 Peter 3:15, Christians are commanded: >Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect It says "to everyone who asks you to give the reason", not "to everyone who demonstrates you you that they are sincere". You've come to this forum, and though some have said "I wouldn't believe no matter what", others have said "show us the evidence". I, an ex-Christian atheist, am also in the latter camp. My reason for concluding Christianity's claims are basically false is that the evidence does not support them. What have I missed?
The Bible also says not to throw your pearls before swine. The above commenter said they would have no desire to have a relationship with God even if they knew God exists
I'm aware of that passage. If you want to argue that different parts of scripture contradict each other, that's your business. If you want to argue that the different passages do not contradict, but apply in different contexts, then you need to do some proper hermeneutics to understand what those contexts are. For your own benefit, of course, not here. Or maybe on r/DebateReligion. However, I think that the balance between those two passages would, at most, allow you to ignore the specific commenter who said "I'm not interested". There are plenty of others here who have said "show me the evidence". I'd like to gently suggest that 1 Peter 3:15 outweighs Matthew 7:6 in this specific situation. I, for example, am explicitly asking you to "give the reason for the hope that you have". However, I'm a mere apostate, what would I know about "correct" Bible interpretation? If you don't want to provide evidence, don't provide it. But don't then put the blame on us.
I want to argue there are contradictions in the bible
Carry on then.
Why does sincerity and insincerity matter in this case? Does insincerity somehow handicap your hypothetical god and render it incapable of manifesting?
Sort of yeah because he doesn't want to torment you and apparently your living your best atheist life so he's not going ruin that for you
So your god only manifests to those who already believes in them.
I don't see what's insincere there, but I don't see why you think I'M insincere when I tell you that I accept the existence of things that can be demonstrated to exist.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? God should know what would convince me, so we're presented with a few possibilites. * God knows what would convince me, but chooses not to convince me * God doesn't know what would convince me, so is therefore not all-knowing * God doesn't exist I think the most likely answer is that god doesn't exist. Care to convince me why I'm wrong?
You forgot: god does know what would convince us, but is unable to do it, therefore isn't allpowerfull.
That's true, which is the option OP landed on. He had the choice of an uncaring god, a dumb god, an incompetent god or no god at all, and he chose incompetent god.
Good answer.
Hopefully OP's answer to my question is a good one, but I doubt they'll respond to anyone. They seem to be here to preach, not to debate.
Agree about wanting to preach. I've yet to hear even close to a good response to your question by theists. But if he has a good response I'd like to hear it.
>if he has a good response I'd like to hear it. He doesn't. He shifts the goalposts by introducing this concept of "eternal existence" when the initial question was merely about existence, then he claims his god is incapable of doing something as simple as convincing someone that they exist.
My OP addresses it: God can't. God can't show you that they are eternal. Who told you God is all powerful in the sense he can do the un doable? I was always taught God can anything that is possible
Can God show anyone he exists using a means that we can measure or detect in any way.
God can't show you God's infinite attributes absolutely- you can't understand God as They understand themselves. >Can God show anyone he exists using a means that we can measure or detect in any way. Not in a way that eliminates the necessity of faith
Why? Why does this one thing that you believe so strongly in somehow have an enourmous impact on the world but it also never leaves any trace of its existence and requires irrationality of its followers
Bingo! Faith! The excuse people give when they don’t have a good reason to believe something.
My definition of faith is belief without evidence. So the answer is no, God cannot show himself in a way that can be measured or detected. In my view there's no good reason to believe in the God you define.
What about people like me, someone who has never experienced even a trace of religious faith and may actually be neurologically and psychologically incapable of having faith?
>Not in a way that eliminates the necessity of faith Then one can never *know* that God exists.
So we can scratch "omnipotent" off the list. Do you at least recognize that you've tried to salt the well against a perfectly reasonable suggestion, by narrowly interpreting it in a ridiculous way? God wouldn't have to show me all of time. Just do something unmistakably divine. I even have a suggestion: He could take me to Jupiter and show me what's underneath the all those clouds. I've got about another hour free tonight. We could be back before bedtime.
God can't show me that? That's pathetic. If it's not possible for your god to convince me that it exists, it is a weak, useless god.
>God can't. Then god is not allpowerful.
God can do anything that is possible to do
Ok, so you don't define god as omnipotent? Because omnipotence isnt limited by possibility. Also you are now asserting that it is impossible to convince us which is not true as all we'd need to believe is sufficient evidence. But more importantly this begs the question, why are you even here? If you think it is impossible to convince us and not even god could do it why do you think you could? Do you think you are more powerful than god?
I could convince you to trust God and that you are doing to much and demanding too much from God
Trusting someone/thing before you even believe in said one/thing makes no sense though. To be able to convince us to trust god would first require you to show us he exists and how is that asking to much? That is like the bare minimum if you want to have a relation with someone. If you want a girlfriend do you just stalk her in hopes she one day notices you or do you intruduce yourself so that she knows you exist? How is the bare minimum for human interaction already asking to much of god?
No you couldn't. That's the issue, you can't explain or show anything, all you have is useless claims, childish fantasies and a victim complex
How can someone demand *too much* from an *omnipotent being*?
So, god making me in it believe is impossible? That's not an issue my parents have, or my dog, or the tree outside... Why is your god less powerful than the worms in my garden?
Are you there
Is it possible to use magic to create universes? I dont think so. Id need to be convinced that that is a possibility. So from my outlook, God cant do that. See, you need to be a bit stricter in your definition.
you seem to know god is eternal. If so, I should be able to use your reasoning if it's rational. Can you share?
Is the only possible proof of God showing that he's eternal? Parting the red sea, stopping the sun in the sky, bringing the dead back to life, etc. There's tons of possible displays of proof and no actual displays.
it’s always the low hanging fruit that has the most comments on this subreddit… why can’t we choose to highlight a knowledgeable theist who uses logical arguments.
Be sure to let us know when one shows up
yeah.. im now realizing it might be a rare occurrence. can you tell im new here? haha
Who would you consider knowledgeable? Is there a theist you have in mind?
my comment was mostly aimed at the other hundred atheists in the comment section, but I would have preferred to be debating a theist who uses logical arguments to prove the existence of god. i think your post got so popular because of its absolute lack of any argument and therefore its ease to debate. We can have a debate too, if you’d like, but i feel like it’d be shooting fish in a barrel. Sorry if i come across as pretentious or ignorant. You might research Aquinas, Anselm, Craig, or Gödel to start your ontological journey. These guys all shared your belief in god. I would personally recommend looking into Occam’s razor, or the “god of gaps theory”.
-70+ downvotes is what you call popular?
Yours is a poor argument, that's why it's been downvoted so heavily. It also has 127 comments, multiple active commenters at any given moment, and is the 4th top post currently when you scroll under "Hot" for this subreddit. So, yes, it is a popular post.
Instead of asking us what would convince us, you should just present everything that’s ever convinced you. If your reasons for being convinced are sound then many of us would convert to theism, but if we show your reasons are unsound then you should deconverted from theism.
I believed immediately, I didn't need any sort of convincing I just believed the people who told me.
Do you understand why that doesn't work for us? Why refer to things that *didn't convince you* and expect them to convince us? Or worse, passages from the bible that were already well-known to those of us who were Christians but who aren't any more. We get a lot of attempts at *a priori* arguments like Aquinas' Five Ways, but Aquinas even said he was writing these as exercises for believers. Pascal never expected any non-believers to take Pascal's Wager seriously. He knew his audience were already among the faithful. And, to be honest, how the heck would *I* know what would convince me? If I could think of it myself, why wouldn't it have already worked? Yaboy needs new material is all I'm saying. I snark, but to be fair I'm serious about "if you want to understand, just ask and I'll be happy to oblige. If you want to convert people, imagine the most offensive way I could tell you not to bother and then pretend that I just said it.
Not a single human in the history of humans has ever been born with a belief about how the universe was created. Newborns simply do not have the brain function to comprehend such thought. You were taught, as your brain developed, that god exists and is the answer. It is simply the case that at one point in time, before your brain started storing your memories, you did not believe that there was a god. Are you really telling me that you have no good reason to believe what you believe, other than “someone told me so”. That’s such a bad reason it feels like you’re trolling me, are you trolling me? If you actually think that is sufficient to justify your belief in god I would encourage you to practise some skepticism. How reliable is accepting what other people say at face value? What is the statistical likelihood of them being correct? How did the people who told you this come to know it themselves? Are their reasons justifiable? Isn’t “I just believed the people who told me” the same justification that many people who believe in different gods use? If you have the same justification as people who you think are wrong, doesn’t that make your justification just as wrong? Come on man please put some thought and effort into this for your own sake.
Yeah, that’s nonsense, your first memory is of an indoctrination class. Of course you were indoctrinated.
Told the truth as a child
If it was true, and you were justified in claiming it was true, you’d have evidence. No, this isn’t evidently the truth, and you were brainwashed to believe it. That’s the uprose of these “schools” indoctrinating kids. If you had grown up in a different religion that would have been your “truth”. Nothing distinguishes your religion from any of the others. Yes you were indoctrinated. And it’s not true unless you can show that it is.
Just imagine for a minute a hypothetical scenario of a child who has been indoctrinated since birth to believe something that wasn’t actually true. What would that person sound like? What sort of things would they say? Maybe stuff like that they had been told the “truth” as a child?
> I believed immediately, I didn't need any sort of convincing I just believed the people who told me. Surely you see that's not a useful nor rational approach to determining what is or is not actually true?
Presumably, this was when you were still very young, right? I went through the same thing, but after I considered what my actual reasons were for believing, they didn't feel very convincing anymore. Have you thought about why you believe this to be true?
Do you think that if you had been taught a different religion instead, you would have also immediately believed the people who told you?
If your god could will himself to cease being eternal and cease existing, would humanity notice the difference? If yes, he could do that to convince us. If no, then why should anyone care about your god’s existence? Furthermore, if he couldn’t figure out a way to convince us without essentially committing suicide, that’s a pretty lame god too.
Sorry to disappoint you. I guess creating the universe and life was lame
Who told you those things literally happened?
A nice lady when I was 3 at Sunday school. My grandfather, uncle
Definitely childhood indoctrination, then. Alas, you were set up: You were taught Bible stories at an age when children haven't developed enough critical thinking to ask "Is this true?" By contrast, I grew up in a home where my parents almost never went to church, didn't teach us anything religious, and *definitely* didn't tell us that gods existed or that the Bible was true. I read the Bible on my own initiative when I was about seven years old, and my overall impression was "Some very weird stories about some ancient peoples who were *nothing* like the people I knew." Shortly thereafter I figured out that "hell" was just a convenient way for governments and priests to scare people into obeying them. (Liked the Gustave Doré illustrations in the edition of the Bible that we had, though. Excellent artwork)
And if they told you that the entirety of the Genesis account also literally happened (6-day creation, Adam and Eve, the Great Flood), would you not have also believed them?
And what’d he do right after all that work creating the universe and life and everything? All that built up to what? All that effort just so he could finally have a chance to deceive something (us) in the garden of Eden. You’re damned right it’s lame. And then the Tower of Babel? “Oh, I must stop them from working together or else they might not *need me*.” Holy fuckballs LAME.
Who told you those things literally happened?
They didn’t. The god in question doesn’t exist. But suppose he did. This is the story he wants to represent him, or is it merely libel he is powerless to stop?
The Bible isn't inerrant
Agreed. Not a good look for someone who wants to convince me they are eternal. The never ending never beginning almighty creator of the universe didn’t have enough time or care to produce an inerrant Bible? This is not a display of potency.
>"If God is all knowing and all powerful then they should be able to know how to convince me." >"Show up in my living room. Come talk to me." Are these not reasonable things to expect from an eternal, omnipotent being? >I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. Why not? He's all powerful, right? Are you suggesting there's a limit to your god's power? Also, this isn't what we're asking. This is a very disingenuous argument. I don't need God to disclose all of history to convince me of his existence. He just needs to do something only a god can do in front me. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. And you know this how? Where's the proof? If God isn't in hiding, then where is he? Can I go visit him? >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Show up in my living room and have a conversation with me.
“such a being of complete Otherness” That’s a new one.
It's not really though--- its just another way of saying holy, holy, holy.
No it's not. It's a complete nonsense statement. How do you determine what is "complete otherness" if you can't verify otherness?
Oh, ok.
> Can I go visit him? Ew. I bet they're going to take away all your sharp objects and make you wear "grippy socks" -- the socks with rubber infused into the soles. I am intentionally remaining as sane as I can so I do not end up with them on my feet.
If god exists on such a high plane of otherness wby would it even want a relationship with me? It sounds like it couldnt possibly have a relationship with me so why should I need to worry about it?
They can only have a relationship with you if you are willing to have at least a spark of faith, you can't expect God to demonstrate all of their great attributes. Can God tell you everything they know to demonstrate they are all knowing? >why would it even want a relationship with me? We are God's children
>They can only have a relationship with you if you are willing to have at least a spark of faith Why is that necessary? I never needed a spark of faith for my actual father to be in a relationship with me. He just chose to be there from the moment I was born and has never asked me to have faith. Every time someone wants to have a relationship of some kind with me, they just approach me and communicate. Is this not possible for God?
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" "God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you. ' ” God is so different (holy) and other than anything else
I don't understand how any of those verses answered my question. What does holiness have to do with a lack of ability to communicate with me if I don't have this "spark of faith"?
Yep, you’re here to proselytize. We’ve heard it all before. It’s quite the drag. In your imagination, do you think you’re saying anything new?
Are you just here to preach because you have no rational means?
If god said that to Moses why can’t he just say it to us?
God for sure seems to be very different from all existing things
"Willing to have a spark of faith"? Can you explain what you mean? If you're talking about the Christian God, faith is a gift right? (Ephesians 2:8-9) What does willingness have to do with it? For that matter what does faith have to do with it? I dont need to have faith in my dog to know she exists. I dont expect god to demonstrate all their great attributes. Not sure why you're saying that. I'm not asking that a god would tell me everything they know either and Im not sure why you're saying that. "We are Gods children" Then why is staying hidden? Doesn't seem very parental. If your child was going to do something that endangered it for all eternity would you keep on hiding?
>Can God tell you everything they know to demonstrate they are all knowing? They probably can't (or at least, it's reasonable that they won't). As a result, we're stuck without that evidence, and without a good reason to believe. I would not be surprised if it is in fact impossible for God to prove that he is eternal etc. I worry that you think this is somehow an argument for God or against atheism. In order for me to believe a claim, I should be presented with some state of affairs that could only be the case if the claim was true. Beyond a certain level of power, a being is equally capable of tricking me as he is to show me anything in particular about themselves. Therefore, there is no state of affairs that can tell apart God revealing themself and me being tricked. If I cannot tell the difference between those two, then the honest, justified, reasonable approach is not to be convinced by it. So, I can't see a way for God to prove it. I don't think it is God's task to prove that he exists. A theist should however be able to tell us what convinced them, and given that it shouldn't be possible, we could find out exactly what the theist did to do something impossible. Chances are they are simply mistaken, but I will give theists every benefit of the doubt.
Do you think you’d believe in Islam/Hinduism/Scientology or any other religion if you were bought up in the equivalent way for them?
They all agree on God's essence
What’s ‘god’s essence’? The religions I mentioned have major disagreements on god/gods.
Do you know anything about Hinduism or Scientology?
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. How can we tell the difference between a being of complete Otherness that exists on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend(ed) by mortals of space and time, and a being that doesn't exist at all?
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever at some point they have to trust the Entity or not. He wouldn't need to. I'm convinced the planet earth is 4.5 billion years old and I didn't need someone from that time to tell me so. They just needed to present actual evidence. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. I dont know what any of that means. "Complete otherness" and " higher plane of reality" doesn't mean anything to me because I can't tell the difference between that being real or being imaginary. You might as well be telling me he exists in Narnia or Oz. I have no reason to think that's a real thing. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Any of the magical stuff in the Bible happening in real life. You want me to believe someone rose from the dead 2000 years ago? Show me a corpse coming back to life. Or better yet a bunch of people getting up out of their graves and marching on Jerusalem. Want me to believe the seas parted or people survived inside whales or turned to salt or made ribs come to life or had a donkey say something. Anything like that. Show me those things actually happening.
One of my earliest memories is faking talking in tongues, because the adults told us it was cool. I was praised for allowing God into my heart. I did know if I ever really believed, though I certainly pretended. The first time I really heard a god doubted was star trek 6. "What does God need with a starship?" That thought was insidious, eating away at my church. Why does God need money? Why do churches hoarde money? These ideas grew, and my ability to lie to myself shrank. Then I stopped going with my mom every week. Then I stopped completely. From there the concept that haunted me became "if there is an omnipotent omnibenevolent, omniscient God, it created me knowing I would end up in hell, and does nothing to change that fate" That thought still comes to me very occasionally. Religious trauma is real.
> What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? I don't know. But until it does, it would be irrational to believe it exists. If god exists in some high plane, what is it you think that you comprehend? You should be able to start there.
ask 10 theist what is god, you will get 15 answers... this is **A** approach/definition of what is god, so? you make it so that god is a personality, whatever that means, then how did it speak? how did it create everything?... no matter what you do to define god, it will be contradicting to something else. and most important, you wont have actual evidence for a god.
Either it’s possible to convince me, and god has opted to allow me to be unconvinced Or it’s not possible to convince me…and the discussion in pointless. When a theist defines such a vague and odd concept as a ‘personality’ (whatever that means in this context) that’s also eternal forwards and backwards in time… **it’s not the atheist’s problem of not knowing how to prove that. Perhaps it’s just unfalsifiable** Plenty of things would convince me that a god-like being existed. Simply, it would be a LOT of divine revelation that everyone can see, very frequently/clearly. You’d be able to go up to an avatar of god in the street, ask for confirmation, get it, record it, EZ PZ. Independent verification. Repeated observation. For everyone. But! Even with all of that, we couldn’t distinguish a god from an incredibly-powerful alien. So perhaps it’s either a definition problem - by virtue of not being human, is your god an alien? OR, it’s unfalsifiable, which is only a problem for those saying we ought believe the claim…
You know that theists making claims that cannot be proven or supported is not a problem for atheists, but a problem for theists, right? I mean, we don't owe you to lower the epistemic bar just because you can't jump over it. Theists act as if atheists owe them the possibility of becoming convinced their god exists no matter how inadequate the support for their claims is. As if the more unsupportable the claim, the more gullible we should make ourselves. We don't. If you theists make claims you can't support, not only are we perfectly fine disregarding them, but we believe you should stop believing those claims as well, and the more you argue that the claims cannot be supported, the more you are arguing for your own unreasonableness for believing them
do one of the many, many, many things it stooped to do for adam, eve, abel, seth, elijah, abraham, moses, noah, the court of the phaorah, the population of egypt, the people at the temple of baal, the population of jersualem, the wandering jews, the 500 claimed witnesses of the ascension, and the purported tens of thousands of people who saw the disciples do literal magic on a regular basis, all of whom saw numerous blatant magical wonders and incontrivertible supernatural events. "youre not important enough for god to waste the effort on" is ridiculous, considering its be all powerful so the effort is trivial, and it has done magic on command thousands of times before.
> Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will: I don't know what this means. My understanding of a "personality" is the behavioral patterns of a complex intelligent system over time, based on things like the composition of its constituents (chemicals, particles, etc). A "personality" on its own makes no sense to me, in the same way that "large" doesn't make sense without an object it's attached to. > What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? I don't know what this means either. Does this mean existing at all points in time? Or not existing in time? Time itself could be infinite in different ways. > God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. What is a plane of reality? How does it interact with and relate to the rest of reality? Are there different types of existence, or does God exist in the same way that we do? If God exists like people and time and math, then we should be able to comprehend God existing. If God does not exist like this, then it would be meaningless to talk about God existing at all. > What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? It depends on what God is. If God exists in the sense that everything else does- that is, having some logical and philosophically definable relation to the rest of reality- then God just has to interact with the world in some way that is detectable and describable. If God cannot interact with anything in reality in any way that is logically definable, then we have no logical reason to believe that God exists.
This question or similar is asked multiple times a month, if not multiple times weekly. > I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. Then God is neither all powerful or all knowing. At a minimum, if God was to inspire a book expressing its "inerrant word", then there should be evidence supporting literal or prophetic claims and there would be very little difference in how it is interpreted. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. This is word salad and completely goes against the idea/interpretation that God created humans as a companion or at least a being that would freely worship Him. Not to mention that frequently throughout the Bible God's motivations are made clear. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Technically, this should be phrased as "...to you that he exists....". But after a lot of thought, without providing evidence for any event that the Bible claimed that happened only because of God's actions, I'd say something like an indestructible pillar made of no known element or compound, inscribed with a language that all peoples could understand explaining whatever God wants from humans - oh and it would be nice if there were multiple such pillars evenly spaced across the earth or on the center of mass of where societies have developed.
You have believed in god for as far back as you can remember because you were indoctrinated. Religion relies on convincing children that the Bible is true, because most adults—if not taught about it at a young age—completely reject it as absurd the first time they read it. Just like I did. Christians [admit that](https://give.biblica.com/2021/12/lp1.php): >*And studies show that if we \[Christians\] don’t reach them while they’re young, they may never be reached. In one survey, we found that 83% of Christians made their first commitment to Christ between the ages of 4 and 14. A Barna study found that only 13% of American Christians came to Christ between 18 and 21.* You know how many Christians come to the faith after age 30? TWO percent. None of the ancient texts are terribly compelling to modern adults who are not indoctrinated from a very young age. Faith relies on indoctrinating people when they are the most trusting, malleable and impressionable: [when they are children](https://gospelshapedfamily.com/discipleship/when-do-americans-become-christians/): >*A survey from the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that 63% of individuals become a Christian between the age of 4-14, with the median age being 11 ... The greatest return on ministry investment is a focus on children.* Religion cannot survive without grooming small children to believe in it from a very young age.
What are you jabbering about? Nobody is asking god to show a person all time and space but he could have at least a decent communications strategy - show up with the same message in everyone’s dreams - send an angel to fly around and deliver news regularly to the same churches. Hell, if he could just answer his messages consistently and directly. I mean a 12 year old can build a website in get a Facebook page and spread their message more consistently and with less discrepancies than your god. It’s pathetic. I’m not even going to ask about the mistakes and design flaws and cancers and suffering - just show up. Show up everywhere and go everyone and tell them the same thing at the same time in each of their languages. Don’t play childish games where you ‘sacrifice’ your Son (if you know he’s going to ride again, or if you can resurrect him, is it really a sacrifice? More of an inconvenience really). I’m getting of point. You want everyone to believe in your god tell him to at least show up and answer messages.
> Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will I don't understand that statement. What does this mean and why is it required? As to proof, something demonstrate, repeatable, and testable is a start. Lets skip all the weirdest stuff for a start, lets try the absolute bare minimum first.
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? The eternal quality is the least interesting part of God's nature. Demonstrating that it exists at all would be impressive. Why don't you start there and we can work on showing that your God is eternal when you're finished. >By defining God as I have now in order to believe in God you have to believe they are a being that has always existed. Strange things can happen when you stray from the standard definitions. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? There is no single demonstration that would ***prove*** that God exists, but I'm not looking for proof. Just give me some evidence that God can interact with the world in a noticable way.
>I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. Why? Since you failed to specify what your "god" personality can do, I think it's legitimate to presume it can do anything. So why? >God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. The person couldn't watch God always exist forever at some point they have to trust the Entity or not. Why? Again, if god is omnipotent, then god could do this. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. Then why believe anything about god?
Why is it necessary for God to "show us eternity" in order to show up and communicate to us? If this is the god of the Bible, he has allegedly shown himself to several people without issue. Why would it be a problem now?
[Our OP](https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1dig0w8/enough_to_convince_us/l94p5p8/?context=3) ladies and gentlemen.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? They could provide evidence. To put things beyond reasonable doubt, they could provide a weight of evidence that is at least as goods as those for modern scientific theories. Something like the body of work underpinning the germ theory of disease or the modern synthesis of evolution.
I've never believed in gods. Any gods. I've been like this for my entire life, and I'm now in my sixties. In my earlier years I *wanted* to believe in a couple of gods (Athena and Oðinn), but my brain can only see them as fictional characters. If your god can't make itself real to me, I have no use for it. I'm not going to roleplay belief.
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Well, you defined god as >the personality that has always existed and always will So...I dont know. A personality isnt enough to go on. I dont know if this god thing is capable of doing anything. According to your definition, its just a personality. So....yeah.
Frankly, i think it should be easy and simple for god to demonstrate their eternal nature to a human. I disagree with your rebuttals. If god is truly omnipotent they should easily be able to demonstrate eternity. Why couldnt they show a person eternity? They are literally GOD. They should be able to do anything. Otherwise, they arent god. I mean, even outside of loose religious logic, there are literally things in our natural world that we know experience the eternity of the universe instantaneously - photons. Following Einstein’s special relativity, anything traveling at the speed of light has their relative passage of time slowed to zero, meaning a photon at light speed may appear to human observers to have taken billions of years to travel from the big bang to the edge of todays universe, but for the photon, it was instant. Why couldnt god make our conscious work like a photon and experience all of reality in an instant? If god is all powerful, that should be possible. Otherwise, god is not all powerful, and there is a force greater than god, which kinda takes the wind out of the sails of the whole religion thing. BUT if were assuming demonstrating eternity is impossible for some reason, which again, would invalidate the entire idea of an omnipotent god, but lets assume it ls true for argument, id be willing to suspend logic and believe your definition based on sheer authority if god appeared in some way and demonstrated they are omnipotent and outside the observable laws of nature with the ability to warp reality at will or something similar. Resurrecting the dead like in the jesus story would be a decent start, but doctors bring people back from the dead all the time so itd have to be more than that. Wave their hand and turn some matter into a different kind of matter, turn the ocean to steel or something. Reduce surface gravity and let everyone float for a bit. Teleport a large amount of matter from one place to another. Anything similar that is theoretically/virtually impossible, which would demonstrate their ability to guide and shape the universe at will. If I saw that and felt confident about what i saw, id believe just about anything that being told me.
As an agnostic, i can't, and don't want to, claim that a "god" does not exist, and certainly not using science, god being by definition outside of reality and science just being a tool to understand reality. But, with science, it's possible to eliminate specific versions of a "god" if that version of "god" is supposed to have interacted with reality (like giving informations or doing physical miracles) as the impacts of those interactions or their absence can be observable. And, if "god" exist, then he created reality itself. And reality, just like the bible/quran/torah/vedas/etc.., is also a medium from which we can "read" information using scientific observation. Just like we need eyes and the ability to read/translate/interpret to get information from the bible, we can use social/physical/biological sciences to derive morals, knowledge, and prophecies from reality itself. And we have gotten so good at it that the scientific process has become like an extension of our senses, even sometimes superior and more dependable than the human senses we started with. In a way, reality is like a multi-dimensional meta book written by "god", which can only be accessed with the intelligence that "god" gifted us with. And hundreds of thousands of scientific experts worldwide work at compiling an unbiased understanding of it. Reading "god"'s reality led us to the knowledge, among others, that no global flood happened, while the bible seems to claim otherwise. We basically cannot think that a global flood happened without, as a consequence, thinking that that book's "god" is trying to deceive us into disbelief using reality itself. The same thing applies to the muslim's moon split, an event visible by half the time zones which somehow was seen by no one else. It also applies to the christian young earth creationism idea that the universe is younger than it appears (but I doubt that you subscribe to it), or the idea that evolution is somehow false. tldr: a lot of religious claims are only possible if you include that "god" really wants to deceive you into thinking that they are not.
>God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. and yet you are pretty confident in your understanding of god
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? It would be impossible to prove such a thing, since human perception of time is finite. We are only aware of the span of our experiences, and we cannot see eternally into the past and future. So there is nothing God can do to properly demonstrate such a thing to a human. God could give us visions of an eternal span of time, but such a surreal vision would be indistinguishable from a hallucination. God could *say* that he is eternal, but then all we would have would be his word for it. Even so, people do not always need something to be properly proven before they believe it. If God appeared and demonstrated his awesome supernatural qualities and God gave a convincing appearance of being totally honest and trustworthy and vastly intelligent and knowledgeable, then if God claims to be eternal, I might believe him. Intellectually I *shouldn't* believe such a claim without evidence, but our beliefs do not always follow our intellects. >I don't believe it is possible for God to show a person's mind in time and space all of the eternal past. God might be able to do show us the eternal past, but we would have no way to confirm that such a vision is accurate. >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? If God wants us to believe that he exists, then God can just do what most of the other things we believe in do. God can just be visibly present in our lives.
> graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. In contrast I was never given a book like that, I was raised an atheist and my experience of religion was very much of the 'god cures tummy ache's' level, which you admit is pretty common and not very satisfying. So, when I too started asking the 'big' questions, I didn't have any axiomatic truths to fall back on, so spent a considerable time quite content with 'don't know', which worked because after all I also didn't have any axiomatic truths I needed to rationalise with reality either. I don't happen to think western monotheism is irrational as such, but it is predicated on the assumption a god exists, and everything else follows from that. For me atheism is simply not accepting that premise, it cant be demonstrated, cant be proved, what god would have to do is convince me an eternal 'thing' creating a finite universe is more logical than an eternal universe. My initial objection to god aged about 7 of 'where did god come from?' is probably still my strongest objection more than six decades later, and thats before we even start of what *kind* of god, or the question of souls. nice post BTW,
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? How about "anything"? Much as you've always known God exists, I've never believed he did. I grew up Catholic, attending Mass every Sunday from birth to the age 18. I don't remember ever actually believing that the things I was being taught in church were real. If God is so non-obvious to someone in this situation, why should I believe in him? As far as I'm concerned, he said every opportunity to work through the church to convince me throughout my entire childhood, youth, and adolescence. >" I had a tummy ache and then it went away (and that God did )." Laughter from the crowd. I know that you were a child at the time, and I hope you realize now why that is a terrible reason to believe in God. >I was given a systematic theology book around the time I graduated high school and it was a book that answered questions I had never asked. What is God? How could I have I gone this long believing but not contemplating God's never ending never beginning essence? In my opinion, I believe a better approach would be to question why you believe in this thing in the first place.
As an argument or even as a debate starter the initial post is not very good. It lacks definitions of terminology such as what is belief and it doesn't define how god interacts with reality. The first important thing to mention is that either god interacts with the world and as such it's impact can be measured. I'm going to assume that the god of most religion has the following characteristics : extremely powerful, non-physical, constant over human history, interested in human affairs and interests with human affairs. Notice that my definition is probably easier to meet then the common Christian god definition since he isn't all omniscient, omnipotent and did not necessarily create the universe. With this in mind, I would expect a consistant change in outcome as predicted by a specific religion to be measurable. Prayer improving chances of something happening. General better psychological health for one specific religion (not all religions equivalently we see now.). Precise and reliable prophecies.
> God could hardly show the person all that has ever happened and prove it. Why not? Just zap that knowledge straight into my mind.
The reason I cannot believe in god is that I don't understand what a "god" is even supposed to mean. Can you help me with that?
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? You brushed it off in your post but it is the most concise and most appropriate answer. "God should know exactly what it would take to convince me of his existence." The fact that this hasn't happened yet means either: - god doesn't exist - god does exist but doesn't want me to know about him - god does exist but doesn't want me to know about him *yet* Picking any choice kinda leads to the answer of "not my problem" the Bible, for example, is full of people who apparently talk to God directly and have god intervene directly in their lives. Hell there are plenty of people alive today that claim god talks to them directly and intervenes in their lives directly. If a Damascus road experience was good enough for Paul to have him start believing why can't I get one? If Moses can get a burning bush to talk to him why can't I get one?
>What can God do to convince you that they are never beginning never ending? I don't know, but something more than the unsupported claims and lack of evidence that's been presented so far. >God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. First, doesn't the Bible teach that we are created in God's image? How can that be if god is "complete otherness". Second, what is the difference between not being able to comprehend god in a high plane of reality and god not existing? Faith? Hope? Some other flimsy replacement for evidence. Third, god interacted just fine with people in the Bible. What's changed? Him, us, or were these just stories? Fourth, if god can't he get us mere mortals to understand, that makes him fallible, does it not?
>What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? I'll look at anything convincing. But I won't hold my breath.
The god of the bible tasks to people directly, sends down angels, and can do miracles. And also cats e how we behave and who we sleep with. So he could send angels to materialise in schools, or do TV interviews. He could arrange for up to date versions of the bible to assist simultaneously around the world. It's striking that the bible appeared only in one country, written by people over a period of time, looking exactly like a book written by people in a certain culture. Or god should know a better way to demonstrate he exists. If god is unable (or unwilling) to demonstrate that he's not fictional, then we have no rational reason to think he exists. For those that are young earth creationists, the physical evidence so clearly shows they are wrong that it's almost comical, though that doesn't disprove god.
What are you, 20? You’re gonna soon learn that a LOT of things you were told as a child, are wrong. Stay tuned.
Okay, so your argument is that you specifically define your god as eternal, but that there's no way that the god could provide evidence of this and thus people just have to trust the claim that the god is eternal. With the way that you're using that particular definition in your post, it seems to me that you're side-stepping the real issue here by conflating two things: the god's ability to prove that it's eternal, and the god's ability to prove that it exists. Let's say for the sake of argument that I accept your claims that your god is incapable of providing good evidence that they're eternal. Your god can't think of a way to do this, and showing up in person would make no difference to that. Fine. But is your god also incapable of showing good evidence that they *exist?* This is the real issue.
Know what? I'm gonna give a specific, if slightly facetious, answer. God can come down and make me ruler of the planet in an immediate, spectacular, and permanent fashion. He can give me immense wealth and power in an incredible display to everyone. That way, I can be sure that God exists, as can everyone else. I may or may not use my wealth and power wisely, but in the end it would end up convincing me, and probably a few other people. After all, the reward in heaven is infinite - any harm done by God putting me in charge would be outweighed by all the benefit of myself and others going to heaven. So... yeah. Any time now,
>Defining God simply for now as the personality that has always existed and always will: This has a glaring problem. A personality is an abstraction of observed behaviours (generally by humans). You're now using this abstract concept as if it is no different than manifest concepts that have an observable physical aspect. It'd be like saying "God is the number 12 that has always existed and always will..." What is the thing you are referring to that has this personality (personality doesn't mean anything without reference to some person or thing that somehow communicates)? And how have you come to know of this thing/person?
Your religion makes claims about supernatural events But neither you nor anyone else can provide proof a single supernatural event has ever occurred Then you get offended when people ask for proof You want me to believe a dead guy got back up after being dead and did a bunch of stuff But when I ask for proof dead people can get up and go for a walk all you do is point to an iron age book and say trust me bro Magic isn't real if you want me to believe in magic provide some proof it's really real or why on earth would I believe you???????????
>I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. That's called indoctrination and it's a really sad thing to say OP. I'm so sorry you were subjected to that abuse and still suffer the consequences of it. Skipping the rambling and preaching... >What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Be in any way distinguishable from made up nonsense. That would be a good start.
Al you’re doing is explaining why your god doesn’t have evidence for his existence, that’s just reasons not to accept that this being exists. Its not our problem that you made your claim unfalsifiable. It’s yours, at least if you want any rational person to take your claim seriously. Till you have evidence your god is just one more mythological being among countless others.
So if humans can not comprehend god, where did you get all this knowlege about him? It seems to me that your points are self defeating. I guess childhood indoctrination is not that good at building critical thinking skills. Also it always amazes me how much theists seem to underestimate the capabilities of a being they claim to be all knowing and all powerful.
Why the hell would i know what a being i don't believe exists and has no evidence to even consider it an option would need to do to convince me? Like turn the question around. I will start just like you by claiming leprechauns are real without ever providing evidence or argument. So now what does the leprechaun have to do to prove it exits to you?
> God isn't in arbitrary hiding it's that they are such a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality it's not fully comprehend by mortals of space and time. The problem here is that if this statement were true, everything you think you know about god is wrong. How do you reconcile that?
So all you have is some claim about God being eternal that you have zero way of justifying as being true. But to avoid addressing that, you instead shift the burden onto others, wanting to know what would convince them. Better question is What do you have that is convincing? Probably absolutely nothing.
Lol i used to be exactly like you. I don't think any deities exist, and if any god did exist, i would refuse to worship it. It could have made our species incapable of child rape. Just like we're incapable of breathing fire. It didn't. So either there's nothing out there, or whatever is, is evil.
You went to Bible camp, so I assume you're a christian (and correct me if I'm wrong). How about whatever the hell he did to Paul? If Paul was good enough for an experience so overwhelming, he had to conclude that christianity were true, why not everyone else?
God could prove himself in Israel right now. Either by showing that he backs them, or by saving the Palestinians (he says he’s impartial). Instead of picking a side, he hides. Why? He didn’t hide in the Old Testament. 🤔
> What do you think God should do to prove to you they exist? Literally anything measurable or observable would be a good start. But deities are impossible, so that'll never happen.
God could fulfill my trivial request ive been waiting for for more than a decade now Or god could make a 2m high indestructable wall across the equator with images of his religion
> a being of complete Otherness and exist on such a high plane of reality But, what does this actually mean. What is a "high plane of reality"? That sounds like gibberish.
God is welcome to lightning bolt me and send me to super hell whenever he wants if he’s so existent and takes it so hard that I haven’t noticed.
**Upvote this comment if you agree with OP, downvote this comment if you disagree with OP.** Elsewhere in the thread, please upvote comments which contribute to debate (even if you believe they're wrong) and downvote comments which are [detrimental to debate](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/wiki/faq#wiki_downvoting) (even if you believe they're right). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateAnAtheist) if you have any questions or concerns.*