Burden Of Proof: On Acceptable Evidence For God -- By Fenix C

This post is a response to a post on Generation Atheist called Are Proofs Or Evidence For Deities Even Hypothetically Possible and while I highly recommend reading that article, it will not be necessary to understand what I am talking about here.

The entire article is based on two ideas, Occams Razor and Clarke's Third Law
OR: All other things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one, or more accurately, that when discussing hypotheses that are equal in other regards, it is right to select the one that requires you to make the least number of unwarranted assumptions.
CL: Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from magic.

We use OR in our life every day - we assume when we find a suicide note and a guy hanging from the ceiling, we assume that he killed himself. We would not assume that someone forced him to write the note in his own handwriting and then hung the guy for some reason. Unless there is evidence (for example, he was really rich, and then after he died suddenly it was revealed that his will was changed last week to put all of his money into a nameless bank account) of course, we will assume that the simplest answer is correct. This is the reason for the word "unwarranted" because if there were such evidence, the assumption would be completely warranted.

Clarke's Law is less prevalent in our society in an obvious way, but think about A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court. A moden man is sent back in time to the middle ages, and with his knowledge of history and electricity, manages to make firearms and an electric fence to defend himself from those who would wish to destroy him. And what is the first word they use for him? Wizard. He was using a concept of electricity to run his camp, charged invisible particles moving energy around - this was so far above the understanding of the people of that time that they couldn't understand it at all, and so it was magic. But we are smarter now, we have this law to reference. So if an alien race ever showed up and shot energy weapons and were capable of moving things large distances in a single instant, we would assume (based on CL and OR) that they were simply very technologically advanced, not magical.

And really - magic is simply the manipulation of the world using techniques unknown to the observer. If I can make a bosy float, and people do not understand it, it is called magic. But I did it using techniques possible and following from the given rules of the universe. If someone were to do something that we perceived as impossible, we would be wrong - it is not impossible, because we just saw it. Then there are two conclusions we can reach: either our understanding of the rules of the universe were incomplete in this regard, or our understanding of what we just saw was incomplete. This is why I say there is no such thing as magic. Because magic is to do the impossible (or at least the illusion of the impossible) which by its definition is not possible. If it is done, it is possible, and therefore there are rules governing its possibility, which puts us back at the two possible conclusions of incorrect knowledge or faulty perception.

So the question this author poses to us is this: hypothetically if someone showed up claiming to be God and showed up amazing things that we were incapable of doing (water into wine, walking on water, etc.) we, the rationalists, would assume that it was simply advanced technology and not magic - so how would a deity prove itself? This is a very good question. I had to think about it for a while, and had to back to the base of the creation myth to answer it.

I am going to assume for the sake of argument that God exists, created the world with natural laws (gravity, radioactive decay, stuff like that) and that we as members of its existence are forced to obey, and that these laws cannot be broken. They can be manipulated - Jesus can walk on water, the sea can part, stuff like that. These are improbable, but do not go against the laws of nature. It is conceivable that the act is a trick based in technology and science. For example, we have invented a vehicle that can travel on land and water without touching either of them directly - we call it a hovercraft. It is simple, a parachute holds the air in place and the force exerted upwards by the air held under the craft is equal to the force of gravity on the craft. But imagine trying to explain that to someone who didn't understand forces or gravity or even air. There was a time when birds were not understood.

So how would a Deity prove itself to exist to us? For me, it would have to violate a rule of this universe that is not violable. For me there, is only one rule that comes to mind - the conservation of matter. Unfortunately, this would be again, very difficult to do even for a Deity, because us skeptics are very skeptical.

Belief, Science and the Human Brain -- By Emily H

It has been a common saying from atheists that “God is all in your head.” A more fitting position might be this one suggested by anthropologist Pascal Boyer (referenced in the 2^nd Edition Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft), “People do not invent gods and spirits; they receive information that leads them to build such concepts.” Boyer, as well as other researchers, suggest that this “received information” could be of the brain’s own making. He suggests that religion is an accidental by-product of the way the human brain works. Humans come to the conclusion that there is a higher power, or spiritual entities because of the way our brains make connections between unrelated occurrences. Here is an example. Brian wore green socks when his baseball team won, he concludes that he must wear those same socks for the rest of the season or else the team will fail. Religion exists in much the same way. Brian prays for the baseball team to win and if they succeed it was because the prayer was answered. It is simply human nature to seek patterns where none exist. We see shapes in the clouds and constellations in the night skies. Now the question remains; why do our brains work this way?

Spiritual experiences are universal and multi-cultural. Forever, people from all kinds of religions and belief systems have claimed to have a connection with a spiritual entity. Many even report visions of these entities and their revelations are regarded as fact. How do so many people from different times and places share this theme? Science may hold the answer. Scientists have proposed that a part of the temporal lobe affects how a person reacts to religious stimuli. They refer to it as the God module. This theory is supported by CAT scans of Buddhist monks meditating and Catholic nuns in prayer. Interestingly enough, this research shows that spiritual experiences are universal because of shared human biology. All human brains have the God module.

One example of spiritual experiences and “visions” can be seen in Reverend Lovasik’s Illustrated Book of Saints. He describes St. Teresa of Avila, a Catholic nun in 1500’s Spain. She was often “blessed” with holy visions. She is also the patroness against headaches. She suffered headaches because of her divine premonitions. The book states, “In 1582, Jesus appeared to Teresa with many saints. She begged Him to take her to Himself. After prayer, her soul was taken to heaven.” Today we realize that visions can really be dangerous hallucinations. St. Teresa also had a condition that can now be recognized as epilepsy. The God module, as discussed earlier, is in a region of the brain that is over-stimulated in people with epilepsy. It is very possible that St. Teresa and the many people of various religions, who claim a special connection with a spirit or God, just have an over-stimulated part of the temporal lobe.

Fun with the School God Club -- By Laura (Editor)

Here in the UK we don’t generally have a huge problem with Christian groups exerting influence over school life. I definitely have it really good compared with schools I’ve heard about in other countries, where Christian student groups roam the halls loudly Jesus-lovin’ every lunchtime, or hold a lot of weight in school committees.

But my school does have a God club, which makes for equal parts of frustration and amusement. The amusement came, most memorably, on Valentine’s Day, when the club was handing out sweets along with a little slip of paper with a Bible verse on it. Obviously, God wasn’t watching over their actions too closely that day, because a typo meant that the little slip announced to the student population: “For God gave his only son, John”.