A very active subreddit to debate and pose arguments to atheists. Post your best arguments for the supernatural, discuss why your faith is true, and tell us how your reasoning led you to a belief in the supernatural. r/DebateAnAtheist is dedicated to discovering what is true, real, and useful by using debate to ascertain beliefs we can be confident about.
One question myself and probably most other atheists get from religious people is this: what it would take to convert us? Sometimes it’s a genuine question, sometimes it’s an attack coupled with some variation of “your heart is hardened so you just can’t be converted even with proof”, but either way, it’s a common question and I think having a genuine answer is useful for these discussions.
Here is a list I’ve seen a few times that I think is rather helpful.
1. Demonstrate reliably that the supernatural exists
Here is the definition of supernatural that I prefer to use as I feel it accurately represents theists’ beliefs on it:
supernatural: that which cannot occur given the laws of physics and reality and yet occurs nonetheless.
Before I can consider any brand of theism, I need to be convinced that the supernatural is real. To convince me, evidence would have to be presented that is not reasonably disputable. The supernatural would have to be demonstrated to exist reliably and repeatably. Natural explanations would have to be reasonably ruled out. This would have to go beyond simple “this does not fit with what we currently understand of nature and the laws of physics” aka an Argument from Ignorance.
Quite frankly I think this step alone is an impossible hurdle for any theist. One might even claim it is unfair, but I disagree. That’s the nature of what supernatural is. One claiming the supernatural is real must by the very nature of the supernatural rule out all possible natural explanations for a claimed supernatural phenomena. To be convincing, it must go beyond “this is outside of our current understanding of what is naturally possible” because this does not reliably rule out a natural mechanism that has not been discovered yet. Other definitions of the supernatural that try to circumvent this issue I find inadequate. These other definitions often run into the trap of just becoming regular natural phenomenons of an advanced and complicated degree.
2. Demonstrate reliably that the source of the supernatural is a willful entity/entities
I don’t expect pushback from this point. Once the supernatural is established, the next logical step to becoming a theist would be convincing me that these supernatural occurrences are the result of a being or beings with intentionality. Different religions ascribe different power levels to deities, deific figures, and lesser supernatural beings, so the level of power is unimportant. What matters is reliably demonstrating that the supernatural occurrences have will and intention behind them from supernatural beings. Otherwise it is simply a force that can be tapped into by natural beings or a random unthinking force altogether.
Passing step 2. Would make me a theist but would not make me commit to a specific religion.
3. Demonstrate reliably that these beings are accurately described by one specific religion and that other proposed supernatural beings and descriptions that conflict with this religion do not exist/are false
This is the first step to converting me to a specific religion. It must be reliably demonstrated that the religion of choice is the only religion that provides correct knowledge on which entities exist, which do not, what is the nature of these entities, etc.
This point is also key for many other important religious aspects. I will use the well known story of Jesus’s resurrection to prove my point. Without establishing that only the supernatural entities described by Christianity exist and that the abilities prescribed to these entities are accurate, there are too many alternate explanations. What if a trickster deity resurrected Jesus to deceive people into thinking Jesus was the Son of God? What if the power to resurrect is not limited to a supreme deity? There are too many explanations without passing this step.
4. Demonstrate that the central figure or figures of worship deserve my worship
This is the step that would likely receive the most pushback if a religious individual ever made it to this step. It could be proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that a religion is true, but that alone would not be enough reason for me to fully commit and follow it with worship. I would have to be convinced that it is justified to do so as opposed to simply going on with my life as is but with new knowledge.
Here are some things that would not be convincing to me.
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Something bad will happen to me if I do not worship. Threats of harm are not justified to me as a reason to worship. This includes veiled threats like “the deific figure or figures won’t specifically try to harm you but they will allow harm or allow you to harm yourself without helping if you do not worship them.”
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Worship is owed for some service provided. This could include small things like prayers being answered as well as big things like my very existence being created and sustained by the figure or figures or worship. Gratitude and worship are two very different things.
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Worship is deserved because of admirable qualities. Much like with gratitude, admiration and worship are two very different things.
I have left off a list of what would convince me worship is warranted because I simply do not currently know what would convince me. Not a single religious person has ever made it past step 1c so I’ve never really debated the other steps.
Atheists: are there any changes you would suggest? Any modifications to steps? A different order? Additional steps?
Religious people: do you think you can make it through this list and convert me?
edit: grammar and typo fixes
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Nicely written! Mind if I save this and potentially post links to it in future debates?
I agree with your assessment of the supernatural. It's physically impossible. So, I also agree with you that step one would be very hard to pass.
That said, if someone could even provide a shred of scientific evidence for the supernatural, I might switch from gnostic atheist to agnostic atheist.
While I'm willing to listen, I think that is extremely unlikely to happen.
I appreciate the comment and of course save it and feel free to at me. Debating is something I fell out of but honestly I get bored and it provides intellectual stimulation I often miss out on.
There is a huge problem with your number 1. Laws of physics are merely describing what is happening in reality. There is no such thing as "cannot occur given the laws of physics". If reality contradicts laws of physics it means laws of physics must be updated.
Is something does happen, how do you tell that it could not have happened? It happened therefore it definitely could!
I agree. But, this is what makes the supernatural physically impossible. Once we observe and explain it, it's natural.
The fact is that the very definition of supernatural does indeed mean that it is physically impossible. Here's my copypasta on the subject.
Here's a reasonable definition of the supernatural courtesy of dictionary.com, their very first definition. This seems to be the relevant one given that this is ultimately a discussion of the existence of gods.
Note that the definition does not specify that the supernatural is merely unexplained today. It asserts that in order for something to be supernatural, it must be unexplainable, now and forever, by natural law or phenomena.
Natural law in this context does not mean our current understanding of physics. It means the natural processes that govern the universe, whether we fully understand those processes or not.
Things don't change from being supernatural to being natural when we explain them. They either are or are not supernatural regardless of our knowledge, even if we may temporarily misclassify them.
So, in order for something to be supernatural, it must be in violation of all natural laws, including those we do not yet fully understand.
The problem then going to be an epistemic one. There's an ontological difference between something being explainable in principle but currently unexplained, and something that's truly unexplainable in principle, however those two things may appear indistinguishable to us.
By this definition the supernatural is unknowable and unfalsifiable.
To say that you can convince me of the supernatural by giving me sufficient evidence for it, while also saying the supernatural is unfalsifiable, is just to say it's impossible to convince me of the supernatural by empricial means.
I'm not sure why you think I'm trying to convince you that the supernatural exists. I'm a gnostic atheist and a philosophical naturalist. I do not believe in anything supernatural.
I disagree. I believe that by the above definition, the supernatural is physically impossible. It may be logically possible.
But, as a science enthusiast (albeit still a lay person), my understanding of quantum mechanics leads me to believe that logically impossible things are physically possible and in fact happen all the time.
I place far greater importance on physical possibility than logical possibility for most questions.
I never had the impression you were arguing for the supernatural.
I didn't mention anything about possibility. That's the distinction between ontology and epistemology. Something can be possible but unknowable or unfalsifiable.
It seemed to me you were saying you could be pursuaded of the existence of the supernatural if provided with empricial evidence, but that your definition of the supernatural says that empricial evidence for the supernatural is impossible, therefore it's impossible to pursuade you of the supernatural with empricial evidence.
I'm also a lay person here but quantum mechanics, while unintuitive to humans who live at the macroscopic level, does not show that logically impossible things happen.
Quantum mechanics is explained quite well with quantum field theory. By logically impossible, you're probably referring to stuff like superposition, entanglement and quantum tunnelling. The equations and principles used in quantum mechanics are logically coherent, in that they don't violate the laws of logic, and they predict this unintuitive phenomenon, confirmed by many experiments.
Philosophically speaking, physical possibility is downstream from logical possibility, so if something is logically possible, it may or may not be physically possible, but if something is logically impossible it will be physically impossible too.
Fair point. I was more using a colloquial definition for laws of physics.
As for your second point, I agree that’s an issue but that’s an issue for those proposing the supernatural. I suppose I would also say it’s more like “that can only happen because of the supernatural and could not occur if only the natural was possible”.
I think that's precisely what supernatural means. It's something that isn't natural.
It's arguably hard to discern between our lack of understanding and something truly supernatural. Especially since betting on the horse of naturalism has been proven to be the more lucrative bet over and over again.
I agree that once something can be witnessed in reality it should be able to be studied and become part of science. So maybe "once something like a god becomes possible due to our evolving understanding of science" we can move on to the next step?
Of course that whole supernatural mish mash needs a good definition then, but that may be a more reasonable direction...
Is this tantamount to saying, "Everything that happens, is natural."? Because if so, any naturalism consistent with that is unfalsifiable and therefore not scientific, at least by Popper's lights.
It seems to me that our universe could be an open system, in which case one could speak of that which can happen while there aren't any external causal influences, and that which can only happen when there are. This would give you something like an ontological nature/supernature divide. Now, you can always posit something entire 'natural' outside of our universe, but it won't necessarily be the same as the 'natural' inside our universe. The ontological distinction will still be there. There could even be a Russian doll situation, where supernature exists after the outermost shell.
Well, ontological naturalism posits that there is nothing beyond natural forces. Which is in itself an unfalsifiable statement.
No, if you define the universe as "everything that exists". Then there could not be anything beyond it by definition.
Well, perhaps a stance not adopted based on evidence isn't going to be defeated by evidence.
Sure, you can be unscientific on this matter as well. I just don't think most scientists speak this way and I think it's for good reason: they want to allow themselves to be wrong, so that they can learn that reality isn't like they presently think.
I mean that is literally true in actual reality, but in the fantasy world of imagination, what is defined as supernatural is events that break those physics. This is easily reconciled if one imagines "physics" and the "supernatural" are on separates layer of existence.
I liken it to a video game. The game runs on a set of rules, which are well-defined and consistent, and are processed via a CPU and memory. All that is considered "natural" in the world of the game. But the programmer "god" can go in, edit some memory, run outside code, and in the end, spawn in some frogs out of thin air. This does not happen not within the rules of the game's universe -- this would be a supernatural event.
This cannot happen in the game's reality. Frogs literally didn't exist in the game before then. Things don't pop into existence in the game - the code literally is incapable of that. It requires a supernatural event breaking the laws of the game for this to happen.
With regards to Point 1, I'm not sure if this is necessary at all as it would just muddy the waters with semantics about whether something is 'supernatural' or not.
Just start straight with 'There's a willful entertity that has control over the universe and reality' or something like that.
I get where you’re coming from but I couldn’t be convinced to be a theist or religious if it’s just a very powerful but perfectly natural entity or entities doing stuff we could do with the right tech and understanding, which is what a natural entity or entities would be.
I mean, it depends how advanced.
If it created the universe I live in I'd be happy enough to call it a 'god' and consider myself a theist.
If it’s something we could do ourselves with proper know how and resources, which if it’s natural would be true, I feel no need to call it a god.
I have always wondered this: what is the ACTUAL distinction between a god who is all-powerful and created the universe and a DIVINE being?
Has the term "divine" lost it's meaning?
What could be more natural than a creator of all the reality? If a god that orchestrated all the natural phenomena does exist, it is the most natural thing of all things!
What?
Probably not. One issue I have with criteria like these is that the word “demonstrate” is vague. Are you asking for me to physically show you the supernatural, like so you can look at it with your eyes? Or if I showed you something that appears to have been caused by the supernatural, would that count as a demonstration? Would a Bayesian argument count?
Hi, not OP but thought I'd chip in. I'll be using ghosts as an example of the supernatural as it strikes me as a neutral one.
To this, my usual retort is: ok, imagine I propose a new theory of physics. What process would I have to go through so my idea goes from an unproven hypothesis to an established model of how reality works that people rely on?
That, in my mind, is what any theism or proponent of supernaturalism should have to do to 'demonstrate' that their idea of how the world (or this aspect of it) works is correct.
If you claim this thing can be seen / interacts with photons and EM forces, then yeah, this would be a part of it.
For example, if your claim was: 'I saw a ghost', part of your claim is that there is a kind of dis-embodied mind that can be seen. So, given that claim, I would need you to reliably and repeatedly show me said ghost, and how you know it is a disembodied mind and not something else.
That concept does not compute. 'Appears to have been caused by the supernatural' presumes you have already established something that is beyond the material exists and have some notion of how it interacts with the material.
The idea that 'this crime seems to have been committed by a ghost' is nonsensical to a forensic scientist or to a prosecutor because the very way to establish that a ghost did or did not cause something is not something that exists yet.
This, by the way, need not be the case on an alternate reality in which ghosts are a thing that is known to exist, e.g. if we live in the world of ghostbusters or the world of Harry Potter or the world of LOTR, etc. In such a world, 'produce a ghost' would be a reasonable, feasible request.
Unlikely, unless it came with loads of data that moved my posterior distribution to your conclusion. Would a bayesian argument alone work to convince us of a new theory of physics (with zero new evidence)?
Most logical or probabilistic arguments theists try to use, when followed closely, just lead to 'there must be an explanation for X, but we don't satisfactorily know what that is yet'.
They are the equivalent of an investigator or detective pursuing a cold case saying: given my current knowledge of the case and the people in it, it seems very unlikely / impossible that any of them could have or would have done it. Therefore, following a bayesian hypothesis testing argument, this makes the explanation 'a ghost committed the murder' more likely.
I would wonder how such an argument would work, given that for all intents and purposes, my prior probability of P(ghosts exist) = 0. If I were a prosecutor, 'there is an unknown person or natural way that this crime happened, I just don't know what that is' would always come on top, if and until evidence of immaterial things became overwhelming, proportionate to a new physics theory becoming established.
Hey, thanks for the detailed reply.
That makes sense to me. But I think that's an unreasonable standard. Different disciplines require different levels of rigor for establishing theories, and it's important to judge a theory by the standards of its own discipline.
Supernaturalism is a philosophical theory, not a theory of physics. It doesn't make any claims about how quantum gravity works or the amount of dark matter in the universe or anything like that. Also, my goal wouldn't be to get supernaturalism accepted by the consensus of scientists of taught in textbooks. I would just want to give enough evidence to convince a reasonable person that it's true.
Yeah, I agree with that for a version of supernaturalism that claims some supernatural entities can be physically seen. We should expect to be able to physically see them.
I don't think it presupposes that. We can postulate something to explain what we see in the world. We postulated evolution to explain what we see in genetics and the fossil record, and we didn't need to first establish evolution before we could do that.
I actually do think that almost any evidence someone gives for a theory can be translated into Bayesian terms, so actually yes, in a sense. It's just that in physics, the probabilities are extremely high and very easy to calculate.
But what do YOU think that evidence would look like? At base, it would have to be something that is distinguishable from natural explanation, illusions, mistakes, etc. What do YOU think evidence for the supernatural would look like? What, for instance, would convince you that the Buddha was actually correct in his contention of endless rebirth?
I don’t think it’s really vague at all. I specified it should be repeatable and reliable. If it is real then this should be trivially easy. One doesn’t, for instance, ask if a Bayesian argument would be enough to convince me the moon is real. The very fact that you have to ask these questions to begin with and have tried weaseling your way out of meeting this step before even beginning to attempt is quite damning.
edit: I also clearly specified repeatability and reliability as criteria for what would demonstrate. You seem to have ignored this
I don't really know how repeatability would work in this context. If I was claiming a causal link between two things, it would make sense to ask for some sort of repeatable experiment to establish the causal link. But if I'm just claiming that something exists, I would try to establish that by pointing to something in the world that provides evidence for its existence.
In your example with the moon, our main evidence for the existence of the moon is that we can see it. I don't think that counts as "repeatable" evidence, except insofar as we can look at the same piece of evidence again if we want.
For God, I would point to the fine tuning of the universe. If I'm not mistaken, I think the evidence for fine tuning comes from people building models of the universe and calculating how they would play out if the constants were different. So this might be considered repeatable in the sense that you can run the model multiple times.
The problem with fine tuning is that there is no way to distinguish it from survivor's bias. None. We don't even know that the parameters of the universe can be tuned, by how much, or how we would distinguish parameters that can be tuned from those that can't. No one can establish the probability that the parameters hold their current values.
Fine tuning is, alas, a TERRIBLE argument.
What do you mean by that?
I don’t think we have to show that the parameters can be changed. Naturalism, as a theory, doesn’t tell you what the values are, so it doesn’t predict a fine tuned universe, and theism does. That means fine tuning is evidence for theism.
Fine tuning argument isn’t evidence. It’s an untested hypothesis.
I don't think any half measures would work for me to be honest. Demonstrate would include a reasonable understanding that anyone would accept that this supernatural element were actually existent. And once a thing is adequately demonstrated, it becomes part of accepted and testable reality.
Not trying to be difficult, but I feel like “a reasonable understanding that anyone would accept” is equally vague. Does this just mean, a level of evidence that should convince a reasonable person? Or, a level of evidence that would convince literally anybody?
It's not being difficult, it's a reasonable point. I'm sorry, but in my mind we're not anywhere close to the inner edge of that vagueness at this point with anything supernatural (including gods), so maybe we don't need to worry about definitions until we get closer.
I'm also not really a fan of defining out what it might take to believe since it seems like an attempt to lock me into a contract or something. But that's an aside.
Cheers!
Cheers.
Just want to clarify, I'm not trying to trap anyone here. My goal isn't to get you to lock into a standard and then go "Aha! Now you have to believe." But I am trying to show that the standards atheists give are either a) unclear, b) unreasonable, or c) met by the evidence we already have. (the vast majority of the time, including in the post, it's (a))
"Does this just mean, a level of evidence that should convince a reasonable person? Or, a level of evidence that would convince literally anybody?"
Do you have either?
Yea I think so. I think there’s enough evidence for theism that it should convince a reasonable person, like from fine tuning or psychophysical harmony.
Would love for you to reply to OP's comment to this. Demonstrate is not vague in how the op uses it. He literally explicitly says repeatable and reliable
All done!
This is very well written and laid out, and I agree with most of it. I have issues with Premise 1, though. You propose the definition:
Further, in replies to objections to it, you say that what is meant by 'the laws of physics' is not our current understanding of physics, but some ideal set of rules and math models that explain how the physical works.
Well, of course it is. I think this would be impossible for anyone. What would a hypothetical world would look like, where some aspect of it routinely violates the rules that dictate how the material works, and yet somehow the very existence of these rules is not compromised by these violations?
This seems to be a contradiction in terms. If our reality was whimsical or un-modelable via math and physics (because gods and angels and spirits keep messing with it), then math and laws of physics would not reliably work. We wouldn't have a concept of 'the laws of physics' and instead would think of it as 'this usually happens unless Jesus is feeling cranky today. Then anything goes'.
Honestly, I go with a definition of supernatural that refers to the super-material. That is, for me, it would be enough for the theist to demonstrate the existence of a non-material (not a phenonenon of matter and energy) layer of reality. Presumably, this would be the 'spiritual' element / substance that so many religions claim exists and interacts with the material.
I would actually be plenty impressed if the spiritual, souls, ghosts, angels, etc were to be RELIABLY shown to exist and were modelable via some kind of math / science. That would lead me to eventually believe in it, as I would believe in it if I lived in the world of Harry Potter or the world of LOTR.
I think this hurdle the theist should be able to perform, IF what they claim has anything to it.
I get where you’re coming from but this is more a personal thing, as the very question of “what would convert you” would be. I would absolutely not consider something a deity if it’s just using what’s naturally possible. That’s just a powerful but regular being and the only difference between me and this “god” is some set of knowledge and technical know how and capacity.
That is fine, but this very well may be what is meant (or can reasonably be meant) by the existence of a deity. I'm not trying to change your POV as much as supply mine and indicate that if there were such a superhumanly powerful, immaterial mind / spirit that created the universe, while you might not count it as a deity, we would both presumably come to believe said being exists if it were to be sufficiently demonstrated.
This point does not take much away from OP anyways, because well... we also don't have any demonstration of anything beyond the material, let alone disembodied superhumanly powerful minds.
Yeah that’s fine if that’s what people mean. Some religions do deify all humans and even just everything in existence. It just wouldn’t be convincing to me.
I guess I am wondering what you would not be convinced of, exactly.
In other words, if it's not repeatable, it's not fact?
The idea that litmus paper would turn red if I poured acid on it tomorrow is not a fact?
What? I’m not sure how you got that. I think repeatability is pretty standard as a source for proving existence and it would take some very strong and willful misinterpreting to think what you stated is what I mean.
Example: god answering prayers. I would need that to be consistently repeatable to prove a god exists who answers prayers. If only 1/1000000000 prayers get answered or seemingly answered, and the same prayer in the same context was not answered consistently, I would not have a strong enough reason to think a for that answers prayers exists.
I'm confused by what point you think you're making here.
I think your part 4 is really important.
I don't understand why a being so many tiers more powerful and wise than human beings would require worship? It seems to me that many middlingly wise humans are able to get beyond thinking "I am powerful! You are not! Demonstrate how amazed you are by my power!" I wouldn't require pet hamsters to worship me, I'd just be interested in their welfare and watching them do adorable or weird hamster stuff.
I don't get why abrahamic gods are touted as being super wise and all-knowing, but behave in such a prickish, insecure, petty way, and I'd need someone to square that circle for me before I could accept their religious claims as even coherent.
Well, right. If we're just going to say, The only way I'd be religious is if the universe were completely different than how it is right now, isn't that basically an admission that we're just raising the standard of evidence impossibly high and pretending to be open-minded about the matter?
Why not just admit that religion isn't for us, and leave it at that? Is that too close to acknowledging that it's a personal choice?
That’s not what is being said. According to religious people, that genuinely is how the universe works and operates. I think it’s absurd as do you, but the claim is that it’s true even if it seems absurd and impossible to folks like us.
Okay, but you're still saying that you're open to being convinced that reality is completely different than how you currently experience it.
Call me skeptical. It sounds like you're just raising the bar so high the standard could never be met, and at the same time pretending that you're open-minded.
Why not just admit that living a religious life isn't for you, and stop making it seem like it's the inexorable outcome of a completely disinterested and algorithmic operation of data processing?
Yeah I’m open to being convinced reality is different than to how I experience it currently. I don’t think that’s a crazy or disingenuous claim. Tons of people every day are convinced of this and do convert to religion.
You seem rather angry in your comments. I don’t really see it as warranted and frankly I don’t see a reason to keep responding if you’re just angrily ranting and making accusations against me.
But of course you are. You wouldn't dream of arguing in bad faith, and then deny that you're arguing in bad faith, would you?
Like I said, call me a skeptic.
I asked on r/AskAChristian how to become a Christian? What is the first step?
Some people said it couldn't be done, there was no first step. Others told me to read the bible or pray to Jesus, missing the whole point. When I pointed that out I was banned for life.
So much for door knocking.
LOL, there is no first step. It's just a blind leap into the abyss trusting that the abyss loves you...
Or forced indoctrination on those that haven't yet built up their resistance to such things...
Just start going to church and pretending like most of them are
The first step is identifying what’s preventing you from taking the first step in.
What’s the stumbling block for you? Each person is different
You mean step back in....most atheists have been there and done that and have come out wanting.
The stumbling block for me is that there is no evidence or argumentation that convinces me that a god exists.
There are then many other stumbling blocks such as the inability of believers to agree on which version of the Abrahamic god doctrine is the correct one. As well as the inability for believers to agree on specific religious doctrine once they've ended up believing in one of those Abrahamic versions.
Finally theres the inability of believers to understand that when a non-believer hears the phrase "you just got to have faith", we in fact hear "I have no good reason to believe, but I do anyway because that's what I want to believe irrespective of the truth"
it’s still a first step.
okay, what type of evidence would be acceptable for you?
there’s lots of disagreement on scientific claims as well and people who discount it. Yet that doesn’t seem to be a stumbling block for you.
I agree, that’s a bad faith statement. But when did I say that?
No it's not a first step.... This is just pithy preaching.
Wow, why do theists always ask that... I have no idea what would convince me of a god, but so far none of the 'evidence' for a god is convincing.
A 2000+ year old book, that is full of contradictions, morally repugnant instructions, historical stories that are not backed up by any physical evidence...is not convincing.
Contingency arguments...all versions smuggle in god via special pleading and immediately violate their own premises. Not convincing
Any argument for a god that claims any amount or probability or possibility yet have no way of calculating possibility or probability. Not convincing
Any arguments positing a dicodomy are usually positing false dichotomies. Not convincing.
Personal experiences. Not convincing
Threats of eternal hellfire if one does not believe...not convincing
If there were an all powerful and all knowing god, that god would surely know how to convince each and everyone of us in a way that is convincing to all of us.
3)
All scientific claims are subject to revision and update...its built into the process.
Religious doctrine is not subject to revision so the only way out of that is to, in Christianity for example, split off into other denominations each with their own set of beliefs where the only common element is a belief in one man Jesus....almost everything after that is denomination specific.
4) I didn't accuse you of that now did I. It was a preemptive statement in case you did because this is usually how all conversations with theists end up when talking about evidence for a god...or the lack of it.
.
that’s not how theists define supernatural. It’s “above/beyond nature” so you’re asking us to prove something we don’t even claim exists.
I’m fine with 2 and 3
4) worship is simply recognizing your place in reality, that you are created, and that thing is what created you.
How is beyond nature meaningfully different? Also, can you now pass step 1 if we use this definition?
I disagree with this quite frankly. As I stated, I think acknowledging something as fact doesn’t entail worship. I can agree that I was created by this entity but still not worship it. I think your definition is not practical or reflective of what worship is generally considered to be.
just because something is beyond it, doesn’t mean it contradicts or breaks it. Example, mathematics and logic are not physical, they are beyond it and can take use to the “meta physical”. In fact, metaphysical and supernatural are the Greek and Latin words to refer to the same thing.
what do you think worship is? When you stand in front of the Grand Canyon, or see some amazing thing of nature, are you in awe of it?
I think we have gotten rather off track if your definition of supernatural states that 2+2=4 is supernatural. That’s no longer a useful definition for converting me to religion.
I also do not worship the Grand Canyon. I think it’s intellectually dishonest of you to claim you don’t really understand what I think worship is. To meet step 4, you’d have to convince me to do more than just think god is admirable, powerful, created me, etc. I admire my parents but I don’t worship them. I think the US government is powerful but I don’t worship it.
You also glossed over my challenge to prove to me point 1. of my post using your definition. I will assume this is because you still cannot meet the challenge.
did I not prove it exists? You just now said it’s not a useful definition, but it’s the one I and my faith uses. So it exists, but it doesn’t fit with the strawman you’ve presented and demanded I show. Which was my point.
I didn’t say that it was equivalent to the Grand Canyon or that it was worship. I was pointing to the almost involuntary emotional response you get from it. That’s what worship is, an almost involuntary emotional reaction when you recognize that god is god, and you are not.
I like this list! It's a commonly enough asked question, and it's hard to put so much effort in time and again, so thanks for putting that together.
I'd even add something on top of 4. Even if that entity is worthy of my worship and aligned entirely with my own personality - I'd need a very good reason to prioritize it over myself in anything called "worship".
By far the easiest way to convert me to a religion is to perform extreme psychological manipulation and abuse, essentially brainwashing me. This is more akin to how religion spreads to begin with, and I can see no reason why they'd want to change those tried and true tactics.
I can do you one better than all of this. Define what a god is. The elephant in the room is that the word itself is meaningless. There is no distinction of what is a god from what isn't. We don't know what they're talking about, so we wouldn't even know a god if we saw it. And neither would they. They have no idea what they're talking about, and are entirely vulnerable to being merely "sufficiently impressed" by an elaborate song and dance to be convinced. They don't know. God to them is anything it needs to be to justify their beliefs, and they don't even know what those are. No one knows what anyone is talking about. All of recorded human history, and there has never been a conversation about theism, just a whole lot of talking about nothing, indistinguishable from babbling nonsense.
I'm always a fan of discussing the soul. It's a big component in most religions. For me to believe them, I'd likely have to be convinced the soul exists. And despite asking, I never get convincing answers.
Honestly, responses like this are such a pushback against the question -- it would take so much less for me.
1. Jesus shows up in my closet.
This is not reliable, this doesn't even appear supernatural. But if a man showed up in my closet and said "I am the lord Jesus" I would be very willing to believe all sorts of stuff that Jesus says. But the problem is this does not happen. Nothing close to this happens. When people follow Jesus in reality, they instead believe a 2000 year old book, written by a 3rd party decades after Jesus. That's just nowhere near what I would be convinced by.
It seems to me that when humans come into significant, prolonged contact with powerful humans, they almost always get corrupted. The same occurs when they come into significant wealth. What would keep this happening to the Nth degree if you were to come into contact with a being far, far more powerful than the most powerful human? The idea that you would have the wherewithal to post hoc decide whether or not to align with him/her/it/them is dubious to the extreme.
The fact that you do not currently know what would convince you to worship a being tells me you either have no solid moral/ethical foundation, or you don't know what it is and so wouldn't be able to self-reflectively detect a power working to alter it. That's scary. Without such a foundation, of which you are self-reflectively aware, you are open to arbitrarily much manipulation—by humans as well as by any powers greater than humans.
The ancient Hebrews worked quite differently from what you describe, here. In Deut 12:32–13:5, there are explicit instructions for anyone who comes along with predictive powers or miracle powers. If that person demonstrates such powers and then says, "Follow other gods!"—that is, reorient your whole culture—the response is clear and unambiguous. Execute that person. Might, for the ancient Hebrews, did not make right. Supernatural power which did not morally and ethically align with them was not to be trusted. So, I would contend that they actually started at your 4. Especially since they quickly forgot their 1., as the golden calf narrative makes quite clear.
So, I say that in order for an encounter with the supernatural to not be damaging to you, you have to have resistance to being corrupted by power. And not by merely hiding from it. That calls for a prerequisite to your OP which explains just how you'd manage such resistance. And if what you said really worked, it should aid us in purely human political situations, where there it is true that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
I'm not sure I understand the point you're making. The phrase "Power corrupts" refers to a person holding power, not merely being in contact with someone of greater power.
I'm also not sure I accept your thesis that contact with powerful people corrupts the people they interact with. There are quite a few fandoms centered on people with great power and influence, yet I don't find such groups usually lose their minds and ability to think for themselves despite being part of the fandom. Even in politics, I don't see much evidence of secondhand corruption. Politicians are often corrupt, sure, but then they hold power, have power, and can use that to gain more power. Their voter base, on the other hand? We may have biases based on what groups we feel ourselves to be a part of, but we still have our own thoughts, and our ability to disagree, even with those we hold in high esteem.
Even then, just in Christianity, there are plenty of examples of the Christian god interacting directly with mortals, be that Noah, Moses, Elijah, straight to all the disciples and followers of Jesus. Were all of them corrupted by their contact with the divine? If so, it gives great reason to question the reliability of the religion since, by your view, all known sources of information on the subject come from corrupted sources. If not, then clearly this is a problem that a god can account for and circumvent, if such a problem exists at all.
So, convince me. If a god were to hold a book signing at my local bookstore next week, how would it corrupt me to go, shake their hand, tell them I love their work, and ask them when the sequel is coming out?
It strikes me that we even distort ourselves with peers, as the Asch conformity experiments show. And the ability to see power distorting us can be quickly seen by the Milgram experiment and follow-up.
You've really never seen people pander to those in power, or change their behavior when in the presence of power?
I'm not saying that if you happen to shake hands with the President of the United States, all of a sudden you're tainted for the rest of time. Rather, it is when your actions need to take into account the [in]actions of the powerful that influence happens. Social scientist Bent Flyvbjerg studied this by looking at how the renovation of downtown Aalborg were negotiated and reports on it in his 1998 Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice. He says that "the possession of more power soils reason even more … the greater the power, the less the rationality" (2). But it gets worse: power can even determine what gets counted as evidence and what gets counted as 'rationality'.†
Do you think Trump voters were as bad before Trump came on the scene? Do you think those who supported Hitler were that bad before Hitler came on the scene?
I don't think I need to disagree with any of that.
We could take each example in turn if you'd like. It's noteworthy that Moses was raised Pharaoh's court and thus knew how to comport himself in the presence of power, along with his secret: he was a Hebrew. Moses' willingness to tell YHWH "Bad plan!", not once but thrice, was surely a result of his extensive, very embodied training.
I have seen people quite willing to speak critically of a pastor behind his back, only to utterly change their tune when face-to-face with him. I myself was trained to get rid of pastors who need to find a new job. I am quite capable of opposing pastors to their faces if need be.
If this were the kind of relationship God wanted to have with us—the yawning distance between author and fan—then I wouldn't have made my original comment. What I actually think is that God wants to train us to tangle with human powers, in ways which actually changes the status quo toward better. That requires far more than an author–fan relationship.
I think you're being rather reductive. I change my behavior around those in power, but that's vague enough to be true even if all I do is bow and treat them with greater courtesy. Granted, it is difficult to speak truth to power. That doesn't fundamentally change who I am or what I believe, regardless of what I'm willing to say to someone's face. Now, to the extent of whether I could serve as a morality check for a god...I freely acknowledge that that would be beyond me. I don't have that degree of conviction. But the post you're arguing against was discussing how to decide whether a deity that has been shown to exist is a deity worth following. We would naturally form our own opinions of a god's actions. That's just a question of judging character.
And, to me, those least likely to have the ability to judge the character of a deity are those that have been raised to believe that such a deity exists, that all there is to know about it is recorded in a holy text, and that any deviation from or questioning of the deity's will is an act of defiance against the deity in question. You see the result of that here all the time. Theists come here and argue that slavery wasn't so bad back in ancient Israel, or that pedophilia is acceptable, or that dinosaurs didn't exist, or that the Earth is flat. Because a theist cannot, must not, contradict the deity they worship, no matter how demonstrably incorrect they are. If they could, how could they possibly continue to worship them? If they were to just stop worshipping them, were the years they spent doing so wasted? No, that can't be it. So they double down, and find a way to square the contradiction by convincing themselves that they are in error in some way.
As for your analysis of political parties...do you really think that Hitler would have risen to power if there wasn't a strong vein of antisemitic sentiment in the German population? Do you think Trump magically turned a third of America from mild-mannered neutral parties into a hard-line anti-immigrant, anti-intellectual, anti-LGBT group? No. These leaders did not emerge from a vacuum. They simply took advantage of a culture that already existed to gain power.
The OP presupposes that being in the presence of deity level power would not appreciably alter "what would convince me [to] worship". And 'worship' means something far more than an author–fan relationship. If in fact the deity wants people who can and will oppose it like Moses did thrice, then someone like the OP doesn't seem like a good candidate. Who you are when you're not actively challenging power only matters to the extent that the world does not desperately need power to be challenged.
You're right that plenty of Christians think that you're supposed to mindlessly obey authority. But this is a sharp deviation from the Bible:
Moses challenged God thrice, and yet (i) maintained the title "more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth"; (ii) we have that "And YHWH would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his neighbor."
Abraham challenged God once, wrt Sodom. When he failed to do so again when the deity told him to sacrifice his son, you see the consequences: he never again interacted with Isaac, Sarah, or YHWH. Nothing new was promised in Gen 22:15–18, so it can be seen as reassuring Abraham, given that his life is about to shatter into pieces.
Jacob wrestled with God and thereby gained the new name 'Israel' ≡ "wrestles with God / God wrestles".
Job challenged God, including saying that God had wronged him, and yet God says that it was only Job who spoke what was right of God.
Per Ezek 22:29–31, God wants someone to stand in the breach, to oppose God so that God won't destroy the land. Ps 106:23 says that Moses stood in the breach.
Jesus argued with his fellow Jews almost nonstop. He acted nothing like the authority you suggest Christianity supports. Plausibly, Jesus didn't want people to think he was the Messiah or God, because then instead of honestly arguing, they would have sucked up to him.
And it's easy to see why one would worship such a deity. This allows one to practice challenging 100% human power. In fact, I see that as the only deity worth worshiping!
And no, Hitler could not have done what he did without plenty of resonance with enough of the German population. In fact, he would pay careful attention to which utterances got cheers and which got boos, at rallies. He'd say more of the former and less of the latter—like Trump has. But if you're going to tell me that such behavior can't amp people up and get them to support things they wouldn't have supported in their calmer moments, I suggest a review of The Third Wave and some inquiry as to how Germans thought about their behavior in the decades after WWII. In addition to this, you have all the Germans who didn't really like the Nazis, but weren't willing to suffer too much to oppose them. Power corrupts in this way, too.
This sounds like a whole lot of avoidance. You can’t meet my criteria. Just say that. Saying it’s my fault the criteria can’t be met by you doesn’t help or change anything.
Saying that your criteria are bad is not avoidance.
You can’t meet my criteria, correct? I won’t respond to anything that doesn’t include a concise “yes” or “no” to avoid a gish gallop or typical politician-style answer.
I think it would be bad if I could meet your criteria. I'm glad I can't.