!	MODNOTE Reports for this post have been dealt with.

The religious mantra of the Church of Evidentialism (a popular atheist sect, especially on the Internet) is the following:

Where's your evidence / Where's your evidence / Where's your evidence / Where's your evidence

It is as annoying and repetitive as the Hare Hare Krisna mantra.

But what evidentialists never tell us, or never ask themselves, is the following:

1) What kind of evidence should we look for, considering what we're talking about? (an immaterial entity)

2) If God does exist, why should He be under the obligation to provide the kind of evidence of the Church of Evidentialist members expect?

3) What if he has already given us enough evidence, but we're looking at the wrong place?

Concerning (1), what it is that God explains is the following: why is it that anything at all exists? So God doesn't serve as a scientific explanation for X; God is the explanation as to why things are the way they are and why they exist, as opposed to how things are. So clearly the kind of evidence we should be looking for is in a form of a philosophical argument, for it concerns philosophy to figure out why it is that things exist, as opposed to not existing.

And we have dozens of those arguments! Those arguments, I believe, are sufficient to make a belief in God rational, and we'll see with (3) how we can have the confirmation that not only it is rational to believe in God, but that we can know that God exists.

About (2), I see no reason why a God should lower Himself to provide the kind of evidence the fundie-evidentialo-angry atheist requests. Ie, performing magic tricks in the sky or stuff like that. Not to mention, if God indeed does exist, perhaps it is that he knows that if He would provide more evidence for His existence, the atheist would still reject His existence so God doesn't bother with this sort of magic tricks.

(3), Well I believe that God does give us all the best possible evidence for His existence we could hope for. The Inner Testimony of the Holy Spirit is the best evidence we could possibly have! We can know in our heart, with absolute certainty, that God exists with the Inner Testimony of the Holy Spirit, if we are open-minded and accept Him in our heart. Of course the atheist could simply say that I'm lying, or deluded; but in the absence of a defeater, I see no reason to reject my inner experience. If the atheist is accusing me of lying, what's stopping me to accuse the atheist of lying? It could be that it is actually the atheist who is deluding himself and repress the evidence because he does not want to believe in God! As far as I'm concerned, I have all the evidence I need!

thedistillers wrote:(...) Not to mention, if God indeed does exist, perhaps it is that he knows that if He would provide more evidence for His existence, the atheist would still reject His existence so God doesn't bother with this sort of magic tricks.(...)

Hmmm, sounds like there's a bit of doubt there. It's good to know that your god keeps hiding because he already knows what atheists are going to say. Behold the power of the atheists! Perfectly reasonable.

PS: You forget to capitalize his name there. Does this mean you too will burn for eternity for taking his name in vain?

I sat down once and spent 3 hours trying to explain to a cockroach who I was and how powerful I was and how much I knew about the other side of this planet called earth because I've seen it and how there is so much more to the universe than cockroaches can possibly imagine.

You know what?

That cockroach acted as though I wasn't even there.

Lion (IRC)

I didn't read it all, but I would put the question back on you. What is it that makes you believe in God? Is that "it", evidence? And do you think you would have experienced this same "evidence" if you grew up alone and isolated from society?

Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Lion IRC wrote:I sat down once and spent 3 hours trying to explain to a cockroach who I was and how powerful I was and how much I knew about the other side of this planet called earth because I've seen it and how there is so much more to the universe than cockroaches can possibly imagine.

You know what?

That cockroach acted as though I wasn't even there.

Lion (IRC)

Perhaps you should have just picked picked it up and carried it to the other side of the earth. THAT would be evidence!

mmmcheezy wrote:Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Well if there is no God, and hence humans were not created in the Imago Dei, what reason is there to think atheists, or us humans, are worth more than cockroaches? Why don't we treat humans equally as cockroaches?

Lion IRC wrote:I sat down once and spent 3 hours trying to explain to a cockroach who I was and how powerful I was and how much I knew about the other side of this planet called earth because I've seen it and how there is so much more to the universe than cockroaches can possibly imagine.

You know what?

That cockroach acted as though I wasn't even there.

Lion (IRC)

If you'd stepped on it then it would have known you were there... albeit briefly

mmmcheezy wrote:Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Cockroaches probably have some form of theism.

Lion (IRC)

Your god can't prove himself because he's a coward. He knows my gods would pwn his ass.

thedistillers wrote:

mmmcheezy wrote:Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Well if there is no God, and hence humans were not created in the image dei, what reason is there to think atheists, or us humans, are worth more than cockroaches? Why don't we treat humans equally as cockroaches?

Same reason we don't treat anything else like humans; because we're humans.

Lion IRC wrote:I sat down once and spent 3 hours trying to explain to a cockroach who I was and how powerful I was and how much I knew about the other side of this planet called earth because I've seen it and how there is so much more to the universe than cockroaches can possibly imagine. (...)

I guess you were lucky there weren't any people in white coats around with a comfy jacket with lots of straps...

thedistillers wrote:

mmmcheezy wrote:Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Well if there is no God, and hence humans were not created in the image dei, what reason is there to think atheists, or us humans, are worth more than cockroaches? Why don't we treat humans equally as cockroaches?

Well, other than the fact that we have much higher function, nothing. I don't think I'm WORTH more than anything else, and in fact, I already treat cockroaches equally. That is, I don't kill them. If I come across one [which is rare in Wisconsin] I let them outside.

That always struck me as awfully arrogant. Why would humans have been "created" in "god's image" but not cockroaches? What did "the lord" have against cockroaches?

Ciarin wrote:Your god can't prove himself because he's a coward. He knows my gods would pwn his ass.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

If it's that pussy hippy, Jesus, you could probably kick his ass yourself. He'd probably let you too.

Your religion makes a virtue of accepting hard-to-believe stories as fact. You call it faith. I hardly need to remind you of the line in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

On the other hand, the book this quote comes from also makes several testable predictions, for which several have been shown wanting. There are several failed prophecies, and prayer is pretty-much debunked as an effective means of 'getting shit done'. The Christian concept of 'God' is self-refuting.

Those are good questions and very well thought out except that the bottom line as far as believing goes, we can't bring ourselves to believe in something we haven't seen evidence for. I know it must be frustrating to keep hearing where's the evidence but really that's what it comes down to. We all have our own way of deciding what to take seriously and although I don't see anything wrong with faith per se, I just like to have something to get my teeth into. If I can't see it or somehow sense it and examine it, to say that it exists would just feel really weird. But you sound like you're very interested in truth in your own way, and good luck.

thedistillers wrote:
(3), Well I believe that God does give us all the best possible evidence for His existence we could hope for. The Inner Testimony of the Holy Spirit is the best evidence we could possibly have! We can know in our heart, with absolute certainty, that God exists with the Inner Testimony of the Holy Spirit, if we are open-minded and accept Him in our heart. Of course the atheist could simply say that I'm lying, or deluded; but in the absence of a defeater, I see no reason to reject my inner experience. If the atheist is accusing me of lying, what's stopping me to accuse the atheist of lying? It could be that it is actually the atheist who is deluding himself and repress the evidence because he does not want to believe in God! As far as I'm concerned, I have all the evidence I need!

I can relate to you very well. I hear a sound that others can't hear. Its about 8kHz sinus. They keep telling me it's tinnitus or something but that's bullshit because I can hear it. Deep inside you know. I'm not lying.

Lion IRC wrote:I sat down once and spent 3 hours trying to explain to a cockroach who I was and how powerful I was and how much I knew about the other side of this planet called earth because I've seen it and how there is so much more to the universe than cockroaches can possibly imagine.

You know what?

That cockroach acted as though I wasn't even there.

Lion (IRC)

While you were doing that, did you decide that all the cockroaches that don't believe you would all be destroyed and burned?

So thedistillers I'm guessing by your angry, evangelical rant that you've still no evidence to present to us. Your frustration is understandable.

Oh, by the way thedistillers, you owe me £10,000. You probably don't believe that you do right now, but I'm sure that if you look into your heart and open it up to the belief that you owe me £10,000, you'll realise that you do.