For all those who say things like this:
this is the thread to present your evidence.
The final inning of game 6 of the 1986 World Series is the best evidence I’ve ever seen. Although if you were a Red Sox fan, not so much.
Only counts if you worship Satan.
The evidence is going to all be the same, guys. Our planet is too perfect to have occured randomly. Life is complex to have happened randomly. Humans are special and have feelings and logic and no other species does, so that proves we were made special and not evolved. Life is meaningless without a God or an afterlife to believe in. I am more than just a bunch of chemical interactions, I have a soul, and that makes me feel good. The fact that bananas fit so perfectly in my hand and mouth, or that cows can turn grass into milk or blah, blah blah.
For me, if there is any evidence that a God created everything, it’s the fact that we happen to exist on a planet with a moon that has the same apparent size as our sun, and we get beautiful solar eclipses that show off the corona of the sun.
Because of the fact that moon sizes are so variable, that the sun is constantly growing, that planets with complex/intelligent life seem to be pretty rare as well, it is incredible that we happen to be ‘blessed’ with this particular phenomena. I imagine that if we ever do meet other intelligent life in the universe, they are going to be wowed getting to watch a solar eclipse when they visit Earth.
There are probably countless other planets with life on them, some even intelligent life, but I doubt there are many where that intelligent life gets to grow up on a planet with total solar eclipses of just the right size to show off the corona, like we do.
Then again, it may not be that rare of an occurance. I’m not an astronomer.
Also, I’m an atheist so in this particular instance, I do believe we just got really lucky :). In a few million years, our sun will be larger than it is now (right?) and total solar eclipses just won’t happen anymore.
Please let the evidence be presented first.
Thank you.
Jews are the only people to survive, with pretty much an unbroken ethnic, cultural, religious and ethnic continuity, for around 4000 years. Yes, Zoroastrians are still around, but they are really a pale shadow of what was, with most of their religious texts lost and they are struggling to maintain themselves (the couple of them I talked to said Zoroastrianism will be gone within 50-60 years).
So I would say someone/something is watching over us.
I have seen with my own eyes while living in Japan - Spaghetti and meatballs floating in the air in display cases at numerous restaurants.
CotFSM devotee!
Why would that impress a spacefaring species? They can park their spaceship just a little beyond Earth’s orbit and wait for Earth itself to eclipse the sun or, for that matter, use any convenient body. Heck, if you were in space and wanted to see the corona, you could reach out with your thumb and block the sun’s direct light.
There is also a large body of subjective personal evidence – “I spoke to God personally,” “I have a personal relationship with Jesus” – etc.
It is evidence. It just isn’t much good, because it never goes beyond subjectivity.
You’d think that if a person had a personal relationship with Jesus, Jesus might, just once, answer a question that requires some degree of real omniscience. (e.g., in my dictionary, at home, I have tagged one specific word. Can Jesus tell any of his followers what that word is?)
(I devised this test in response to a friend who claims to have out of body experiences, allowing him to go places and see things without physically being there. Unfortunately, he has never, ever, not even once, been able to identify clues of this nature.)
The “shyness effect” of this brand of evidence tends to render it of very little worth.
My evidence of my deity:
- The beauty of the physical laws describing nature.
- The beauty of the mathematics used to describe the physical laws.
- The joy of existence.
- The love of my family.
- The love of others.
(There’s likely more, but these come to mind quickly.)
This is of course rather personal, but that is expected given my belief in my deity is based on personal faith rather than verifiable observations.
What about the Hindus?
Also, the Jewish beliefs have morphed considerably overtime.
I have been kept awake at night by the mindless, dread terror that torments our worst nightmares and makes our waking hours a lurid insanity. The horror that lurks in my mind and devours my sanity like hagfish and eels and nameless worms swarming on a decaying abomination deep in the sea can only be explained, if explanations could ever apply to such eldritch abominations, to the stirrings of the elder gods. The palpitations of madness and corruption in our febrile consciousness has but one answer, one answer to evince the worst kind derangement, which only beings that rend asunder all conception of reality could cause …
Cthulhu stirs…
He stirs and soon, he will awaken!
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!
But for how long? FOR HOW LONGGGGGGGGG!?!?!?!?!??!
Not really since Moses received the Torah on Sinai. Which is, I think around 4000 years ago. Maybe 3500.
Of course, you may be talking about “Reform”, or “Reconstructionist” Judaism. But that’s just people playing at religion, IMO.
As for Hindus - it is really hard to talk about single continuous ethnicity or culture there, there are so many, and so changing.
There are plenty of ways I could become a believer in a deity, as an atheist. I am not dead-set against the idea of God having created everything.
If we found some code somewhere in genetics that had a secret message from our creator, I’d become a believer (after it was verified and tested of course).
If God himself showed up (or an agent of God), and could reliably demonstrate miracles, omnipotence, omniscience, etc.
If I die and find myself before the pearly gates, I’ll be a believer 
How about the Persians?
Watching over us in the same way a mother in the playground is watching over her kid by chatting with the other moms while the kid is getting the snot beaten out of him.
I think God could have done a slightly better job myself.
Yeah, one might note that Vishnu hasn’t let the Hindus get abused nearly as much as Yahweh has the Jews.
I worship the trickster. He likes nothing more than to let people believe they’ve found evidence of her existence and then to humiliate them by having further evidence discovered which disproves their assertions. They’ve done this successfully for millions of years. People believed it was the sun and the moon, people believed we were the thunder and lightning, people believed she stirred the seas, people believed he was a bright light when someone was near death, people believed it was a necessary existence for the origin of the universe.
They are only known by one thing, the near universal need in humankind to find her. The presence of alternative theories for this drive are further evidence of his glory.
Enjoy,
Steven
There is no obvious continuity there, too many conquests, intermixing and changing of cultures and religions. But even if you start counting from Seleucids (and that would be a big stretch) it is still around 2400 years.
Doesn’t refute the fact that we’re still around. Most of those that beat us up are not.