The Question

[PickelledEggs]

I love how over the top that one part was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0l-B4rJIA

[Hydra009]

I wonder if we polled everyone here, how people would respond.  I've met a lot of theists who readily say "what if you're wrong?", yet few who would answer their own question.

[PickelledEggs]

I wonder if we polled everyone here, how people would respond.  I've met a lot of theists who readily say "what if you're wrong?", yet few who would answer their own question.

Lets make it a poll then.

Honestly, I have considered asking this question when talking to theists while debating them... and the only reason I don't (when I don't) is because I'm either trying to sharpen my debate skills or I'm enjoying the hilarity of their circular logic too much to kill the debate. If need be though, this question is the perfect thing to end a conversation because it is what will bring up the obvious point... that they are blindly and passionately dedicated to their delusion.

[stromboli]

At this point it would take a great deal of evidence-literally undeniable evidence- for me to even consider the existence of a god. Even so called miraculous events would to me be the product of advanced science, not miracles. I frankly cannot imagine a god anywhere remotely like those worshiped today.

[PickelledEggs]

At this point it would take a great deal of evidence-literally undeniable evidence- for me to even consider the existence of a god. Even so called miraculous events would to me be the product of advanced science, not miracles. I frankly cannot imagine a god anywhere remotely like those worshiped today.

Well that's just it... Miracles wouldn't be miracles at all if they were able to be explained. We have yet to actually have a reliable record of a miracle though to even try and analyze it though... Miracles don't have to be in play if a god is, but same thing goes for a god; if it can be identified or even analyzed, it might not be as mystical as it originally was made out to be. It might be extraordinary and awe-inspiring, but not mystical.... and that is a big "if" for both of those things.

[stromboli]

Well that's just it... Miracles wouldn't be miracles at all if they were able to be explained. We have yet to actually have a reliable record of a miracle though to even try and analyze it though... Miracles don't have to be in play if a god is, but same thing goes for a god; if it can be identified or even analyzed, it might not be as mystical as it originally was made out to be. It might be extraordinary and awe-inspiring, but not mystical.... and that is a big "if" for both of those things.

True. Since we see almost weekly new discoveries and that the boundaries of what is conceivable continually pushed back, the possibility of in the future explaining what we don't currently understand puts miracle into the category of eventual understanding, not superstition.

[kilodelta]

Nice find.

[Hydra009]

I'd be pretty easy to convince.  A booming voice from the heavens intelligible to all people simultaneously.  The dead walking out of a morgue or cemetery.  Mass healing.  A new season of Firefly.

Enough miraculous events stacked on top of one another, especially if they all pointed towards a single god or pantheon, would definitely be taken seriously.

Stuff that wouldn't convince me:
* Frozen waterfalls.  I'm looking at you, Collins.
* A sword in a field.
* Anything from that insufferable Insane Clown Posse song.
* Stuff that actually is explicable, like magnetism and the diversity of life on Earth.
* Unverifiable tales (my friend's boyfriend's sister's friend's tale of how an amputee totally regrew his arm, liek omg! Share if you don't want satan to fart in your face while you sleep! #miracles #yolo)

[stromboli]

2 hours alone with either Morena Baccarin or Summer Glau-that'd be a fucking miracle.

[trdsf]

I'd like to know how one differentiates between an actual divine entity, and an extremely advanced (but otherwise properly evolved and fundamentally natural) alien.  It seems to me that Clarke's Law applies to ETIs and deities as much as it does technology and magic.

[stromboli]

I'd like to know how one differentiates between an actual divine entity, and an extremely advanced (but otherwise properly evolved and fundamentally natural) alien.  It seems to me that Clarke's Law applies to ETIs and deities as much as it does technology and magic.

Exactly. That is the point, when does a miracle become something that cannot ultimately be explainable scientifically? Even raising corpses from the dead has been given a fictional treatment, with a potential cause, so what is conceivably left?

[the_antithesis]

What's a god?

[Mike Cl]

What's a god?

A bigger badder Santa??

[Solitary]

How do we know that the universe is not just a main frame computer supplying us with information through our senses that our subjective computer interprets to be the world we live in that is just a creation by our minds from that information? Maybe it is beyond religion or science and something else, like a mass illusion we collectively call reality?  maybe 2,001 Space odyssey is the way it really is. What if insane people in mental intuitions know something we don't because they are smarter? Or maybe religious people are just plain delusional? I think Occam's Razor answers that question.   

[aitm]

It is obvious there are no "Gods". It is possible there is a creator, but not a "God". If a creator were to show his/her/it's face I would be most fascinated, but there would be no reason to worship one. If a creator wanted to be worshipped, by god we would fucking know it without a fucking doubt!