by rEvolutionist wrote:The point Seth's Devil's/God's advocate misses, is that atheist generally don't deny that god could exist (or have existed). We just find it extremely unlikely given we haven't seen any verifiable evidence for it. But the religious choose to believe that he does exist (in his immaterial way???) based on absolutely zero evidence. So there's no point saying to an atheist, 'yeah, but the bible could have some shred of truth in it'. We already acknowledge that. It could. This argument shouldn't have anything to do with Atheists. It should be all about the religious who have totally unfounded beliefs.
Well, the problem is that it is only atheists who claim not to have seen any verifiable evidence. If you ask religionists, particularly devout ones, they have no doubts about the evidence they experience in their relationship with God. That atheism does not accept this evidence does not mean that the evidence does not exist, nor does it mean that the evidence is false. The problem with claiming that evidence of actions by a thinking entity are false because the events cannot be falsified, proven or repeated is that unlike phenomena that are unguided, like the decay of radioactive substances or the atomic composition of water, intelligently performed events are one-off, irreproducible events that if not observed and recorded, are lost to scientific examination forever. Just as the act of picking one's nose and eating the booger cannot be proven or disproven once it has occurred and ended.
Therefore, if the events of the bible actually occurred as stated, and were the actions of a thinking entity acting deliberately, but only once, the events could be completely true and factual but entirely unprovable. The common claim of atheists boils down to, "Hey, we missed the loaves and fishes event, so we want to see it again before we will believe that it happened." But nothing compels God to repeat himself, does it? And why should he repeat himself for the amusement of non-believers whom he (perhaps) intends to doom to eternal torment for their intransigence and disbelief?
It may be that God's manifestations to the faithful are actually tests of faith to sort the sheep from the goats.
If you ask the devout, they will tell you that they have personal experiences with God through prayer and worship that are sufficiently convincing for their needs, and there are innumerable claims of miracles, some which even science cannot explain (such as spontaneous remission of disease) adequately. The fact that science cannot explain, for example, the miracle of Fatima (which may or may not be a miracle...and I'm not making a claim either way) only means that there was not sufficient scientific instrumentation in place at the time of the alleged miracle to observe and record a one-time event caused by an intelligent entity capable of manipulating either nature, or merely human perception.
The dearth of evidence is NOT evidence, much less proof, that God does not exist or that the events at Fatima did not occur as described. Lots of theories have been forwarded to explain the events, but none of them actually prove anything about the events.
Visit 
