# What would it take to change an athiest's mind? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 28, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035 "2007-11-28T15:27:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/101 "2007-11-30T17:25:14Z")
[QUOTE=monavis] What if this God took all the stars,planets comets etc. Re arranged them to spell out :“Hey earthlings I see you, I am invisible but know I am here”? Monavis [/QUOTE] You’re thinking too small! See post #62😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/102 "2007-11-30T17:31:37Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] What does this mean? It could be read as simply the demand of a megalomaniac, or as a statement (everyone in my presence will bow their knee). I don’t think there’s anything in here you could call any kind of definition. You’re not answering the question at all. You’re just saying when the JudeoChristian God turns up, we’ll know he’s turned up. How? What will happen? What features of that particular god will mean he’s turned up? Colour, shape, size, glowing red eyes? Don’t duck the question. But really, it seems that as per your earlier post, you are saying that the key characteristic of the JC God is that he can just cause people to believe he is God. Is that the long and short of it? And if so, how do you deal with the point I raise at #65? Is there a difference between me with a mind control machine and the JC God? If so, what is it and how can anyone tell? [/QUOTE] I’m just sayin’ that’s their theology. It’s not my position nor my theory. What’s required, per JudeoChristian theology, is a Personal Appearance. In that tradition the PA removes doubt. I have no idea how. I don’t believe in magic myself. You gotta run theology by the people who make up the theology. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/103 "2007-11-30T17:48:58Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] I’m just sayin’ that’s their theology. It’s not my position nor my theory. What’s required, per JudeoChristian theology, is a Personal Appearance. In that tradition the PA removes doubt. I have no idea how. I don’t believe in magic myself. You gotta run theology by the people who make up the theology. [/QUOTE] I’ve never known anyone of “the theology” that accepted this view of the effects of PA on people. Now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few that do; for _ANY_ belief X, there’s at least one christian out there somewhere that believes his religion supports it. But I seriously contest that this effect you’re talking about is part of mainstream JudeoChristian theology. And if you’re not in the mood to defend the position you’ve presented, that’s fine: I’ll just disregard it utterly. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/104 "2007-11-30T18:09:17Z")
[QUOTE=monavis] What if this God took all the stars,planets comets etc. Re arranged them to spell out :“Hey earthlings I see you, I am invisible but know I am here”? [/QUOTE] THAT’S IT! That would convince me. Even if it was aliens that did that, I _better_ worship them as gods! ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/105 "2007-11-30T18:53:57Z")
[QUOTE=control-z] THAT’S IT! That would convince me. Even if it was aliens that did that, I _better_ worship them as gods! [/QUOTE] It’s occured to me that maybe they _have_ rearranged the stars, and it’s only our limited reliance on light to detect things at a distance that prevents us from _seeing_ this feat! So you’d better start worshipping them now, just in case! (The aliens like it when you send me money. Just so you know.) More seriously, based on the delay in observability which would make the stellar rearrangement have to have taken place centuries before the language it’s wiriting in was even developed, I think such a miracle would be much more likely to be an illusion than an _actual_ stellar rearrangement. If the illusion was persistent and consistently observable by everyone, it would still be very impressive, but on the whole I think I’d prefer something that could be more thoroughly examined by scientists and other more pedestrian observers like myself. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/106 "2007-11-30T19:03:53Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] As said, the being could use time travel, which is a better explanation than God anyway. And if you disbelieve in time travel you should also disbelieve that God could pull this off, since that’s what it is, even if all that travels is information. [/quote] All it would require of god is omniscience. That is of course supernatural, but anything demonstrating a god would have to be supernatural. And of course God couldn’t change what he sees and reports on, since omniscience and omnipotence are mutually contradictory, and any proposed entity with both is logically impossible. That’s a class of god we can prove does not exist. > [@](#): > > Or, the message in the jar could be a nanotech object that will change to display whatever actually happened. Or the being could screw with your mind so you saw whatever “future message” it wanted. Or, it could simply manipulate affairs so they happen as the message said; as someone once said, the easiest way to predict the future is to make it happen. That’s more plausible than time travel, but if the message is spread to enough people - people obviously not directly involved in the prediction, it might be possible to test. It would be interesting to see if people could avoid doing the given action. If the can avoid it, the predictor is clearly not God. If they can’t. it is good evidence that the predictor is. \ Obviously I am 99.99999999999…% percent sure that there is no god and this won’t ever happen. However, the really interesting point is not how farfetched a scenario we need to prove a god, but that even really simple ones that give evidence of a god, while not ruling out aliens, don’t exist. You don’t need to test someone on his knowledge of differential equations if the evidence shows he can’t add up three numbers correctly. God seems to get all the test wrong, even the writing his name on the paper part. If this were the SAT, God would score 100. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/107 "2007-11-30T19:04:32Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] It’s occured to me that maybe they _have_ rearranged the stars, and it’s only our limited reliance on light to detect things at a distance that prevents us from _seeing_ this feat! So you’d better start worshipping them now, just in case! (The aliens like it when you send me money. Just so you know.) [/QUOTE] Really? Can you ask the aliens whether a check is ok? I guess if they can rearrange the stars a simple problem like the speed of light isn’t a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/108 "2007-12-01T00:19:57Z")
If when I die, I discover that there really is a God and a heaven . . . and that only atheists are admitted . . . I’ll remain an atheist long enough to get in. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/109 "2007-12-01T00:23:31Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] If when I die, I discover that there really is a God and a heaven . . . and that only atheists are admitted . . . I’ll remain an atheist long enough to get in. [/QUOTE] Ha, that would suck! “You may only stay in my heaven for as long as you don’t believe in it or me!” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/110 "2007-12-01T00:39:23Z")
Apparently I misunderstood the OP. The only thing I can conceive of changing an atheist’s mind is death, and the subsequent discovery of being wrong. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/111 "2007-12-01T00:45:22Z")
[QUOTE=j666] Apparently I misunderstood the OP. The only thing I can conceive of changing an atheist’s mind is death, and the subsequent discovery of being wrong. [/QUOTE] Apparently you misunderstood the several posted descriptions of other things that would convince atheists in this very thread too, then. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/112 "2007-12-01T00:58:14Z")
[QUOTE=j666] Apparently I misunderstood the OP. The only thing I can conceive of changing an atheist’s mind is death, and the subsequent discovery of being wrong. [/QUOTE] Maybe you can go over to the thread about what would change a theist’s mind and post there, since you’re so much more broad minded than we are. ---
**Author:** ![T.O](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@T.O](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.O)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/113 "2007-12-01T01:04:02Z")
I don’t think anything could convince me. Say God showed up and hung out around me for a year, and read my thoughts and wrote them on the Moon, and the words stayed there indefinitely and I read thousands of independent scholarly articles I could not possibly make up in my own mind about this phenomenon, and if God did everything I asked to prove that he was real, even altering the laws of physics and making pi=4 and proving he wasn’t a super-powerful alien…it would be more easily explained as proof that the world we live in is a simulation. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/114 "2007-12-01T01:10:32Z")
[QUOTE=T.O.] I don’t think anything could convince me. Say God showed up and hung out around me for a year, and read my thoughts and wrote them on the Moon, and the words stayed there indefinitely and I read thousands of independent scholarly articles I could not possibly make up in my own mind about this phenomenon, and if God did everything I asked to prove that he was real, even altering the laws of physics and making pi=4 and proving he wasn’t a super-powerful alien…it would be more easily explained as proof that the world we live in is a simulation. [/QUOTE] To be fair, he would also have done a darned good job of proving that he has godlike control over that simulation, wouldn’t he? Which is pretty darned close to being a God (especially since you have no way of knowing that you have any existence outside the simulation). If he convinces you that he’s shown that pi = 4, though, he’s just messing with your mind. The definition of pi is an unavoidable consequence of the structure of a perfect circle, and a perfect circle is an imaginary thing that has nothing to do with the world, and which would have the same properties regardless of anything else that might happen or be done. ---
**Author:** ![T.O](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@T.O](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.O)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/115 "2007-12-01T01:15:17Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] To be fair, he would also have done a darned good job of proving that he has godlike control over that simulation, wouldn’t he? Which is pretty darned close to being a God (especially since you have no way of knowing that you have any existence outside the simulation). If he convinces you that he’s shown that pi = 4, though, he’s just messing with your mind. The definition of pi is an unavoidable consequence of the structure of a perfect circle, and a perfect circle is an imaginary thing that has nothing to do with the world, and which would have the same properties regardless of anything else that might happen or be done. [/QUOTE] True, if a being had that kind of power over a simulation I lived in, they would effectively be the same thing as a god, but there would be a distinction. They would not be an intelligence that was around before the real universe, that created all of creation. They would be just another computer operator - maybe a user of some kind of hyper-advanced quantum computer hundreds of years beyond our imagining, but not supernatural. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/116 "2007-12-01T01:15:51Z")
[QUOTE=j666] The only thing I can conceive of changing an atheist’s mind is death, and the subsequent discovery of being wrong. [/QUOTE] How would an afterlife convince me ? The same problems would still apply; there’s no way that I can distinguish between a god and a good enough fake. And an afterlife does not require a god, or the other way around; they are separate concepts. And if some being there shows up there and claims to be God, I have no more reason to believe him there than here. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/117 "2007-12-01T01:48:13Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] How would an afterlife convince me ? The same problems would still apply; there’s no way that I can distinguish between a god and a good enough fake. And an afterlife does not require a god, or the other way around; they are separate concepts. And if some being there shows up there and claims to be God, I have no more reason to believe him there than here. [/QUOTE] Earlier in the thread I posted “Why would you want to?” Several people kindly responded, indicating that I’d kinda missed the point. So, I thought it only polite to respond, to them and to the OP. And I truly can not think of anything _in this life_ that would change an atheist’s mind. _(See: all posts referring to omniscient aliens)_ As for why death would change your mind, I truly believe that death is the final truth and brings us beyond deceit. And now you’ve got me wondering if I might be wrong about that … ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/118 "2007-12-01T02:37:49Z")
[QUOTE=j666] As for why death would change your mind, I truly believe that death is the final truth and brings us beyond deceit. [/QUOTE] A poetic phrase, but there’s no reason to assume that being dead would make you more perceptive than being alive, even in the unlikely event that death is anything other than annihilation. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/119 "2007-12-01T02:45:17Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] A poetic phrase… the unlikely event that death is anything other than annihilation. [/QUOTE] Well, that was the point; if death is _not_ “annihilation”, that would be enough to bring an atheist to consider the existense of capitap “G” God. (And thanks. That means a lot to a technical writer.) ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2007, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035/120 "2007-12-01T04:54:29Z")
[QUOTE=Chief Pedant] I’m just sayin’ that’s their theology. It’s not my position nor my theory. What’s required, per JudeoChristian theology, is a Personal Appearance. In that tradition the PA removes doubt. I have no idea how. I don’t believe in magic myself. You gotta run theology by the people who make up the theology. [/QUOTE] Well if you are right about “their” theology then what you are saying amounts to them not actually knowing what their own god is or how to recognise him. But you can’t really speak for them, so there’s not much point in having the discussion with you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-it-take-to-change-an-athiests-mind/428035.md?page=7)