What evidence is there that god exists?

In view of my earlier post, I found it necessary to expand on this aspect of the issue. The often asked question above is legit however the follow up questions leaves almost everybody stumped. What evidence (detail is a must) will satisfy one’s believability that there is a God? The problem becomes immediately apparent in more ways than one. The first distinction that needs clarification is that the evidence of God is being asked of an entity other than God or God Himself.  Let us take the second scenario first. If we were to ask God to reveal Himself then we will need to resolve a host of other issues first, like should God unconditionally do as asked by an individual? As far as the specific act of revealing Himself to individuals goes, assuming He is not already doing so, should He reveal Himself to everybody if He were to reveal Himself to one individual and in what form? Since each individual‘s capacity to understand varies considerably a single form will not work. (the level of an individual's knowledge base kicks in). Then comes the issue of design, are we designed to see, hear, touch, smell God?

Moreover if we were to assume that there is a God, the “dictionary” definition of God, then it may be the height of presumptuousness that we can demand God to do what we want him to do. Hence argument on the line that since He is God He should be able to find a way to convince an individual that He indeed is God does not wash. Simply because we cannot put ourselves in a position to second guess God after we assume that He exists, even if an assumption were merely to be used in an argument. If taken to its logical conclusion, what will be the result of everyone forcing God to do what they want Him to do? Especially, if the wants of the individual (s) are conflicting wants.

Hence asking God for evidence on demand is more problematic than we can even contemplate. That leaves asking individuals to present the evidence of God. But here is the thing, this is not an issue that can be left to others to verify for you because in a way one will not only be leaving ones eternity (potentially) in someone else’s hand but the gap for not being able to verify it directly is the issue to start with. This is not the same as an expert telling us there are black holes out there although we cannot see them nor verify them without specialist knowledge. When it comes to God, we are entering a domain where we are seeking that which will define us.

Once again we should be sticking to the “dictionary” definition of God and by that I mean a being whose attributes include omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. We are not going to get into the debate as to how these attributes are in conflict with our understanding of the world around us but the focus is to get to a framework where evidence of God can be justified, presented and verified.

If we were to zero in on one attribute of God then it has to be omniscience. I will explain; if we were to try and verify God’s omnipresence then we will have to assume that God has physical properties and we have the means/tools to verify these properties. On the other hand if we were to expect to test God’s omnipotence then again we will have to come up with an acceptable criteria? And the added difficulty of asking God to demonstrate a Godlike event on demand will still need resolution. Humans are thinking being and the only potential tool that can be successfully employed is our ability to draw conclusions from a given set of data.

The idea would be to discover a set of data and test it to be uniquely associated with God. And by that I mean the data set to be so unique that it cannot be duplicated in an alternate effort that will achieve the same level of complexity for instance. Furthermore, the verification must also be universally possible and not constrained by language, location or impossible to acquire expertise. Mind you this "expert" route is already being explored and there are some experts claiming to be able to “prove” the existence of God and then there are others who dispute their proofs. The problem with this approach is that it does not help the individual on the street. We are talking mastering modal logic, game theory and serious mathematics all at once. Unless he or she is able to find a way to get to this proof without having to “blindly believe” in its proponents, the whole thing will not be any different than trusting a professional cleric or a professional book selling Atheist to show you the way.

You are welcome to read my earlier post which attempts to bring the various elements of this debate together.

http://lifecheat.blogspot.com/2011/11/mother-of-all-arguments.html