May we hear this evidence, please?
And you took issue with the wording of my question, and didn’t answer it. So… Assume that God didn’t exist. How would the universe be different?
Actually, there’s a webcam there already - Messiahcam[sup]TM[/sup]
It wasn’t working today, but has done in the past…
Grim
My subjective feelings are not evidence. Period.
I’ve heard of this research before, and I find it interesting… I’d like to know more about how the brain works (or, in my case, doesn’t). I wonder, though, how a “religious experience” is being defined here. The article you quote talks about people experiencing a “feeling of oneness”, a “sense of infinite space and eternity”, or even a “spectral presence in the room”. Fair enough, I can see how people would attribute religious elements to these feelings as described… but these descriptions don’t match my own religious experiences, nor those of some other people who’ve described theirs to me. The realization of God’s presence seems to come in a wide range of ways, and evoke a wide range of emotional responses - heck, William James got a whole book out of the subject. So, I’m inclined to wonder if the people who do get these feelings aren’t thinking along the lines of “Wow, that was weird, and deep, it must have been God talking to me.” Which, of course, it was, He’s always talking to us… but He can talk to us through entirely mundane experiences too.
(And I worry, sometimes, about people who don’t get this type of experience, but feel they ought to, somehow, so their faith suffers as a consequence… I dunno. The only time I’ve ever seen flashing lights and heard choirs of angels singing, it was down to eight pints of cider, half a bottle of Buckfast Tonic Wine, and a cup of magic mushroom tea: I’m sure God was present at the time, but I was in no state to pay attention to Him…)
Imperceptible, unless you have faith:) .
I don’t think that whether these experiments exactly match your own experience is really the point. The point I was making was that subjective feelings don’t really tell us anything about the reality of the external world. If people can be made to feel a “presence” in the room as a result of nothing more than exposure to a magnetic field, it says to me that such feelings can originate in the brain itself, regardless of the state of reality outside of the brain. [This is intuitively obvious to anyone who has ever hallucinated]. The fact that the researcher didn’t duplicate the precise pattern of electromagnetic waves that causes Steve Wright’s particular experience doesn’t change the fact that subjective feelings are not reliable evidence, and I think we agree on this point.
I suspect that the question: “How does a universe with God differ from a universe without God, if the two are indistinguishable”, was meant to be rhetorical in nature. But you’re really answering it literally - i.e., you said your subjective feelings are the difference. The question is, if these subjective feelings are the only information you are going on, and you admit that subjective feelings are not evidence, then how do you know you are right?
I’m glad you included “unnecessary” in there. We fancy ourselves to know a lot, but there could be pieces to the puzzle that aren’t in our grasp.
I’m not sure what the point of this thread is. If I take the title at its word, “Will God ever intervene in a large, direct, videotapable way?”, the answer would have to be “Who knows?” I suppose the Ten Plagues and splitting the Red Sea might count as things that could have been taped, and maybe comparable things might happen again someday. Or, for whatever reason, He might choose not to repeat them. Who knows?
Not that such a videotape would accomplish anything, of course. There would be plenty of people who would just chalk it up to the guys in the photo labs. And even among those who witnessed it live, plenty of people might be looking for David Copperfield, et al. Both of which ideas were mentioned above; I’m not citing anything new.
If the question is “Assume that God didn’t exist. How would the universe be different?”, well, speaking from my personal opinion that God does exist and did create the Universe, there would be an incredibly big difference between those two scenarios: If God didn’t exist, neither would the universe. Hmmm. Humongous universe on one hand, no universe at all on the other hand. Yep, I’d say that a big difference!
But if what you’re really looking for is absolute proof, my suggestion is to forget it. There are plenty of arguments which people call “proofs”, but I haven’t seen one yet that’s absolutely bulletproof. Even a personal communication with God Himself can’t be proven to another person. And even that person himself can convince himself that it was really an illusion or delusion.
If you are looking for absolute proof, forget it. But if you have a truly open mind (not so far open that your brains fall out, of course) then perhaps one argument or another will make sense to you.
What I meant to say was that I have never seen a bulletproof “proof” for either side: There’s no bulletproof proof that God does exist, but no such proof that He doesn’t, either. It all comes down to which you as an individual think is more likely.
(In fact, it is my person opinion that it is categorically impossible for either of those proofs to ever exist, because the proof would have to be a tangible part of the physical world, and God is accepted as being totally outside of this physical world. There’s no common ground for such a proof to exist in.)
That’s a no-brainer: Which is more likely?
(a) The universe is exactly as we observe it to be.
(b) The universe is as we observe it to be, PLUS it is controlled by an entity that exists outside of our ability to observe it, and (b)cannot be distinguished in any concrete way from (a).
Good question, blowero. I agree that nowadays the Entity does not communicate with us directly, but that has not always been the case.
I look at the choices this way:
(a) A few million Hebrew slaves really did experience events in Egypt and Sinai, which they understood to be Divine Revelation en masse. They told their chidlren about it, and they told their children about it, until today. or
(b) Somewhere along the line, a group of Hebrews conspired to invent a story about that Revelation, and they convinced all the other Hebrews that this was something the whole nation had experienced.
You can’t prove either one, but if out of the blue, someone tried to tell us that God spoke en masse to the entire U.S. population in 1776, I’d wonder why no one heard about it until now. The public is gullible, but some things are so hard to pull off that my person opinion is that A is the more likely one.
Here’s another answer, from a totally different angle: We already know for a fact that (a) is not true.
The universe is not exactly as Copernicus observed it to be.
The universe is not exactly as Newton observed it to be.
The universe is not exactly as Einstein observed it to be.
We are constantly learning more about the way the universe works. Perhaps we will have the whole picture someday, but until then, we have to admit that there is a lot that we don’t know. Therefore, I suggest that (a) has to be reworded.
Try these two options:
(a) The universe is as we observe it to be, PLUS it is controlled by physical laws that exist outside of our ability to observe
(b) The universe is as we observe it to be, PLUS it is controlled by an entity that exists outside of our ability to observe
To the best of our scientifical and philosophical ability, B (an entity) cannot be distinguished in any concrete way from A (physical laws). We can lump them together as generic “Other forces” for all we know.
Sounds like more of a toss-up now, doesn’t it?
The short answer:
Never.
God presumably gave us free will, the ability to choose. By actively revealing his presence he coopts free will. So therefore God can only act in ways that can’t be proven.
Because of this if by some chance you are able to videotape an act of God, then that will prove that God didn’t do it.
Scylla, you don’t have to agree with me, but my belief is that on rare occassions in the past, God has revealed His presence in some pretty major ways.
Would you be willing to modify your statement to say that “therefore God generally chooses to only act in ways that can’t be proven.” ?
Keeve:
It’s really not necessary, since those major rare occasions that supposedly occured in the past can’t be proven as acts of God today.
The scenario that fits my thesis taking into account that God actively intervened in the past, is that such intervention was necessary to “show us the path” so to speak, and now that it has been revealed there is no need to do so again.
God, being a generally clever sort of fellow chose to reveal his path in ancient times, so that we would not be able to positively document it.
For example, he didn’t have to worry about somebody with a videocam when he parted the red sea.
It’s simply up to us to beleive, or not. For some, this may become faith, the cornerstone of religion. For others, they may have no faith or beleif but remain on the path nonetheless.
I think I’d make a good prophet, don’t you?
Well, you’ve certainly got a knack for cheap rationalization.
Well, now you’ve opened a can of worms. Steve Wright says he is a deist, and that God does not intervene in ways that are detectable. But you are arguing for evidence that God does intervene, which is an entirely different matter. So I guess we’re getting down & dirty with the “evidence” debate:
There are more than 2 choices here. For example:
© A long time ago, a story was told as a parable, as was the custom of the time. Over thousands of years, what was originally meant as an allegory became accepted by some as an actual event.
I find © to be the most likely, although there certainly could be another explanation. It’s not unusual at all for fictional stories to become accepted as fact, even within much shorter time periods than the one in question. Go to snopes.com for examples that have occured even within a decade. The problem with scenario (a) is that we don’t have any proof that a million slaves saw anything. What we have is a story about a million slaves seeing something. When we’re dealing with stories about miraculous things happening, and virtually no corroborating evidence, we have to ask ourselves if the story was originally meant to be taken literally, e.g. did God really create the universe in 6 days, and then disguise it to look like it took billions of years? And the problem with scenario (b) is that the word “conspiracy” implies a deliberate deception with evil intent. But almost all religions have their tales of supernatural events. Certainly you don’t think that all mythology was the result of conspiracy?
So when we’re dealing with an account, written thousands of years ago, that ostensibly would change our entire understanding of physical laws, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the question: “Did it really happen, or is it just a story”?
Still another possiblity is that the events DID take place roughly as described, but the supernatural parts of the story (like the parting of the Red Sea) were added to dress it up a little. I don’t think that would have been thought of as a lie at the time, but more as an expression of faith.
No, this is a contradiction. You say that BECAUSE our model of the universe has been revised over time, that it is therefore “outside of our ability to observe”. In fact, it is precisely FROM observation that these scientists were able to revise the model.
The difference here is that God is DEFINED as being outside of our universe. Not just currently unobservable, but unobservable BY DEFINITION. Scenario (b) is really just a “God of the gaps” argument. You are defining God as everything we don’t know about the universe. The problem with this is that it tells us nothing about the supposed nature and characteristics of God. If God cannot be distinguished in any concrete way from physical laws of the universe, then why call God an “entity”, and why have the label “God” at all?
I’d like to second robertligouri and ask you to share this evidence with us, all semantics about “evidence” and “proof” aside.
Quix
God is sleeping.
As I’ve gotten older, and more cynical, my faith has eroded. Although I rarely label myself as Christian any longer, although I no longer wear a cross, and although I no longer say my prayers every night, I still believe that there is some force out there. No longer interested in us.
We’re the TV God forgot to turn off when he left the room.
Maybe God is among us, but don’t control us. We have free choice. Therefor no intervention.
or
God is the unified field, the one force at the base, sustaining everything, being everything. including us. So close to us that it (God) remains unseen, yet essential to all things.
or
God is understood (reached) only by our choice to do so (faith).
And maybe we should turn off the TV so it (God) can be heard.
Well, not quite… God does not intervene in ways that would compel belief.
Now, in this scientific age in which we live, finding objectively detectable evidence of God would, pretty much, compel belief in Him. (Insofar as one “believes” in things which are provable. I mean, I don’t, actually, believe in, say, France: I know it’s there, I’ve been there and seen it, but I don’t feel any great urge to proclaim “I have faith that France exists.”) But I suppose it’s possible, in a less scientific age, that a visible divine intervention might take place without forcing people to believe in its source. (“The Red Sea has parted! Jehovah is great!” “Rubbish, that wasn’t Jehovah - that was Marduk wearing a false nose!”)
I find this idea vaguely implausible, but that may be down to my own scepticism… so, as far as Old Testament miracles go, I’m agnostic; I can’t see any evidence, I can see how the story could get made up, but I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for sure.
There is a big difference between what you are describing and what I’m describing, and it is this:
Urban legends, and legends of most kinds such as you are describing, are usually told about an individual, or a small group of people, or sometimes even a large group of people, but in any case it is told about someone else, someone other than the audience.
In the example I am giving, that of the Exodus, the story was told about the audience themselves, or at least the ancestors of that audience, but in any case it was the entire nation. The story was that “this is what happened to you and to your friend and to all the guys on the other side of town (or their grandparents).”
I have trouble imagining how such a legend would even get started. Wouldn’t people be suspicious of why they had never heard this before?
As someone who’s been studying Torah and Talmud for 30 years, I am very aware that many stories have alternate versions and explanations. (Just one example: It’s not clear whether there was a single part in the Red Sea and they all crossed through it, or whether there were 12 splits, one for each tribe.) But this just ain’t among them. Until a few hundred years ago, no one tried to claim that the basic point of the story – that God was personally involved in the Exodus, and spoke directly to the people at Sinai – simply didn’t happen. If the story had started out one way and got morphed into another version, we’d have some alternate versions around.
The idea that the entire nation would accept such a story without confirmation from friends and relatives strikes me as very far-fetched. Not impossible, just so improbable that for me, it counts as a “proof”.