January 16, 2009

What Would It Take For Me To Believe In God?

"You are so closed minded. There is no evidence that will make you accept in God."
How many times do us atheists get something like that spewed at us on message boards or our blogs, after many of us say that we don't believe in God because there is no evidence that God has ever existed?

I can't speak for all atheists, but as far as I'm concerned, there are quite a few ways in which God could be proved to me, or at least considered. I would just need to witness first hand a supernatural event as it would open up the possibilities that science can't explain everything, that something else is going on.

The bible, and that means any bible, doesn't do it for me. No one is going to convince me against the obvious, that supernatural events described in the bible are nothing but fairy tales for grown ups.

Well then, what would do it for me?

The big one is God healing amputees. Believers will almost always say that God can do anything. God can cure everything from hiccups to cancer, and God can win a football game sometimes too, or help someone get a job.

But for some reason, God doesn't choose to produce a physical miracle that would challenge everything we know about how the natural world works today. Of course, many Fundies will say "how do you know God has never made a limb grow back, do you know everything that happens and happened everywhere on this planet since it came into existence less than 7 thousand years ago?" When I get that response, I feel like I'm at a zoo with a monkey flinging feces at me.

Pharyngula tells us of The Amputee Challenge. The Sunny Sceptic is looking for volunteers. Everyone on the internet can pray for the volunteers, and we can see what happens. God has a great opportunity to easily prove his existence. And if he chooses not to, I have to ask why others take it upon themselves to do something God won't even do by spreading his word. If he wanted it spread so badly, just make someone grow back a limb on Youtube.

So what else would make me consider God? How about right now, God fill my empty glass with water? I'll give you thirty more seconds.....nothing.

How about someone levitating across the rooms of my house. My dog or my wife, or even me. What? God doesn't do that stuff on demand? Ever?

How about the moon doing a figure eight one night when I'm looking at it, and sober too (which I am over 99% of the time)?

Ok, let my dog Daisy speak to me in English? I'll accept French, Hebrew and even Pig Latin.

I can go on and on, but I think I made my point.

See also How To Convert An Atheist