Wyrdsmyth

I had an idea for a test to see who is worshipping the real god, or indeed if anyone is.

Let us get a priest, shaman, witch-doctor, preacher, rabbi, etc. from every religion on earth, and line them up to perform miracles. We'll wheel in a bunch of unfortunates: the blind, the deaf, the retarded, the diseased, the terminally ill, and the handicapped. The worshipper of the "true god" should be able to perform miracles, healings, and cures that are statistically significant, and far superior to, those who are worshipping mere "imaginary" gods.

If none of them are able to heal the sick and cure infirmities, then our default position should be that it's all just a lot of hokum, and there really aren't any gods -- and never were.

How does that sound?

Jobar

Do none of these holy men have even faith small as a mustard seed?

Makes you suspect that the only differences in their brands of snake oil is the amount of poison in each, doesn't it?

B. H. Manners

the believers in each religion would rationalize nothing happening by saying "--------god was not obligated to do whatever we were wanting him/her to do".

Division By Zero

I've always wondered about the "God is not a trained circus monkey" defense. If God can't be expected to comply with requests, then what's the point of prayer?

Ojuice5001

Well, this methodology worked so well in determining that Yahweh is real and Baal isn't.

Theres a possibility that creates difficulties in this kind of thought experiment. After all, the OP seems to assume that one or a few religions (if any) worship real gods. But many forms of hard polytheism, including my own, would mean that most of these gods exist. Let's think about what the test would show if this were true.

Do you mean miraculous cures that break natural laws, or more along the lines of standard faith healing? If you mean miraculous cures, then you're assuming that supernatural theism is committed to the actuality of miracles, which is not true--supernatural entities could always act in ways that don't break natural laws. But you speak of "cures that are statistically significant," so you seem to be thinking of the kind of faith healing that works sometimes even under naturalism. You do expect that the worshippers of false gods could sometimes get lucky, and heal the sick without their gods existing.

But if all gods exist, and all use their miraculous powers, you might get the same result as if there were none. (There's an example of the need for control subjects in an experiment. ) This experiment might not disprove my theology! And don't forget that Elijah's jeer, "Hey, maybe Baal is asleep," is actually a real possibility, and is as likely as any other. The true gods could be far enough from omniscience that they don't realize what's happening, and miss their chance even though they have the ability to heal.

And remember Celsus's quote, "The world is governed by various Gods, and divided into provinces. Each nation is run as it ought to be." If this experiment were performed in France, and the results were negative, I would remain theist unless it also came up negative in Italy, India, Saudi Arabia, etc. Maybe France is ruled by gods who either prefer atheism, or just don't care what people believe, but other parts of the world are ruled by more conventional gods.

It's a better way to investigate the existence of god(s) than some others, but it's not conclusive.

Wyrdsmyth

Hey OJuice, all of your points are valid. But I have to ask you, what is the practical difference between your worldview and my atheism? Anytime something happens, it could equally be ascribed to an invisible deity or a natural cause. So, how do we tell the difference? If you eliminate all criteria by which we can know these gods exist, then you might as well be an atheist.

Presumably, the way any gods were ever known in the first place was that they contacted people, gave them powers and favors, and answered prayers. There was a two-way line open between mortals and immortals. But any time someone -- like an outsider or skeptic -- wants to test that line, all he gets are excuses for why it doesn't work.

"Sorry, prayer service is temporarily down due to supernatural difficulties."

Wyrdsmyth

The response is, "Of course, no deity is obligated to do anything. If a particular god doesn't want to display his power and thus verify his existence, but prefers to be regarded as a fiction, that is up to him!"

joedad

[humor]
I suggest a more convincing demonstration, which would be to take the same persons and stand them at the top of a precipice. Presumably, upon jumping, their alleged deity will rescue them from death and injury.

It is entirely possible that non miraculous events could occur demonstrating that supernaturalism is not necessary, and we could possibly infer the existence of these alleged beings.

It is also possible that all these persons will be delivered from harm by their individual deity, or that only certain persons will be saved in certain geographic locations.

Further, we could have an atheist on the same precipice. This atheist would be our control and would not jump. Perhaps a particular deity will nudge our atheist into the abyss, quite non miraculously, or perhaps our atheist will be able to convince the others not to jump therefore working a miracle of his or her own.

If you can find other volunteers, I'll take the position of atheist.
[/humor]

BDS

You shall not tempt the Lord thy God.

Wyrdsmyth's original proposal implies: "If there's a God, He should behave exactly as I think He should."

But who can know the Mind of God?

I suggest another, better experiment for Wyrdsmyth. Why doesn't he jump off the building himself and see what happens? If there is no afterlife, then he could:

"...by a sleep, ...say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to -- 'tis a consumation devoutly to be wished..... To sleep, perchance to dream -- aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have suffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause....."

Ojuice5001

The differences are indeed subtle, and it is hard to tell the difference. But surely it is true that whichever of us is right, the world would not be exactly the same if the other were right. For instance, if it's true that Athena founded the city of Athens, it follows that if Athena didn't exist, Athens wouldn't have been founded at the same time and place.

To tell the difference, all I can think of is a certain variant on the design argument. Basically, when something is ruled by a being with purposes, it works toward a certain state, then certain mechanisms tend to keep it from leaving that state, and when it does leave that state, it's through an outside influence. For instance, a cactus grows into a particular clumpy shape. The spikes on the cactus, its thick skin, etc., keep it from becoming something other than a living cactus. But sooner or later, a drought, disease, or animal will turn the living cactus into a dead one.

Now, I'm afraid that when you try to apply this test to the real world, your thinking is heavily dependent on intiution rather than evidence. One problem is that which my last post alluded to, that we can't observe both a theistic universe and a godless one. Another is that there are so many natural beings with purposes (i.e., forms of life) that there's a hopeless amount of "background noise"; there's obviously a purpose in Bush's war on Iraq, but who's to say whether it's greater than the sum of all the humans involved?

But this does provide support for polytheism against monotheism. After all, things are destroyed so much that it looks like numerous gods are destroying each other's creations.

Your way of putting it is much better than certain other atheists, who say in cavalier fashion that "God(s) never do anything, and we know this from observation of the world." To be accurate, you have to say, "Everything we've seen is compatible with the gods never doing anything, and with their complete nonexistence"; which I agree with, but add that it's compatible with a properly constructed theology.

Well, do you think no unbeliever has ever been convinced by something along those lines? I don't. Look at Constantine and Clovis, for example. They weren't worshippers of Yahweh, but they asked for his help in winning battles, and they got it. (Not that they were right to conclude that their old gods weren't real, I hasten to add.) And actually, it's likely that this process was fairly typical, and that that's also how the Roman, Norse, and other pantheons rose to preeminence.

But I do understand what you're saying. You're complaining that prayer is patently unreliable. And I agree that it is much less reliable than using natural means--after all, we have much more ability to know what to do when using knowledge of nature. No one really knows what to do to make prayer work, and we theists might be better off understanding that than making up excuses. And technology (natural knowledge) has advanced much, while religion and magic have advanced very little since about 500BCE, so the gap is widening and natural knowledge seems more and more superior as time goes on.