James ‘The Amazing’ Randi performs similar magic to discredit charlatans. Perhaps Pharaoh was simply being a rational skeptic.
I didn’t say it was Pharaoh; I said it was magicians. “And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt”, says Exodus 8:7; it’s much like how Exodus 7 has a bit about how “the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments”, and so on: “Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents”.
Don’t just try to remember it; but maybe read it and tell me what you find, if you like. I’d also recommend Deuteronomy 13, which is a personal favorite of mine.
There’s so much random violence, evil, pain, etc. in the world that I would want God to provide a believable answer as to why it happens. None of this “you aren’t meant to know my ways” stuff. I want an answer that makes sense to me. Why dies a child get brain cancer and die, and the resulting grief causes the parents to turn to alcohol and divorce? Why do children get molested by priests in churches that supposedly convey His message (in the Christian case), and those children are so filled with shame that they turn to drugs and suicide? Why does prosperity and despair seem to be spread equally across believers and non-believers? Why does almost every religion’s followers seem to violently disagree with followers of other beliefs? Answers to those are the kinds of things that would make me consider that someone might actually be God.
First, define “God”.
If whoever showed up at the door claimed to be Thor, a few tricks with the hammer and some weather control might work. And if whoever showed up were able to actually resurrect dead people, I’d certainly be convinced they were something.
But if you mean The One And Only All-Knowing All-Powerful Creator Of the Universe: that’s another matter. Couldn’t such a being have simply created me such that I believed in Its existence? That would be a whole lot simpler, as well as more effective, than doing tricks, even raising-from-the-dead level tricks. (And yes, I’ve heard of the free-will argument. That’d have to be a whole other thread.)
I’ll make a suggestion for how to convince me that the supposed deity is some sort of deity, however:
Create genuine lasting peace in the Middle East, without killing, rendering insensate, or removing the people living there now.
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The traditional Christian God is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent. So I throw the ball to him and ask him to figure out what evidence would irrefutably convince me he is God and then provide that evidence to me.
How many people “violently” disagree with other religions? Yes they disagree but it’s rare for that to resort to violence. Yes terrorists are out there but they are a very very small minority.
If some god (whatever his name, Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin) wanted to convince me of his existence, he should start with this laundry list:[ul][]Stop all wars[]Eliminate all famines[]Stop killing foreigners like you did in the bible[]Remove threats from tsunamis and collisions with outer-space bodies[]Wipe out all student loans and make college free for everyone[]Make chocolate drops fall from heaven like manna[*]Free beer[/ul]That should do it (nothing less), and I’m A Believer.
If he/ she/ it’s finger-snapping put an end to all human suffering I’d be happy to call him/ her/ it “God.”
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No you won’t. You’ll assume you’ve been hacked.
Yes, if all we’re talking about is apparently god-like properties, then the reasonable conclusion is that it’s an alien, possibly one of the aliens that created the simulated universe that we live in.
If the properties of the god-like creature resemble any of the entities portrayed in human religions, that just implies an alien with a sense of humor.
See, for me, capital-G God implies the creator of the universe. So supernatural powers, alien or otherwise, does not automatically imply “the person who used supernatural powers to create the universe.” Would you assume a lamp genie–if you should find one–to be God?
What does God need with a starship?
[quote=“Musicat, post:28, topic:833518”]
If some god (whatever his name, Hairy Thunderer or Cosmic Muffin) wanted to convince me of his existence, he should start with this laundry list:[ul][li]Stop all wars[]Eliminate all famines[]Stop killing foreigners like you did in the bible[]Remove threats from tsunamis and collisions with outer-space bodies[]Wipe out all student loans and make college free for everyone[]Make chocolate drops fall from heaven like manna[]Free beer[/ul]That should do it (nothing less), and I’m A Believer.[/li][/QUOTE]
You should watch the Twilight zone episode “To Serve Man” That one covers the first 4 on your list. 
Of course, given my skepticism, why would god go to the trouble of producing the masses of convincing evidence that would be required to manipulate my neurons indirectly? She could just manipulate my neurons directly into a mental state of unquestioning belief.
Look back through history. You can find endless examples of followers of one religion killing the followers of another religion. The Holocaust. The Crusades. ISIS. The Irish Catholics and Protestants. And so on and so on.
What are ‘supernatural powers’ anyway? AFAICT there is no such thing as ‘supernatural’. Only the natural exists but we understand very little of nature. What people mistakenly call ‘supernatural’ are merely natural phenomena that we can not yet understand or explain.
For example, ghosts. If ghosts exist then they are surely an unexplained natural phenomenon. What purpose does the idea of supernatural serve?
Incidentally, regarding the Bible, why do people refer to "Pharaoh" instead of "the Pharaoh"? It’s like it was his name instead of a title.
That’s the way the King James refers to him, so people will have picked it up from what’s written there. The question is why did the KJV authors write it that way.
Surely you don’t really believe this. I wish it was rare, but it is not, not now and not in the past.
As an atheist I await first, a definition of what gods we are talking about and a clear description of what they are and what they can do. Only then can we discuss what would suffice as evidence for their existence and that evidence must not be better explained by existing, known forces or phenomena.
This is something I’ve learned to accept over many, many years. No meaningful discussion on gods can ever be had without the believers first defining what their understanding of their gods actually is. (and that understanding is often rather tenuous and woolly to say the least).