I gotcha; some folks would hold out for GOD, no doubt. But I don’t think there’d be very many. Considering all the blood, sweat, and tears that have been poured into religion when there was no concrete evidence of god, some kind of very impressive god-type would change everything rapidly.
Which cuts both ways, if such technology is indistinguishable from magic, why not treat it as such, if there’s no practical difference?
Your signals might seem vague to ants or cows right?
I know you didn’t say this but just to be clear, I didn’t propose any God who demands to be worshipped, feared , or obeyed in any ego sense of the word.
If you say so, it’s your OP. I’ll just remark that if what you’re supposing was true for all human history, the idea of there not being a god, and disputes over the nature of god, would never have arisen in the first place. That is, there’d be no doubts that’d need to be overcome.
Yes. Well, not everyone, but 99%. You’ll never get everyone to believe any one thing.
If every prayer were answered with a “Yes, that shall happen!” and it did, that would do it. That would be extremely chaotic and probably make the world worse, but it’d convince people.
Short of that, the universality would be key. If I can talk to God and tell him “I hope the Bucs win it all this year!”, and you can talk to God and God tells you “Human Action wants the Bucs to win it all this year”, then you could easily use double-blind tests to prove that, at a minimum, there was some kind of greater consciousness that communed purely through thoughts. You’re halfway home right there.
Meaning if it all just stopped one day, eventually people would doubt that it occured it all? Maybe so, depends on how it was documented, and how we all reacted to god cutting off his prayer service.
Right. I agree.
Then again, isn’t that question already being asked. Part of the issue seems to be that too many people think they know the answer.
I describe myself as an agnostic but I traveled through being a believer. I tend to believe {or maybe just want to believe} that something of us lives on but I’m content to not know and I’ve come to understand that I don’t need to know or even believe in order to continue to grow and be as positive as possible in this world on a day to day basis. What may or may not be later will resolve itself in due time.
One of the things that led me from belief to agnosticism was just asking questions and seeing what made sense and what didn’t and seeing the difference between belief {which is essentially an opinion} and knowledge. It also has to do with the fact that we are made up of intellect and emotion so it isn’t about just knowledge . It’s finding the right balance of intellect and emotion. Not just believeing and or understanding , but a deeper sense of what to do with that understanding.
That’s the entity I’m referring to. The creator, or enabler, or sustainer of the universe, which is not to say the universe and creation are entirely seperate from God.
Please note I never said or implied God wanted worship or authored any book anywhere.
The problem now is that our questions are met by silence. If a god showed up, he’d have some 'splainin to do. “You are omnipotent. You love us. Why did you drown all those babies again?”
And if this got weren’t a total schmuck, the fundies would be more pissed off than the atheists. “Why do you think my children shouldn’t be allowed to love one another? You all have lots of money - maybe you should spend more time on helping poor kids see the doctor and less on preventing two guys from getting married.”
Of course he might be evil, in which we can tell him to get lost. Some other planet must need his attention more than ours.
Not so. You read somethings into the OP that I didn’t intend. I didn’t say all prayers were answered and I didn’t say God decided to make his existence know to all people everywhere.
What I said was those who sincerely sought to know if God existed were given either a vision or some sign , such as a healing etc. The point being that , even if that started happening tomorrow , many of those same people would rationalize it away in time, and others wouldn’t know what to do with it.
okay , but again, what you’re suggesting seems to be God deciding I want to let everyone know I exist and am real, so does something big and sustained to accomplish that.
That’s not what I suggested in the OP. I’m saying only those who sincerely seek God, gets some undeniable evidence. IMO there are a lot of people who haven’t, and wouldn’t sincerely ask.
and for those who don’t know me, this is NOT some inference that non believers are in denial in any way. the world is predominantly people who believe but I’d guess many of them have never sincerely asked
which is why I never suggested that.
There’s an old movie called “The Next Voice You Hear” which explores that. God temporarily communicates with all humanity at the same time over a short period, and then it stops, leaving them to wonder what to make of and do with their experience.
I don’t think it matters how well it was documneted because people would begin to claim, “yes something happened, but it wasn’t God”
None of the scenarios above are nearly good enough for me.
I would not be convinved by any evidence unless it was revealed to all people simultaneously–
something along the lines of the stars rearranging themselves in the form of a cross.
If that were to happen, well, to paraphrase the refrain of an old African-American hymn, I would
“Tremble, tremble, tremble.”
I have this joke that self righteous jackasses get to the peraly gates and are greated by an angel in the garb of someone they treated horribly.
for example, Col. John Milton Chivington, U.S. Army who said " I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians."
will be greated by an angel who looks like Geronimo and checks his clipboard, {now IPAD} saying, let’s see, Shivington , hmmmmm.
The Westboro Baptists will be greated by Freddy Mercury.
“The problem now is that our questions are met by silence.”
maybe, maybe not. Maybe we’re all really eternal spiritual beings and this life, and the lives of those babies are very brief experiences. MAybe all those souls volunteered for that assignment and it was , to them, no worse than getting killed in a Xbox game. Maybe those questions of why take a lot more effort and time to answer.
Well, I didn’t mean just Christianity either but I get your drift. But even that could be rationalized as a halucination at some point. This is kinda what I’m getting at though. It seems that for God to prove God exists what would essentially have to happen is a takeover.
What happens to our perception of free will if God makes it clear to all people that God exists and wants us to be better to each other and to our shared planet?
I think faith is all about asking questions, at least that is to me. That is, I think faith is a journey, not a destination. No matter what question I ask, as I come to a point of satisfaction with my beliefs on the answers, it serves to arise new questions, and a few times I’ve had to reevaluate my existing beliefs from the ground up.
But that’s exactly it, that the only way to have absolute certainty is to actually be at the destination, which means the journey is over. But in the nature of God, however he may exist or not, the very concept is best modeled as a horizon, where one can walk endlessly toward it, always knowing how far I’ve come and also knowing I have so much farther still to go.
Certainly, belief is really just hoping something is true or guessing that it’s true, else it would be provable fact. And these sorts of things certainly do exist. There is no ultimate work of art in any form, nor ironically is there even a way to know everything. And so while we may pursue a specific fact, in these other realms we can only endeavor to endlessly improve. In this sense, we have to all be agnostic, knowing that we cannot know everything.
But at the same time, this is exactly whence my faith comes, because I liken this nature of God to an artist, not a scientist. The very idea that God would be a knowable fact directly contradicts this notion and the idea that creation itself is the ultimate work of art. Sure, I can study the work endlesly and have beliefs about the nature of that work’s creator, or perhaps simply learning about the work itself, but even then, I’m still exploring the very beauty of which I am a part.
I don’t tremble at the idea of other things can can destroy me, like H-bombs and comets crashing into Earth, so why would I tremble before some alien with impressive tech at his disposal?
Oh, he wants me to? Fuck that.
IMO the Bible clearly and unambiguously states that if you have faith in Jesus, you will get whatever you ask for. Not some “sign” that you have to notice and interpret as some kind of answer that may well be “No,” but whatever you ask for. To drive home the point that it doesn’t have to be a noble or unselfish request, he gave the example of telling a mountain to cast itself into the sea, and he gave the demonstration of killing a fig tree out of spite.
Obviously, Christians don’t get what they ask for any more often than anybody else. There are occasional remissions of cancer or whatever, but at the same rate as for atheists, Muslims, or Wiccans. In other words, the promise is obviously, clearly, false.
And yet, Christians still believe in Jesus. Assuming that Christians are no more stupid than atheists, I think it’s fair to assume that most atheists would not be swayed by proof that their beliefs are false.
But I don’t think that’s what would actually happen. Christians may not be more stupid than atheists, but they are some combination of more gullible, or less rational, or more susceptible to the overt and/or incidental indoctrination that anyone growing up in a Christian home or society receives. I think that if the experience of God were unmistakably different from a dream or hallucination, most atheists would change their beliefs.
I agree and see this as very healthy. I think people make thier journey and believe or not , which I see as two vlaid paths but I have a hard time with people who insist thier view must be the correct one and can’t see that there are things we really don’t and can’t know. It seems llike a life long journey to me and assuming we know can close our hearts and minds to new knowledge and experiences.
Exactly.
It seems to me that if there is a creative force holding the Universe together then we are very unlikley to fathom it.
Certainly, belief is really just hoping something is true or guessing that it’s true, else it would be provable fact. And these sorts of things certainly do exist. There is no ultimate work of art in any form, nor ironically is there even a way to know everything. And so while we may pursue a specific fact, in these other realms we can only endeavor to endlessly improve. In this sense, we have to all be agnostic, knowing that we cannot know everything.
But at the same time, this is exactly whence my faith comes, because I liken this nature of God to an artist, not a scientist. The very idea that God would be a knowable fact directly contradicts this notion and the idea that creation itself is the ultimate work of art. Sure, I can study the work endlesly and have beliefs about the nature of that work’s creator, or perhaps simply learning about the work itself, but even then, I’m still exploring the very beauty of which I am a part.
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Ok, there must be some point that I’m not grasping, then, because of course the more coy god is, the fewer people would believe in his signs. Hidden things are more difficult to find than overt ones. I don’t see the discussion here.
But the evidence isn’t undeniable at all, then.
That’s still a major step up from “nothing happened at all”.
Sorry, I hit submit to early last time
I think it’s fine for people to choose a certain religious path for themsleves, a certain tradition , in a “this currently works for me” way. I think allowing that you may be wrong helps to accpet different traditions and allow others to make their own choices, but lots of believers don’t do that. They seem to feel the need to assume they are sure what God thinks. I also hope that new information is factored in but all to often tradition is embraced so firmly that new information is rejected.
Agreed. I reject the concept of a separate creator God being. If anything, we are alreay a part of any sustaining force in the universe. We don’t have to fathom all the details to continue to strive to improve ourselves and be positive for those around us.
I’m saying an individual or several individuals, those who are sincerely seeking God, experience some event that is undeniable TO THEM as individuals.
It isn’t undeniable to everyone , but it’s an event that convinces them. As in te OP
Someone prays to God wanting to know if God really exists , and lo, God appears to them and says “I have heard your prayer and want to assure you I am real” for many folks , that would be enough to convince them. Some would continue to believe, but human nature being what it is , some would eventually rationalize an experience they once saw as undenaible , to deniable.
Not much of a step.
the followers (AKA Sheeple) of Rev Jim Jones and David Koresh, believed in the hearts they were god incarnate.
(It didn’t work out too well for either flock)