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

re; the perfection of the system, specifically DNA.If DNA replication was perfect we wouldn't be here, life would have stopped at the single cell phase because there wouldn't be any mutations. Our existence REQUIRES that DNA not have perfect copying fidelity. It has very good fidelity but not perfect.

The little I know of DNA. Perhaps it's perfection lies in the facts you state. If it were different, we would not be here. If being here is part of Perfection then DNA is doing the job required. We remain in Perfection.Make sence?Regards
DL

Some folks are so gullible that they would accept just about anything as evidence.: *Dog barks at lamp* Wow! a sign from God! :Other people could, in my opinion, actually have an Angel visit them and they still would attempt to explain it away. People of the Book quite often think differently from people who read books!People can be too gullible. IMHO, they also miss out by being too skeptical. It is their choice and their discipline, however.BTW I don't think God takes points off for being too skeptical to believe in Him! (Keyword: Honesty )

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Convictions are very different from intentions. Convictions are something God gives us that we have to do. Intentions are things that we ought to do, but we never follow through with them.
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“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
--General Omar Bradley

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People can be too gullible. IMHO, they also miss out by being too skeptical.

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Miss out on what, exactly?And how skeptical is "too skeptical"?

How would a visit from an angel be evidence of God's existence?

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More sound bite jabberwocky.How do "people of the Book", what ever that means, think differently than "people who read books"?If "people of the Book" means Biblical Christians, then I guess I can see how that is different, since it appears that most of them do not read books, particularly the Bible, and even those that do actually read it seem to have a hard time comprehending what is actually written.Have you read the Bible Phat or are you one of the "people of the Book?" How do you tell if it is an Angel?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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How do you tell if it is an Angel?

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If it looks like this:

Perhaps it would be a powerful suggestion that there is a realm we know nothing about. Well Jar...you always say that we must test our environment, test our beliefs, and test our conclusions. If I believed that I experienced an event otherwise described as a visit from a non-corporeal talking source, I would probably be biased to declare it a supernatural source. You would be too skeptical if the same thing happened to you. You would IMHO do everything in your power to explain the event without resorting to the conclusions that I would arrive at. (admittedly through bias)My idea of too skeptical is of someone who could see the very things that the Apostles allegedly saw and still not believe that God existed.To be fair, though...I close with the words of Sam Harris: so Jar? Would Christians be better off if they threw all of their dogma away and started over?

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Convictions are very different from intentions. Convictions are something God gives us that we have to do. Intentions are things that we ought to do, but we never follow through with them.
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“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
--General Omar Bradley

Not just start over, but rather totally change their methodology.They need to start by realizing a few things:

• they will never know if they are saved so fuhgitaboutit and move on.
• they will never know GOD so fuhgitaboutit and move on.
• if we are created in God's image then God looked like some single celled slime so fuhgitaboutit and move on.
• the universe really is older than 6000 years so fuhgitaboutit and move on.
• there was no literal Adam & Eve so fuhgitaboutit and move on.
• there has never been a world-wide flood so fuhgitaboutit and move on.

It is not a matter of throwing out all dogma and starting over. It is a process of throwing away those things which have been proven false and constantly, unendingly, questioning the rest.It is a process of accepting some things tentatively where there is a high degree of confidence but always being willing to reevaluate should new evidence be found.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Microbiology is a realm we used to know nothing about. Are bacteria evidence of God's existence?Extraterrestrial life (if any) is a realm we know nothing about. If we discover little green men in space, are they evidence of God's existence? How would you tell the difference (if any) between little green men and angels?Our own minds are a realm we know little enough about. If we discover that angels are a figment of our imaginations, would that be evidence of God's existence?Or would any of those discoveries make God's existence less probable?

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looks like everyone got abducted.The Biblical analysis from faith would suggest that the evidence is everything. Personally I believe God manages things down to the subatomic particle and that free will is over rated. And I believe that God took me to hold said evidence after killing my old spirit and filling it with the Holy Spirit, the process enabled by the death and resurrection of Jesus who became Christ.The evidence has to be taken on faith if you have been led or programmed to do so. If you haven't gone through the experience, then the answer to the question is zero. That is the whole point of the Old Testament. God performed miracles, provided prophets to allow His Word to be tested and performed really cool stuff like setting back the day as per the sun dial. But all the evidence and Gideon glove type stuff in a day and age prior to empirical testing and high level of superstition did not produce enough evidence to prove the existence of God as there is still question. It today's age of majic, theatre, digital editing, etc., how could anything provide undeniable evidence of the existence of God?It has to rest with faith.

I agree with most of this list except for the first two points.

• they will never know if they are saved so fuhgitaboutit and move on.
• they will never know GOD so fuhgitaboutit and move on.

This is not a scientific question nor even remotely necessary for examination by the scientific method.I will agree that it is good to question whether or not we are operating in Gods Will or not. ( You probably will ask how we would know! ) And you say to move on! Move on to where? Ican accept some of your theology whereupon we are loving God by loving and doing our best to love and help others, particularly the least desireable or influential people.Jesus covers that part quite clearly in the second half of The Greatest Commandment. (Mark 12:28-31) And of course we both know that it is impossible for a worm to love us with all of its tiny essence, right? The whole idea of Christ becoming human, however, was to give us something that we could perceive...acknowledge, and love.Jesus said to Peter, (John21:15-23) So....Are you suggesting that the Greatest Commandment implies that the only way that we can love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength is to show it through behavior toward others and that it is irrelevant whether or not we pray and commune with God Himself?If so, why would Jesus have mentioned the first of the two great commandments? Why not just mention the second one?Jesus seems to think that His Father can be known.So did Paul in Acts 17:22-28. He goes so far as to say:
Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. It seems to me that Paul also saw God as quite knowable and in no way unknowable.

Enjoy!

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

The existence of a transcendent God cannot be deductively or empirically established. On the other hand, if you make specific claims about the nature of God, such as how God interacts with the corporeal world, then these claims are open to empirical scrutiny.Many claim God interacts with the world through Miracles- events that transcend physical law. If you could establish the existence of miracles then you would have evidence for a reality that exists beyond the physical. This is the kind of evidence that I would require to believe in the specific claims that many make regarding the specific nature of God.What are some good examples that I would trust to conclude such a God does indeed exist? Pretty much any claim of miracle that is contained in scriptures; Someone being raised from the dead, people being cured of leprosy, someone obtaining the sense of sight after being blind for their entire life, a large body of water being parted into two halves, etc.Such events would of course have to occur in the present. Stating such events did indeed happen a long time ago but suddenly stopped does not qualify as evidence.

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Over and over again it has been claimed that there is no evidence whatsoever of God's existence...despite other's claims to the contrary...

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What I would like to know is what specific evidence or at least what types of evidence would people require to believe in the existence of God...

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I doubt there are any set guidelines. After all, we are dealing with matters which fall under individual criteria. Rest assured though, beyond our own beliefs, facing of the big question, no one person holds any authority over another despite his or her claims.The biggest pitfall with faith and God is that people mishandle the problem to begin with. Since it is in our own nature reach out measure all things in order to reach a conclusion, in a case such as this we have no such luxuries(for the time being). We have also demonstrated yet another limitation at the face of the unknown, and that is to limit our reasoning to our own limited knowledge. Just as people perished in the past for speaking of the unknown we continue to struggle with such things by openly discriminating ideas or people fall out of the current standards.The short answer would be, the system(as is) is based on faith. There seem to be no shortcuts or handouts given to anyone regardless of the situation. For the most part, God stated that he would step back and let mankind reach the absolute limits of it's existence under it's own accord. He then stated that every living soul will know without a doubt that mankind could never govern itself without a unified consent for His authority.So this brings me to the OP questions. The answers may vary widely from person to person and faith to faith, however from my own perspective I chose the big picture approach. I concluded that we exist and that all things have a point of origin. From this point, I concluded that in order to conclude our existence, eternity must exist. From this point, I decided that it is completely illogical to believe that if eternity does exists that we(the universe) would be the only product to arise from it. Therefore the possibility of lifeforms existing in an eternal state is highly plausible and we can take it from there.As for evidence, it is quite evident that our world has been significantly influenced as the product of a higher power. The influence is so great that is supersedes any other form of historical information and transcended all the obstacles by surviving to this day. Namely the bible.While I cannot say without a doubt that the bible is infallible or perfect in every way. It does offer information which remains unmatched by anything else known to us. It is not so much the accounts of the bible which convince me that is is divine but the fact that the information within it have stood the test of time and that it is living up to it's word.(no pun intended)The bible is a masterpiece of information and in theory, never prove wrong where it mapped out the conclusion of this world. It remains right on target and the outcome forcasted in it over 3500 years ago are holding true as advertised.There is an extensive list of biblical evidence which I would conclude as noteworthy. However, it would be the creation account which I hold dearest. Whether divine or not, whomever wrote such a masterpiece was without a doubt the most intelligent mind on the planet.It would seem that God created the universe physical and spiritual from the simplest known form of matter. It would of unraveled and flourished into what we see and feel today. It is in every way a masterpiece as we will continue to watch it grow. Life, is an experience built on principle. We have so much potential and power as free moral agents, it blows my mind to contemplate what would would be capable of under the proper circumstances. Like gods perhaps?Anyways, thats my take on things.