What counts as evidence for God?

[Nicholas1024]

Alright, I've thought a bit recently, and I realized that the last few Intellectual design debates (or even just religion-related in general) I've argued in have one major problem, in that what counts as evidence for God was never actually established. For example, me proving that there's only a 10^-50 chance of the universe being able to support intelligent life won't help if the atheists won't accept that as evidence for a Designer (aka: Infinitely many universes theory, etc.)

So, I figured that in order to better structure future debates on the topic, it would be beneficial to first hammer out the ground rules, in what counts as evidence, and what doesn't.

There are two related questions I'd like to ask here.

1): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of some God?

2): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of a specific God? (Like the God of the Bible, for instance.)

 

[rvkevin]

There are two points I would make:

1. You need to define God in detail, and specifying how it manifests.

2. Evidence has a specific definition within a Bayesian framework. As you noted, the design argument would not constitute evidence for a God because you need to consider what we should expect if there is no God. If we expect life given no God and when given a God, then it does not constitute evidence for God.

 

[AltF4]

Prayer studies would be excellent evidence. If prayer could be shown to actually affect the well-being of hospital patients. Especially if the effects only manifested when praying toward a specific god. Naturally you have to control for a few things like placebo effects.

Unsurprisingly, prayer studies have come up negative. Which means god either doesn't exist or chooses to let hospital patients die rather than produce evidence for his existence.

Specific predictions made in holy texts can be good evidence, as well. But you have to be careful about predictions not to get the Nostradamus effect. Where you make a million super vague predictions, have only a small percentage of them arguably come true, and then call that evidence of clairvoyance. Self fulfilling predictions don't count either, of course. Something like an astronomical event that couldn't have been known at the time, perhaps.

If there was a holy text that mentioned Apophis coming (almost dangerously) close to the Earth on its exact date and time, in the correct location on the Earth, then you could surely use that as evidence of the divine. (Or maybe aliens, I guess)

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

Alright, I've thought a bit recently, and I realized that the last few Intellectual design debates (or even just religion-related in general) I've argued in have one major problem, in that what counts as evidence for God was never actually established. For example, me proving that there's only a 10^-50 chance of the universe being able to support intelligent life won't help if the atheists won't accept that as evidence for a Designer (aka: Infinitely many universes theory, etc.)

Ahem... I thought that it was far from proven. But anyway.

1): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of some God?

Evidence of causation for something by god, or direct evidence of god. Eg. would mean something like god creating something from nothing in such a way as to distinguish it from natural objects, like a signature or something. It should be well-documented etc. so that it is differentiated from hoaxes.

2): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of a specific God? (Like the God of the Bible, for instance.)

The above except he responds to things specific to that god.

 

[Dre89]

Alt-

Multiple separate references have cited that studies show that religious people are happier, healthier, and irreligious countries have higher suicide rates.

Alot of these come from both theist and atheist sources.

I doubt however, you'll accept that as sufficient. And herein lies the problem. So far everyone in here has demanded empirical evidence, because that's what they've been taught.

Evidence is not synonomous with empirical evidence. If that were the case we'd have no evidence that empirical evidence was valid.

The point is, whilst it's a good thread concept, I doubt it'll achieve anything because so far everyone criterion of evidence comes from their education.

 

[rvkevin]

Multiple separate references have cited that studies show that religious people are happier, healthier, and irreligious countries have higher suicide rates.

Since you posted this in a thread relating to what counts as evidence for God, I have a few questions.

Do you think this is evidence for God? If yes, why? If not, why did you mention it?

What factors can cause the differences you mentioned?

What factor are you proposing is the cause for these differences?

Do you have any evidence that would support that particular factor as opposed to other ones?

One departing point, empirical evidence is the only way demonstrated to work in solving complex issues, such as the ones you mentioned. You can't solve these issues by philosophy. Despite your attempts to validate such a method as valid, it has failed and as such, is not evidence. If you want to propose a different kind of evidence, then you need to demonstrate that it is evidence. I doubt this will achieve anything because so far every time this is brought up, you demonstrate your failure in understanding how to evaluate evidence since your claims have already been dismantled and found wanting.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Ah, the old "what counts as natural, empirical evidence for a non-natural concept"...

Anyone else seeing the issue here?

When we go around trying to define the cause of a certain event, we have a prerogative to explain it with the most simple method possible. A supernatural cause is, by nature, never the most simple explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjnWExDD_Xw

That vid sums it up pretty well. I don't think it's possible to define evidence for the supernatural. Even if it was to be shown that prayer itself has serious positive effects, a naturalistic explanation of any kind is better than a supernatural one.

 

[Nicholas1024]

So are you saying that nothing should count as evidence for God?

 

[_Keno_]

Multiple separate references have cited that studies show that religious people are happier, healthier, and irreligious countries have higher suicide rates.

For those of us who don't know what studies you're referring to, can you link just a few sources (not necessarily all).

And it doesn't surprise me that religious people are generally happier. They have an easily found purpose in life that doesn't (for the general population) subtract much from what they do otherwise; everyone else has to actually make/find a purpose.

So are you saying that nothing should count as evidence for God?

No. He is saying that if something has no naturalistic explanation, it could be evidence.

 

[eschemat]

And to prove 1. you don't necessarily have to prove that god has "feelings" or saves lives, but merely that he created life... depending on what you classify as a god.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

No. He is saying that if something has no naturalistic explanation, it could be evidence.

I would be wary about saying this. There is such thing as the argument from ignorance fallacy, which is exactly what this is. There is always the possibility that an unknown naturalistic explanation exists.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

So are you saying that nothing should count as evidence for God?

No. He is saying that if something has no naturalistic explanation, it could be evidence.

Wrong. I'm saying that nothing should count as evidence for any supernatural phenomenon. Evidence does not work with the supernatural. At all. Evidence is reality-based; the supernatural is, by definition, based either in an "alternative reality" or (usually) no reality whatsoever. I mean, how would you even quantify it at all?

 

[Dre89]

Correction, empirical evidence doesn't work for God.

Rv- You just used philosophy to demonstrate that empirical evidence is the only thing we should go by. Any evidence you have for the notion that we should only be theists if there is empirical evidence is not empirical, and is in fact philosophical.

If you'll only accept empirical evidence, there's pretty much no point in establishing because you're already closing off the possibility of there being evidence for God. Of course that doesn't make sense, because as me and Doggs have been saying, that's a philosophy itself.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Correction, empirical evidence doesn't work for God.

Yes, indeed, my bad. But what other evidence is there? There's logic, sure, but I really don't think that Nic meant that by "evidence".

 

[Nicholas1024]

I think I've got you this time, BPC.

If there is no empirical evidence you'd accept for the existence of God, then either

a): There's another type of evidence that is acceptable for God (like the philosophical truths that Dre's been talking about)

or

b): Your position "There is no God" is unfalsifiable.

And remember BPC, you're the one that originally said "When you claim something unfalsifiable, you lose."

 

[rvkevin]

dre, what philosophy did I use? I did two things during that point, I stated an observation and I asked you to support your position. Which of these counts as philosophy? I think you have removed all meaning from the term...not to mention that you dodged my request for you to back up your claims.

 

[AltF4]

BPC:

I think we're just having a problem with terms. I agree that when you try calling something "supernatural" it ceases to make sense. Empiric evidence (observed within nature) doesn't apply to something which is supernatural.

So we would have to include god into what we consider "nature". God may have abilities which are more than a human, but could still be accounted for by natural law. In other words, there's no reason (in principle) Superman couldn't exist. Now just take that and run with it, and you get "god".

This god could have lots of superpowers, maybe it even created the observable universe. All while obeying the fundamental physical law. IE: Not "supernatural"

You could, of course, have evidence for the existence of such a being. Some of which being what I previously posted.

 

[ballin4life]

I think I've got you this time, BPC.

If there is no empirical evidence you'd accept for the existence of God, then either

a): There's another type of evidence that is acceptable for God (like the philosophical truths that Dre's been talking about)

or

b): Your position "There is no God" is unfalsifiable.

And remember BPC, you're the one that originally said "When you claim something unfalsifiable, you lose."

b is not his position

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I think I've got you this time, BPC.

If there is no empirical evidence you'd accept for the existence of God, then either

a): There's another type of evidence that is acceptable for God (like the philosophical truths that Dre's been talking about)

or

b): Your position "There is no God" is unfalsifiable.

And remember BPC, you're the one that originally said "When you claim something unfalsifiable, you lose."

"There is no god" is not my position. That's like saying "There is no Purple Nurple Fairy is your position". No, my position is that I reject the god concept based on a lack of logic or evidence. You still have the burden of proof. Just like with any other supernatural phenomenon, if it's unfalsifiable, the only correct position is "I don't know" and "It doesn't matter". In this case, though, philosophy and logic may be able to get you somewhere with god. Empirical evidence cannot.

The alternative is to classify god as a natural phenomenon, in which case you still have to struggle with definition, relevance, and the fact that most popular definitions of god place him in the realm of the supernatural by definition.

 

[Dre89]

dre, what philosophy did I use? I did two things during that point, I stated an observation and I asked you to support your position. Which of these counts as philosophy? I think you have removed all meaning from the term...not to mention that you dodged my request for you to back up your claims.

Those statistics aren't the reason I believe in God, but I think they back it up.

All you did was show that empiricism is good, and philosophy is bad by empirical standards, which is totally irrelevant.

You said empiricism is the only thing that can demonstrate proofs, that being a point in it's favour, but that's already using an empirical criterion. Favouring demonstratable facts is exhibiting an empirical bias. You still haven't answered.

Philosophy is only considered incapabke of solving complex issues because people like you reject it as a whole, again, because it doesn't fulfill your empirical criterion.

Besides, as an observation, your statement is either empirical or philosophical. Since your initial point is that empirical evidence is supreme, your logic is still flawed regardless of whether your observation is empirical or philosophical. If it's E, then you've been circular, if it's P, you've invoked a philosophical premise.

 

[Nicholas1024]

Fine, then your position "We can't know if there is a God" is unfalsifiable. The argument still stands. You can't place the BoP on me unless you accept something as proof.

 

[rvkevin]

Those statistics aren't the reason I believe in God, but I think they back it up.

This defeats the purpose of the line of questions. They were specifically made to have you explain why they were evidence for God. Emphasis on the “why”! Actually argue for your points, don’t just assert “I think they back it up.” This shouldn’t need to be said…

You said empiricism is the only thing that can demonstrate proofs, that being a point in it's favor, but that's already using an empirical criterion. Favoring demonstrable facts is exhibiting an empirical bias. You still haven't answered.

If it doesn’t have an empirical basis, then there is no point in discussing it for it cannot have any effect on me, none whatsoever. If it doesn’t manifest in some way, then I cannot meaningfully say that it exists. Perhaps it would be better stated as exhibiting a reality bias. I pose this complex problem to you: how do you differentiate between the non-existent and the existent that does not manifest. I’ll leave you with your philosophical tools to figure that one out. If you can solve that problem, then I will pay attention, since they are empirically equivalent statements.

Besides, as an observation, your statement is either empirical or philosophical. Since your initial point is that empirical evidence is supreme, your logic is still flawed regardless of whether your observation is empirical or philosophical. If it's E, then you've been circular, if it's P, you've invoked a philosophical premise.

I already said that I think that all philosophy boils down to semantics. The way to solve problems philosophically is basically asking the person “what do you mean by x.” You keep doing that until they have defined their terms and then it reduces to an easy problem. If it reduces to a semantic problem, then it was either true or false by definition, which doesn’t shed any light about the natural world. If it reduces to an empirical problem, then you enter the domain of science. If you want to say that God is anything more than a word trick, then you need to show it with more than just words. This is what happens when you introduce philosophy, it just becomes a pointless semantic game.

 

[Dre89]

Your mum counts as evidence of God, because last night she was divine. Ooooooohhhhhhhhh....

K I'm done.

Seriously now, verifying empricism is a meaningless game of semantics?

How exactly is it that you personally verify empiricism?

 

[Reaver197]

By being alive rather than dead.

 

[AltF4]

What an asinine point. Of course nobody "verifies empiricism". Nobody seriously purports to. We all have to make assumptions, and I don't think saying "We require demonstrable evidence for any claims about how the world is or works" is such an unreasonable thing.

There simply is no method of going from an absolute, a-priori, zero knowledge foundation to being able to build a computer without making assumptions. You just can't. It's okay to not know. It's okay to make assumptions. It's okay to be wrong. Really, it is. But whenever you do, you make note of them, and are mentally prepared to reject those assumptions when proven wrong.

I've just described science and skepticism in a nutshell. There's a lot of bookkeeping, but that's what it is at the core.

All this nonsense about empiricism being self defeating because it can't empirically prove itself is all terribly clever, but meaningless. If your point is that it fails to live up to the standard of perfectly 100% undeniable metaphysical certainty, then you're correct. But I don't know of anything that doesn't. The beauty of science and empiricism isn't that it produces Truth (with a capital T) 100% of the time, but rather that when it's wrong we have a method for finding out.


This thread, as I understand it, is about trying to find what could conceivably be considered proof for the existence of a god. And I think there can be. In fact, the bible itself goes at great length to try to convince you of the existence of god by giving you evidence. Jesus himself is alleged to have performed many "miracles" (all quite amateurish if you've ever seen a modern Vegas magic show) in order to prove to the followers that he was the real deal. So ostensibly god cares about giving evidence. Or did, and then stopped about two thousand years ago...

In any case, if god did exist, I can imagine that it wouldn't take much effort for him to convince all of us of this fact. I think the answer is yes. What would count? Well you have to account for several things:

1) Hallucinations
2) Dreams
3) Pranks / Conspiracies / Tricks

Things of this nature. All which are, in practice, difficult to properly account for. Conspiracies are one of them. In fact, conspiracies bear a lot in common with religious arguments. A conspiracy argument (if shown incorrect) can always be rectified by furthering the conspiracy. But in practice, we can do it, sure.

 

[rvkevin]

I don't know what it would mean for something to be true that is inconsistent with nature. That's merely what empiricism is, observing nature. What could you possibly mean otherwise? Here we go again, back to semantics...Why don't you explain how you verify philosophy.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Fine, then your position "We can't know if there is a God" is unfalsifiable. The argument still stands. You can't place the BoP on me unless you accept something as proof.

...Are you not listening or something? "We can't know" is not unfalsifiable. It's logically demonstrable. It's got the same evidence behind it as your supernatural events do.

Furthermore, this post is immensely wrong. Why can't I place the BoP on you unless I accept something as proof? The supernatural, almost by definition, has no empirical evidence. It simply doesn't work. See that video about miracles I linked again. It's impossible to link a causative chain to something supernatural, especially when you can't even establish its existence in the first place.

But to go from there and claim that I can't give you the BoP for a claim just because I reject any empirical evidence? No, I'm sorry, that's not how things work. You're still the one making the claim, and that means that you have the BoP. It does not matter if it is logically impossible to use empirical evidence on the subject matter at hand, you still have to prove your claim. That's how rational thought works. Otherwise everyone would be forced to accept any supernatural claim.

 

[Bob Jane T-Mart]

I think I've got you this time, BPC.

If there is no empirical evidence you'd accept for the existence of God, then either

a): There's another type of evidence that is acceptable for God (like the philosophical truths that Dre's been talking about)

or

b): Your position "There is no God" is unfalsifiable.

And remember BPC, you're the one that originally said "When you claim something unfalsifiable, you lose."

I don't believe you've got him. Falisfiability matters when you're dealing proposing a theory/hypothesis. The nature of theories and hypotheses is that they provide explanations for phenomena. So one could consider that "goddidit" to be a hypothesis. This means that your position should be falsifiable, if the concept of a god explains anything. But you can't disprove a god, just like you can't disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster. So, if we approach the subject of god with scientific rigour, the god hypothesis would be thrown out the window.

You may be saying that god is outside the realm of science. I'll grant you that. It's just if God is outside the realm of science, his effects are undetectable. And if his effects are undetectable, then we really have to ask the question, "are they worth considering"?

 

[Dre89]

Alt- It's your logic that requires a justification of empiricism, not mine.

Empiricism is verified by philosophical premises. It's consistent with my logic to be able to merely assume empiricism because my framework endorses philosophical premises.

You however, reject the validity of philosophical premises, which is why I question how you verify empiricism.

You accept the philosophical premise for empiricism, then reject my argumentation, not because of their individual weaknesses, but because they are philosophical in general. That's setting double standards.

Rv- I've never rejected the merit of empirical methodology, in fact it's my framework that verifies it. I never said
that empirical methodology is self defeating, I said the philosophy that empirical methodology exclusively concludes truths is self defeating.

For clarity's sake, let's distinguish between empiricism and scientism. E is the former in the above paragraph, S is the latter.

Both of you are scientisimists, and the most ironic thing is that it's a philosophy.

 

[Dre89]

I'm on my iPhone so I had to double post, otherwise I would have totes edited my last post, I know some nerds get really anal about DPing but whatevs.

Alt and Rv, are you guys saying that the only point of philosophical thinking, the only philosophical premise that is true, is the verification of empiricism?

 

[Nicholas1024]

So, you guys reject any empirical evidence for God, only accept that kind of evidence to begin with, AND put the BoP on me to prove God's existence? That's basically saying that regardless of what I say there is no chance of you being wrong ever. I'm sad that this is the kind if shining logic accepted by the debate hall.

@AltF4
Not all of Jesus's miracles could be cheap magic tricks. Take him raising Lazarus from the dead 4 days after death. (in before BPC rage about the disciples lying.) If you accept the gospels as what the disciples really believed, Jesus being the Son of God is the conclusion that fits.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

So, you guys reject any empirical evidence for God, only accept that kind of evidence to begin with, AND put the BoP on me to prove God's existence? That's basically saying that regardless of what I say there is no chance of you being wrong ever. I'm sad that this is the kind if shining logic accepted by the debate hall.

I never said that I'd only accept empirical evidence. Logic would work. But you seem to fail to realize the inherent problem with supernatural claims.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: when you make a claim, you put the burden of proof upon yourself to demonstrate that this claim is in any way true to anyone else. What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. By claiming "god exists", you are making a positive existence claim. You have to provide evidence, be it empirical or logical, to back this up.
Furthermore, it's pretty clear that using natural evidence on a phenomenon which does not take place in natural reality fails straight from the start. Any supernatural event is excluded by occam's razor as it requires an additional assumption on our part (and even if that weren't the case, you'd still have a hell of a time attributing causation to a being whose existence you cannot justify)!
Then there's logic... And I welcome you to try to prove that god exists with that. But until you can, I will reject your claim. The problem is, it's very, very hard to demonstrate anything with logic alone. Even attempting to demonstrate that the existence of something is logically necessary is nearly impossible; you can only really get as far as "I think, therefore I am" before you have to start making assumptions and logical leaps.

This is the problem with all supernatural events. You are forced to back up your claim, empirical evidence is useless, and logic is a fiddly beast which is unlikely to get you anywhere. However, to cry foul and claim that we're not being reasonable because you made a claim that you can't back up in any way and we're rejecting it for that exact same reason is ridiculous. Perhaps you should reassess your own claims before attempting to insult the value of the forum you're using to make the claim, no?

But hey, let's take this for example of what I'm talking about...

Not all of Jesus's miracles could be cheap magic tricks. Take him raising Lazarus from the dead 4 days after death. (in before BPC rage about the disciples lying.) If you accept the gospels as what the disciples really believed, Jesus being the Son of God is the conclusion that fits.

Let's compare the odds of someone actually rising from the dead with the odds of someone in the history of the bible's/gospel's creation exaggerating or lying about the event, or just flat-out making a mistake.

How many records of each do we have?

Well, let's tally up...
-People who have risen from the dead according to viable sources: 0
-People who have made mistakes: more than I'm willing to count
-People who have lied to further an agenda: see mistakes

Hmm... Yeah. Probably didn't happen.

But even if we accept that it did happen, what does that imply? That Jesus has some sort of bizarre power we've never seen before (or again)? It certainly doesn't imply that every word he says is true, nor that he's the son of god. You'd kind of have to take his word for it, and furthermore you'd have to believe that the god he's the son of is the god he describes, and not, say, Satan. Because Satan is (according to the bible) infamously good at doing **** like that. Hell, it doesn't even imply the supernatural! It could've just as easily happened via some sort of natural explanation, without invoking the supernatural at all.

In any case, you can't test the results, you can't check anything, you can't make predictions with the results... You understand what I'm getting out? There's a reason I reject supernatural claims almost out of hand.

But hey, be my guest; go on believing a 2000-year-old book with sketchy history, political motivation, and several severe contradictions within it. And yeah, I'm talking about the new testament.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

1): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of some God?

If we are talking about a deity then for evidence of a deity I would say him or her coming down to confirm his or her existence. Miracles are not evidence of god even if I where to experience one personally, for example if a person had the power to raise the dead, and showed us using that would be power that person could raise the dead. It would not be evidence of a god existence. It would be proof that the dead could be brought back by this person.

2): What would you count as satisfactory evidence for the existence of a specific God? (Like the God of the Bible, for instance.)

Same as the first, assuming by god you mean deity.

Just my take on it.

 

[Nicholas1024]

Just going to note that I won't answer the second half of BPC's post in-thread, as it would completely derail the topic. I might make a new testament thread just so I can tear that argument apart though...

 

[AltF4]

Just going to note that I won't answer the second half of BPC's post in-thread, as it would completely derail the topic. I might make a new testament thread just so I can tear that argument apart though...

Perhaps it's just a pet peeve of mine, but I dislike it when someone claims that they can easily defeat an argument, but refuse to actually do so. If you want do debate, then do it. Make a thread. If not, then don't.

I think we've had new testament threads before, though. They tend to not be terribly productive, as you can take just about anything in the bible to mean just about anything you want to suit your needs. I'd much rather have a thread discussing the Harry Potter books. They're certainly a better source of moral teachings for children than the bible, at least.


I think it should be fairly obvious that nothing in the bible can be considered evidence for the existence of the christian god. Otherwise you'd have to accept everyone's holy texts as evidence of their mutually exclusive gods. Each of these books have claims of equally convincing tales of miracles being performed, with equal amounts of verifying testimonials.
(And I think you suffer from a lack of imagination if you can't think of a way to fake someone's death, IE: Lazarus. Assuming the whole story happened at all.)


I am, however, sympathetic to the concern of Nicholas when he says that the definitions are stacked in such a way that there can be no evidence for the existence of god even in principle. I can definitely imagine a world where a god exists, and its presence is well known. So surely evidence isn't impossible in principle. It's merely a matter of it not being present in our world.

I think this happens only because people use the term "supernatural" when they don't know what they're getting themselves into. You have a causality problem, here.

It's essentially synonymous with "magic". To say that something is magic is to say that it violates natural law. Which is to say that there IS no natural law or logic to anything in the universe. Up is down, black is white, 1+1=3, whatever you want. It's magic after all. Doesn't have to make sense. There doesn't have to be reasons for anything that happens, it can just happen because it's magic.

And this is where people like BPC (and myself) rightly object to anyone saying that the supernatural is real, much less that they have evidence to support it.

So my advice is to avoid using the term "supernatural" as it will be highly offensive to the rationality of anyone who can think a few steps ahead to realize the logical conclusion of what that means. You're essentially saying: "My argument doesn't need a logical basis, because the argument involves logic itself being flawed".

That by itself should be enough to realize why the notion of a god is rather unpalatable. But you could still have evidence of a god.

I want to see a miracle of a man or woman having a limb regenerated via prayer. Christians constantly claim that god heals cancer patients. But that happens to be so convenient since cancer is not well understood, and not highly visible.

Surely there is a case of a person who has lost a limb via some tragic accident, or by saving another life heroically. Have a large amount of medical doctors verify the missing limb and document it. Have people pray for the limb to regenerate, and see if it happens.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I think this happens only because people use the term "supernatural" when they don't know what they're getting themselves into. You have a causality problem, here.

It's essentially synonymous with "magic". To say that something is magic is to say that it violates natural law. Which is to say that there IS no natural law or logic to anything in the universe. Up is down, black is white, 1+1=3, whatever you want. It's magic after all. Doesn't have to make sense. There doesn't have to be reasons for anything that happens, it can just happen because it's magic.

And this is where people like BPC (and myself) rightly object to anyone saying that the supernatural is real, much less that they have evidence to support it.

So my advice is to avoid using the term "supernatural" as it will be highly offensive to the rationality of anyone who can think a few steps ahead to realize the logical conclusion of what that means. You're essentially saying: "My argument doesn't need a logical basis, because the argument involves logic itself being flawed".

This. If god is a natural phenomenon, then you could use empirical evidence on him. Otherwise? No dice.

 

[rvkevin]

You however, reject the validity of philosophical premises, which is why I question how you verify empiricism.

I reject the validity of assertions, which is a position called skepticism. When you don’t support a statement, it is an assertion. Whether that assertion is empirical or philosophical is besides the point.

Rv- I've never rejected the merit of empirical methodology, in fact it's my framework that verifies it. I never said that empirical methodology is self defeating; I said the philosophy that empirical methodology exclusively concludes truths is self defeating.

And I have repeated said that is not my position. I have said that it is the only one that we know of at the moment. I never contested that there could be others, but that they need to be demonstrated before being accepted. Until then, empiricism is king.

Alt and Rv, are you guys saying that the only point of philosophical thinking, the only philosophical premise that is true, is the verification of empiricism?

I don’t think it is appropriate to call a methodology true. A methodology can work well or not, it can work better than others, but I don’t think it makes sense to call it true. We have defined a goal that we want to achieve (and if you reduce that further, it becomes an empirical fact about us). After that, it is an empirical question of which answer best achieves that goal. In the pursuit of science, that goal has been stated in simple terms of trying to find out more about the world. It just happens that empiricism is the proven method in that pursuit and has proved itself over the years. If you want to introduce another method, you need to demonstrate its effectiveness like empiricism has already done. Until then, empiricism is the only method that has been demonstrated to work. This doesn’t make it “true,” saying that would be a categorical error.

 

[Rabbattack]

There is no evidence. Maybe if I see an old giant beared wizard tear off my roof and say, "I AM GOD", while turning every brick of my house into bread and wine, then I'll believe he is real.

Such a god isn't even worth supporting because of how cruel and unfair he is.

 

[LarsINTJ]

(I see this is a very old thread, but I feel the need to add a little)

It's actually possible to rationally disprove 'God' based on its common definition and attributes.

God is defined as an eternal, immaterial, all-knowing and all-powerful entity - immediately there are problems:

1. If God is eternal, then why is the idea necessary to 'explain' the creation of the universe? If we grant that something may exist eternally then Occam's razor compels us to cut god from the equation and simply say that matter/energy has always existed eternally without the need for a designer. If we grant that a deity created the universe then we posit the principle 'that which exists must have been created'. What created the deity? Another one? Another one after that?

2. God cannot be immaterial. We have long since clarified the connection between consciousness and brain activity - to say that consciousness can exist without matter is the same as insisting that it's possible to breathe without lungs.

3. Back to the first point. If god cannot be immaterial, then it cannot be eternal because all cellular life eventually deteriorates and dies.

4. God cannot be all-knowing and all-powerful at the same time. If I know exactly what will happen in the future then I would invalidate my own knowledge if I had the power to interject and change the course of history.

5. God cannot be all-powerful. To be all-powerful is to possess infinite complexity and all examples of complexity in nature have arisen from gradual evolution over millions of years. Complexity requires reproduction and death, it does not randomly pop into existence.

6. God cannot be all-knowing. If a single all-knowing entity were to exist then it would validate determinism and thus nullify free will. (admittedly, this is a preference of mine, although it is well founded. I would elaborate, but that's an entire argument in itself). Religion seems to assert that free will exists despite also believing in an all-knowing god - pure contradiction.

In short, the definition of god can be broken down into 'that which does not exist, exists'... Well done.

Back to the OP though. The word miracle is just a lazy way to 'explain' gaps in human knowledge which are later filled after much prejudice. Naturally, we should not immediately jump to 'God did it'! when we fail to understand new phenomena.

Potential evidence for God is no more viable than evidence for a square circle, it simply cannot be.

 

[wewewezing]

What counts as Evidence that there is a God is the Same as Evidence that there isn't.

Neither can be proven, because the only people who truly know are dead.
In the end, Believing in god and not believing in god, neither are bad things. If you find comfort in a religion, if it inspires you to do good, to help people, then by all means, have that Religion! Same goes to those who don't have a Religion, there is no right answer to this question, in the end all we can do is try to make the world better for everyone.