What would constitute evidence that God does exist?

[McCulloch]

The problem with that position in logical terms is that they are unable to specify what they mean by evidence which would convince them that GOD exists.

Rather they demand that those who do believe that GOD exists, should show them the evidence as to WHY those who believe so, say so.

And when those who believe so say so, the common response is to say 'that is not evidence' and through that, argue that the theist should become atheist.

What would constitute evidence that God does exist?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 47 by Mithrae]

It hardly surprises me.
You compared God to schools of thought, and tried to prove his existence was akin to one being right.
I compared God to being more prominent than any star, and yet we are unable to find him.

You made assertions that many prominent things have only been discovered recently, and incorrectly.

I also implored you to distinguish his character from that of a unicorn or dragon.

Anytime.

[Mithrae]

You made assertions that many prominent things have only been discovered recently, and incorrectly.

That's pretty much where it breaks down, yes. If you think that gravity was the first thing discovered and that Democritus discovered atoms, then the same goes for God; observation of effects and specific theorizing were both well-established long before the iron age.

Incidentally, I notice that you've decided to change your word choice here; initially you used profound (deep) but now you're using prominent (projecting, standing out), an almost 180 degree shift in meaning. Perhaps that's unintentional, or perhaps on some level you understand that I was correct, that

• Things that are "here, now, everywhere, everywhen" are often the most difficult to distinctly comprehend and apprehend. Air was not 'discovered' until the iron age. The fact that the sky is 'blue' was not widely recognized until much later. And gravity, electromagnetism, atoms...
  
  Apprehending the things which are so 'profound' that they underlie our whole experience of reality is like trying to see our own optic nerves. It's not impossible of course, and we've made a lot of progress, but still with the recognition of a long way to go even in already-outlined fields of scientific research.
  
  In the case of 'god' we're not just talking about something underlying our experience of reality, but underlying or identical to reality itself. It can be shown to be the more reasonable hypothesis accounting for what we know so far, as I suggested earlier in the thread...

[Willum]

[Replying to post 52 by Mithrae]

Nope, and nope. All the prominent things you say were discovered recently, are ancient. If they were not, they pretty much wouldn't be profound, would they? They'd be subtle, or of secondary importance.

Profound and prominent share a similar enough meaning.

You still haven't come close to explaining why the most prominent/profound thing in the universe can not be seen like anything else.
We don't have any long way to go to see any character of something that doesn't exist, and no reason to believe the 'essence' of God is beyond current reason. Or beyond ancient reason - as believers all seem to claim God has been around forever.

Or given an inkling how its properties are different from unicorns or dragons.

Your assertions that God is under the next rainbow has been debunked, unless you have a definitive reason to suggest what that next rainbow is, and why he should be there, instead of displayed prominently.

Anytime.

[Mithrae]

I don't particularly share that opinion, least of all as a presupposition. Through experience and learning I feel that I have come to understand a fair bit of the stuff that goes on in my own experience: But I'm also keenly aware of how much I personally don't understand, and even how many unanswered questions and unproven conflicting theories the world's combined scientists still have, even within already-outlined fields of research. I've found no reason to accept any assumption that we are nearly there, or that those are the only remaining frontiers of discovery, or that we will ever understand it all even millennia from now.

If the world is not fundamentally understandable, all your understand of the stuff is meaningless and even worse, false.

I agree, but it's not a presupposition, it's simply the word which we have chosen to use in describing the way healthy human minds tend to work.

If your mind is not ration, then your neither are the words you use to describe things, be it human minds or any other entity. Your understanding of human evolution of a rational mind for survival goes out of the window as irrational thoughts.

Again I agree, but again it's not a presupposition: Our senses can be tested both against other humans' perceptions, to some extent against other animals' perceptions, and against instrumental recording of related phenomena...

That's circular reasoning. Other perceptions and instrumental recording are perceived through your own senses. The most you can say is everything you sense is consistent.

These things I take for granted. What do you take for granted?

As little as possible; rather, I try to recognize and remember the uncertainties inherent in all the things that I 'know' or 'believe,' from the existence of an external world upwards.

How exactly are you going to recognize anything, if your senses are not at least somewhat accurate, how exactly are you going to remember anything, if your mind is not rational?

This is all seems to be fallacious binary thinking along the lines "If it's not perfect it must be useless/false/pointless." Which is strange, because you know that your senses are not completely reliable, your mind is not completely rational, and that you will never fully understand your world. Don't you? So what is the distinction you're imagining between a world which is completely understandable, and one which is merely understandable enough to get us to this point? The latter has obviously been proven to be the case, because we are at this point; the former, the presupposition, is both unnecessary and unjustified.

The first option is to simply assume it - call it an epistemic axiom, if you choose. Most folk don't ever bother trying to justify this belief, it's just taken for granted. No doubt that's partly because it's so very hard to justify even in part, let alone fully. I'm not a philosopher, but as far as I've yet encountered the only justification I can come up with is this: When I think, when I write or when I remember my dreams and so on, I almost always notice limitations on the speed, scope, depth and creativity of what my mind can do...

Well those books, music, theories and so on that you merely think is beyond you, could be your own imagination that you do not consciously recognize, there is no way to verify that. That is not a way out of solipsism, best to just kick it aside as not useful.

Possibly, but based on what I recognize of my own mind's limitations in speed, creativity and so on it is vanishingly improbable that it could be responsible for everything I perceive. That's not a presupposition, it's a reasoned conclusion; though I suppose using it as a baseline for all other knowledge means assuming for all intents and purposes that it's a certainty, when one might argue that there's room for a few percentage points of doubt.

Belief in other people's minds is inferred by analogy, from observation of structure and behaviour...

So when one day we can make a convincing robot, you would automatically accept that it has a mind?

If I didn't know it was a robot, yes of course. Folk who do know, would know that it doesn't have the same structural basis (brain, nerve cells etc) for its identical behaviour, which wouldn't prove the absence of a mind but would break down the analogy. If something like Star Trek's Data ever turned out to be possible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose it had a mind.

But with that in mind, it seems to me that many people - theists and non-theists alike - hold to a particularly curious view which as far as I know is neither necessary nor validated by any evidence or justification:
Most things outside my mind are not other minds, nor direct products of other minds
The word 'physical' is often used to describe this new type or state of being.

That's where the other presupposition comes in.

What other presupposition? Is there a #5?

In any case I can't help but noticing that none of these things which you take for granted suggest or imply in any way that theism is 'extraordinary,' unless you have committed that fallacy of assuming that external world=non-mental world. And nor do any of your presuppositions say anything about lab testing for some claims, or why you do not advocate such stringent requirements in most other cases.

That's the point - the claim that theism is extraordinary is not a presupposition, but a conclusion based on real word data. Other than the 4 points I mentioned, I do not take my worldview for granted, but is the result of rational observation of the world.

But you have not provided any reasoning or evidence to support that alleged conclusion that theism is extraordinary. Throughout this thread and in many other earlier ones I have asked again and again and again for anyone to justify the most common and obvious alternative - physicalism/materialism - but no-one has ever done so convincingly; so far no-one has even tried during my most recent stint on the forum.

That is the only way in which theism can be considered extraordinary straight off the bat; if it's already excluded as a possibility by some contrary worldview. So if you've got some real world data supporting a contrary worldview, please don't be shy about letting us know

Otherwise, we'll have to conclude that asserting theism to be extraordinary and thus requiring an exceptionally high standard of 'evidence' is nothing more than special pleading.

[William]

[Replying to post 54 by Mithrae]

Otherwise, we'll have to conclude that asserting theism to be extraordinary and thus requiring an exceptionally high standard of 'evidence' is nothing more than special pleading.

What I said!

Replying to post 37 by Bust Nak Post # 38

[Bust Nak]

This is all seems to be fallacious binary thinking along the lines "If it's not perfect it must be useless/false/pointless."

What's is so fallacious about it? The world has to be fundamentally understandable or it must be useless/false/pointless. I am talking about a feature of the external world, independent from our abilities to understand it.

Which is strange, because you know that your senses are not completely reliable, your mind is not completely rational, and that you will never fully understand your world. Don't you?

Yes, I will never fully understand my world, that is a statement about me, not about the world.

So what is the distinction you're imagining between a world which is completely understandable, and one which is merely understandable enough to get us to this point?

Because you can't understand anything, not one thing, unless the world is fundamentally understandable. What you think you understandable enough are false and hence useless, pointless.

Possibly, but based on what I recognize...

Which could you your own imagination. Any conclusion you draw from what you recognize presupposes it isn't just your unconscious imagination.

If I didn't know it was a robot, yes of course...If something like Star Trek's Data ever turned out to be possible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose it had a mind.

So structural basis is not a deciding factor then, given Data's brain is decidedly different structurally to ours.

What other presupposition? Is there a #5?

I meant the other 3, of the 4 I listed.

But you have not provided any reasoning or evidence to support that alleged conclusion that theism is extraordinary.

Because you already provided it for me - it's a contrary worldview.

Throughout this thread and in many other earlier ones I have asked again and again and again for anyone to justify the most common and obvious alternative - physicalism/materialism - but no-one has ever done so convincingly; so far no-one has even tried during my most recent stint on the forum.

That's easy, we can't detect anything that's supernatural. There is no reason to move beyond the default position.

Otherwise, we'll have to conclude that asserting theism to be extraordinary and thus requiring an exceptionally high standard of 'evidence' is nothing more than special pleading.

You say that, but answer me this: If a vase smash unexpectedly in your living room, would your first thought be naturalistic or supernatural (it was a cat vs it was a ghost)?

[Mithrae]

This is all seems to be fallacious binary thinking along the lines "If it's not perfect it must be useless/false/pointless."

What's is so fallacious about it? The world has to be fundamentally understandable or it must be useless/false/pointless. I am talking about a feature of the external world, independent from our abilities to understand it.

Which is strange, because you know that your senses are not completely reliable, your mind is not completely rational, and that you will never fully understand your world. Don't you?

Yes, I will never fully understand my world, that is a statement about me, not about the world.

So what is the distinction you're imagining between a world which is completely understandable, and one which is merely understandable enough to get us to this point?

Because you can't understand anything, not one thing, unless the world is fundamentally understandable. What you think you understandable enough are false and hence useless, pointless.

If someone tripping balls on a mind-altering drug decides to record their thoughts it most likely would not be "fundamentally understandable," and yet you might still recognize and understand references to specific objects/people and maybe even whole sentences in the midst of an otherwise rambling nonsensical monologue. The notion that something must either be "fundamentally understandable" or utterly unintelligible is a false dichotomy borne of fallacious binary thinking.

Otherwise, we'll have to conclude that asserting theism to be extraordinary and thus requiring an exceptionally high standard of 'evidence' is nothing more than special pleading.

You say that, but answer me this: If a vase smash unexpectedly in your living room, would your first thought be naturalistic or supernatural (it was a cat vs it was a ghost)?

Another false dichotomy; everything which occurs must by definition be in accordance with the nature of reality. The term 'supernatural' is meaningless. If you simply mean do I look to more common explanations before more unusual ones, of course: But if I lived in a high-rise apartment building with no pets, all doors and windows closed excluding gusts of air, and no-one else home, of course I'd have to consider less obvious explanations.

If I didn't know it was a robot, yes of course...If something like Star Trek's Data ever turned out to be possible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose it had a mind.

So structural basis is not a deciding factor then, given Data's brain is decidedly different structurally to ours.

Correct; it's part of the analogy by which we infer the presence of consciousness, but the weakening or failure of that analogy does not necessarily imply the absence of consciousness. Hence we have no reason to assume that trees for example are conscious, but nor can we validly conclude that they are not.

But you have not provided any reasoning or evidence to support that alleged conclusion that theism is extraordinary.

Because you already provided it for me - it's a contrary worldview.

Throughout this thread and in many other earlier ones I have asked again and again and again for anyone to justify the most common and obvious alternative - physicalism/materialism - but no-one has ever done so convincingly; so far no-one has even tried during my most recent stint on the forum.

That's easy, we can't detect anything that's supernatural. There is no reason to move beyond the default position.

The 'default position' (inasmuch as such a concept even makes sense) is mind-body dualism, as I mentioned earlier in post #15: "The problem is that we are "natural born dualists" as Richard Dawkins says in The God Delusion, citing developmental psychologist Paul Bloom." See also my recent thread highlighting the scientific work which has been done to affirmatively answer the question Do children have a default afterlife belief?

So if there is no reason to move beyond the 'default position' - if that absence of an argument is the only thing you have to offer - then by implication you should believe in mind-body dualism.

Of course mind-body dualism obviously implies the existence of a non-physical reality.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 57 by Mithrae]

So, you invoke analogies to abstract concepts and perception, to prove the most prominent thing in the universe exists?
If those are the best counter arguments... well the rational man holds any common object; a chair, the Sun, anything up against an unprovable thought and dismisses the dream, out of hand.

[Bust Nak]

If someone tripping balls on a mind-altering drug decides to record their thoughts it most likely would not be "fundamentally understandable..."

Why not? He is tripping balls, that's an understanding right there.

The notion that something must either be "fundamentally understandable" or utterly unintelligible is a false dichotomy borne of fallacious binary thinking.

Incorrect. Fundamentally understandable and Fundamentally unintelligible is a true dichotomy.

Another false dichotomy

Cat vs ghost was just examples, not intended to be exhaustive.

everything which occurs must by definition be in accordance with the nature of reality. The term 'supernatural' is meaningless. If you simply mean do I look to more common explanations before more unusual ones, of course...

Well there you go. Some explanations are more usual then others. That you don't jump to the more unusual explanation first, affirms that the more unusual an explanation is, the less acceptable it is. I rest my case.

Correct; it's part of the analogy by which we infer the presence of consciousness, but the weakening or failure of that analogy does not necessarily imply the absence of consciousness. Hence we have no reason to assume that trees for example are conscious, but nor can we validly conclude that they are not.

The point was, if structure is not a deciding factor, then you are left with behavior. Trees don't act as if they are conscious, regardless of their structure, therefore we infer that they are not conscious. Data acts as if he is conscious, regardless of his structure, therefore we infer that he is conscious.

The 'default position' (inasmuch as such a concept even makes sense) is mind-body dualism...
So if there is no reason to move beyond the 'default position' - if that absence of an argument is the only thing you have to offer - then by implication you should believe in mind-body dualism.

Naturally, sure. There are empirical evidence to move away from dualism though, so that's moot.

[Mithrae]

If someone tripping balls on a mind-altering drug decides to record their thoughts it most likely would not be "fundamentally understandable," and yet you might still recognize and understand references to specific objects/people and maybe even whole sentences in the midst of an otherwise rambling nonsensical monologue.

Why not? He is tripping balls, that's an understanding right there.

The notion that something must either be "fundamentally understandable" or utterly unintelligible is a false dichotomy borne of fallacious binary thinking.

Incorrect. Fundamentally understandable and Fundamentally unintelligible is a true dichotomy.

Those two concepts are mutually exclusive, but not exhaustive.
"A false dichotomy or false dilemma occurs when an argument presents two options and ignores, either purposefully or out of ignorance, other alternatives."

When you're backed into the position of pretending that the nonsensical ramblings of a drugged-up degenerate are 'fundamentally understandable,' it is fairly incontrovertible proof that you're simply clinging to dogma here But fair enough - I already conceded in post #47 that it is pretty much impossible to argue against presuppositionalism.

Another false dichotomy

Cat vs ghost was just examples, not intended to be exhaustive.

everything which occurs must by definition be in accordance with the nature of reality. The term 'supernatural' is meaningless. If you simply mean do I look to more common explanations before more unusual ones, of course...

Well there you go. Some explanations are more usual then others. That you don't jump to the more unusual explanation first, affirms that the more unusual an explanation is, the less acceptable it is. I rest my case.

Unfortunately when it comes to explaining the nature of reality as a whole, theism is a far more common explanation than any alternative both historically and into the 21st century. So if I were you I probably wouldn't rest my case on that argument

Correct; it's part of the analogy by which we infer the presence of consciousness, but the weakening or failure of that analogy does not necessarily imply the absence of consciousness. Hence we have no reason to assume that trees for example are conscious, but nor can we validly conclude that they are not.

The point was, if structure is not a deciding factor, then you are left with behavior. Trees don't act as if they are conscious, regardless of their structure, therefore we infer that they are not conscious. Data acts as if he is conscious, regardless of his structure, therefore we infer that he is conscious.

Trees respond to their environment. Or we could go with bacteria if you prefer, which have more easily-recognized sensory organs and more actively interact with their environments. The thing is that as recognizable structural similarities diminish, our recognition of behavioural similarities necessarily decreases also: We find it much harder to imagine the consciousness of a fish than a dog. Some folk wouldn't attribute consciousness to Data as it is, and if he were less humanoid we'd be even less inclined to do so.

Or on the other hand, a viewer with a much broader and less anthropocentric perspective might observe our planet's responses to orbital variations and cosmic collisions and quite reasonably conclude that its behaviour displays many if not all of the reactivity, adaptivity and long-term coherent development signs of advanced consciousness. Does Gaia have a mind?

The 'default position' (inasmuch as such a concept even makes sense) is mind-body dualism...
So if there is no reason to move beyond the 'default position' - if that absence of an argument is the only thing you have to offer - then by implication you should believe in mind-body dualism.

Naturally, sure. There are empirical evidence to move away from dualism though, so that's moot.

What empirical evidence is there? Especially given the plausibility of views which suggest consciousness ranging from bacteria all the way up to Gaia (and perhaps beyond)? I reject dualism simply on philosophical grounds, since two completely distinct types of substance should have no way of interacting; if they can interact, they can't really be dualistic.

However we're then still left with the question - which has been the question all along, and which both you and everyone else have still failed to provide any coherent evidence regarding - whether it is more reasonable to reinterpret the 'mental' concept and imagine a materialist reality, or more reasonable to reinterpret the 'physical' concept and imagine an idealist reality.

I have argued that the latter is more reasonable, because it
A > introduces fewer new assumptions, in that we know our minds and thoughts exist but have no proof of non-mental 'physical' stuff;
B > poses fewer new conceptual difficulties in explaining how consciousness exists in a non-conscious universe and
C > provides a more elegant and comprehensive explanatory framework, in that alongside biological evolution thoughts are the only thing we know which can explain complexity from simpler origins.

Even ignoring the demonstrated problems with your presuppositionalism, the four points which you stated still would not change this assessment that idealism (and hence by implication panentheism) is the more reasonable way of 'understanding' or imagining reality. Nor do any of the other responses in this thread or others.