Proving God Exists

[Anticontrame]

Lol, i just looked up the law of noncontradiction on Wikipedia: “Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.” -Avicenna, Medieval Philosopher

 

[HashemEchad]

So here’s the deal. The Church teaches dogmatically that the existence of God may be known with certainty by the light of human reason alone. Ironically, as a Catholic, I have to take this dogma on faith because I have never seen an argument for God that is incapable of logical refutation. I have searched and studied for this super-proof to no avail. I completely understand and know that it is up to the individual to make a choice for or against God, and that some atheists may refuse God no matter what argument is presented. But according to the dogma of the Church, there should be an argument that is 100% reasonable, which makes no logical errors and cannot be refuted but only disagreed with. There should be an argument which leaves the atheist silent or angry, incapable of pointing out flaws in its logic and incapable of logically refuting it.

I’ve yet to find such an argument - one that atheists can disagree with or run from but cannot be logically *refuted *- and am curious if someone else has. I’ve opened this thread for presentations of contending arguments and hopeful debate / dialogue between the theists and the atheists who frequent this board.

Thanks in advance to all who participate. :coffeeread: :knight2:

…let the intellectual workout begin…

I once debated the existence of God with a hardened atheist on another forum.

He asked me for solid proof of the existence of God.

I asked him how he thinks the Jewish people have survived the onslaught of every government and religion that tried to wipe us out in the last 3,500 years…yet we remain. Because God, in the Torah, promised us that we would always survive as a remnant, and we have.

(see my first link below for more info)

He never responded after I gave that example.

 

[Anticontrame]

For me, it seems that the existence of the finite must require the existence of the infinite (not necessarily God, but He fits the bill). Your thoughts? I think the existence of just finite matter, including humanity, must point to something beyond itself.

I think any finite thing can be conceived of as an infinite number of infinitely small divisions. I know that’s not what you mean, but that’s the only solid link I see between the two at the moment. If you’re meaning that, if everything has a cause, an infinitely long causal chain must exist: that’s an interesting question. I’m not sure if causality is just a property of our physics, or if it’s inherently always true.

Sure you have theories like the multiverse, but that simply shifts the problem from a single universe to many universes.

I agree with your point about shifting the explaination. The real questions are: Why does everything that exists, exist? Did a transition from nothing existing, to something existing, take place? If so, how? Can nothing exist? Etc.

Assuming causality didn’t stem from the big bang: I think the multiverse and brane ideas are interesting in that they might allow for an infinite chain of causality, in which what we think of as the big bang isn’t an origin, but only one incarnation of the whole. I don’t find the multiverse idea very convincing because it’s just so incredibly unparsimonious, and I don’t pretend to understand theoretical physics enough to grasp brane cosmology. On the other hand, the idea of an infinite god always existing seems almost as unparsimonious as the multiverse idea, to my mind.

 

[Anticontrame]

Hi there — thanks for the reply - that was directed at ranier but obviously open for discussion to all. I guess I am just convinced that there are those who could never be convinced (of the existene of God).

I wouldn’t say that most atheists could never be convinced. I think many do underestimate or underrepresent what it is that would convince them, but I don’t know that they’re in the majority. Personally, I’m especially stubborn on this point because I’ve become concerned with being skeptical of the accuracy of my view of the world, let alone the views of others. Don’t mistake my position for the norm.

My reasoning is that since God created the natural world in which we live, anything we could experience would be perceived in the context of the natural world and thus understood through our own limited capacity for understanding the natural world.

That’s a big part of why I’d be so skeptical of the proposition. I don’t have the ability to understand or experience the supernatural, so I can’t see why I should be expected to. All I (or anyone else, in my opinion) can do is try to infer it from the natural.

There was the miracle at Fatima witnessed by tens of thousands of people over a period of many months but has the world converted based on that? No, there are still people who try to explain it off as some freak event of nature or mass psychosis. I think since we are so limited by our five senses and our finite minds to process the stimuli received through our senses in a way to grasp the world around us, that it is strictly through faith that we can come to believe in God. I pray for all those who lack that gift of faith.

I’d have to think natural explanations are more likely here too -whether the sun dancing was fata morgana, the cromo effect, or whatever- because of how local the phenomena was, and because of what it would mean for the Earth or Sun to move like that.

 

[Anticontrame]

You should not simply accept the experiences of others. Other people can be mistaken, deluded, dishonest, etc. Nor should you uncritically accept your own experiences because you can be mistaken and deluded (as you say you have been). But when a number of people, unrelated to one another, report strikingly similar experience that they believe to be profound, you should at least start to take notice.

I take notice, but I see it as anecdotal evidence. It’s enough anecdotal evidence that I’d be dense not to consider the hypothesis, but it’s not enough to convince me by itself.

As for your own false “spiritual” experiences, place those experiences side by side with the experiences of Catholic saints and see if they are similar. [And you are probably not at all disposed to accept this hypothesis, but as a Catholic, I believe that there are diabolical forces who are particularly interested in deceiving intelligent people who would otherwise make great soldiers for Christ.]

My experiences weren’t limited to spiritual ideas. It was partly the inconsistencies of my perceptions of the objective that led me to realize the whole episode was a break with reality. The main conclusion I draw from the experience is that humans are more fallible than I thought.

While you may have reasons not to believe this Bible that recounts a man dying and then coming back to life, consider what happened afterward. Maybe Jesus’ followers stole his body, or whatever theory you want. [And yes, I know you are talking about an Intelligent Creator in general, not Christianity in particular, but indulge me.] Those who knew Jesus can not credibly be accused of faking the resurrection. Those closest to Jesus and this event believed it was a resurrection. I say that because 11 of the 12 Apostles went to their deaths because of this belief. Yes, apocalyptic cults have willingly died, but they are typically as the final measure of “making something happen” while following a leader in whom they still believe (Think Jones, or that UFO cult, of Branch Davidians). If Jesus had died and NOT resurrected, they would have known he was a fraud and not gone to their deaths for a lie. Consider that for whatever value you want to give it.

But here too, I’d be relying on second-hand accounts. There are too many chances for unintended bias, agenda, or error to creep in when events are observed, reported, recorded, translated, edited, compiled, and interpreted. (I’m trying not to offend. Please don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way.)

Yes, I’ve considered the prankster alien possibility. I suppose sufficiently advanced, natural beings could even send a cyborg or something back in time to say a lot of revolutionary things and then “die” on the cross and be “resurrected” just to see what we would do. And then these aliens could send “experiences” to people for their own reasons. I can’t DISPROVE that. But think about that a little bit. While knowing an infinite mind (such as that of an Infinite God) would be impossible, natural beings such as these hypothetical aliens would be finite, and we might explore their motivations for something like this. I haven’t come up with motivations that are satisfactory to me. If it is an alien experiment, what a wonderful experiment it is. It is an experiment in which the experimenters appear to have provided an answer to every spiritual question, provide meaning in suffering, revealed beauty where none could be seen before the subject embraced the “experiment.” I cannot disprove this.

I’d agree that the resurrection would be strong evidence, but I don’t regard those accounts as necessarily true. My perspective isn’t that it’s true and needs to be disproved, but that it hasn’t been shown to be true yet. If I accepted evidence of this kind as truth I’d be torn between the beliefs of the various religions, with no way of discerning which is correct. Depending on what beliefs I applied it to, I’d also have to accept testimony of less reputable ideas as well, like the existence of mythological creatures.

(cont.)

 

[Anticontrame]

But by your standards, you could never come to believe in God. Indeed, you really should not believe ANYTHING, except maybe that you have some sort of existence, perhaps radically different from your PERCEIVED existence. I think, therefore I am, but I am not necessarily what I think I am. So, if you saw the writing in the sky, and then a huge being with a long flowing robe, a long white beard, sandals, and a booming voice, grabbed you and held you to his face and said that he was God, and that he loved you, and you felt the love, and you were shown a vision of Heaven, and he set you back down telling you love other people and to follow his commandments, you would still not believe, by your standards. You still might be in a simulacrum, or the transient dream of some other being. Maybe your mother and father are not real, this world does not exist, I am not actually a person typing to you from some other part of the world. But come on, search yourself, this is infantile stuff for stunted Philosophy professors. At some point most of us make choices that we will believe that our experience, although affected by our own sensory filters, has some semblance to reality. If you never make that choice, then you will always be exist in your own created world of uncertainty where nothing is to be believed, not the speed of light, or the value of Planck density, or quantum fluctuations, or even the hand in front of your face.

I don’t think it’s impossible for a person with my position to come to believe in a god, or even in God. The idea of a proof-style argument is appealing to me because it would presumably deal with most of the issues I’m hung up on. Something like a message written in the sky (or whatever form of near-undeniable evidence you pick) wouldn’t be intellectually satisfying, but it’d still have an enormous effect on me. What I really mean by that example is that I’d want some experience that meshes with my perceptions of reality (a substantial part of which is my understanding of the perceptions of those around me) enough that I’m convinced by it, but also in a form that’s compelling enough to conclude that natural explanations are inadequate.

I didn’t mean to give the impression that I resort to philosophical abstractions of knowledge or belief often, or that those abstractions cause me difficulty in my day-to-day life. It’s a reason why I don’t think I could come to claim knowledge, but in normal practice I apply skepticism to claims in proportion to how much the claim disagrees with my understanding of reality, and in proportion to how belief in the claim would affect me. I’m especially skeptical of the claim that a god exists because the definition of a god as I understand it conflicts with much of my mental model of the world, and because I can’t see how someone could claim knowledge of the supernatural. I’m sure my mental model is wrong on many points, but that’s where I’m at right now.

Yes, religion, and belief in God, and Christianity all seem to be rife with self-contradictions. That is, until you have “eyes to see.” Most of the things that I assumed were contradictory I have learned, or I coming to learn, are actually consistent, and that the crazy, outdated, Church run by guys in dresses, really does have the answers.

If a god exists, I’d like to come to accept it, but not without getting there from here (unless I’m going to punished for disbelief of course, then I’d be happy to have my views changed). Maybe that’s a prayer for faith, in an abstract, wishy-washy way.

 

[Super_Grover]

To bsdman, OTavern, and Valentin,

I don’t want to derail this thread, but you have said that you have had similar experiences to what I described. Some day I want to post a thread for people to discuss these supernatural conversion experiences. When I do, I’ll let all of you know. And Rainier22, I’ll let you know too.

Btw, Rainier22, I don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression that you will pray and, “Abracadabra” you will believe. But I do believe that if you sincerely pray, and really try to suppress your pride and humbly leave yourself open to the possibility of a loving God, something powerful and wonderful will move in your life. Maybe not right away, maybe not in one or five or ten years – but eventually, if you leave yourself open to Him.

 

[Super_Grover]

Anticontrame,

In reading your response to my response to your post (I won’t quote it) I can’t find too much fault with your reasoning process. My examples and arguments are at best persuasive, not conclusive, and therefore have certain weaknesses. I don’t know how to offer logically irrefutable arguments to anyone on this. I never accepted the mere logic arguments myself. Now, maybe I should have, and my failure to do so was a flaw in my reasoning process, but regardless, logic never worked for me.

I may have misunderstood your earlier post. The way that you further explain it, it sounds like you have a framework that might at least allow for a belief in God. You’ve pointed out the difficulty of so many religions. If you come to believe in a higher power, you might know exactly where to land, or you may end up struggling with which is the “correct” religion.

For some, the multiplicity of religions is an obstacle to belief. For others, the similarities among religions is persuasive evidence for a belief in a higher power. Of course, an explanation can be given that the similarities of the human brain would necessitate similarities in religious expression even across cultures. One thing I find interesting about the Jews is that, while all these tribal peoples were worshiping the sun, the Jews knew that the sun was created (nothing overly persuasive, but interesting). To me, the multiplicity of religions is not a problem. God, his Son, and the Holy Spirit exist out of time. Jesus entered the time stream as a human, but he is eternally begotten and a Truth in all hearts, even in those born before Jesus’ human birth. I’ve heard these similarities among religions, these “partial truths”, attributed to the Truth that waits to be discovered in all people. Or I’ve heard it described as the “whisperings” of God to all people, even though he chose one particular tribe to hammer on the anvil and form and make ready for the Word Incarnate in Jesus.

You mentioned that you could not accept God right now because it would conflict with your mental model of the world. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you might be referring to how the world often seems senseless, arbitrary, chaotic, and otherwise inconsistent with a benevolent God and an ordered universe. Without going into it to much, just remember that if we Christians are right, we weren’t really made for this fallen world of death and suffering. Against the backdrop of eternity, what is this world? And, for us who do believe and study and enrich our knowledge of our faith, a lot of the apparent senselessness starts to make more sense. Not always, of course. We’re human, and I can’t help but shake my head and wonder some times when I watch the news or otherwise hear about the latest tragedy. Having faith is not like arriving at a certain state of mind, it is constantly challenged in a variety of ways. Not necessarily into potential unbelief, but challenged in trying to understand the meaning.

Btw, you want to talk about a weird coincidence? My kids are watching Willie Wonka while I type (The Gene Wilder version from the early 70’s, not Johnny Depp’s creepy Michael Jackson impersonation) and Wonka just said “You should never doubt what no one is sure about.” Hmmm.

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

I don’t think it’s impossible for a person with my position to come to believe in a god, or even in God. The idea of a proof-style argument is appealing to me because it would presumably deal with most of the issues I’m hung up on. Something like a message written in the sky (or whatever form of near-undeniable evidence you pick) wouldn’t be intellectually satisfying, but it’d still have an enormous effect on me. What I really mean by that example is that I’d want some experience that meshes with my perceptions of reality (a substantial part of which is my understanding of the perceptions of those around me) enough that I’m convinced by it, but also in a form that’s compelling enough to conclude that natural explanations are inadequate.

I didn’t mean to give the impression that I resort to philosophical abstractions of knowledge or belief often, or that those abstractions cause me difficulty in my day-to-day life. It’s a reason why I don’t think I could come to claim knowledge, but in normal practice I apply skepticism to claims in proportion to how much the claim disagrees with my understanding of reality, and in proportion to how belief in the claim would affect me. I’m especially skeptical of the claim that a god exists because the definition of a god as I understand it conflicts with much of my mental model of the world, and because I can’t see how someone could claim knowledge of the supernatural. I’m sure my mental model is wrong on many points, but that’s where I’m at right now.

If a god exists, I’d like to come to accept it, but not without getting there from here (unless I’m going to punished for disbelief of course, then I’d be happy to have my views changed). Maybe that’s a prayer for faith, in an abstract, wishy-washy way.

I don’t know if you have done so, but would you please read my post #72. How would you explain this if no God.
Prayers & blessings
Deacon Ed B

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Lol, i just looked up the law of noncontradiction on Wikipedia: “Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.” -Avicenna, Medieval Philosopher

I **like **that!

Though I might change the operational verbs to “tickled” and “poo-encrusted”.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

I’m trying to stretch my definitions, but I still can’t match up what you’re describing with the scientific method. It sounds as if you’re defining a special case when dealing with religion in which normal scientific practices don’t apply.

I have shown how the scientific method is in fact applied to religious experimentation. The requirements of the the area of study determine how the scientific method is to be implemented.

The religious experiment, where the observer/analyst must be both subject and observer, and where the data gathered is of necessity wholly observable in only a “subjective” way, simply due to “subjectivity” being the only possible way in which the data can BE observed.

IMO the strength of science is in its constant endeavor to be objective and eliminate subjective elements that might result in bias. I think our disagreement is really just semantic on this point.

I don’t think that science is the only way to gain “knowledge”, or that any means of gaining it should be called science.

You are entitled to your opinion. To me, science [noun] means knowledge, and science [verb] means the search for knowledge in the most human way possible.

Materialistic science [verb] finds how matter/energy works, which feeds materials engineering in making knowledge of matter/energy useful.

Religious science [verb] finds how human action with material science works, which feeds moral engineering in making human action good or evil.

I fully agree with you that materialistic science [verb] should definitely NOT be **contaminated **by religious science [verb], but materialistic science [verb] must be **ruled **by religious science [verb].

Generally, that is what happens when well meaning people do materialistic science, but the addiction to unrestricted “pure materialistic science” with no regard to it’s governor, religious science, is scientistic religion, which will always produce disaster.

We most probably do agree, in all but semantics. My overall point is, though, that it’s futile to seek God with your definition of “science”, and that only by using my definition of “science” whose sub-set methodology is “religious science [verb]” is there any hope for finding knowledge of God and God-stuff.

 

[BlaineTog]

Hmm, that’s an interesting concept (and an annoying one: You can’t say it’s inconsistent. ) I suppose if that’s the case, we’re all up the creek without a boat. Might as well enjoy the swim.

Pretty much, yeah. The point isn’t to cling to the pier, because that’s floating away just as much as you, but to lash together what driftwood you can and sleep above the water.

Lol. I’ve already got my first koan too: Do I exist and not exist? Ohmmm

Just remember: wax on, wax off.

Oh, you missed a spot! Here, take some extra wax!

Lol, i just looked up the law of noncontradiction on Wikipedia: “Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.” -Avicenna, Medieval Philosopher

Sounds like something some of my friends have said.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
Your BELIEF is that God may exist. You are (apparently) FAITHFUL in holding to that belief over time, for whatever reasons.

I would certainly call what you have FAITH, as you are being faithful to your belief (holding it) even though you don’t SEEM to have any REAL evidence to hold your belief.

You are HOLDING to your hypothesis while it is still provisional. That IS “faith”.

Is that faith? Isn’t it just the default: not knowing whether a preposition is true or not until you have sufficient reason for doing so?

The salient characteristic of faith is that is something acted on. You HOLD (an active verb) to faith, and your actions are based on beliefs FAITHFULLY held.

Faith is not uncertainty.

If you’re using faith that loosely you’d have to say that every person has faith in each of their positions, including positions of ignorance.

Faith is ALWAYS a part of an experiment!

You have FAITH in each of your positions (beliefs) in which you are willing to act. If you don’t act on your positions (beliefs), then you no faith in them, meaning that you’re not willing to use them in your EXPERIMENT, which means that to you they are either “wishes” which you’d rather not have tested, or they aren’t worth considering AS beliefs by you in actuality.

All beliefs are in varying degree “positions of ignorance”, by definition. To have be ABSOLUTELY ignorant of ANY reason to have a particular belief (position) is to not have a reason to have “created” that belief in the first place!

In other words: No belief is based on utter ignorance.

Faith is the ACTION we take to test our beliefs. Faith is a verb, not a noun. No one can capture a “faith” and say they “have it”.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
It’s good to be objective, but what does “objective” mean to you in the realm of religion?

I’m not sure what you mean. Regarding our conversation, the subjectivity of what you were describing is the reason I don’t think it’s synonymous with the scientific method.

Pretend that you must answer the question by your interpretation of the words used in the questioners sentence:

What does “objective” mean to you in the realm of religion?

I’m merely interested in what you mean by the subjective/objective “dimension” as it pertains to what you consider religion. We’ll deal with how to interpret your answer after we have your answer. Thanks!

 

[Super_Grover]

Do I exist and not exist? Ohmmm

Yes, and no, and maybe. You are Schroedinger’s cat.

 

[OTavern]

On the other hand, the idea of an infinite god always existing seems almost as unparsimonious as the multiverse idea, to my mind.

Except that we do have – by analogy – a way to understand the idea of infinite God in the capacity for “free agency” present in the human mind. At its best, I believe the human mind can transcend material cause and initiate, by will, new “causal chains.”

I understand that this opens me to a rebuttal on the grounds that human actions are merely linked to biochemical causes, however, it seems that consciousness would be superfluous and unparsimonious from an evolutionary perspective if it is merely the impotent by-product of and mere witness to material causation.

What efficiency is there in evolving completely ineffectual, although conscious beings, “witnesses” to human interactions, when having consciousness could be a perfect stepping off point, a potent means for initiating new threads of causation, action and behaviour – in other words, free agency?

Why would a mere cog in a material series of causes need to witness its fate but have no potential to alter it? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to the causal order for consciousness not to exist? Consciousness seems to be unparsimonious if free agency is not one of its central attributes.

Thus consciousness would seem to indicate some level of “freedom from” material, causal chains to make sense of it from an evolutionary perspective. The ability to transcend, reflect upon and free oneself from causal chains would seem to be a perfect purpose or reason for consciousness.

If this is so, then having “infinite consciousness”, i.e., as in the Being formerly known as God, and thus complete freedom to initiate causal chains in the universe would seem to be explanatory, value-added and, in your word, “parsimonious” in a way that resorting to multiverses would not be. Having infinite intelligence, freedom to create and consciousness would entail purpose and meaning – the answer to the “why” of things that an appeal to multiverses merely postpones.

This would entail a paradigm shift in the pursuit of knowledge because answers to scientific inquiry would mean initiating “dialogue with” rather than “observation of.”

 

[CatsAndDogs]

I do think that accepting the fallibility of what you remember, or even what you’re experiencing, is key - that’s really the main reason for the scientific method.

If you do have any semblance of an accurate mental model of reality, repeated hypothesis testing should lead to you bringing it more in like with the real world.

That is quite right!

Part of the way that we form that “as accurate as possible” mental model of the world is by DOING the appropriate tests of our perceptions of it.

But what do you think of someone who refuses to do certain tests available to them because of a bias against what those tests SEEM to imply after having been done by other people (REPEATEDLY and REPEATABLY)?

THAT is the what the “believer” sees in the “agnostic/atheist”. One who prejudicially REFUSES to do what needs to be done to get what they SAY they want!

 

[OTavern]

This would entail a paradigm shift in the pursuit of knowledge because answers to scientific inquiry would mean initiating “dialogue with” rather than “observation of.”

In case this prospect frightens you, I do not mean all scientific inquiry, but only at the basic level where material contingency / causation / explanation terminate. I.e., At the level where a scientist would throw up his/her hands and with a note of resignation declare, “There is no explanation, that’s just the way it is!” or “It is a mere fact of how the universe operates.”

Questions such as: Why do matter and energy exist instead of some other “reality?” Why does a certain wavelength of light cause us to see blue colour instead of some other phenomenon? Why is there a gravitational pull instead of a push between objects with mass?

God may have a further, more personal explanation – kind of like your great-grandfather explaining why he settled in Omaha instead of Arkansas in '86. Nothing “caused” him to, he just liked the sunsets in that place, or the deep greens of the trees there.

Wouldn’t that be a more deeply satisfying understanding of the universe than crunching numbers and applying formulae ad nauseam.

The whole universe becomes a more personal, dynamic, purposeful place than the cold, incessantly predictable mechanical gadget assumed by scientific inquiry.

 

[Rainier22]

I’ve been gone all weekend in hell (Kansas City), so I’ll try to answer some of the stuff posted. I think I’ll be summarizing mostly.

I’m absolutely amazed by the variety in responses. Everything from outright attack to cordial discussion. I can’t help but one wonder which one the Bible supports. I remember it specifically saying to cast non-believers out, but it also says to argue with us because your words will be inspired by God. I’ll be unable to refuse the truth… I don’t know - just a thought.

I’m not sure how many thought my posts were “talking down” to the people here or really condescending, but I know of at least one, and I imagine several others feel the same way. I thought I did an excellent job of not getting angry with some of the comments. If someone mentioned something like atheism being a faith on an atheist forum or just using logic that made no sense - well - I don’t think it would be so nice.

For the record, atheism is not a faith in the sense of believing without or in spite of evidence. Atheism is not a religion either. It just gets so annoying answering that one over and over again.
Atheism is also not a belief system. It’s a lack of belief. It’s an entirely different thing than a belief. That’s the difference between strong and weak atheism.

In fact, perhaps just dropping the word would help. I don’t think there is a such thing as a God for the same reasons I don’t think there is a boogie man. It’s the same reason you don’t believe in Zeus. I really, really don’t see why people believe in Jesus, but not Ra when the evidence is pretty similar.

However, the anecdotal evidence that’s being mentioned is really interesting. If I understand right, many of you feel that you have a close, personal relationship with a supernatural figure. Mentioning the obvious here, I imagine you can’t ask God to show up or put a reason to believe in place. I mean, it seems God would be able to tell you some sort of information that would make the rest of us run to our local church. Blah - I keep getting stuck on ideas…

I understand that these feelings are extremely strong, but then I have to wonder about the extremely strong feelings associated with Muslims talking to God. Which one is correct? What about Jews? These experiences are in most every religion from Christianity to Paganism. Even non-theistic religions have some sort of mystical experience like this. How can I believe that you guys have the relationship with your God when someone else is claiming that they have a relationship with a completely different God that says your God doesn’t exist? I have to look into history and realize that relationships with things like stars and rocks or even things that don’t exist are fairly common.

In fact, what about ghosts and aliens? I can already imagine the responses, but why is this phenomenon different than that of the paranormal? This stuff can actually be duplicated in many cases.

Is this God touching a girl?
atheistthinktank.net/thinktank/index.php?topic=3246.0
How can I know which one is real?

I just did a bunch of research on the alien reports for a paper, and there are very, very few sightings though each year; at least compared to the world population. The kinds of things you guys are reporting are much, much more common and travel through almost every religion.

I’m not going to deny the obvious here. If I heard a booming voice from the sky, I’d probably think God existed. If I saw a UFO - same thing. Anecdotal evidence may be extremely convincing. I can tell you a few stories myself that I used to believe were evidence of the supernatural. Speaking of the supernatural… What is supernatural?

To me it seems like saying “super real,” like it’s real, but it doesn’t have to obey the same rules as things that are just regular real. Supernatural spoons can break the laws of physics by bending while regular spoons can only look pretty. I’m going way off topic, but it seems to me if someone was talking and said “No - you can’t see me. I don’t obey the laws of the universe,” that I’d be skeptical real quick. I guess I’m saying that to me when you guys say “supernatural,” it sounds like you are saying something has every quality of existence except - you know - existence. And to me, I’d rather replace a supernatural car with a real car.

 

[AquinAugustine]

Cats and Dogs, I believe that Gerald L. Schroeder’s “Science of God” may be of help to you in that it may provide a cumulative “superproof”.