What specific evidence would people require to believe in God's existence?

I agree with you omni, god doesn't need to be omnipotent to be god, there is no reason for it other than we just came to that point.i think the reason comes down to mystery religions and zoraninder effecting the concepts of god back in time as well as many greek philosophers
the idea is, why complicate things with multipul gods? why not just one really powerful one? its kind of the ocham's razor of theology i've trying to remember this but i read/or heard something interesting about this
"god isn't omnipotent, he's just been around so long he just knows everything"i find hp lovecrafts version of how life came to earth fun, being that a race of alien beings classifed as half-animal half-plant decided to live on earth and needed servents so geneticly designed a living chamber to create carbon life - after many millions of years it produced what would be life-forms that would become our ancesterswell if we didn't get eatten by the shoggoths firstEdited by ReverendDG, : Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

It's been decades since I read any Gurdjieff but as I recall that was what he taught. Well, he said the moon ate our souls but a few people could develop so they could escape being eaten.I never knew if Gurdjieff dreamed that up himself or if that belief had sources more ancient.lfen

I've read some NT cricticism, unfortunately I forget where, that analyzes the Gospels in just that sense. Jesus would do things that had been done by Moses or some other important Jewish figure only did it bigger. So he fed 5000, or raised so many more from the dead. Kind of like the new improved version. I don't know if I can find this source or not.lfen

Decades, indeed: that name brings back memories.I do think there is a tradition of the moon as soul-eater, perhaps shamanic, but I can't recall which: I'll let my back mind chew on it for a while.I spent several years fascinated by Gurdjieff though not in any organized way.The question of what is ancient and what made up is always a nagging problem with Gurdjieff. He provides an interesting perspective on what makes a person believe in a god, given that he was able to atrract and hold both the wealthy and the literati in "spiritual" thrall.He was clearly steeped in some shamanic and mystical traditions but was a bit of a rogue and scoundrel as well. An accomplished hypnotist, he was also a chain smoker yet able to perform astonishing feats of strength and acrobatic skill.His teachings seemed to draw on the Tibetan shamanic traditions that predated Buddhism (and were persecuted by it), Siberian shamanism, Buddhist thought, and Western occult traditions. I suspect he was also adept at the use of such entheogenic substances as the amanita muscaria mushroom, favorite of the Siberian shamans and possibly the mysterious soma. A read through his work and the contemporaneous books about him constitute a great romp through a time of spiritualism and romance.For those unfamiliar, Gurdjieff taught among other things that one did not automatically possess a soul but could, with great effort and training, grow one. The enemy of soul-development was the sleep-walking tedium of daily life, the perpetually twilight world of an automaton, not truly conscious, not truly being here.Consider the long-distance commuter, who becomes so absracted that his usual exit startles him "awake" from a dreamy state of half-formed thoughts, discomforts and desires: Is that a conscious being? According to Gurdjieff, we routinely spend most of our lives in a similar state, not even aware of our own existence.While one could not wake up all at once, one could increase the frequency and duration of truly conscious intervals. He prescribed various exercises for this, including the notion of "watching" yourself, trying to maintain the state of mind of a close observer of your own actions and thoughts while going about the tedium vitae. This is harder than it sounds and, as he suggested, one does often suddenly realize that an itchy toe and the need to pee have one's full attention, and the resolve to maintain a conscious vigil evaporated.He called his method the Fourth Way, the way of the clever man rather than the man of the body (yogis and ascetics), the intellect (esoteric Buddhist, Western occult, and other philosophies), and the heart (religious, traditionally conceived). Now we might say The Fourth Way works "outside the box," taking what it wants from other traditions and moving intuitively and lightly, always more focused on being than doing: clearly, there are parallels or borrowings from Zen and the Tao.My favorite Gurdjieff story is about a group of "monks" who knew how to "wake up" anyone, temporarily putting them into a fully realized state via a sort of hypnosis. As an experiment, they tried their technique on a sheep and were successful.When Gurdjieff had finished the tale to his satisfaction, a student asked, "What happened, then?""Why," Gurdjieff replied, "they ate it, of course."* * *The question of why people devote their lives to following someone like Gurdjieff as a spiritual master based, essentially, on his performance, is fascinating: I suspect the answer might be as simple as our social nature and our yearning for an authoritative solution to our own mystery, a reaching for the father/mother who resolves all questions of identity and place in our social and natural worlds.Of course, most people are sleep-walking zombie sheep. He was right about that.Edited by Omnivorous, : has->have (blush)

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I wasn't talking about looking into the research.

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Neither was I. You were asking why academic communities don't use the same propaganda techniques that other groups use. I attempted to answer the question: it is not the purpose of the academic communities to engage in propaganda, at least not as an academic community. The purpose of the academic communities is to gather evidence and facts and to present the possible logical inferences of those facts.Of course, the work of the academic communities can, and should, inform the political and social debates; the professional bodies of any academic community should publically announce where their findings indicate that a given political or social tenet is bullshit; and there should be nothing to prevent the members of some academic community to use their knowledge in their own political activities. But the role of the academic communities, in my opinion, should be divorced from conscious propaganda.-

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What I was thinking was more along the line of "the gospel of cellular mitosis..."

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This is exactly the sort of thing that I feel the academic community should not engage in.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

Chiroptera writes

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This is exactly the sort of thing that I feel the academic community should not engage in.

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Why not? The so-called unwashed masses are not going to spend the years in proper schooling to learn these things and spend the extra time looking at and examining the evidence thouroughly. What the academic communities have done is create this elitist club where you either understand the technicalities behind the theories/concepts or you're an idiot.I've read many books written supposedly for the not-so-science-literate people. The ones that were written by actual scientists have trouble communicating with the not-so-science-literate people. The ones that were written by journalists, while being easy to understand, were less than accurate.Many people know what the trinity is in catholic doctrine. However, most of these people don't have a clue what it actually is or how it reinforces the faith. The church seems to do fine with its followers by telling them to "just don't worry about the why and how, just believe in it".I think this is why the academic communities have such trouble trying to reach the regular folks. To the regular folks, we're are some kind of elite club. On the other hand, religion and creationism are making great progress with the masses simply because they have made their teachings a lot more comprehensible and appealing.

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But the role of the academic communities, in my opinion, should be divorced from conscious propaganda.

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The masses can't seem to see through the propaganda of religions and creationism. Isn't it time we try a different tactic in approaching this problem?

If you have huge congregations of people yelling "Rah, rah, go scientists, go," it won't make the science any better. It might make it worse.Science isn't in the "saving souls" business. It is in the business of finding out what we can about our world. Scientists should do science, not evangelism.

it is a club, a club of people who deal with and study the things indeph compared to the adverage person. its not a hard club to get into, theres no super requirements other than a willingness to go through what the club expects of you, namely knowlege of the subject and a willingness to learn and think the problem is the books by scientists require so much more than just the bites people expect - we expect filtered bites these days i tihnk it comes down to two problems, science is built on the belief that accepting something on someones word without evidence at hand is wrong and almost taboo, since it breaks down the whole point of science - evidence stabilizes thoery
the problem pertaining to evolution is, people take that belief that if we don't have evidence that i can man-handle, its wrong or unsuported - but classes teach the ToE without showing everything that would suport it, mainly due too how much stuff there is verses time, so we end up telling students "this is the theory, this is some of the evidence , you arn't sure about it, but you have to accept it since it is the pervailing theory"
people end up having to accept it, but yes they don't really know why, its due to the ammount of stuff they would have to learn to fully understand it - which is really impossible for the adverage person, unless you have lots of spare time or you go into the fieldthe reason creationism and religion works is its easy to digest and learn about, if science was that easy i think people would be more willing but science is a lot more complex than "goddit"

Reverend, not that I don't appreciate your post, but was there a purpose to your post? You basically just reworded what I said and said the exact same things I said.

nwr writes

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If you have huge congregations of people yelling "Rah, rah, go scientists, go," it won't make the science any better. It might make it worse.

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This, I agree with.

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Science isn't in the "saving souls" business. It is in the business of finding out what we can about our world. Scientists should do science, not evangelism.

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While science isn't in the saving souls bussiness, it is in the bussiness of survival. With christian evangelism and anti-science rallies on the rise, especially now that we have an administration that is more creationism-friendly than any other administrations before, I am just afraid that this will eventually lead to our fight for survival.

If the administration becomes too unfriendly to science, then scientists will migrate to other nations. You would see a big brain drain. Eventually the U.S. economy would collapse, as the innovation moves elsewhere.Hmm, that might cause some discomfort for the world - a huge economy collapsing, while still in possession of a vast arsenal of WMD.

I don't think it will be as dramatic as a collapse but rather a soft landing into mediocrity or irrelevance. What is already happening is that while it is still a top destination for foreign researchers, the US is losing its edge. The US education system does not produce enough home grown scientists to maintain its activities. Over time you will see scientists (already a mobile lot) moving to other countries or staying home rather than working in the US (already the case for stem cell research). The EU, China, India, Japan (if they are smart) will use the opportunity of a slipping committment to science by the US to take the lead. In fact, the current administrations outright hostility to science is sparking programs with silly names in Germany and Spain for example called "Brain Gain" which seeks to lure top talent back to their home countries or prevent them from leaving in the first place to the detriment of US science. The end result will be more discoveries, more patents, and more commercial activity outside the US...and a complete dependency of the US on foreign companies and entities as a source of pharmaceuticals, medicine, and general inovation. This dependency, like the collapse of the USSR will likely temper the fact that it has a huge weapons arsenal. In effect, an already small minority educated population in the US will become even smaller but will likely have a disproportionately high economic and social impact. The big problem is once you have a trend towards anti-science and willful scientific illiteracy it will be very hard to reverse. It is not something that the US will readily be able to reverse once it gains momentum. It will take generations while the US sits on the sidelines....we will become like our soccer team at the World Cup.

Should any scientist here feels like they want to tap into a pot of gold of research finance then you might consider Ireland. The government here have realised that scientific brain power is the sustainable fuel source which will keep the engine of the current buoyant economy running. And they are pouring vast sums into high end research. More money that can be absorbed in fact.You heard it here first

Someone who feels that the "unwashed masses" need to be told what to think probably has a mind set that is so different from mine that I doubt that there is going to be much we can agree on in this issue.I don't believe that the "masses" need to be told what to believe, what to think, and what to feel; history, I think, shows quite well that this type of Leninist vanguardism will ultimately fail. Once you have an elite that decides that it knows best what the ultimate good of the masses, whether it is the Russian Bolsheviks or the American Business class, you have set the foundation of an elite that will ultimately use their position to further their own narrow class interests.The only people who can know what is good for the people are the people themselves. Not the Bolsheviks, not the Dept. of State, and, sadly, not you, either.It is an interesting coincidence, though; I have been reading a comic book series recently that has gotten me into thinking about this very thing.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

chiroptera writes

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history, I think, shows quite well that this type of Leninist vanguardism will ultimately fail.

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And yet just about every religion in the world is as old as history itself and is still strong and kicking.

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Not the Bolsheviks, not the Dept. of State, and, sadly, not you, either.

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I don't think it's sad that it's not up to me to say what is good for the people considering that I haven't fully developed my ideas on the matter. I might never have them fully developed.