Atheists and proof

[Kdtym10]

On several threads, some atheists have said they would believe in God/the Divine if they had proof. If you’re an atheist what would that proof look like to you?

You seem to be saying religion is purposely designed to escape the scientific model - is that what you’re saying?

But that really isn’t the question is it? It’s just a regurgitation of a soundbite.

The question is based on the comments of some atheists on other threads that they would believe if they had proof. I’m asking it you’re in that position what would be sufficient proof?

Well God was the big old man in the white fluffy clouds when I was a kid and in a lot of paintings. I was told by people I worked with "you MUST believe in God", it's only a belief. I went to church every week as a kid,church club till 15, when I decided because of little kids dying of starvation, getting cancer,it was a lot of bollox. When my oldest DD was 13, she attended a church youth club. High COE guy wore long black robes. A couple of years down the line,he was de-frocked for sexual abuse of some of these young girls. My DM a believer,died at 64, I had a daft made up nickname as a child, she promised she would get this word back to me to prove their was life after death. I obsessed, visiting mediums, spiritualist, spiritualist churches. "Is there a John in the house"? someone stood up, got the amazing message from beyond. We followed the circuit,then I said to my oldest DD,it's a scam, the same people are standing up. She had a "reading" at one session. Clairvoyant took her hand, said she was being told my DD should eat lots of bananas!! She cannot stand bananas in any shape or form, even the smell makes her feel sick. Religious beliefs a few hundred years ago,God fearing, People told if they didn't do what the Lord of the Manor insisted on, they were condemned to the firey pits of hell. Yet,to meet anyone who has had a prayer answered

“We can now explain just about everything about how the world actually works”

Now that is a statement of blind faith😂😂😂

How do yo think scientific methodology is equipped to deal with the non physical not bound by rules of scientific theory

Proof is always going to depend on the specific claim being made. You can't expect atheists to develop ideas of what claims are being made about religion and gods for you.

Well, no, it's not. We know a lot about how things actually function. If, for example, crops fail, we can work out why, we don't assume it's because God is angry with us, because we haven't followed his rules.

The universe operates to a set of laws that are consistent.

On other threads you’ve been on

they would believe if they had proof. I’m asking it you’re in that position what would be sufficient proof?
Try giving us some proof (any proof!) and we'll tell you if it's sufficient.
People didn't believe climate change at first. When sufficient proof was available, then they comprehended.

Religion as a concept, is reproductive / heritable / transmissible (but equally can be lost or erased) - thus religious belief systems have been subject to selection pressure. It's not "purposeful design" that religions have certain psychological commonalities but rather a reflection of what humans are willing / able to believe and spread.

@Kdtym10, are you saying you're not a Christian? I didn't want to ask this in the other threads, which were New Testament oriented. Your Platonic, esoteric, pantheistic emanation doesn't sound very Christian.

From what you've said, I understand that you perceive yourself in a similar vein to William Blake. A hyper-religious man of fragile health, he seems to have had hyperphantasia at best, or hallucinations, from infancy. He was an anti-rationalist, fearing that the new scientific enlightenment would make people stop believing in God.

Well, he was right about that! I'm a rationalist. I find science at least as amazing as others find the 'divine'. I've only ever hallucinated with the aid of LSD and, while I have a lively imagination, it's not particularly visual. It's evident that all religious thought comes from a world view diametrically opposed to my own.

To me, Blake's kind of sweet in his way and also completely nuts. I do feel the 'divine' is an excuse for those who are uncomfortable with rationality. Anything that changed my mind would have to be dramatically irrational; to go against the laws of nature in such a way that reason couldn't begin to explain it.

I'm a Christian, DH is an Atheist

We agree that I can't prove to him that God exists, but equally he (or anyone else) cannot prove he doesn't

I have known people believe that their prayers being answered was proof to them personally, but that's a very individual thing

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists and I've heard him speak to me.
I also know 100% that I love my dh and my children, but would have no way of 'proving' that in a court of law - how would you? The absence of proof doesn't mean it isn't true though

For me proof would be if god appeared or did something that couldn't be explained by any other way.

If god appeared in the sky and said tomorrow I'm going to make Mount Everest disappear and the next day it had disappeared then I'm be inclined to believe that he existed (unless there was evidence of some David Copperfield style trickery going on).

If god existed and wanted us to be sure of his existence then the proof for him would be obvious. It's only because he either doesn't exist or for some reason doesn't want us to be certain that he exists that religious people have to rely on tenuous 'proofs' that aren't very convincing to those of us who don't already believe in god.

The same as any other claim about how the universe works. Empirical evidence that can be tested by the scientific method.

Your move.

On other threads you’ve been on

But I said:

Proof of one concept of a God / divine power would differ from others.

Could you share what your concept of god / divine power is OP and then people could respond accordingly?

It was a suggestion for this thread, not for me personally.

Your posting style is quite combative and you tend to assume people are attacking you or get frustrated if you're asked the same thing in different words by people.

As I said, my suggestion of you sharing your concept clearly said 'then people could respond accordingly'. I wasn't just speaking about myself, someone ho has been on other threads you've contributed to.

In general, I thought it would be a useful thing that would make the discussion more meaningful 🤷🏻‍♀️

Surely a benevolent God would create a fixed number of intelligent beings to live in a paradise, that he/she/it would love dearly and have a personal relationship with, who wouldn't have to suffer, learn hard truths and then finally die.

I think this IS what happened (garden of Eden), and then Satan came along and ruined it (I don't really understand this).

I absolutely love nature and creation. So much of it blows my mind...looking at the detail in a dragonfly's wing, the structure of honeycomb in a wild bee hive. How a tree and our lungs look the same, as do a tree trunk rings and our finger prints. How there are billions of people and our finger prints are unique. Etc etc.

We are learning every day about soil biology and microbes and how the microorganisms interact with each other.

How do you explain this without a creator?

We agree that I can't prove to him that God exists, but equally he (or anyone else) cannot prove he doesn't
It is well-known that you can't prove a negative. Like I say, religion / belief / god is a clever concept. I'm not saying that as a compliment.

@jackstini of course it can be proved that you love your children and DH in a court of law or any other setting, assuming you are available to be asked and understand the question. Now, what a statement that you love your children would imply, is a different question. People take radically different actions with their children, despite each one of them loving their children. Your statement that you love your children cannot be used as definitive evidence of any other claim about you and your children.

I can say that ABBA are my favourite music group, and that can be true, but it doesn't give you any information about whether any other statement about me in relation to music is true or not.

The difference between the claim about loving your children and the existence of a god, is that one is about your own self reported state of mind which you have total control over. The other is about something allegedly real in the world that affects everyone else.

Now that is a statement of blind faith

No, our understanding if how the world or the universe works is not blind faith.

Mendeleev discovered the periodic table. Logically, it was known that more chemical elements existed, that would fit on the table, even if during Mendeleev's life they weren't yet discovered.

Logically, it was understood that the Higgs boson should exist, as it fitted with our understanding of the universe, but it took 40 years to find it.

If your god's existence can't be tested by the scientific method, even over decades, then that's because your god doesn't exist.

You are perfectly entitled to your faith, and atheists are perfectly entitled to disregard things that don't exist.

Indeed, you can’t prove a negative.

Religious people forever make these logical fallacies. Neither can you definitely prove there isn’t a teapot flying around the Earth.

The burden of proof is always on the one who asserts the claim.

I'm an atheist.

First of all, you need to define.

Which God? Most are described through religious texts and customs which are plainly all too human in their production and encapsulate all the prejudices of the time. Based on religion, I'd reject most mainstream 'Gods'. They're no friend to women. If the divine can only be defined by people's interpretation of it, mostly men in the ruling classes, it's failed the objectivity test at the first hurdle.

If we're taking a more broad strokes approach - i.e. a 'force' that controls everything but doesn't necessarily know everyone individually, well is that God? Why is that not just mathematics? Are we ascribing intelligence to it? If so, whose definition of intelligence?

Definitions would be an excellent place to start. However, given the historic inability for most religions to agree with each other on various aspects of God and faith, I don't see any definitions coming soon.

BTW, although I am an atheist, I have no problem with faith. All human beings construct their own meaning in life and for many it is God. If it works for you I'm glad and I believe everyone should be free to worship as they choose provided it doesn't harm others or aggressively seek to convert them.

I have known people believe that their prayers being answered was proof to them personally, but that's a very individual thing
Indeed it is. If prayer worked every time for everybody then I might accept that as proof. But it doesn't!
By the laws of statistics, sometimes the desired outcome will align with the actual outcome. It's called coincidence or luck. It's not predictable cause and effect (scientific proof).

It is really very simple:

Why, if there is indeed a God, who can see that there are many non believers, would he not make himself known?

If he wants non believers to 'believe' in him then surely it's up to him to initiate and make himself known unequivocally. Surely that would be easy for him, given his omnipotence?

I love nature too.

The thing is science has made great strides in explaining all of this. Science answers questions, religion raises uncomfortable questions that it cannot answer.

From you post alone, I'd like to ask why a wise, benevolent and all powerful being creates Satan? Or creates the conditions that make Satan possible? Knowing the outcome?

I don't feel it's even necessary to get around to evidence - reason / rationality alone is enough to dismantle the entire philosophy of religion with only a few minutes of thought. People do not hold to religious belief systems because they make sense (which would be a reflection of those systems being true) but because they fulfil profound psychological, emotional and social needs.

If you would like to explain a honeycomb, you can pick up a book about bees. The long and short of it is, the world is very old, and has had time to become complex governed by a set of rational laws which can and have been established through the scientific method, and frankly only through the scientific method.

"Explain this without a creator"? "Without a creator" is how literally everything has ever been explained. That would be the epicentre of why I (and I suppose many other atheists and rationalists) don't believe in one. When scientists don't include God in their experimental parameters, the experiments still work. Ergo, there isn't one.

Religion has never taught us anything about the empirical world, it is only a reflection of our own psychology. Until science came along people believed bees were spontaneously generated by rotting meat, having failed to even differentiate them from flies.

If God is all-powerful, can he create a rock that he can’t lift?