For non-believers: What evidence would it take for you to believe in 'god'?

by jay88 176 Replies latest jw friends

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  Wasanelder Once

  EXACTLY
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  PSacramento

  And yet you do...at least I hope you do, LOL !! ;)
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  tec

  there are really only two possibilities:

  or 3) Some cannot hear because they do not want to, or something is getting in the way (such as anger, fear, lack of faith, negative emotions, etc.)

  Tammy
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  tec

  What is wrong with Al'Lah , the God worshipped before Abraham ? Why do you reject Him ? Psac ,Tammy et al ?

  I don't reject the creator of the universe (whatever name - and I agree that Allah is God, though I might disagree with some understanding)... just perhaps a given explanation/definition/understanding.

  Christ is who I look toward, to understand God. I do not think God is out of reach at all. Know Christ, know God. We may not be able to grasp God completely, as he is eternal, and we are finite. But we can see Him, through Christ.

  Tammy
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  tec

  Terry! Great to hear from you.

  I don't think I could have responded better than PSac, so I won't try :)

  Tammy
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  brizzzy

  @tec That makes no sense if you live in a country or area that does not worship or has never heard of whichever god you are referring to (or lived during a time period before that god was ever heard of or worshipped). Sucks to be them, then, I guess. They lost the birth lottery. Which brings me back to possibility number 2, which is that such a god is a dick, picks favorites, and doesn't give everyone a fair shot. QED.
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  free2beme

  I already believe in a divine. Just not the Christian God. So I will address that ... to believe in the Christian God.

  I want that God to come to me, talk to me and answer some hard questions that most Christians will not face. As there is so much evidence he is a myth that spawned from other myths in the region. So much evidence that his religion was form and used to control people. So much showing that his followers use his religion to harm or neglect responsiblities. I want him to show me how this was all good for mankind and admit his own mistakes. He better do in in such a way that I do not have lingering doubts after, as even the best super-natural show will have me wondering what I talked to later. As even a spirit could form and play games and I am not a game player.

  Now, as for the divine ... I already believe in that and have my own idea of what it means. So, basically, I see little chance in what I said in the above happening.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  Psac: What language do you suggest God express himself to a hebrew with?

  I'd expect a God who advertises perfect justice to be completely impartial. So why would he express himself only to a Hebrew or a Greek and then say, "Hey, remember all that stuff I tol' ya? Juss pass that on." If he's gonna try to convey this message to transcend time and geography, using a single human language to communicate seems an ill-fitting choice. Why should any one nation, at a particular time, have an advantage over the rest?

  Also, consider how folks on this forum (myself included) can devote a 10 page thread to debating the meaning of a single word in our own language, used in our own era. Now extrapolate that debate over 30,000 verses, across numerous languages, spanning thousands of years of evolutionary linguistics.

  I really think a god who is truly omniscient could find a better strategy to let us know what's up.

  Not trying to be evasive but if God wanted to speak to you today, what language would he choose? English right?

  I have no idea. But I think any being supposedly capable of designing the atom would be able to communicate unambiguously by some means other than man-made languages. Thomas Paine put it this way:

  "The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are of themselves evidences that the human language, whether in speech or in print, cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God. The Word of God exists in something else."

  Now, if you are asking why God choose the Hebrews, well, that is a very good question and why did he just choose them? od did he just choose them?

  Well, I kinda feel like they chose him after someone in a position of influence and authority concocted the myth and then effectively passed it on.

  Going back to the original comment though:Finding JHWH written on every cell nucleus in every living being on earth.

  That brings to mind Francis Collins book and his view that we are doing just that in science, finding "god" written on everything.

  For myself, I've only ruled out the existence of benevolent-yet-self-absorbed gods. To which god is FC referring exactly? Moses and Abraham's god was distinctly different from Einstein & Spinoza's god, for example. Finding the "word of god" in nature - that's how Thomas Paine's god communicated with man, but instead of human language, not in addition to it.
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  brizzzy

  If a god really wanted to, it would concoct the cosmic equivalent of the Babel fish (Hitchhiker's Guide reference) so we could all understand what it was saying, unequivocally, at once.
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  cantleave

  I have a bank account. If it mysteriously has £1,000,000 deposited in it, from a benefactor called "God", I will believe in God.