richardhutnik said:
I have been on this planet over 40 years now, and still likely have years to go. I have walked through a very wide range of these arguments regarding God, experience agnosticism, Catholicism, evangelicalism and fundamentalist Christian, Protestantism, churches of Christ, and current am off and involved with Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I know of a number of other religions also, read the Qu'ran, and also studied up on Buddhism. In all this, I found all that book knowledge will do squat to prove anything to anyone, and see that people see what they want to see, either way that they like. Well, in regard to what you wrote, let me ask you a question: If you ran into God, how exactly would you know this being is God? Secondarily, why would it matter? Would ie be some sort of ego trip for yourself that you resolved, once and for all, the then the world would bow at your genius? Why would it matter, and how exactly does an argument proves anything exists? What sort of shape and form would this evidence take? And if it is some sort of personal magic trick done (a miracle), why would the being you wonder about resort to doing a magic trick just to placate your remote interest in knowing that s/he exists. Again, why would the existing argument matter? The argument of how you would know is important, because you could then have anything which could be used, like a wrestling match perhaps: To answer your question, there may be places to start, if you are interested. If it is merely that you see God potentially being some sort of government busybody who makes demands on you and will punish you later if you don't answer correctly, and isn't relevant, I am not sure you will find any evidence. However, you really do have an interest in the subject, you may want to look into legitimately why people believe there is a God, and what makes up people that do. For this, a good starting point would be a book called "How God Changes Your Brain". Beyond this, I am not exactly sure why someone who created this universe would go way out of the way to just meet your one person's criterion for what would be a God. Or try to do anything for you, if you don't have a clue as to how to recognize such a being. I think it would be a bit absurd, for example, to find a signature with the word "God" written on it in English, on every single micro-organism, just so people who question whether or not God would exist, would believe in God existing. |
Sorry for this belated reply, I've been away this weekend and I couldn't access the Internet.
If the creator came to Earth and presented himself, I would be the first in line to see if the claim could be proven. If the creator presents himself, then logically there has to be some valid way of testing the claim. His presence alone would be enough to give us a means of testing. Secondly, it would matter a lot to me and other sceptics, I can't understand the attitude of "not testing faith", you have to challenge what you believe once in a while, sceptical enquiry is the only way we grow.
As for suggesting what form of testing we would use, I can't answer that. I'm not going to pretend to know the nature of the creator, whatever form it may be in.
What I do know is that given our current knowledge we can test the creation stories, and for the most part they are extremely thin and offer no reason for me to accept them; and if they were true most of them would have some form of testing which can be done. An example would be the Abrahamic creation story, if it were true then half the evidence you would need is for the fossil records to stop dead at 4004 BC, it would be easily testable. But the fossils don't stop there, they continue for millions of years. On levels of evidence creation myths have very little, people are just told to believe them and never question it. If evolution had such a thin level of evidence we would be having a much different conversation.
Perhaps a creator can exist that we don't know the nature of and so can't test it, but in turn that would render every religious view incorrect.
Bottom line is I may not be able to test a creator right now, but I can test the alleged effects such a creator has had on Earth. Should a being claiming to be a creator ever come to Earth I'm sure their claim can be tested too, but to ho they are tested I can't say until they arrive.
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I love python.
Thanks for the book suggestion. I actually read the believers perspective often, usually to try and understand their arguments.
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You wonder why would God go out of his way, but the majority of people who believe in creation stories also believe that God has interacted with the planet frequently. Some believe his son has been sent to Earth, some believe he embodies animals, some believe he sends creatures such as angels to Earth frequently. Even for fairly mundane and run of the mill things, people claim God has been present in some form. None of these claims hold water for me. My beliefs may not be enough to warrant interaction from a God, but judging by the track record God would be interacting with the world frequently. If not for me, then for the Christians, Atheists, Muslims and other groups.
