What would God have to do to convince YOU of His existence?

[Salus Maior]

Why would He do that when His creation is perfectly able to do so with the information they have?

Divine magic would probably be significantly more effective than waiting for us to get our shit together.

So would asking your mom to do your laundry for you. But I imagine if you're fully capable of doing so yourself, you know what the response would be if you asked.

Humor aside, humanity is responsible for the position we're in now. Essentially because we haven't lived the way God commanded we live.

We're not living for each other's betterment, our society is defined by ruthless profit and material success and we're reaping the consequences of that. God already told us not to live that way, He's not going to bail us out for choosing to reject that and I don't think it's right to expect Him to do that.

Not that you're a theist anyway.

[Ifreann]

Divine magic would probably be significantly more effective than waiting for us to get our shit together.

So would asking your mom to do your laundry for you. But I imagine if you're fully capable of doing so yourself, you know what the response would be if you asked.

Humor aside, humanity is responsible for the position we're in now. Essentially because we haven't lived the way God commanded we live.

We're not living for each other's betterment, our society is defined by ruthless profit and material success and we're reaping the consequences of that. God already told us not to live that way, He's not going to bail us out for choosing to reject that and I don't think it's right to expect Him to do that.

So you believe that your god is going to let people suffer and die rather than intervene to save them in order to teach the rest of us a lesson?

Not that you're a theist anyway.

Yup.

[Salus Maior]

So you believe that your god is going to let people suffer and die rather than intervene to save them in order to teach the rest of us a lesson?

I'm saying that we reap what we sow. That we're not going to be bailed out from us misusing the world and treating each other with contempt and cruelty.

[Great Mojave]

Guest appearance on Info Wars

[Ifreann]

So you believe that your god is going to let people suffer and die rather than intervene to save them in order to teach the rest of us a lesson?

I'm saying that we reap what we sow. That we're not going to be bailed out from us misusing the world and treating each other with contempt and cruelty.

The poor and vulnerable will suffer and die because of the choices of the rich and powerful. What benevolence.

[Salus Maior]

I'm saying that we reap what we sow. That we're not going to be bailed out from us misusing the world and treating each other with contempt and cruelty.

The poor and vulnerable will suffer and die because of the choices of the rich and powerful. What benevolence.

If the Bible is to be believed, the poor and the vulnerable will be rewarded for what they suffered, whereas whatever worldly benefits the rich and powerful got will be all the reward they'll ever have.

[North German Realm]

The poor and vulnerable will suffer and die because of the choices of the rich and powerful. What benevolence.

If the Bible is to be believed, the poor and the vulnerable will be rewarded for what they suffered, whereas whatever worldly benefits the rich and powerful got will be all the reward they'll ever have.

No offense, but I wonder what was going in the head of the first poor and vulnerable person who heard this and didn't deck the person saying it so hard they'd see their god face to face.

[Salus Maior]

If the Bible is to be believed, the poor and the vulnerable will be rewarded for what they suffered, whereas whatever worldly benefits the rich and powerful got will be all the reward they'll ever have.

No offense, but I wonder what was going in the head of the first poor and vulnerable person who heard this and didn't deck the person saying it so hard they'd see their god face to face.

It's funny how people think that saying "no offense" before saying something clearly offensive makes it not offensive.

[North German Realm]

No offense, but I wonder what was going in the head of the first poor and vulnerable person who heard this and didn't deck the person saying it so hard they'd see their god face to face.

It's funny how people think that saying "no offense" before saying something clearly offensive makes it not offensive.

I'm sure the generations of oppressed people who were forced to remain in their squalor by being brainwashed into thinking "God will pay me back/god will punish my oppressors" instead of taking the money/punishing the oppressors themselves would care a lot about how you got offended by me saying a ridiculous statement is ridiculous, because I don't.

[The Alma Mater]

If the Bible is to be believed, the poor and the vulnerable will be rewarded for what they suffered, whereas whatever worldly benefits the rich and powerful got will be all the reward they'll ever have.

No offense, but I wonder what was going in the head of the first poor and vulnerable person who heard this and didn't deck the person saying it so hard they'd see their god face to face.

There were 30 heavily armed soldiers with red hot pokers standing behind said priest.

[North German Realm]

No offense, but I wonder what was going in the head of the first poor and vulnerable person who heard this and didn't deck the person saying it so hard they'd see their god face to face.

There were 30 heavily armed soldiers with red hot pokers standing behind said priest.

Given the fact that, at least according to Christian mythos, the "First priest" in this scenario was probably from the era where he himself was part of that oppressed group, I kinda doubt it tbh.

[Roliganistan]

He supposedly created the universe, and yet he has to deal with a constant stream of dim witted requests for a date with the girl next door or a parking space in front of the drugstore.
Why not give him a challenge for father's day?

Dear heavenly father,

Make electrons follow Bose-Einstein statistics.
Reverse the truth value of the syllogisms cited in the prior analytics (but only on the first Tuesday of every month)
Uncover three new integers between 6 and 7.

Do these three things and I'll be convinced.

[Ifreann]

The poor and vulnerable will suffer and die because of the choices of the rich and powerful. What benevolence.

If the Bible is to be believed, the poor and the vulnerable will be rewarded for what they suffered, whereas whatever worldly benefits the rich and powerful got will be all the reward they'll ever have.

So the consequences of climate change aren't us reaping what we've sown. That comes after we've died.

So why isn't God fixing the world again?

[Major-Tom]

Suppose I was greeted by someone who claimed to be "God." My first instinct would be to laugh, but if that same person could perform a task that is utterly unexplainable by any metric, then I'd either be convinced of his/her existence or perhaps make sure I hadn't lost my mind.

[Neanderthaland]

Suppose I was greeted by someone who claimed to be "God." My first instinct would be to laugh, but if that same person could perform a task that is utterly unexplainable by any metric, then I'd either be convinced of his/her existence or perhaps make sure I hadn't lost my mind.

You see, I don't know if the unexplainable thing is a good metric, even if we assume that God is real and Christianity is true.

Because, well then:
1) Demons exist, and apparently have magical powers,
2) Pharaoh's magicians were apparently able to replicate God's miracle.
3) There's all this stuff about not "suffering a witch to live," which would imply that witches are real and have some kind of power.

This "God" could be any one of those. And the "utterly unexplainable" could just be their magic at work.

[Risottia]

Okay, so God exists. What can He do to prove this to you?

Come in my lab and violate the Second Principle of Thermodynamics by lowering the enthropy of a closed, insulated ensemble while not increasing the enthropy of the rest of the Universe, multiple times, under the scrutiny of my peers.
I'll admin the existance of magic, then, which can lead to the existance of deities as extremely powerful mages.
Doesn't prove the uniqueness of that deity, though.

[Uan aa Boa]

Do you understand how peer review works? It isn't flawless by any means, but there's a lot more to publishing a scientific result than saying "I've checked this and you all have to trust me." Scientific knowledge is always provisional and always falsifiable - clear on what specific results would invalidate it. It involves an ongoing process of checking, challenging and refining.

I'm well aware of how science works, I'm actually very pro-science and I enjoy studying it myself.

But my point is, you're not the peers, you're not the scientist are you? Therefore, you're trusting in them to provide the facts for you. You're relying on their revelation as it were.

Ultimately, all the knowledge you know you've gotten second-hand (or third-hand, or fourth-hand, etc.) and you put trust in that. So it seems pointless to accuse religion of being bad on that same premise (although, I think people can experience God in their own lives in one way or another by either practicing the faith themselves or by seeing others practice, and people attest both as being their "revelation" of God.).

Do you at least accept that there is a fundamental distinction to be made between the words of a prophet and those of a scientist? Because scientific claims are checked by suitably qualified people and the whole process is set out so that it can be inspected. I myself don't do that inspecting (though I can read a scientific paper and understand much of what's going on in a way that doesn't apply to religious revelations) but the inspecting can be done. The claim exists within a framework or methodology wholly absent from religious discourse where there is in principle no way of verifying a claim beyond finding that it subjectively feels to be correct.

Humor aside, humanity is responsible for the position we're in now. Essentially because we haven't lived the way God commanded we live.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1:28

I think you're going to have to work hard to reverse engineer an environmental message in the Bible.

[The Alma Mater]

I'm well aware of how science works, I'm actually very pro-science and I enjoy studying it myself.

But my point is, you're not the peers, you're not the scientist are you? Therefore, you're trusting in them to provide the facts for you. You're relying on their revelation as it were.

Ultimately, all the knowledge you know you've gotten second-hand (or third-hand, or fourth-hand, etc.) and you put trust in that. So it seems pointless to accuse religion of being bad on that same premise (although, I think people can experience God in their own lives in one way or another by either practicing the faith themselves or by seeing others practice, and people attest both as being their "revelation" of God.).

Do you at least accept that there is a fundamental distinction to be made between the words of a prophet and those of a scientist? Because scientific claims are checked by suitably qualified people and the whole process is set out so that it can be inspected. I myself don't do that inspecting (though I can read a scientific paper and understand much of what's going on in a way that doesn't apply to religious revelations) but the inspecting can be done. The claim exists within a framework or methodology wholly absent from religious discourse where there is in principle no way of verifying a claim beyond finding that it subjectively feels to be correct.

He does however have a point that you and I trust people who say they did the experiments and that the outcome was X - just like how other people believe people claiming they spoke with other people who spoke with a God. While it is indeed true that we COULD repeat the experiments ourselves while most religious revelations cannot be repeated - reality shows we never do. So it could all be lies.

Then again, one would assume that if religious people wanted to discredit contradicting science repeating the experiments would be the first thing they would do.

[Australian rePublic]

I am 100% convinced of the existence and benevolence of God, for you see, Strawberries and Cream M&Ms exist.

Counterpoint: wasps, ticks, threadworms and mosquitoes exist.

That was a joke...

[Australian rePublic]

They is referring to the people in the first instance, and the goverment in the second. The third is His Creation.

All three of those are God's creation.

No they are not. The government is a product of His creationz not His creation in and of itaelf

[Cannot think of a name]

The poor and vulnerable will suffer and die because of the choices of the rich and powerful. What benevolence.

If the Bible is to be believed, the poor and the vulnerable will be rewarded for what they suffered, whereas whatever worldly benefits the rich and powerful got will be all the reward they'll ever have.

Why design a system like that?

[The New California Republic]

Counterpoint: wasps, ticks, threadworms and mosquitoes exist.

That was a joke...

Poe's Law.

[State of Turelisa]

Snip

[The Blaatschapen]

Any god could convince me of their existence by abolishing all religion with the snap of her fingers

[Korhal IVV]

To prove if he is god, he would have to self-destruct.

This actually creates a paradox. If he can't destroy himself(God), then he is not all-powerful(He can't destroy himself)and therefore is not god. If he can destroy himself, then he is also not all-powerful(He can be destroyed), which also means he is not God. Either answer means he is not god, at least in the Abrahamic sense.

The universe will collapse upon itself, then.