Does Anybody Think They Actually Have Evidence for the Existence of God?

Truly curious. I know many theists on this forum believe that God is an entity that cannot be proven through empiricism, but rather only proven through means of faith. However, are there actually anything theists out there think they have empirical evidence or a philosophical proof that gives credence or validity to the existence of God? Hopefully I can get some good replies in here before we get the religious zealots in here screaming about how we are persecuting them by asking questions.

 

I would like to add a question here: Can faith prove anything, ever?

 

Not to other people, which is why I think it's a terrible crutch, but that's a whole different story. Or at least that's my understanding of faith.

 

Ah well, that would be in line with the idea that each has a "personal relationship" with God, Jesus or whatever.

The thing is, though, people are far more likely having a "personal relationship" with themselves in a freaky, nigh-schizophrenic fashion. With whom, for instance, do Christians believe Muslims have a "personal relationship"? Is it their god Yahweh who's also their Allah, or is it the devil, or are the Muslims simply deluding themselves while the Christians have the One Truth Faith™?

 

Well that's the thing about faith and religion. Religion was designed to prevent people from questioning it especially from within. That is why faith was a major part of its design. No one can deny this. All we have to do is look at religions from their earliest stages. Do you believe in God? No? You die. Do you believe in God? Yes? Do you believe in MY god? No? You die.

The amusing thing about all this of course is that because free thinkers and scientists continued to ask questions we have discovered many things that make these mythologies hard to believe. But because of the power of faith religion endured and has now attached itself to all manner of discovery as proof that God does indeed exist.

They say if you can't tell us how something happened as in the beginning of the universe then it must be God. But if we ask them to prove its God or that it's their God they say we're being absurd and you can only know through faith.

Secularists must prove everything or admit defeat against a group of people who get upset and claim we are being mean and ridiculous if we ask them to prove anything.

 

Proof of God:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Fátima

I will post this everytime some atheist demands proof of God, even though it never seems to convince them.

 

Of course they do.

It is called God of the Gaps, Argument of Incredibility, and ignoring the need for a Watchmaker's Watchmaker.

The physical world does not hint at the existence of a deity, and certainly not a personal theistic God. If there is a God, fantastic. However that is no reason to use logical fallacies as a poor attempt to prove it's existence.

 

How about something more than a single newspaper clipping?

I can find more evidence for Maynard James Keenan's existence than I can your God.

 

Three newspaper clippings are quoted in this article. The authors had no reason to lie. At least one of them worked for a paper that was hostile to the Catholic Church.

Will you investigate this event in good faith? If you don't conduct an investigation you can't claim any sort of intellectual honesty in your opinions.

 

I wonder why.

 

You think that the only explanation is God here? There have been thousands of cases of people seeing the virgin Mary. There also have been thousands of people claiming to have been abducted by aliens. Also, I don't think that solar phenomenon are very convincing, especially since it only happened in Portugal and these people were staring at the sun for hours on end.

 

The authors for the World News don't have a reason to lie either, so is Batboy real?

Yes I have investigated it. I am not even remotely convinced.

 

Not everyone claimed to see the same thing that day, and at least a few no such miracle at all. Plus, there was nothing seen and reported outside of Portugal that day. Additionally, knowing what we do about astrophysics today, such a miracle would quite simply be impossible. The Earth would have been a wreck had it been stopped in its cosmic tracks for the sake of a group of people in Portugal foolish enough to stare at the sun.

 

The plural is 'phenomena.'

Anyway, dead on about people staring at the sun. I've heard that there's an Easter tradition in Russia which says that people can safely look at the sun on Easter morning.

Religion makes people stupid.

 

People had no reason to stare at the sun because it was not revealed ahead of time that the miracle would involve the sun.

What is your next nonsense theory?

 

Not everyone at Fatima witnessed the supposed miracle, and accounts of what people thought they saw differ from one to the next.

http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/miracle.asp
...

"Then, suddenly, one heard a clamor, a cry of anguish breaking from all the people. The sun, whirling wildly, seemed all at once to loosen itself from the firmament and, blood red, advance threateningly upon the earth as if to crush us with its huge and fiery weight. The sensation during those moments was truly terrible.
"All the phenomena which I have described were observed by me in a calm and serene state of mind without any emotional disturbance. It is for others to interpret and explain them. Finally, I must declare that never, before or after October 13 [1917], have I observed similar atmospheric or solar phenomena."

You might read this and assume that some 70,000+ people all witnessed just what this one person described. If you do, you're not applying much thought or scepticism to the problem. You take it all at face value, apparently, as I'd expect from someone who has a vested interest in the story being true.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4110
...

It's also been pointed out that observatories around the world reported nothing unusual that day, so whatever it was had to have been a localized phenomenon. Personally I gravitate toward an even simpler explanation, fueled by having spent many happy hours as a child laying on my back and staring directly at the sun. When you do that, you can't see a round, static disk. Your eyes and pupils spazz out, and "dancing" is certainly one way to describe what you see. Spinning would be another valid way to perceive it. If there are tens of thousands of people fully expecting to see something amazing, and someone shouts "Hey look at the sun," guess what, you've now got tens of thousands of people seeing something amazing in the sun.

There's an experiment you can do. Stand on the sidewalk and point up toward the top of a building. People walking by will look up too. Some of them will pause. If another person looks at them, they might point up as well. Anything anyone sees will be assumed to be what you were pointing at. Go to Starbucks, have a coffee, and watch the fun. To me it's not only plausible, it's probable that if a single person at Cova da Iria told that desperate crowd that the sun looked strange, you'd have had ten thousand people agreeing "Yeah, it did look a little funky, kind of jumped around and danced when I tried to look at it," or whatever they thought they saw. And this would have happened on October 12, June 1, or any other day you choose.

Most of what's popularly reported about the sun incident, such as the colors and the spinning, comes from Father John de Marchi, a Catholic priest who spent years interviewing eyewitnesses to build evidence supporting the miraculous event. But more objective assessments of the eyewitness accounts have found very little evidence of a single shared experience. Author Kevin McClure, who also compiled eyewitness accounts, reported that he had "never seen such a collection of contradictory accounts in any of the research I have done in the past 10 years." If you were there, as a devout Catholic (otherwise you wouldn't be there), you fully believed in a miracle happening that day (otherwise you wouldn't be there), whether you personally saw anything or not you'd support the majority opinion, and probably go to your grave insisting that a miracle happened there. There's no surprise that Father de Marchi was able to form a consensus description of a spinning color wheel of a sun, and no need for any actual event to justify his consensus.

Father de Marchi says the sun was a spinning color wheel that day, which cannot be reconciled with the photograph. I say there was nothing special in the sky that day, which reconciles exactly with the photograph.

...

The work to which this author refers from Kevin McClure, from which he quotes that he had "never seen such a collection of contradictory accounts in any of the research I have done in the past 10 years," is apparently this:

The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary Aquarian Press, ISBN 0-85030-351-6, by Kevin McClure (1983).

 

Let's say for the sake of argument that in addition to you *not knowing* a reason for anyone in the chain of information to lie, that they actually did not have a reason to lie and that the article is otherwise accurate (you'll have to discuss that with the other people of the thread), what makes you think that the source such a supernatural event is a monotheistic god?

 

Intellectual honesty requires us to submit that we have no idea what event is actually being recorded here. The unknown is not proof of anything. There is no conclusive evidence of anything except an unexplained event.
Your requirements for what constitutes "proof" are far less stringent than most I have encountered.

 

It happened I know of a guy who had a supernatural experience back in 2005. He was actually raised up an atheist and he's not a formal Christian by then. He didn't read any Bible nor did he go to the church. After that experience, 1) he thus prophecied his own 'importance', he prophecied that he'll be able to answer most questions which were considered to be unanswerable (by then). And he did through the years ever since 2005. He also figured out through the years that the experience was well laid and its contents are truly rich that he actually needs years to grasp what that piece of experience would like to say. That experience is much consistent with Christianity theology and very much inline with what the Church is teaching.

To him, God is not just proven through faith. He can be proven through the manipulation of time, that's His style of letting His witnesses/prophets to get to know him. The theory can be summarized in a verse,

Acts 14:3
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.

Manipulation of time:
Basically, He confirms his messages through signs and wonders and prophecies. And the guy actually figured this out by himself instead of reading from the Bible. This verse is thus specially catchy to him when he finally read through the Bible. The verse here confirms the knowledge he acquired through his own experience.

Perhaps you will believe what he believes if you are able to read what's inside his brain, that might be the evidence you are asking for.

 

Or perhaps we would look at his brain and discover a pathology.
There is no way of knowing, and so using this story as a conclusive argument of anything is pretty worthless.
What was your point?

 

Your evidence is "something unexplained might have happened once"?

SERIOUSLY?

 

So you discount personal experience and personal prophecy like that?

On the other hand, it seems to me you will deny everything such that you can protect your own comfort zone of "not to believe".

 

How can I use that type of evidence? How can it be confirmed or verified?
The people of Jonestown would have given you very devoted witness. Did that mean they were right to murder a Senator and then commit mass suicide?

 

You would think God would be touching fists with Sean Hannity every night.

 

And I will counter this every time you post it: Why did no one else notice the sun changing save the people in that square?