Absorbed
2010-09-24 15:21:32 UTC
I recently had a debate with a Christian friend who has a philosophy
degree, and he was unsatisfied with any answer I gave to this question:
What evidence do you need to believe that God exists? (I'm discussing
the plebeian concept of God.)
While I'm satisfied with my own answer, I'm interested to know how you
would go about answering this question.
On the night, I replied that I would need evidence from which the
concept of God arose. (It's for this reason that I consider the question
itself irrelevant to whether God exists, since imagining an alternative
universe where God exists has no bearing on the universe we live in.)
My friend was looking for a more specific answer, and asked, for
example, how many healed people by preachers would I need to witness in
order to believe God exists.
To this I said I would have to know that the person was actually healed,
that legit doctors had decided they were hopeless, and it would have to
happen often enough for chance and other factors (the doctors getting it
wrong, or it being a placebo etc.) to be less convincing that the
preacher healed them.
Of course, the preacher's healing doesn't necessarily prove that God
exists, but only that the healing took place. The belief that the
healing took place due to God's involvement requires more evidence than
the healing itself, and I'm not sure what form this evidence would take.
Perhaps if the Bible contained many specific predictions that came true,
and God's influence was more stark (a crashing plane, engines blown,
miraculously slows down and gently lands).
I think my friend's point was something along the lines of it being
possible that God does exist, but that He can only exercise an influence
on the universe that doesn't convince me of his existence. To that I
would say that I can only form my beliefs based on the evidence
available, and that to my knowledge there is no better way.
degree, and he was unsatisfied with any answer I gave to this question:
What evidence do you need to believe that God exists? (I'm discussing
the plebeian concept of God.)
While I'm satisfied with my own answer, I'm interested to know how you
would go about answering this question.
On the night, I replied that I would need evidence from which the
concept of God arose. (It's for this reason that I consider the question
itself irrelevant to whether God exists, since imagining an alternative
universe where God exists has no bearing on the universe we live in.)
My friend was looking for a more specific answer, and asked, for
example, how many healed people by preachers would I need to witness in
order to believe God exists.
To this I said I would have to know that the person was actually healed,
that legit doctors had decided they were hopeless, and it would have to
happen often enough for chance and other factors (the doctors getting it
wrong, or it being a placebo etc.) to be less convincing that the
preacher healed them.
Of course, the preacher's healing doesn't necessarily prove that God
exists, but only that the healing took place. The belief that the
healing took place due to God's involvement requires more evidence than
the healing itself, and I'm not sure what form this evidence would take.
Perhaps if the Bible contained many specific predictions that came true,
and God's influence was more stark (a crashing plane, engines blown,
miraculously slows down and gently lands).
I think my friend's point was something along the lines of it being
possible that God does exist, but that He can only exercise an influence
on the universe that doesn't convince me of his existence. To that I
would say that I can only form my beliefs based on the evidence
available, and that to my knowledge there is no better way.