On 4/23/2011 10:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 23:45:04 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>>> I think there's a fundamental difference, if you're like most of the
>>> atheists I know - you're willing to be convinced given sufficient
>>> evidence.
>>
>> No, I am not, that is the point. There being a God is to such an extend
>> contradictory to being me, that I will never accept any evidence(, hence
>> my reference to that book of my father). I think you will find that true
>> for other atheists as well.
>
> That is different - so you're saying that if someone presented rational
> evidence for a God, you wouldn't accept it?  I find that *highly* unusual.
>
Problem is the "rational evidence" part. How do you tell someone playing 
at god, with super advanced tech, or even abilities maybe, and that they 
"are" god in any real sense. Hell, to most of the people over thousands 
of years a Jedi would constitute a god, but we would, if any such person 
showed up, be looking at blood samples to work out how the hell they did 
it, not bowing to them in worship, a fact true even for most religious 
people. First, you need a coherent definition of god, then you can talk 
about what constitutes evidence.

Since most of the stuff in religious texts fall into these categories:

1. Things any two bit magician can replicate.
2. Things we could replicate now, with preparation.
3. Things we could at least imagine replicating, if we had certain 
technologies.
4. Things we couldn't replicate, like making a new universe, and then 
showing someone around in it, and which are probably not possible.

There isn't a lot of room for someone coming up with evidence. Even Q 
from Star Trek, to a modern thinker, tends to look less like a god, than 
merely a powerful, but otherwise normal, different species.

The bar is pretty damn high be miracles, unless you already think damn 
near everything imaginable is a miracle, as some seem to. And, gods 
themselves... not one of them ever defined in past works *qualifies*, 
not in the least due to their failure to live up to the ethics/morals of 
their own followers.

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