what would it take to convert you to the other side

God demonstrates his existence empirically and thereby removes empiricism as the means by which you know He exists?Really?--Percy

We'll get to the other half of your statement in a minute. Let's focus on the first part, where you say God empirically demonstrating his existence results in the removal of empiricism as the means by which you know He exists.Really?(and in case the answer is yes and the implied question isn't clear)Why?Or to be more specific by providing a counterexample, why doesn't gravity empirically demonstrating its existence result in the removal of empiricism as the means by which we know it exists?--Percy

Does the loveliness within include sharing your religious beliefs?--Percy

She shares your religious beliefs, but has "a quite different Christian's-take" on some issues, like "wives, obey your husbands." That's good, thank God nothing important.So what would it take to convert you to her take about obeying one's husband?--Percy

Hi Iano,I had to go back to Message 44 to find some important qualifiers that you included: If you're talking about a non-specific god of the universe, then why would it follow that he created "belief-via-empiricism?" A king of the realm didn't create everything in his kingdom. Why do you believe that a god of the universe would have created everything in the universe? Maybe he just defeated all the other gods.And if you're talking about the Christian God of a literally interpreted Bible then where in the Bible does it say he created "belief-via-empiricism?"I think you've got an interesting argument that God empirically demonstrating his existence would undermine that very empiricism. From then on I would have to consider the possibility that God might be fooling me about anything I observed, including that one time when I observed God - Holy Conundrum, Batman!But there's no evidence that empiricism is chancy or unreliable, and there seems no reason to think empiricism would change just because God chose to remove my doubt that the God I believe in is actually the God of a literally interpreted Bible. I therefore think your statement about God undermining empiricism by empirically demonstrating his existence is highly arguable, even among people whose beliefs are much closer to your own than are mine.--Percy

I think you're assuming a God as commonly understood within evangelical Christianity, and that's fine. Agreed, except you do go there in the specific case of empirical evidence of God. I've read to the end of this thread, and I have to agree with Jar that your arguments for this one exception to solipsism read like word salad. There must be yet unmentioned underpinnings to your viewpoint necessary to understanding it.I'm not interpreting God's empirical appearance as saying any more than God exists. If God has certain particular qualities then I would need empirical evidence for those, too. For instance, just because God appears to me doesn't mean that I agree with you that it means that God is responsible for empiricism's "ability to instill truth in us." I'd need evidence of that.In other words, I'm not interpreting God's empirical appearance as meaning, "Iano's conception of God is correct." You seem to be convinced that if God appears empirically to us that it means that your particular beliefs about God are correct. Your own wife doesn't accept all your beliefs about God, how can you expect us to?--Percy

You mean she doesn't base her position on a biblical exegesis? Or that she bases her position on what she believes is a more satisfying Biblical exegesis than yours, and you disagree?If she doesn't have one, and since you seem to believe her loving spirit trumps your literal exegesis, don't you have to follow her?Why don't you try your argument about empiricism and God on her?--Percy

I think I said that there must be something underpinning your viewpoint that you're not telling us, and this must be part of it. So when God demonstrates his existence to me empirically, you're telling me that he does this by walking on water, turning water into wine, and raising some people from the dead. This sounds eerily like Jesus, not God. Not that God couldn't do anything Jesus could, of course, but you think he'd come up with his own material.My own view is that I have no idea how God would convince me he was God, but I think it would take a little more than a few tricks. How would I tell the difference between God's miracles and a magician's tricks? Certainly a lot of careful study, observation and analysis would be in order before concluding something as momentous as the God of the Bible appearing in the flesh. I don't have anything much particularly at stake here since anything that is apparent empirically is fine by me, but that empirical step is a tough one.Of course this is all hypothetical. God is never going to make himself empirically apparent because that's not how he works, your literal Biblical interpretation notwithstanding. You can talk about it all you like but you'll never be able to show me your God, while I can take you into a laboratory and demonstrate evolution all day long.--Percy

I believe I said that producing empirical evidence of God is tough, not that I wasn't interested in empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is the only kind of evidence I am interested in. What I did say is that I have no idea what that empirical evidence would look like. If God had left a few scraps of possible evidence behind then perhaps it would be possible to make some educated guesses, but he is most notable for somehow leaving behind not a shred of evidence while being the most powerful being in the universe.But the main point is that your insistence that God making himself empirically apparent would invalidate the empiricism by which he made himself apparent makes little sense, especially when you also claim it wouldn't affect the empiricism for anything else. But I'm not an unbelieving seeker. I just don't believe in the same God you do. What would it take to convince you of my God, who unlike yours just happens to be consistent with the evidence?--Percy

Iano is by far the most active participant, and he's pushing a God of the literally inerrant Bible. I'm not an atheist, but I am on the same side of the issue as atheists in this thread. It isn't that that there isn't any evidence that would convince me. It's that theists like Iano don't appear to have considered or even understood the difficulty of providing sufficient empirical evidence of the God of a literally inerrant Bible. I'll elaborate on this a bit in a reply to Iano.--Percy

Hi Iano,The opening post says: This makes it sound very simple, but what does "a manifestation of a god" look like. Can you tell it's a god just by looking at it? Does it have to do something before you know it's a God, like perform a miracle? If it performs a miracle, should the miracle be studied empirically (answer: YES, OF COURSE, ABSOLUTELY!). So how does a god manifest himself empirically?But you're not just advocating a god, but *THE* Christian God of the literally inerrant Bible, so this makes the empirical requirements a bit more complicated. God demonstrating his existence empirically just proves he exists, but let's just grant for the sake of discussion that he somehow does this and I'm convinced he's God. But just because he's God doesn't say anything about whether he created the universe 6000 years ago in six days. There's all these little details from a literally inerrant Bible that make no sense if they're actually true.So your God would have some explaining to do. If the world is really 6000 years old, then why does all the evidence say it is 4.56 billion years old. Did he place that evidence there? If so, how, and maybe more important, why?There are scores of other questions just like this that derive from a literally inerrant Bible, and I won't become tedious by going into any detail about them, but one of the strengths of science is working out the relationships between all the data. A God of the literally inerrant Bible introduces a huge number of glaring inconsistencies between the claims of this God and the evidence from the natural world. We would have to understand a great deal about these inconsistencies before we could empirically accept that this God was the God of the literally inerrant Bible.And that's why I said that the empirical requirement was a bit tough. I'm not hyper-skeptical. I'm just applying normal scientific standards.--Percy

Sounds like your requirements are the same as mine.I'm getting the sense that the topic of this thread and what you want to discuss are two different things. I only piped up to point out the inherent contradiction in the claim that God revealing himself empirically would destroy the very empiricism he used to reveal himself. And then there's the further contradiction that it would only destroy empiricism with respect to God and not anything else. And then you contradict this in this message when you say God revealing himself empirically *would* affect all empiricism when you ask me to examine my "degree of certainty regarding reality." Plus you've said you accept empiricism for the mundane.I'm not going to try to untangle your web of contradictions. If you want to untangle it for us then feel free. As far as the topic of the thread goes, I explained in Message 127 the issues associated with convincing me that the Christian God of a literally inerrant Bible was real, and if you want to discuss those then I'll be happy to reply.--Percy