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Post by moviemouth on Sept 27, 2020 9:27:39 GMT
I am saying in theory God can and if he wants to convince me that he exists then doing what I said would maybe get me to give in. You can't tell me that God can create everything that exists or ever has existed and ever will exist and not be able to do what I said. I mean you can, but I am not going to believe you. A magical creature can do anything he or she likes, since they are magical. However, there is no such thing as magic other than in fantasy literature and religion. I am playing Devil's advocate here. Give me a break.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 27, 2020 9:34:42 GMT
I am playing Devil's advocate here. Give me a break. There are plenty of folks being healed via magic miracles by TV preachers...if that's all you need to be convinced.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Sept 27, 2020 9:36:01 GMT
Honestly at the moment i am not sure if anything could convince me, at least i can`t think of anything.
Even if i don`t actually dismiss the possibility that there is a God, but i find it very unlikely and i don`t know what proof would be good enough to make me 100% convinced that God exist.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 27, 2020 9:41:22 GMT
Honestly at the moment i am not sure if anything could convince me, at least i can`t think of anything. Even if i don`t actually dismiss the possibility that there is a God, but i find it very unlikely and i don`t know what proof would be good enough to make me 100% convinced that God exist. I am on the same page, but I never said anything about 100%. The only thing I can be 100% sure about is that I exist somewhere in some form that is perceiving this reality.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Sept 27, 2020 9:43:50 GMT
Honestly at the moment i am not sure if anything could convince me, at least i can`t think of anything. Even if i don`t actually dismiss the possibility that there is a God, but i find it very unlikely and i don`t know what proof would be good enough to make me 100% convinced that God exist. I am on the same page, but I never said anything about 100%. The only thing I can be 100% sure about is that I exist somewhere in some form that is perceiving this reality. I did not say you said anything about 100%, that part was on my own views not your views.
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Post by moviemouth on Sept 27, 2020 9:54:10 GMT
I am on the same page, but I never said anything about 100%. The only thing I can be 100% sure about is that I exist somewhere in some form that is perceiving this reality. I did not say you said anything about 100%, that part was on my own views not your views. I know you didn't. I was just hoping to make myself more clear. I totally understand your POV.
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Post by phludowin on Sept 27, 2020 10:32:11 GMT
The question is incomplete. Convince me of what?
That a god exists? That the God of Abraham exists? That anything supernatural exist?
I am materialistic and believe that the supernatural is the natural not yet explained. If you want me to elaborate further, you will have to specify your question.
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Post by Arlon10 on Sept 27, 2020 11:01:01 GMT
I finally have an answer. If everyone on the planet was cured of all disease and all major injuries and amputees were give back their limbs, either at the same exact time or even within a month and this was all over the news for the next year etc.
That would be enough for me to verify to myself that I am not just delusional and that I would have a difficult time writing off as aliens.
I suspect somebody has done a great disservice to you in expecting you to "believe" in something they do not use well themselves. Forget the pressure to believe in it and just study it without worrying how all the parts fit together in the end. There are people who just do what they are told without questioning or understanding it. They might claim to be "religious" but do not use religion effectively to any purpose. Rather they depend on force, usually force of government. Of course some things do require government force, but not as many as they think. Perhaps they have given you very incorrect ideas of religion. This thread is based on rather bizarre expectations of religion and not a clear understanding of society and how religion can work in it.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Sept 27, 2020 11:22:29 GMT
If everyone on the planet was cured of all disease and all major injuries and amputees were give back their limbs, either at the same exact time or even within a month and this was all over the news for the next year etc.Ha! Even Jesus couldn't do that. The odd thing about Jesus was that he was apparently only able to cure people at the most, in small groups. Why someone who could cure leprosy would not cure the whole world of the affliction while he was about it is hard to explain or excuse. In previous exchanges the best that has been offered by way of explanation is that "no one asked him" - as if someone wholly good has to be persuaded to do more of what is necessarily right! In regards to legs growing back, the only example I have ever come across is the purported Miracle of Calanda en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Calandasome elements of which can be confounding to the open-minded sceptic. However it can be noted that, even here it was partially, if not wholly, investigated and checked by the church itself; this while it is much easier, and more natural, to remember the history of religious mendacity that it is to think of any other examples of this sort. There is also the drawback that modern researchers have (of which the primary one appears to be a Catholic writer) is that they can only read documents, but not interrogate the original witnesses - relying instead a lot on a transcription of the canonical process undertaken by way of principal corroboration at the time. Some key documents, too, only survive in copies. Whatever the state of the matter though, God - or whatever it was - certainly seems to have a disdain for amputees and appears only to have chosen someone obscure at random, in an obscure place, to produce a single instance of this type of thing.,, In regards to the persuasion of this atheist of the existence of a particular supernatural deity, then the answer is the same as always. An omniscient God would know exactly what it would take to persuade (not, note coerce) me, and many others. So why doesn't He just do it and bring many more to salvation through informed consent? The 'fear of rejection by the obdurate' defence, often used here, speaks very poorly for the self-confidence and omniscience of the Creator.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 27, 2020 12:15:16 GMT
"That would be enough for me to verify to myself that I am not just delusional and that I would have a difficult time writing off as aliens." Or you could just be in some Matrix-like computer simulation But from my POV, even THAT...some matrix-like computer simulation... would be evidence of something almost God-like. In fact the more I think of it, it might even be MORE convincing to me than the 'everyone was cured of all diseases and all missing/deformed limbs became whole and functional in one instant' scenario. NOT that that scenario would fail to impress me. But just imagine the intellectual and computing prowess involved in such a feat...building a program that appears to be the size of our universe that seems to function in real time to simulate all the workings and goings on we seem to see around us.
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Post by rizdek on Sept 27, 2020 13:16:17 GMT
I finally have an answer. If everyone on the planet was cured of all disease and all major injuries and amputees were give back their limbs, either at the same exact time or even within a month and this was all over the news for the next year etc.
That would be enough for me to verify to myself that I am not just delusional and that I would have a difficult time writing off as aliens.
If I understand your hypothetical scenario....ALL diseases, all deformities, all disabilities, all deficiencies, all derangements, ALL simultaneously being reversed/remedied/reconciled in one moment.
That would include NOT just those that were being treated, but also those which were minor and just being ignored/tolerated...eczema, acne, warts, liver spots, body odor, slightly ingrown toenails, etc.
And it would include even those that had never been diagnosed/recognized as problems. That is, a person would wake up with better vision, muscles that work better, a heart the pumps blood much more efficiently than it did when some undetected abnormality existed, more stamina because the lungs and muscles work better, a brain that thinks more clearly than it did when it was being impeded by some heretofore undiscovered and un-diagnosed brain deformity or deficiency.
If something like that happened, I'm sure many would continue to seek a natural explanation, but I think I'd start thinking much more positively about the idea of something 'at work' that is out of the ordinary and not according to way the world normally works. Most of us...(well at least I do)...consider 'god-belief' on a sort of sliding scale. I range from ~2 to 3 on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being absolutely certain there is NO god or supernatural existence at all and 10 being pretty much certain there is some kind of supernatural influence in the world around me.
But it's more complicated than just a yes/no answer regarding God's existence.
What is meant by God? What is the significance of there being a god? But even more importantly, what is the significance of whether I, personally, believe in God as opposed to WHAT I believe about this god? I could well start believing in God but also believe he's a bastard for waiting so long to do all this miraculous healing. EG, I know my now dead mom suffered horribly from some sort of old age dementia. My dead grandfather suffered most of his adult life with a very painful back injury that happened when he was very young. My great grandfather who I never knew apparently suffered horribly and ultimately died from prostrate cancer. I might wonder what this "fuckhead" God was about to allow THOSE (and infinitely more hideous/heinous) things to happen to humans (and other life forms) and then suddenly, for some whimsical reason, heal everyone...today of all days.
To me, at this point in my life, it seems like whether I believe there is a god is almost academic on the order of whether I believe in, say, Higgs boson or know how many massive black holes lurk in the Milky Way. My knowledge of/belief in these thing is an interesting topic for debate, but as far as real world impact on things I can control, they are pretty much irrelevant. NOT that the HIggs boson might not very important to my existence...it may well be...but what I believe about it, seems pretty irrelevant.
In like fashion, if I became aware of a god on the order of one who 'woke up one morning' and just decided to heal all human...(and animals) and return them to some semblance of a perfect state, I think I'd pretty much continue to live my life just as before...but with many known and unknown maladies fixed and gone (for good...I hope).
For example, I wouldn't all of a sudden start rereading the Bible and praying to Jesus as if I believed this god I just became aware of somehow made use of something like human sacrifice as part of his 'plan' for salvation. I would still be certain...a 1 on the scale of 1 to 10, that NO god ever did that. That had to be cooked up by humans. I wouldn't suddenly start researching Islam, Hinduism or Shintoism, or start seeking babies/virgins to sacrifices to volcano gods. If I became convinced something like that existed, I might start doing experiments to see if something I could do (special hand gestures or walking in circles in my living room), say (incantations or chants) or think(clever/wholesome thoughts), might make it do things to favor me or others around me. But that's about it.
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Post by Zos on Sept 27, 2020 13:34:27 GMT
God to make a large deposit in a numbered Swiss bank account in my name. Or to stop being such an utter bastard to the animal Kingdom.
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Post by Rodney Farber on Sept 27, 2020 16:25:29 GMT
Don't ask me. Ask Jehovah. He should know.
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Post by mikef6 on Sept 27, 2020 17:33:11 GMT
I think I would believe if god could prove he is on the side of basic human decency by giving Joe Biden a 50 state sweep for the presidency.
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Post by Aj_June on Sept 27, 2020 18:07:49 GMT
I think I would believe if god could prove he is on the side of basic human decency by giving Joe Biden a 50 state sweep for the presidency. Well establishment of basic human decency will rule out existence of either of the two corrupt parties of the US.
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Post by mikef6 on Sept 27, 2020 18:33:49 GMT
I think I would believe if god could prove he is on the side of basic human decency by giving Joe Biden a 50 state sweep for the presidency. Well establishment of basic human decency will rule out existence of either of the two corrupt parties of the US. One of the two is about partially corrupt, sure, but mostly in the public's interest while the other is wholly rotten with an amoral cult leader at its head. Take it as the least of evils if you wish but there is an obvious discernable difference between the two.
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Post by Isapop on Sept 27, 2020 19:21:34 GMT
I finally have an answer. If everyone on the planet was cured of all disease and all major injuries and amputees were give back their limbs, either at the same exact time or even within a month and this was all over the news for the next year etc.
That would be enough for me to verify to myself that I am not just delusional and that I would have a difficult time writing off as aliens.
How about all amputees on the planet get their limbs back, but you forget about the disease and injuries part? Will you take that? (I've been authorized to negotiate.)
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Post by Stammerhead on Sept 27, 2020 20:49:12 GMT
Any one of those Biblical things that he used to do might do the trick.
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