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What would count as proof of God

The Vatican proBably has no lack of wne and pasta.

The vow of poverty and the opulence of Vatican City always seeed incongruous, but the lord works in mysterious ways. Silly me.
 
idk.
Proof of god would maybe be god showing all of us who he is?
I guess I should use the word evidence, and I have seen none that I know of.

If a god did anything for the start of the universe they he/she only made the big bang happen, then just watched?

As an atheist I just haven't found anything which would lead me to any evidence for a god.
Years ago I went in search to strengthen my faith, I lost all faith instead.
 
If He/She/It could persuade me, that would be proof enough. Otherwise, I would always doubt, unless this creature could somehow get inside my head and make me believe that it was all-Everything. As the old saying goes, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so how could we know by any other means?
 
My position has always been that asking for proof of the existence or nonexistence of God is the wrong question. The question is what would make the existence of gods plausible, given what we know about the universe. The particular god that monotheists call "God" is no more plausible than other gods. They are all supernatural intelligent beings that we imagine to have absolute voluntary control over some aspect of reality, so they can all perform miracles. There is no reason why any particular miracle should be taken as evidence of the existence of the monotheist's "God". And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural. It would be more plausible to see it as an activity by an advanced civilization than a supernatural being.

It is easy to see why people invented gods to explain what they could not otherwise explain in nature. Animism--attributing mental states and volition to inanimate objects--seems plausible to beings that can move their own bodies volitionally. Observable physical forces can be interpreted as a kind of volition caused by mental activity. Gods can manipulate reality in the same way that we manipulate our bodies. They are just like ourselves in that respect. They are idealized people. It's just that we now have better alternative ways of explaining natural phenomena. Hence the rivalry between religion and science as alternative ways to explain the behavior of things that don't have brains. We know that physical brains explain our volition, sensations, and mental states. Gods don't have brains, so it is a hard sell to take them seriously as plausible thinking beings. Most of the time, they aren't even imagined to have physical bodies, and it is easy to see why organisms with mobile physical bodies would evolve brains to move their bodies around with. Sessile organisms don't have brains, because they don't have a need to go anywhere.
 
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
 
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
Can you cite a few examples where atheists state that miracles are important? And also explain what you mean by important - important to whom, and to serve what purpose? My experience has typically been that atheists are skeptical of the miracle claims associated with various religious orders, which are never reproducible under controlled conditions, and never supported by sufficient evidence to convince a rational person that the claim is true, and ascribe the existence of such claims to naturalistic processes, like humans making up stories, or humans being mistaken or deceived about something they experienced. I have never heard an atheist state that miracles are important - I think you are making that up.

The laws of nature are descriptive. And once we have described how the physics of everything that affects our everyday lives works, we can, with a great deal of confidence, rule out claims that are inconsistent with these laws. One does not need to remain an agnostic about claims that clearly violate these laws; for example, the claim that Jimmy's dead grandfather who has has been dead and buried for 30 years rose up from the grave and visited with Jimmy last night. Or a claim that one or more gods interfere with our everyday lives, which would be contrary to everything we know about the physics of our everyday lives, and the observations from which they stem, which, as stated previously, have been completely described by the Standard Model of Physics.
 
Copernicus said:
My position has always been that asking for proof of the existence or nonexistence of God is the wrong question. The question is what would make the existence of gods plausible, given what we know about the universe. The particular god that monotheists call "God" is no more plausible than other gods. They are all supernatural intelligent beings that we imagine to have absolute voluntary control over some aspect of reality, so they can all perform miracles. There is no reason why any particular miracle should be taken as evidence of the existence of the monotheist's "God". And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural. It would be more plausible to see it as an activity by an advanced civilization than a supernatural being.

It is easy to see why people invented gods to explain what they could not otherwise explain in nature. Animism--attributing mental states and volition to inanimate objects--seems plausible to beings that can move their own bodies volitionally. Observable physical forces can be interpreted as a kind of volition caused by mental activity. Gods can manipulate reality in the same way that we manipulate our bodies. They are just like ourselves in that respect. They are idealized people. It's just that we now have better alternative ways of explaining natural phenomena. Hence the rivalry between religion and science as alternative ways to explain the behavior of things that don't have brains. We know that physical brains explain our volition, sensations, and mental states. Gods don't have brains, so it is a hard sell to take them seriously as plausible thinking beings. Most of the time, they aren't even imagined to have physical bodies, and it is easy to see why organisms with mobile physical bodies would evolve brains to move their bodies around with. Sessile organisms don't have brains, because they don't have a need to go anywhere.
Click to expand...
To make it short at least part of it is there's proof but lack for evidence of a god.

For me it was opening my eyes to every culture which have their own beliefs and none have anything to do with Christianity in the least. So in a matter of speaking it is away in a library in my mind as just some other religion now. If I knew and understood every one of them that's 10,000 of them. It would be alphabetically placed in a library under (C) In short I am an atheist.

Edit; High since I wrote this.
 
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atrib said:
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
Can you cite a few examples where atheists state that miracles are important? And also explain what you mean by important - important to whom, and to serve what purpose?
Click to expand...
So for instance, posts #1145 and #1146 above, both of which assert that miracles would prove the existence of God. Nor is this an uncommon claim, as we can find several other examples in this thread and others. It is not my place to try and define how important such rhetoric is or why, but it certainly is not rare.
 
Politesse said:
atrib said:
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
Can you cite a few examples where atheists state that miracles are important? And also explain what you mean by important - important to whom, and to serve what purpose?
Click to expand...
So for instance, posts #1145 and #1146 above, both of which assert that miracles would prove the existence of God. Nor is this an uncommon claim, as we can find several other examples in this thread and others. It is not my place to try and define how important such rhetoric is or why, but it certainly is not rare.
Click to expand...

I agree with Politesse on this point. Those posts were also what I was thinking of when I posted my comment. It is very common for atheists to try to answer loaded questions like what would count for evidence of God than to go to the real issue here--the belief that disembodied minds make any sense at all, given what we know about volition, sensations, emotions, moods, thought processes and physical brain activity. Anything that looks like a miracle could still have an explanation that doesn't require anyone to believe in God or gods, because it could more easily be treated as some kind of natural phenomenon rather than a supernatural one.

The kinds of things that people treat as miracles all tend to be of that sort--e.g. miraculous recoveries from terminal cancer, which would likely have more to do with an unusual immune response in the body rather than intervention by a deity. Hearing voices in the head are more likely caused by psychotic breaks with reality than an actual spirit trying to communicate. The real issue is whether any mental activity at all can take place independently of physical brain activity, not whether there is actually evidence of miracles. And the answer appears to be: not likely. Without evidence that disembodied mental activity can occur, there is no evidence that ghosts, let alone gods, exist. The question of evidence for God requires one to buy into the gratuitous presupposition of disembodied minds.
 
Copernicus said:
Politesse said:
atrib said:
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
Can you cite a few examples where atheists state that miracles are important? And also explain what you mean by important - important to whom, and to serve what purpose?
Click to expand...
So for instance, posts #1145 and #1146 above, both of which assert that miracles would prove the existence of God. Nor is this an uncommon claim, as we can find several other examples in this thread and others. It is not my place to try and define how important such rhetoric is or why, but it certainly is not rare.
Click to expand...

I agree with Politesse on this point. Those posts were also what I was thinking of when I posted my comment. It is very common for atheists to try to answer loaded questions like what would count for evidence of God than to go to the real issue here--the belief that disembodied minds make any sense at all, given what we know about volition, sensations, emotions, moods, thought processes and physical brain activity. Anything that looks like a miracle could still have an explanation that doesn't require anyone to believe in God or gods, because it could more easily be treated as some kind of natural phenomenon rather than a supernatural one.
Click to expand...
right. ;)


Copernicus said:
The kinds of things that people treat as miracles all tend to be of that sort--e.g. miraculous recoveries from terminal cancer, which would likely have more to do with an unusual immune response in the body rather than intervention by a deity. Hearing voices in the head are more likely caused by psychotic breaks with reality than an actual spirit trying to communicate. The real issue is whether any mental activity at all can take place independently of physical brain activity, not whether there is actually evidence of miracles. And the answer appears to be: not likely. Without evidence that disembodied mental activity can occur, there is no evidence that ghosts, let alone gods, exist. The question of evidence for God requires one to buy into the gratuitous presupposition of disembodied minds.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah I see ghosts all the time. LOL.
 
How would yu know the difference between a goda nd advanced ET technology?
 
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
Miracles are utterly unimportant, for exactly that reason.

But the reason some atheists insist on their importance is, I suspect, that those atheists are reacting to the importance placed on miracles by theists.

If a person says he believes in his God because of his experience with miracles (or because of miracles allegedly experienced by others), it seems logical that showing the purported miracle to be a commonplace event requiring no divine intervention would be an appropriate challenge to his belief.

This tactic of course founders on the unsupported and implausible assumption that logic has anything at all to do with people's beliefs.
 
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
A rapid regrowth of uncle Ernie's amputated leg would impress, don't you think?
 
bilby said:
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
Miracles are utterly unimportant, for exactly that reason.

But the reason some atheists insist on their importance is, I suspect, that those atheists are reacting to the importance placed on miracles by theists.
Click to expand...
The trouble with miracles is it is impossible to discern "supernatural" from "highly advanced". The Aztecs thought a Spanish Conquistador was god.... and he didn't have anything that could fly. The Hebrews thought Cyrus was the Messiah... and he didn't even have gun powder. The right-wing follow the god of Trump... and he is an incompetent fool.
 
Hermit said:
Politesse said:
Copernicus said:
And any alleged miracle could not be proven to violate natural laws of physics, since the alternative is always to revise the laws of physics to treat the phenomenon as natural.
Click to expand...
This is why I have never understood the insistence of atheists that miracles are somehow important. The "Laws of the Universe" should be purely descriptive from an atheist's point of view. There's nothing to "break".
Click to expand...
A rapid regrowth of uncle Ernie's amputated leg would impress, don't you think?
Click to expand...

In the past, maybe. The Star Wars Universe has turned it into a rather mundane event with their bacta tanks, which were used extensively in the Clone Wars. It's true that they had a kind of divine "Force" thing going, but the bacta tanks had nothing to do with it. You need to have more faith in science.
 
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