What would cause you to change your view of the existence of God?
“If there is anything that is obvious, it is that the existence of God is not obvious. Dan Barker
“Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.” Bertrand Russell
“God could clear a lot of stuff up with a five-minute press conference.” George Carlin
The Question!
Toward the end of a 2019 debate between Richard Howe and atheist Dan Barker, each of them was asked by the moderator what might cause them to change their beliefs. (1:47:50)
Dan Barker went first.
Dan, what would cause you to say that there is a God?
I will paraphrase his reply. He said that atheism is vulnerable to disproof and that atheists would immediately change their minds if they were shown to be wrong. He remarked that there are 1,000s of things that could change his unbelief in God and he gives one specific example. He quotes a passage in the bible that says whatever believers ask for, they shall receive. (It’s curious that the atheist quoted scripture, and the theist did not.)
So, Barker proposed that if the scripture were true, Howe could ask God to allow him to foresee the future and God would allow it. Barker further supposed that if God communicated to Howe that the next day, Barker’s house would be destroyed by a meteorite, and Howe communicated that information to Barker (beforehand) and it happened exactly as Howe had described it. According to Barker this would be clear evidence that he could not ignore, and which might cause him to acknowledge that perhaps he has been wrong about God. However, he concluded by saying that “so far” we don’t see that kind of evidence, and he would continue with his non-belief until there was evidence to the contrary.
Then it was Howe’s turn.
Richard, what would cause you to believe that there is no god?
His 403-word answer was difficult to understand, and impossible to paraphrase. I decided to transcribe it and let the readers decide for themselves what exactly Howe was trying to say.
Howe’s response.
“I like these questions because in my experiences in debates, and I haven’t done as many debates as Dan has, but this question comes up pretty often and so I thought about this, and because I think it’s a fair question to ask. I think there is a meaningful sense in which certain kinds of theories or beliefs about reality can be rendered meaningless if they’re unfalsifiable if nothing could count as evidence against your belief then there… at least in the scientific sense there’s really no… your belief doesn’t pick out anything. Philosophical beliefs are a little bit trickier in terms of falsification because the principle of falsifiability is itself not falsifiable. So right there we got some kind of problem. But nevertheless, I’ve thought about this and I think that what would begin to mitigate my confidence that God existed… at least, let’s say, the god that I’d think existed… the classical god of… the god of classical theism… is if somehow, I began to believe that logic really didn’t apply to reality… that contradiction… contradictions maybe could both be true… in some forms of say, mysticism. I’ve read of people who have had certain types of mystical experiences or drug experiences and they come out with this… a less of ability to… they actually… it has mitigated their belief in the rationality and the sort of normal sense of the term logic and reason that actually applies… this sort of Wittgenstein view in the early Wittgenstein and the Tractatus… he ends the Tractatus… seven propositions in the Tractatus. The last proposition is something to the effect that about which we cannot speak thereof we must remain silent… and he thought that there was this sort of, or at least some people were interpreting that, there’s sort of some kind of realm that’s beyond our ability to think logically and reasonably and we really can’t talk about it. I think I know enough of it, because Wittgenstein was getting at… to know well… whatever he thought that realm was, it bore no resemblance whatsoever to what I belief as a classical theist. So, if I came persuaded that maybe Wittgenstein was on to something as a lot of Buddhist philosophy has done, then I think that would probably begin to erode my belief in classical theism. If I could be disabused of my… my belief that life… that reality is logical.”
After reading bits of the Tractatus and finding that it did nothing to help make any sense of Howe’s response, (in fact, made it even more confusing), I decided to abide by its seventh proposition which says, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”. Perhaps, Howe should have started with this proposition.
Howe’s response contained not even the slightest hint of evidence for the existence of God. This leaves us to conclude that perhaps, he has none. However, being a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he is well schooled in the area of philosophy, so that’s the hand he played.
There would be no “Does God Exist?” debates if the question were one of evidence, not philosophy.
Where’s the beef?
One would think the best way for a theist to discredit an atheist would be to provide evidence that would prove beyond all doubt that their god actually does exist. I expected that somewhere in the debate that Howe would be able to produce at least some semblance of actual evidence for his theism. But that’s not what he does. Instead, he spends the bulk of his debate time trying to school Barker in philosophy.
After listening to Howe’s big fluffy bun philosophical explanation for the existence of God, one has to ask… “Where’s the beef?”
Proof of God’s existence!
In Answering the Music Man, a gaggle of theists attempt to discredit Barker’s atheism. One of Howe’s fellow co-authors, John D. Ferrer, in his chapter, attempted to discredit “Barker’s Brand of Atheism”.
Ferrer proposes, in a rather sarcastic way, what he believes it would take to convince atheists that God actually exists. He writes, “If God dictated the Bible on live TV, ended the California drought with forty days of raining Cabernet (wine), and personally moonwalked across the set of God’s Not Dead III.”
This is the evidence he believes would prove the existence of God? Really?
Ending “the California drought with forty days of raining Cabernet”? That would be disastrous; red wine stains everywhere, and not enough white vinegar in the whole world to clean it up. Moonwalking on national TV? Now that would be cool. At least we’d know where MJ ended up. What if instead of these, God ended world hunger or human trafficking, or the suffering of innocent victims caused by wars or brutal dictators? Wouldn’t godly kindness toward all mankind be more convincing to atheists like Barker and me than God doing the moonwalk on American TV?
What would cause me to say that there is a God?
After hearing both Barker and Howe’s answers, and reading the silly evidence proposed by Ferrer, I started wondering. “What would cause me to say that there is a God”. This is difficult to answer, because, like Barker, I spent decades as a bible believing christian and at this point it would be nearly impossible for someone to argue me back into the fold with apologetics or philosophy. It would take evidence; undeniable, verifiable evidence. Now the question is “what kind of evidence would bring me back into the fold?”
Some quick thoughts.
If christians would stop obsessing about protecting the unborn and focus instead, on the already born who are starving to death by the thousands each day. The World Counts website says that a child dies from hunger every 10 seconds and that poor nutrition and hunger is responsible for the death of 3.1 million children a year. Wouldn’t that be worth God’s attention?
How about if God eliminated all human trafficking? Maybe those involved in the sinister business would perhaps suddenly die from a heart attack or a stroke or something like that. Maybe God could just give them all a change of heart and they would start helping rather than hurting those who they are now victimizing.
How about if Christians would focus less on proselytizing and telling non-believers that “the wages of sin is death” and focus more on Matthew 25, “the extent you showed kindness to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” Why is something that we can see, like reducing human suffering, less important than proselytizing souls for an afterlife that we can’t see?
If God is love, why is love so noticeably lacking in church mission statements? If the God of Love is supposedly living inside christians’ hearts, shouldn’t the theology of love be more prominent in their “actions” than a theology of hate? I’m just saying.
And lastly, there is a certain (christian?) congresswoman from Colorado who is famous for her nonstop spewing of political nonsense and hate. Perhaps God could give her a change of heart… one filled with compassion and empathy so that she actually used her position to help people and reduce harm, rather than being an agent for harm. If God could pull off that miracle, I’d be back in the pew next Sunday. But don’t save me a seat.
From Where I Stand
Dale Crum