# What arguments would you use to convince someone that God really does exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2024, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101 "2024-04-10T15:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/121 "2024-04-11T17:10:56Z")
Yes? I feel like we’re aggressively agreeing with each other here. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/122 "2024-04-11T17:13:34Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Yes? I feel like we’re aggressively agreeing with each other here Fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/123 "2024-04-11T17:19:34Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > You don’t think a person could wake up with what they think is a splitting headache, then as they open their eyes they realize they are in a hospital bed, they feel their head and find bandages, etc? Maybe this is a language problem, but by a ‘headache’ I simply mean ‘a sensation of pain in the head’. This is what we know, what we experience directly—it simply makes no sense to talk about evidence for it. It’s what evidence is based on, what it consists of: our subjective impressions. Say you’re performing an experiment in which a detector can flash either red or green. Its flashing so—more accurately, your experience of its flashing—is the evidence on which you are then free to create a theory of whatever sort. But it wouldn’t make sense to insist that you need evidence for seeing it flashing red or green: if that were so, then how do you know whatever it is that yields this evidence? If you don’t need evidence for this knowledge, then my thesis stands: there are some bits of non-evidential knowledge. If you do, then the question iterates: what is it that provides this further evidence, and how do you know it? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/124 "2024-04-11T17:24:54Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Say you’re performing an experiment in which a detector can flash either red or green. Its flashing so—more accurately, your experience of its flashing—is the evidence on which you are then free to create a theory of whatever sort. But it wouldn’t make sense to insist that you need evidence for seeing it flashing red or green: if that were so, then how do you know whatever it is that yields this evidence? If you don’t need evidence for this knowledge, then my thesis stands: there are some bits of non-evidential knowledge. If you do, then the question iterates: what is it that provides this further evidence, and how do you know it? This presumes that “you” and “know” are actually meaningful concepts in this context. You don’t “see” flashes of red and green light, not if we are being that technical about it. Your rods and cones are triggered, and depending on the wavelength of light a different ratio of the various types of cones are triggered. Your brain then processes the blips from your rods and cones into what you experience as vision. None of this is done by the conscious, rational mind. It doesn’t make sense to talk about evidence in this context, any more than it would make sense to ask what color a kilogram is. And of course, your rods and cones sometimes lie to you. That’s called an illusion, and overcoming false perception can be a difficult task. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/125 "2024-04-11T17:26:06Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > But there is one critical difference: The Human Race exists. We know it’s possible for a biological species to exist in this universe, and become technologically advanced. The only “beliefs” needed are that some other alien species also exists, and that there is more to science than we have discovered, and that it’s possible to make those discoveries. History of science and technology makes that a pretty good looking bet. > > But we have no evidence at all that Gods exist, or that it is even possible for Gods to exist in this universe. The leap you have to take to get to God is far greater than the leap to aliens. I don’t really get, psychologically, how the existence of beings functionally indistinguishable from Gods seems so much more plausible than the existence of actual Gods, but you do you. And of course anything is possible in the future, but our current scientific theories about the physical nature of the universe seem to match the evidence quite well. And those theories suggest that many of the coolest things commonly seen in science fiction, like FTL spaceships, teleportation, and time travel, are actual impossibilities, not just things we haven’t figured out how to do yet. I don’t see any reason to assume that technological progress will eventually reach a point at which it becomes literally indistinguishable from omnipotence. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/126 "2024-04-11T17:32:49Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Well, yes, that’s my point. Once you see the bandages et al., you wouldn’t keep telling people you have “a headache”. No, you wouldn’t, because that’s not how English works, but it’s still literally true that your head is aching. It’s just that the English compound word “headache” is generally understood to imply “headache with no obvious physical cause”. This discussion seems be more about grammar than about the fundamental nature of knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/127 "2024-04-11T17:33:31Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > And of course, your rods and cones sometimes lie to you. That’s called an illusion, and overcoming false perception can be a difficult task. Yes, but this is the point I’m making: in an illusion, you’re deceived about what your experience indicates; you’re not deceived about that experience itself. Or let’s take this right back to the source: your own existence. If you insist you need evidence for this, then that’s readily defeated by asking: who needs that evidence? You can’t coherently believe in your own non-existence, since well, whose belief would that be, exactly. Even if you’re wrong, that still means you _are_, as Augustine put it so memorably. And again: if everything, to be known, needed evidence, nothing would be known. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/128 "2024-04-11T17:37:15Z")
I have no idea where this whole headache thing is going, with regards to the OP’s question. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/129 "2024-04-11T17:38:47Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Yes, but as I said, “The God of the Bible (as described by Christians)”. _That_ God is, by definition and demonstration, a _Jealous_ God, one who _demands_ worship and sacrifice. I can’t reconcile **that** God with one who is laid back enough to not care if I believe or not. Not going to touch the Christian bit (except to note that they don’t actually do sacrifices), but from the Jewish POV, God only demands that stuff of Jews. Non-Jews only have to follow the basic rules against murder, theft and whatnot, which every civilization in history has figured out on their own. It’s an unusual case where becoming convinced that a religion is true wouldn’t necessarily imply that it would be wise to convert to that religion. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/130 "2024-04-11T17:40:51Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Yes, but this is the point I’m making: in an illusion, you’re deceived about what your experience indicates; you’re not deceived about that experience itself. OK? I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Yes, if you see something green, but in the light it appears red, you experience red; your experience is giving you false evidence. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Or let’s take this right back to the source: your own existence. If you insist you need evidence for this, then that’s readily defeated by asking: who needs that evidence? You can’t coherently believe in your own non-existence, since well, whose belief would that be, exactly. Even if you’re wrong, that still means you _are_, as Augustine put it so memorably. That doesn’t follow at all. You could be a Boltzman Brain, utterly convinced of your existence, including your history and perception of a future, simply because a collection of atoms by random chance formed the exact pattern your brain has at this moment; in an infitnite universe, it’s bound to happen eventually. Yes, your _experience_ is real, in the sense that your neurons are firing in a pattern that causes your consciousness to arise in a state that feels those experiences. That’s _evidence_ that the real universe matched up to those perceptions, but it is not bulletproof evidence; and in many small ways, it is incorrect at all times. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/131 "2024-04-11T17:43:48Z")
And I still hold that it makes no sense to say, “I have evidence that I see red”. **I** is a composite being that only exists as a result of the experiences **I** am experiencing. Remove all experience, and there is no **I**. That’s called _death_. So there is no **I** to present evidence _to_. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/132 "2024-04-11T17:47:35Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I have no idea where this whole headache thing is going, with regards to the OP’s question. I simply pointed out that there are other ways of knowing things than via evidence or argument—some things, like the content of our experience, is known directly. So all those arguing that it’s unreasonable to believe in god by pointing out there’s no evidence and no convincing argument are just too limited in their scope: you also have no evidence, nor argument, for the pain you’re feeling when you have a headache, but that doesn’t make it unreasonable to believe in that headache. > [@Babale](#): > > Yes, if you see something green, but in the light it appears red, you experience red; your experience is giving you false evidence. Sure, but the question isn’t what you know (or infer) by means of (the evidence given to you via) your experience, but how you know that experience itself. For that, you need no evidence. > [@Babale](#): > > You could be a Boltzman Brain, utterly convinced of your existence, including your history and perception of a future, simply because a collection of atoms by random chance formed the exact pattern your brain has at this moment; in an infitnite universe, it’s bound to happen eventually. In which case I still would be correct about existing; I just would be mistaken about the form I take. Which really isn’t anything new: I don’t think I’ve gained weight over Easter, but the fit of my shirt yields evidence to the contrary. > [@Babale](#): > > That’s _evidence_ that the real universe matched up to those perceptions, but it is not bulletproof evidence; and in many small ways, it is incorrect at all times. Again, I’m not concerned with what my perceptions seem to tell me about the world, but with what I know of my perceptions. These are not delivered to me via evidence (nor argument). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/133 "2024-04-11T17:48:57Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I have no idea where this whole headache thing is going, with regards to the OP’s question. I think the argument is, “I have no evidence that Inhave a headache, but I know I have a headache; I have no evidence that God exists, but I know He does without empirical evidence, the same way I know I have a headache”. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/134 "2024-04-11T17:51:30Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I think the argument is, “I have no evidence that Inhave a headache, but I know I have a headache; I have no evidence that God exists, but I know He does without empirical evidence, the same way I know I have a headache”. Well, rather ‘having no evidence that god exists doesn’t necessarily make it unreasonable to believe he does, because there may be a non-evidential way of knowing about such things’. I don’t believe that god exists for the simple reason that I have no reason to believe he does. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/135 "2024-04-11T17:53:23Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > But that just pushes the question of “Where did it come from?” back one more step. God created the Universe, fine, but then, where did God come from? We still don’t have an actual answer to “What created reality?” because _this God would be part of reality_. > > If you say that God came into existence all by himself, then why can’t the Universe have done the same? Yes, I don’t think there can ever be a completely satisfactory answer to that “what created reality” question. Modern science has given us the big bang theory, but that can’t explain why the big bang happened, or what preceded it; it does, however, offer an internally consistent explanation of why we _can’t_ know these things, because the information we’d need to figure it out doesn’t exist in this universe. It traces the chain of causality back to one specific historic event and says “beyond here, our usual methods of gaining knowledge no longer apply”. And the theistic creation narrative, that at some point God had a thought which produced physical effects on the universe --something thought ordinarily can’t do – serves the same logical function. These theories are more sophisticated than “turtles all the way down” cosmologies, in that they explain _why_ our knowledge is incomplete, but they don’t change the fact that our knowledge is, in fact, incomplete. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/136 "2024-04-11T17:55:58Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, rather ‘having no evidence that god exists doesn’t necessarily make it unreasonable to believe he does, because there may be a non-evidential way of knowing about such things’. Right. Which I disagree with. “Knowing” you have a headache just means that you are experiencing a sensation of pain in your head. It could be because you didn’t drink enough water, or because you were shot in the head, or because you have a rare genetic condition that makes your “I have a headache” neurons misfire for no reason at random times. You could certainly _have the sensation of **knowing** that God exists_; but there is absolutely no reason to think that this sensation would correspond to reality. Anyways, you said: > [@](#): > > having no evidence that god exists doesn’t necessarily make it unreasonable to believe he does I would argue that _it literally does make it un **reasonable** to believe_, because without evidence that belief is not based on **REASON**. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/137 "2024-04-11T17:58:30Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > A person saying they don’t believe in God is like a fish saying it doesn’t believe in water. But aren’t you also a fish? What makes _you_ aware of the water in which we swim, and not me? It seems to me that an equally valid analogy would be: A person saying they don’t believe in God is like a fish saying it doesn’t believe in phlogiston. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/138 "2024-04-11T17:59:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > > A person saying they don’t believe in God is like a fish saying it doesn’t believe in water. > > But aren’t you also a fish? What makes _you_ aware of the water in which we swim, and not me? Cladistically, we’re all fish. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/139 "2024-04-11T18:00:23Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I think the argument is, “I have no evidence that Inhave a headache, but I know I have a headache; I have no evidence that God exists, but I know He does without empirical evidence, the same way I know I have a headache”. But all that proves is that some entity called “you” exists, which is having a headache. Maybe you’re a Bolzman brain or whatever, but you are having experiences, which means that, on some level, you must exist. But that sort of direct experiential knowledge _only_ applies to the question of our own subjective existence. We can’t reasonably claim to have the same sort of knowledge about the existence of anything else whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101/140 "2024-04-11T18:04:12Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > But that sort of direct experiential knowledge _only_ applies to the question of our own subjective existence. We can’t reasonably claim to have the same sort of knowledge about the existence of anything else whatsoever. I agree. You could very well know, “I have the experience of knowing with utter certainty that God exists”. And you could be 100% right about your subjective experience! And yet you could be wrong about that experience accurately reflecting reality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-arguments-would-you-use-to-convince-someone-that-god-really-does-exist/1000101.md?page=8)