Is it reasonable to keep an open mind about existence of god(s)?

Steve Zara is a blogger and commenter you might be familiar with if you frequent RichardDawkins.net. I've always liked his style and he's posted an interesting essay on his blog about whether or not it is reasonable to maintain the position that, given the right evidence, we atheists are prepared to change our minds about the existence of god(s).

The essay is God and Evidence - a Strident Proposal and Steve's blog is found here.

The question is occasionally asked, "What evidence would convince you of the existence/non-existence of god(s)?" Regardless of whether the question is directed at a believer or a non-believer the reply that no evidence would sway their opinion is often considered an unreasonable position. Steve makes a convincing argument that this may actually be more reasonable than our atheistic, materialistic, scientific inclinations would usually dictate.

I'm interested in hearing other people's views on this subject. Have you ever been asked what it would take to convince you (either way)? What was your answer? Is the question meaningless?

The only way I would believe in God is if God him/herself appeared in front of me, performed a few miracles and managed to tell me my deepest darkest secrets - one's I have never told another living person. Then and only then will I know that God exists.
Until then, God doesn't exist to me.

Sounds a bit much, but that's what it's going to take for me. =]

Hannibal

Originally Posted by Hannibal

The only way I would believe in God is if God him/herself appeared in front of me, performed a few miracles and managed to tell me my deepest darkest secrets - one's I have never told another living person. Then and only then will I know that God exists.
Until then, God doesn't exist to me.

Sounds a bit much, but that's what it's going to take for me. =]

Hannibal

I've heard this sort of statement before but it really doesn't mean much, does it? I mean, it's not very specific. How would you know it was God? How would you know that any apparition claiming to be God was not just a very clever trickster? How do you define "miracle"? If someone uses technology that you know nothing about is that miraculous? What if they teach you the theory so that you understand the technology - does it cease to be a miracle? If we come to understand something that used to be considered a miracle then was it ever a miracle?

When I try to imagine what it would take to convince me of God's existence I have to admit that I really can't come up with anything in particular. It kind of depends on how you define God. As Noam Chomsky once said, "I can't even call myself an 'atheist' because it is not at all clear what I'm being asked to deny."

Here's an interesting USA Today article by Jerry Coyne about the incompatibility of science and religion. I think he puts his finger on the issue with this statement:

And this leads to the biggest problem with religious "truth": There's no way of knowing whether it's true. I've never met a Christian, for instance, who has been able to tell me what observations about the universe would make him abandon his beliefs in God and Jesus. (I would have thought that the Holocaust could do it, but apparently not.) There is no horror, no amount of evil in the world, that a true believer can't rationalize as consistent with a loving God. It's the ultimate way of fooling yourself. But how can you be sure you're right if you can't tell whether you're wrong?

The religious want God and the afterlife to be supernatural so they can't really ever come up with any description or definition of any aspect of their belief system that can be tested or falsified because it would no longer be supernatural. Pretty much by definition, once we understand something or have a completely rational theory, it becomes part of the natural universe.

That is a good point Blondin, I have to admit.
New technology's are being created everyday.
If we did discover another planet not even half as advanced as us, they would more than likely believe I was some sort of deity with the technology I have.
I mean, even our own race in some places would probably think so.
Imagine we went back in time, to say Medieval England, and 2 of us took mobile phones that somehow got signal and we phoned each other. They would probably deem us some form of God's messengers being able to talk great distances almost instantaneously. Either that, or witches/warlocks...

Hannibal

Exactly. There are numerous stories, from The Wizard of Oz to Star Trek, involving the use of advanced technology to impersonate a god. As Steve says, since we don't know the limits of technology, how would we know magic if we saw it?

This is a great essay, it has the slant and argument I have looked for in the past.
This has long been an argument my family has tried on me, my answer has always been than when I die,
and I actually get to some gates in the clouds and are asked to explain myself by white robed folks.
I have long been quite satisfied with the explanation that religion is just superstition to lessen the fears of some. Explanations of natural phenomena , they were unable to grasp at the time. Strident it is. I now can answer their silly question about mythology, without trying to come up with stranger and stranger "proofs".

Originally Posted by widdershins

You know, I have often had this exact thought. I used to work with a bunch of Catholics who were forever trying to convert me. One day my boss asked me, "If God were to appear in front of you, would you believe it was him?" I thought about it for a second and replied, "How would I know it wasn't the devil trying to trick me?" Really the Bible sets up an absolute impossibility for ever really knowing 100% that you are talking to or learning from God. Because you can never prove it you simply have to believe that you are 100% right and hope for the best, I guess.

To be honest, if we were going to allow the possibility of a devil we'd pretty much be acknowledging the whole supernatural, omnipotent being ball o' wax. I think if someone appeared in front of me claiming to be Yahweh (or the devil) I would suspect trickery of a more temporal nature. You would have to admit that even the most miraculous-appearing acts could possibly be achieved by trickery or advanced technology. The argument from incredulity is no more valid for really, really clever tricks than it is for mundane ones. Just because I can't imagine how it was done doesn't make it "real magic".

Even with something like restoring limbs to amputees you would want someone like James Randi in charge of overseeing the whole performance to ensure the subject was a real amputee at the start and was the same subject during and afterwards and the restored limb was a real limb, etc. Even then, how would we know that some genius hasn't simply (simply?!) perfected some form of starfish-like regeneration? Or perhaps they are not of this Earth; that still wouldn't automatically mean they were an omnipotent universe creator.

In the past I've sometimes suggested that if there were unambiguous prophecies in the bible, about things like atomic structure or the laws of physics or properties of materials that were unknown prior to the 20th century, that sort of thing might be quite convincing. But it still wouldn't be conclusive. Even the most far-fetched explanation involving alien beings and/or time machines is still more likely than a supernatural solution.

All good points, but, how about we think about the god that shared b y the Abrahamic faiths that created the universe. (OK, Genesis seems to imply a falt earth and a dome over the top but no one believes that anymore - its only in the bible!) The first thing we could say about a creator of this scale is that it would not be able to occupy that which it created. I can't make and cake and exist inside it for example! So, any creator would, of necessity be outside the universe in which we live.

Next we have a communication problem - we can't get communication from here to a reasonably near star in any sensible amount of time and the universe of millions of light years across. The is no obvious way we might communicate across the edge of the universe either - unless we invent a wormhole, so realistically, communication with a creator is impossible or virtually so.

Finally, as science gets closer to the way the universe formed etc we seem to not be leaving much for a creator to do meaning that the chance of a creator gets smaller every day. Those who wrote the bible had no idea about space and time and almost anything they could not explain was a miracle. Today we can explain increasing numbers of things so we have a shrinking god of the gaps and shrinking gaps for the god to be god of!

So, to conclude, the chances of there being a creator are very low, the chance of being able to communicate to the outside the universe are even lower so I would say that it would need something a lot grander than an appearance too convince me there was a god as i think it is an invention of primitive man but I would accept a rearrangement og the galaxies to spell god in a known language probably.

I'm sure there are all kinds of marvels we can think of that would be pretty good evidence for the existence of a superior intelligence. Still, even if we found credible evidence for some kinda multi-dimensional, pan-galactic universal architect(s), there would still be a problem proving a connection between him/her/it/them and all the conflicting, contradictory, preposterous claims, instructions, parables and narratives of the bible, let alone all the bullshit rules, commandments and "moral guidelines" extrapolated therefrom.

Supposing we met a real-life Slartibartfast. Even granting the ability to mold solar systems, manipulate galaxies and instantiate life forms, there would still be materialistic, nut and bolt, theoretically understandable mechanisms involved. We might have to learn a whole new set of laws of physics but it still would not be "magic".