Fencesitter

Because often atheists say that they want physical proof of God's existence. Since this example gave physical proof, you added another criteria.

But actually, since I think Asha'man's post below is valid IMO, then new criteria is extraneous unless you want to add that you would worship this God as well.

You're right. I saw it but didn't think about it in this context.

Yes, I can see the two-step process now.

Fence

Wallener

That's just silly and plainly irrational. If the HB becomes "factual", then Sodom and Gomorah happend - and someone who can toss molten chunks of rocks from the heavens at cities has done all they need to to demonstrate the wisdom of worshiping them.

TheBigKahoona

No it isn't. Iv'e known tons of people who hated Christianity and God despite their lack of belief. In other words, I hate the concept of Allah and the Koran. What I was saying was that even if evidence was shown to me of Allah's existence I would deny it in any way I could think up. THis disturbs me because I don't like to think that I would react so irrationally.

It is not the nature of magic to be provable. Magic is neither logical or experimentally proven. My question is, could you find yourself believing in the magic I just described if you saw something spectacular enough occur?

Wads4

I heard somewhere that Sodom and Gomorrah were the victims of a massive landslide into the Dead Sea,-based on the local geology. Also molten chunks of rocks apparently falling onto cities from the heavens are well documented: they are known as volcanic eruptions.

Wads4

These hypothetical questions are much beloved by Christians, and are a complete waste of time. I will discuss them when something actually happens.

Wallener

No, you won't, which is the point of this thread.

David Vestal

Asha'man said it better than I did. There are actually many obstacles to converting to christianity.

First, there's believing that a god exists. For this, we need evidence (not "proof," but good evidence). It doesn't have to be dramatic, like flaming letters on the moon. That's what's often frustrating about this sort of conversation; there isn't even mundane evidence, so it's surrealistic to ask about my reaction in the face of overwhelming evidence. Mundane evidence, like a personal appearance, or like scientifically verifiable evidence of miracles, or like fulfilled prophecy (not prophecy that has to be rescued by post-hoc reinterpretation, rationalization, etc.).

Next, there's believing in the christian god. For this, we need some sort of evidence that the god as generally described by the bible is the supreme god, or the only god. If the bible could be shown to have supernatural properties, it could possibly be this evidence. Testimony of the deity itself, in the form of an appearance, might also suffice.

There is another hurdle: that of figuring out HOW to convert. As you know, debate rages throughout the christian community as to how one becomes a christian, what christianity entails, how one remains a christian, how one is saved, damned, how one worships, what "god" is, etc. There are huge factions that hold many different ideas about all of these issues. With which should we align ourselves?

Almost all of them claim to derive their understanding of these issues directly from the Bible. So, that presents another problem: what does the Bible say about it? Clearly, humanity itself is not capable of coming to any sort of agreement about what the bible says, so really, the deity itself needs to step in and clarify the matter. Its silence tacitly damns hundreds of millions of well-meaning, but wrong, souls.

Aside from all that, there's the last matter of whether the deity deserves worship. The bible often depicts the deity in the most starkly immoral light. It is not unreasonable to require that these questions be resolved prior to conversion.

Now, you may say that I'm piling on conditions. Try as I might, though, I can't see how any of these steps could reasonably be skipped before converting to christianity. Can you?

RussianM3_dude

So you don't believe Hitler existed either... Hmm, let me edumacate you. We atheists DO NOT hate god, because there is nothing to hate. I mean you don't hate Godzilla or the boogey man...

David Vestal

Surely you see the difference between hating a religion, and hating its nonexistent deity?


There's no reason magic shouldn't be experimentally provable. If a person can (for example) levitate, why shouldn't they be able to do it again in a controlled setting?

Asha'man

If the HB becomes "factual," then we also know that God is a psychopathic genocidal sociopath with delusions of grandeur. I'm morally incapable of worshiping a bully such as that.

First, if I was just going through the motions, he would presumably know, and I'm done for anyways.

Second, given his personality, I can in no way assume that I will get fair treatment even if I did worship him (or pretend to), so I might as well be honest about my feelings.

My only hope would be to side with his stated opponent, Satan. Apparently, Satan is able to give some form of protection to his worshipers, so that would be my only real hope.