I have an atheist friend who is very supportive of my faith. She calls herself an atheist but insists her beliefs don’t apply to me. ie. she doesn’t think I’m wrong, per se. I’ve often pointed out that she has to think I’m wrong, because one of us has to be. She points out that her belief system has nothing to do with me, and mine hers. We do argue, from time to time, on why she doesn’t believe in a deity. Simply put – there’s no proof, she says. So, I asked her “what would you consider acceptable proof? And, is it possible, you wouldn’t see it, or know it?”
She couldn’t answer me, and told me it’s the first logical question a Christian has ever asked her. So, I’d like to ask another atheist. You all put a great deal of value in proof. So, what would be considered acceptable proof?
Posted: August 24th 2010
Eshu www
Proof is a bit of a strange term. I think “Evidence” fits the question better.
If you’re interested in what evidence for a deity might convince an atheist, this article is a good start.
Posted: September 18th 2010
Mike the Infidel www
No amount of proof would ever cause me to return to my old beliefs. They’re rationally untenable. The best I could do would be to become a deist, but even that wouldn’t offer me much of an incentive for believing.
If there’s a God, it should know how to convince me, even if I don’t. If it really cares whether I believe, it will convince me. If it doesn’t, it won’t.
Posted: September 13th 2010
Leeta www
Hello,
Thank you for your question.
The moment there is evidence of a supernatural thing, that is the precise moment is ceases to be supernatural. The moment it ceases to be supernatural, you cannot call it God.
There is a reason that Biblical stories always insist you never ask for “proof”, but rather that your mustard-seed sized faith will buy you entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.
There can never be proof. There can never be evidence. Those who create these stories understand that they will live on purely by faith. Once a religious person insists there is evidence, they risk diminishing their religious conviction, as science will always prevail and the material world will always prevail.
Keep your religion to the matter of faith, and faith alone. In this way, no one can unravel your faith scientifically.
Now, whether “faith” is enough for you (or anyone who believes) is a personal matter. If you need evidence, material evidence the way scientists mean, you will be disappointed. If you do not, then you should be content just believing for the sake of believing, or, “having faith”.
Posted: August 26th 2010
Eric_PK
It’s very hard to talk about proof for the existence of God without a definition for what God is.
However, if we use the christian god as an example, then verifiable, repeatable evidence of God interacting with the world be a good start. A few of the miracles reported in the bible would work.
Although I’m reminded of Clark’s dictum – “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
Posted: August 24th 2010
Dave Hitt www
We’d run into the Arthur C. Clarke problem: any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It would have to be something that couldn’t just be a good magic trick or technology beyond our own.
He would have to give me his power. Just for ten minutes or so, and then not undo all the things I did, so I could see the results and know it wasn’t just a hallucination.
Posted: August 24th 2010
Steve Zara www
There is no such thing, as believers have put God beyond proof, and keep moving the goalposts so God isn’t where we look.
Gods used to be in trees and rocks. We look and we see nothing. Gods lived at the tops of mountains. We climbed the mountains. No Gods. Gods were then in the heavens. But we looked in the heavens with telescopes and saw stars and planets, asteroids and comets. But no Gods. God then miraculously became beyond time and space, a breaker of physical law, or an interferer at the quantum level. And so it goes on. God creeps away from the light of science and reason, always one level removed from what we know.
The idea of God isn’t designed to be proven, because that would also mean the idea could be disproven, and that would never do!
Posted: August 24th 2010
logicel
Atheism is lack of belief in a theistic god, so I do not know to which beliefs your atheist friend is referring. Perhaps that faith to you is important, while for your friend the evidential basis to reality is?
As Paula has pointed out, it is evidence that is required, not proof. You will find answers to the modified version of your question here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here
As you can see, your question has been a popular one. Therefore, I find it odd that no other theist asked your friend this question! Be so kind as to direct your friend here so she can know our responses. Thank you.
As for your particular addition, could there be proof (evidence) and we do not know it—it is irrational to accept any belief until the evidence is there. And certainly not to embrace a set of beliefs that does so much harm just on the odd chance that they may be correct as it is in the case of many religious beliefs, and for which we have already excellent, evidential explanations. Extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims, please.
Keep in mind that not all of the gods that are believed in can be true, but all of the gods could be false. And that is where atheism has the logical edge.
Posted: August 24th 2010
Paula Kirby www
No, not proof: evidence. There’s a difference. Evidence simply means good reasons to conclude that X is probably true. (as opposed to 'would be nice, would be comforting, etc’).
The Christian god, by definition, cannot be true, for reasons I have discussed here.
The arguments put forward by Christians for the truth of their beliefs simply don’t work.
Personal revelation or subjective certainties are not evidence, because no one else can authenticate them. They amount to 'You just have to take my word for it’. And no one should ever do that, about anything, because the brain is extremely susceptible to mis-perceiving things (that’s why corroborating evidence is so important!): drugs, alcohol, exhaustion, stress, emotion, hallucination and illness can all create the illusion of real and deeply moving experiences that were, in reality, nothing more than neurological blips.
The bible doesn’t count as evidence because it is, in effect, a sales brochure, its books having been selected (from a vast number on offer – highly contradictory ones, too) by a particular group of people at a particular time with a particular purpose: i.e. to convince others of their particular brand of theology. Its wilder claims – the ones that are central to Christianity, such as the resurrection – cannot be validated. There is simply no corroborating evidence from outside the sales brochure. To claim that something is true just because it is written in the bible would be to beg the question, i.e. to assume the very answer that is in dispute: after all, you can only believe the bible is the word of God (and therefore evidence in its own right) if you already believe in God, so you can’t use it as evidence for the existence of God.
'Millions of people believe this’ doesn’t count, because millions of people can simply be wrong. Until relatively recently everyone believed the sun orbited the Earth: that didn’t make them right. And millions of people still believe that the stars determine our personalities and our fortunes in life – they’re not right either.
The existence of the universe, the existence of us, the existence of morality, the existence of people who are convinced they’ve had personal experiences of one or other of the 1000s of gods available to believe in, and anything else you care to mention, can all be far more plausibly explained (with supporting evidence, of course!) without recourse to the supernatural.
And actually, most Christians know this, because discussions with them about what grounds they have for what they believe always start with the kind of thing I’ve listed above, but as the discussion progresses, and all these arguments are shown, one by one, to be inadequate, they always finally resort to, 'Well, you’ve just got to have faith’. And faith is something people only resort to when there are no better grounds for believing something.
Victor Stenger’s book, God: The Failed Hypothesis gives a comprehensive and very readable evaluation of the complete lack of evidence for the Christian god, if you are interested in finding out more.
Finally, you might like to ask yourself what evidence you have for the existence of the god you believe in that wouldn’t be available to someone who had steeped themselves their whole life through in worship of the god Mithras, for example. You don’t believe in Mithras. Why not? What real, verifiable evidence is there for your god that there isn’t for him? Do you really think a devotee of Mithras or Shiva or Ra or Zeus or any of the other 1000s of gods humans have worshipped and dedicated their lives to over the ages didn’t think they had all the evidence they needed too? Didn’t feel just as confident as you do that they had hit on the right god? Didn’t also 'just know inside’ that they were right?
Posted: August 24th 2010