> Proof that God exists: everyone in the world wakes up with a plate of cheesecake next to them and a note saying "I'm sorry for all the stuff that's messed up. I'm trying my best. -Yahweh" Done. Just an example.
You think that would work? I don't think it would. It'd be the talked-about event of the century for sure, but I don't think it would make any difference whatsoever in which people believed in God.
Think seriously about it. What would it be like if that actually happened? That and nothing else. If the church still had all the problems it does today. The Bible still had all the problems you perceive. The philosophical arguments against God's existence still apply. He still didn't save your mother/dog/goldfish back in 1998. Just . . . everyone has cheesecake and a note.
You'd credit God with having done that?
Instead of, say . . .
- Some really organized followers of his
- Someone who invented a new, let's say, matter/energy
conversion technology and wanted to play a prank on
the world
- Aliens approximately as advanced as Star Trek
- Mass delusion (everyone made their own cheesecakes
and notes -- maybe it's something in the water?)
- Some extradimensional powerful being that
nonetheless isn't Yahweh. More like Loki.
- Mass hallucination (mind control?) -- it didn't
happen but we all think it did.
- Proof positive that you are, in fact, a brain
in a vat.
- Some unexplained phenomenon that, whatever it might
be, sure as heck ain't God because of all the
problems with that
I mean, weren't you the one earlier in this thread telling lotharbot his mystical experiences could be explained by ghosts?
You know who would interpret it as evidence for God's existence? People who already believe in him. Miracles are like that. They are just another class of evidence; if the other classes aren't persuasive to you, they won't even rock your boat.
There is no such thing as proof in reality. No such thing at all. Philosophers will tell you that you can't prove your mother exists, and they're right.
Proof is too high a standard for real things. In the real world, all we have is evidence.
> You know who would interpret it as evidence for God's existence? People who already believe in him.
And actually, that's probably not even true. If what you described literally happened, I wouldn't entertain for a minute that it was God's work, it being so profoundly unlike him on so many levels.
> > I know what the voice of God sounds like.
> And you are certain that it isn't from another agent like the devil?
Yeah, pretty sure. Experience. When your mother talks to you, are you sure it's her?
> I kind of wonder how you evaluate someone else as having that ability
They describe a similar experience. It's not all that different from determing that you and someone else know the same person.
> You don't accept that the Oracle of Delphi was legitimate right?
No, of course not. Just because I think there were legitmate prophets, and are people God chooses to speak to today, that doesn't mean I think all such claims are legitimate. In fact, most are bogus. A lot of the Christian ones, even, are bogus.
The existence of pseudoscience in no way leads me to doubt real science, and the existence of pseudoreligion has nothing to do with the reliability of real religion.
> Anyway, I think you are right that your claim is closer to out of body experience claims than other unfalsifiable ones.
Indeed. That's why I don't usually bring it up in apologetics. Sometimes I do, as it gives you an interesting dilemma -- I'm lying, confused, or . . . maybe telepathic space aliens? It's actually a tougher dilemma than it looks like. But I agree, it isn't really accessible evidence to other people. That's not what it's for, anyway.
> Still though if your claim proves to be false, that doesn't mean that God doesn't talk to humans. That claim is still unfalsifiable.
Well, it would mean that God doesn't talk to humans in the way I thought he did. It doesn't falsify the idea that he could sometime, somewhere, I suppose, but it does reduce it to zero evidence. I would have to change my answer from "of course" to "I don't know" plus a reasonable level of skepticism. Practically, I think that's about as good.
> I also have to ask if people can communicate with God then why don't people use that to finally solve all of the differences between the different denominations?
It doesn't work like that. God chooses when, where, and how to speak to us, and what he's going to say. We don't control him; he's the soverign one in the relationship.
Remember what I said earlier, about how faith doesn't revolve around miracles and personal revelation? It doesn't. We are intended to work things out, to work with evidence and history and reason. This is an age of scripture and faith, not prophets and temples. What God does supernaturally in people's lives . . . believe or not, that's at the fringe of modern Christian experience. It's not the core. And that's by his choice.
> Is Jesus really against minimum wage?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I never claimed to know. You mean, would I ask him for you? No. It doesn't work that way.
> There is no shortage of evidence that he is real and acts in history.
I think it's clear from your response that you're not familiar with the broad apologetics topics I'm referring to. Tell you what, let me expand a bit, so you can see what some of the arguments are. These are the things I personally find persuasive.
The content and history of the Bible
- The Bible is completely unique among works of literature in its origin.
It was written over the course of 1500 years, by many different authors,
in three languages, on three continents, in times of war, peace,
famine, plenty, persecution, and exile. It was written by soldiers,
shepherds, statesmen, scholars, fishermen, kings, statesmen,
religious leaders, social outcasts, prisoners, and wealthy men. It
was compiled independently by several separate communities centuries
removed from the authors.
- It nonetheless tells a consistent, coherent story, and its message
develops consistently throughout. It is a serial, not an
anthology. That strikes me as pretty darn amazing. You try
to construct a serial out of famous works across multiple millenia,
continents, cultures, and walks of life.
- No one author or organization has ever even remotely controlled it.
The only one who could have written it is God.
- It is unique among works of scripture in being able to make
these claims. Other scriptures are the work of one author,
one culture, one time.
- In short, the Bible has credentials appropriate for supernatural
origin. If God *did* write a book, the Bible is a reasonable
candidate.
- The Bible is an ancient book, the most modern parts being about as
old as Aristotle. If you go back and read stuff from the era,
it sounds pretty foolish. I mean, you can see some interesting
early ideas, but we've learned a lot since then. What they say
seems silly and outdated. *But we're still talking about the
Bible.* Whoever wrote it had such an insight into humanity that
still find it relevant and insightful after two millenia.
Even with all the changes in culture and knowledge in between.
That seems like a feat worthy of God.
- The Bible contains well-known prophecies that can be validated
by history. Specific old testament prophecy about Jesus
preceded his appearance by several hundred years. (Even
if you assume the dead sea scrolls are the originals, they
still precede him by centuries). The book of Daniel
contains prophecies about later political events in Greece
that are so accurate that some scholars resort to
assuming they are backfilled from the time of Greece (but
this is inconsistent with any other dating for Daniel).
The formation of modern Israel as a state (in 1948) fulfills
old testament prophecy. The destruction of the temple in
70 AD fulfills Jesus' prophecy.
- The message of the new testament, the Gospel, is remarkable
in its effectiveness and adaptability to human circumstance.
Literally the same message that is effective for a
herdsman in Africa is satisfying to a scholar at Oxford.
Criminals, saints, retarded people, healthy people, smart
people, illiterate people, any people anywhere. Writing
such an egalitarian yet relevant plan of salvation is
an amazing feat. It is accessible to everyone, yet
no one is overqualified. It is comprehensible to
everyone, yet no one finds it trite or obvious.
- The Bible is remarkable in its historical accuracy, in
terms of the described geography, the times and founding
of nations, the names of kings, etc. In fact, the
historical elements are so accurate that they have been
used as a guide to locate dig sites in archeology. Yet
it goes from secular history to miraculous accounts
in one breath, the two being integrated in the stories
and hard to separate. It is hard to account for such
a mixture of highly accurate history with fantasy.
The historical fact of Jesus' resurrection
- The resurrection of Jesus is claimed to have taken place
well within the lifetimes of the gospel writers, yet
even hostile witnesses of the era write accounts
consistent with its occurance. This would have been an
immensely difficult message to propogate at the time,
akin to claiming now that John F. Kennedy had risen from
the dead. Moreover, the claimed support for the fact
does not take an authoriarian form, but references
local witnesses. (e.g., not "Paul says so", but
"Ask around, lots of people saw him." )
- The founding of Christianity took place in the midst of
powerful forces wishing to discredit it. As the
resurrection of Jesus was the central fact on which it
rested, it must not have been possible to disprove,
either by the Jewish (religious) authority or by the
Roman (state) authority. The heavily persecuted
church was in no position to perpetrate a fraud.
- The psychological activity of the early church is
consistent with people who believed Jesus had risen from
the dead, and is completely at odds with their own
recorded behavior after his death. They literally
went from scattered and demoralized to boldly inviting
death.
- The choice of Sunday as a day of worship is completely
unexpected for people of a Jewish background, and is
evidence of a major theological event occuring on
a Sunday.
- Eleven of the twelve apostles (founders of Christianity)
were killed for their faith. The twelfth served life
in prison. All of them went to their graves still
claiming the resurrection was a reality.
The experience of the modern church
- Christianity as a religion was explosive at its founding
and is today practiced worldwide. Only two other religions
can make such a claim, both of which are closely related
to Christianity. Something happened thousands of years
ago, and everyone is *still* talking about it and reacting
to it. If God ever did act in history, that scale of
result is appropriate.
- The modern church is filled with people who will say
an encounter with Jesus changed their lives. Not just
spiritually; practically: reformed criminals, selfish
people who have become generous, crazy people who
have become sane, etc. Whatever else you can say
about the gospel, it clearly *works*. This sort of
impact is appropriate for God's central message.
- The modern chuch still experiences miracles and divine
intervention. (Controversial -- I reference my own
experience here.)
- Many famous heroes of history reference Christianity as
the source of their ideas. For example, church organizations
were central in the abolition of slavery.
- Many famous Christian apologists began as atheists who
became convinced of the truth of Christianity through
(initially hostile) study. G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis,
Lee Strobel, to begin with. In fact, I would say this
is more the rule than the exception. This flow of
immigration is appropriate for an intellectually sound
message.
The Origin of the Universe
- The more distantly one goes back in cosmic history,
the more remarkable are the coincidences that that make
human life possible. If this universe wasn't designed
for us, then there must be a HELL of a lot of other,
barren universes out there.
- "First Law" -- As natural laws are simply descriptions
of regularities in nature, they cannot indefinitely
explain themselves. The moon orbits because of gravity,
gravity is caused by something else, etc., but it cannot
be turtles all the way down.
- The laws of the universe are awfully beautiful, certainly
beyond anything we could write. If the universe was
designed, it certainly is the work of a superintelligence
of God's calibur.
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[deleted]
> Lastly, I didn't want to be a huge bother to anyone. I'm really not trained in any of this so do take my words as someone who is just that. If I say anything sophomoric or otherwise annoying, I'm sorry. If you point it out I will try to explain why I said it and/or apologize again.
You're not a bother. I believe it's important and worthwhile to talk to people who believe differently than you -- they have different ideas, and can expose weaknesses in your own thinking that you wouldn't expect.
That's why I'm telling you what I actually think, and why I actually think it, even if it sounds dumb. A hostile reader such as yourself provides me a type of critique I can't get from friendly ones.
I've talked to atheists a lot over the years, and I've found the experience enriching. And while I still think you're wrong, I wish the church would listen to you a lot more. Because you're damn right about some of the stuff we do wrong.
It's probably going to take me a little while to reply to all of this.. Sorry.
If you care, I have responded here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2996708 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2996708 Sorry that it has been so long..
The current subthread was touched off by your statement about "unreasonable" Christians relying on "experience" that you consider inadequate. So I ask, how would a reasonable person in my position weigh this evidence:
I, and many of my friends, have stated that during prayer they were given specific commands or information, which they followed. The details were often surprising, often things we had no way of knowing, and always accurate or impressive in some way. Two friends were given GPS-style directions to places they'd never been before or even heard of. Several friends were told to give certain items to certain people; those people consistently reported dire need for those exact items. Several friends have been the recipients of such gifts -- for example, a guy none of us knew showed up at our church with hand-painted blue figurines from a particular Warhammer faction saying God told him to give them to a church; this was the exact set of figurines a friend had asked for as a Christmas gift, in the right color, which his family could not even remotely afford.
Certainly, in order to convince you or some other outsider I'd need independently verifiable evidence. Otherwise you can argue we're lying or hallucinating. But the question I asked is about someone in my position -- how should I weigh the evidence? I know I personally am not lying. I trust every one of my friends whose stories I've referenced. Most are college educated, including several with graduate degrees in technical fields, and none are prone to jump to conclusions. I have no indication (aside from these stories) that any of us suffer from hallucinations, paranoia, or other psychological issues; it's not like the guy on the back of the bus talking about alien abductions and lasers burning his legs and not knowing what city he's in.
You might be inclined to say that the data isn't statistically significant, that it's cherry picked. But I'm a mathematician; I know some things about data. Many of the experiences I'm talking about are very low probability. When people cherry pick low probability events from a broad data set, a particular pattern emerges: for every perfect hit, there are an order of magnitude more borderline hits, and another order of magnitude more near misses. For every Warhammer figurines story, there would be a dozen "God told me to give this tractor to your church" "we don't need a tractor but I guess we'll take it and let it sit for years until we eventually sell it" stories -- but I've asked around, and nobody has stories like that. There are no borderline hits or near misses; every experience my friends have been able to call to mind has been a perfect hit.
You might be inclined to argue that it's not actually God, but some other source -- white noise, ghosts, telepathic space aliens, the devil, or some combination. Whatever the source, it has the attributes of always being right, knowing or being able to influence the future, viewing love, compassion, and truth as tremendously important, and representing itself as Yahweh to me and my friends. While I cannot prove it actually is Yahweh (after all, it could be very lucky white noise), wouldn't it be reasonable for a person in my position to call it Yahweh until given good reason not to?
My earlier contention was that if someone I trust as God's follower were to report Him telling them X, and then X turned out wrong, that it would disprove my theory. Consider the above discussion to be a more detailed version of my theory -- I would certainly have to reject the theory as currently understood (thus, it is falsifiable), and instead make significant modifications to some part of it. It would be a really, really big deal if even one of those experiences turned out badly.
I also want to reiterate: this isn't the core of Christian experience. The core is a transformed life. This is stuff that just happens from time to time and is kind of cool, but God doesn't seem terribly interested in trying to use it as "proof". That's the context in which I originally brought it up -- demonstrating that the modern actions I've seen God take, like the ancient actions in the Biblical record, are more about Him accomplishing some specific goal than about impressing anybody.
> "I'm sorry for all the stuff that's messed up ... -Yahweh"
I previously noted that some people who have been faced with overwhelming evidence of the existence of God still choose not to follow Him. My wife, similarly, made the point that "it's not like [some people would] hate him any less knowing for sure he is real." Thus, God trying to "prove" Himself to those who don't want to follow Him is pointless, and He shows no interest in doing so.
Your above quote demonstrates this perfectly. Even if God proved His existence, you consider Him to have messed up or to have done a poor job. I've heard others call God bigoted, intolerant, cruel, petty, and a number of other perjoratives. If the God you say such things about proved Himself to be real, it wouldn't change the fact that you think He kind of sucks. So what would be the point of God proving Himself to you?
-------------
With the big stuff out of the way, a couple of minor points:
> "copies of copies of translations of copies by anonymous authors of which we have no originals"
Any decent modern Bible translation goes directly from the original languages. It's not copies of copies of translations of copies; it's just translations of copies. More accurately, it's usually translations of scholarly reconstructions -- since we have copies from such a wide geographic area, we can actually do a really good job tracking down even very minor changes and making reasonable, evidence-based determinations as to the most likely original. (The process of making such determinations is called "textual criticism"; look it up if you're interested.) This is generally considered a solved problem.
> "the lives of the members of the WBC have indeed been perverted by Christ"
At best, their lives have been influenced by an extremely distorted misunderstanding of Christ. They certainly haven't been transformed by an actual, direct interaction with Christ; they certainly haven't experienced the supernatural change of character that I referenced as core to Christianity. They certainly don't display attitudes that are remotely similar to Christ.
> "who is authorized to practice it?"
I don't know if anybody presently has the authority to practice either healing or exorcism. I don't see any indication from the recorded instances of it in scripture that God would allow it to happen as part of an ego-driven "proof" to a group like JREF. I also don't see any reason to think that someone who could perform those things would be interested in JREF's money.
> "even if all Christians did believe in the same core beliefs, doesn't mean that you agree on what parts of scripture trumps other parts of scripture"
Right. That's what I've been saying all thread long. That's why I'm a pacifist and my wife was a defense contractor -- a tiny disagreement on which of two statements has the higher priority.
I think it's actually a good thing. I think God is interested in developing mature followers who weigh and consider and make tradeoffs. He wants us to grow, not to stagnate.