What is proof of God?

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God has so far chosen to avoid letting himself be proven, so the whole idea that the smoking gun, the pudding, the indisputable evidence of existence, would be *this*, seems a little silly to me.

The complete lack of evidence of devine intervention in the universe leads me to chose between two scenarios. One is that there is no god, and the other is that god has designed it like that for some purpose. Perhaps the fairly common Christian idea that god is tallying up true believers is that reason. What do I know. Perhaps everything we know about cosmology and physics and biology is part of his plan or design. Either there is no god, or the creator has decided to hide his influence on the universe we can observe.
Why unveil it like that?

In order to be able to construct a machine like that, one has to assume that a large amount of modern science has to be applied, so if this is how god's existence is to be revealed, I appreciate his sense of irony.

My conception of logic is founded on the law of non-contradiction. Nothing cannot both be and not be at the same time. Virtually all logic of any kind is based on the law of non-contradiction except for paraconsistent logics which have little practival use.

ruveyn

I think logical debate of this question is a frivolous matter - for the believer them self and also from the believer to the skeptic. There are two verses which I think lead to this conclusion -

in Hebrews 11
"without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

and in James 1
"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord."

Unfortunately the person in the "convince me of God" mindset is entering an arena where logical proof for validity is void - God denies entry via proofs and lays the cards on the table that you must believe to see rather then vice versa. But believers should understand that (as Kierkegaard has stated) - "Christ uses only one proof: 'If you do my father’s will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speak­ing on my own authority.' This implies that an action-situation is necessary before the decision of faith can come into existence; it is a venture. It is not a matter of proof first and then the ven­ture. No, first the venture, then the proof." Utilizing logical proofs in this arena is simply a frustration for all involved - the logic utilized is inherently foolish and automatically invalid to the skeptic, and it is a broken method for the believer.

And for the believer - one must realize that the "Is there a God?" question isn't up for argument where one utilizes the right data to support this or that statement. God doesn't operate in hypothesis for the believer, since the reality of "God IS" precludes the possibility of "God if". No one will ever see anyone prove God's existence/possibility of existence, because God has denied that as the road to belief. With how the Bible lays it out, it's not a matter of convincing/proving minds, but of love in action and changing of hearts.

The moment that God is proven to exist is the moment that the universe collapses.

God and proof do not belong in the same sentence.

Smigiloo, what you are saying IS exactly what the skeptics have been saying all along:
There is no proof for the existence of any gods, and the believers have to decide to believe *despite* this.
You realize that this is the exact same situation for believers of every single faith based religion, and they all believe that the story their parents told them is *the* correct one. They can't all be right (and chances are they are ALL wrong), and your certainty that yours is the one seems to me to be a bet with huge stakes. Your life is in the kitty (you provided the "cards" analogy).

That is, in fact, as you know, simply an unsupported opinion.

Unspecified, it seems to me that you and many others here are making wrong assumptions about belief and faith.

OK, educate me.

There is no empirical proof for the existence or non-existence of God. Which why one must believe that God exists. It is impossible to know for sure one way or the other.

ruveyn

Yes. Well.

I can put "God" and "proof" together in a sentence: "I have not seen convincing proof of the existence of a God". Saying the two words don't belong in the same sentence proves my point that believers do not require proof before they stake their entire lives (and that of their children) on something their parents told them.

Is one of your hobbies begging the question?

ruveyn

I'm not sure if I understand correctly. You mean do I challenge people with the question of God's existence? Not really; never. I wasn't attempting an apologetic defense of any view point. I was attempting to look at the form of the debate and why these separate modes of conclusion cannot be reconciled to one another and why the debate is frustrating for both sides.


Yes. I wasn't trying to support or dismiss any point of view - I was trying to see the difference between a believer's method of conclusion and the skeptic's (I don't try to use this word with a negative connotation) method of conclusion and how they are incompatible. And that to apply one of these modes to convince the other side generally brings no one anywhere else.

I have my beliefs which is obvious by some of the details in my post. But I was writing to explore what I think this kind of question means to either side rather then supporting/debunking any particular viewpoint. Hopefully I explained myself thoroughly, but ask me more if you need me to clarify what I was attempting to say. Thanks for reading.

I think heavenly's statement reflect a specific hypothesis that he didn't state - ie. that everything generally outside of this is heaven, that there's no agnosticism or question anywhere else but here, and agnosticism is what makes this place unique or makes this place something like a human stress and development pressure-cooker. *If* that were the case, irrefutable proof would in that sense unravel the whole dynamic of what this place is for to begin with.

Not saying I necessarily believe that, just that its the specific case scenario where that statement makes sense and its not a particularly rare hypothesis among believers.

Yes, correct.

That's an interesting interpretation. Sometimes I like to make cryptic remarks just to leave it open-ended and leave room for different points of view.

That isn't really what I meant though. I guess I just meant, the way I look at God, it is by it's very nature undefinable. No one has ever given an adequate definition of God to me before.

There was also a little more to what I said. I was speaking about the beauty and the mystery of the universe. I would hate to break down all the majesty of the universe into concrete parts. If I were to realize all the beauty in the world all at once, my heart would explode. No human being can handle it.

Okay, I realize I didn't directly respond to the original question, so I will respond to it more directly.

First of all, sound not working. Apologies, but I can't hear the videos...

Secondly, I'm not here to refute near death experiences but they are not proof of a God to an outsider, they are only proof of God to the person who actually has the experience. For all I know, these people are lying. I don't actually believe they are lying, but strictly speaking, it's not proof.

I mean, I knew someone who did a lot of DMT and he told me he saw what happened after death and there was no afterlife. So there is probably some personal bias going on in each afterlife experience.

Scientifically, we need a scientist to explain how near-death experiences actually work. I don't have that answer.