What would it take to change my beliefs?

An Evidence Based Life.

Like most atheists, I often say that I am willing to change my beliefs if new evidence is presented.  This is true of everything, even everyday beliefs that I probably just take for granted.  But as Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.  And to me, the belief that I was created by a supreme being is an extraordinary claim.

But if I am to be intellectually honest, I need to ask myself, what evidence would it take for me to be convinced of the existence of any god.  What standard of evidence would I require?

For example, the God of Abraham, the most popular god in today’s world.    At first I thought that if God wants me to believe in him, all he has to do is come down here and show himself to me and say, ‘Hey, man. Here I am!’  I don’t know what he’d look like, maybe a blinding ring of light shining all around him or something… I dunno.

Do I Need Medication?

But then it occurs to me that there are probably better explanations for that than to assume that I actually saw God.  The more extraordinary the claim is, the greater the number of simpler, more likely explanations there are.  God is such an extraordinary claim that there are any number of other possibilities.  Maybe I just had a hallucination.  Maybe I was dreaming.  Maybe someone was playing an elaborate trick on me with a great costume and some lighting effects.  So I realized that seeing that would probably convince me that I needed medication before I’d believe that I actually saw God.

So it would have to be something so extraordinarily outside of the realm of common possibilities that no human or organization or government could possibly fake it. Then I would have to hear from everyone else around me that they saw it too.  And I mean everyone. In order for me to get over the idea that I was just going crazy, It would take years of constantly seeing the evidence and years of every person I meet agreeing that they see it too, and that nobody can think of a simpler, more likely explanation.

God seems to love appearing on pieces of toast and what-not.  Throw in the Virgin Mary on a waffle and that seems to be enough to convince some people. But I was thinking that I would need to see him appear on the surface of the moon.  And it can’t just kinda look like them, it’s gotta be a perfect full color photograph. Or maybe a video, and he’s mouthing the words, “Sorry about that tsunami, but I saw you masturbating.”  But then again… that would be too easy for some government to fake. Or maybe I could just be hallucinating again.



 
Gettin' Nerdy Wit It!

So then I thought, maybe if God rearranged the stars in the sky to spell out the MD5 and SHA2 checksums of the entire bible.  He’s got plenty of stars, he could do it for all existing versions and translations.  He could even throw in a few sample verses in plain text.  But again… How would I know that I wasn’t just going crazy? People do go crazy and see lots of weird things. I’m not immune…  So what the hell would it take to convince me? There must be something, or else I’d have to admit that I’m just closed-minded.

God Would Know.

Then the realization occurs…  I don’t have to know what it would take.  Any god like the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, any god that created me and who has a plan for my life…  That god would know.  He would know exactly what type and how much evidence that my individual brain would need to be convinced.  I don’t know.  But he would.

And he would also have the ability to show it to me.  And he would also know that if he didn’t show it to me, then I wouldn’t believe in him.  He designed me, after all.  He knows me better than anyone, and he has a plan for me.  So if the God of the Bible does exist, then he must be choosing not to give me the evidence I need.  And he knew when he created me that I’d be fated to burn in hell for all of eternity.

Thanks, God.  Thank you for that wonderful plan.