[hi75u]

Thanks for laying all of this out. I'll say up front that I believe in God (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) so you know where I'm coming from. You obviously understand this stuff at a high level, and I won't claim to. I had a question about experimenting with proving (personally, at least) God's existence based on what you've explained.

>(b) god has influence in the present (he can communicate with people, either directly into their mind or by influencing the world around us; enabling certain outcomes to occur, like getting a specific job or having a good surgery outcome)

Your example experiments after this point talk about proving God exists through outcomes. I agree that experiments in this realm based on outcomes are bad. As you said, outcomes can have many different, non-divine causes; and it is impossible to observe the actual source. But what about the first point "he can communicate with people, either directly into their mind..."? What if you designed an experiment that tested whether God exists by testing if He can communicate with you? What about something like Clayton Christensen's experiment[1]? His experiment is more about a religious text than God Himself, but could something like that provide a framework for disproving the null at least?

[1] https://claytonchristensen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Wh...; page 3 starting at paragraph 2

[tenacious_tuna]

> You obviously understand this stuff at a high level, and I won't claim to.

I'm flattered, but I merely consider myself a talented amateur who perhaps enjoys this subject of discussion more than is reasonable, and thus have spend an inordinate amount of time on it.

> What about something like Clayton Christensen's experiment[1]?

A critically important point in science, especially dealing with psychological matters, is knowing that the human brain for all its power is an incredibly fallible tool: it's memory is subpar [1] and it's willingness to identify patterns dangerously strong [2]. To this end, we have to design our experiments knowing that our brains will see causality where there may be none, and mis-remember data according to both our hopes and our doubts.

A second point is that an effective experiment must be (a) convincing to those who see it (with regard to the proposed conclusions) and (b) repeatable, such that those who doubt can run the experiment themselves, observe the results, and test their alternative explanations. I've seen many a scientist simultaneously sad that their hoped-for explanation was not supported by an experiment, or that their results were shown to be incorrect by another in their field adapting their experiment, but that same scientist was intensely glad for the fact that their model of the world was now more accurate.

Broadly in Street Epistemology, a methodology that lead to belief in multiple contradictory beliefs across a population is not a useful methodology for determining truth: this is an extension of the "Outsider Faith Test" I discuss somewhere up this thread. But, generally, if person A can use a methodology to conclude god A exists, and person B can use the same methodology to confirm belief in god B, then the methodology is not useful to discern realities. With more concrete examples, I've seen people claim to be filled with some emotion or spirit during Pagan rituals, or followers of the Hindu gods feel like they were having conversations with their gods, or Christians report being filled with spirit while singing hymns in their cathedrals. Since these are all effectively the same methodology--strong emotion during a worship based experience--it's reasonable to doubt that "strong emotion during a worship based experience" is a useful indicator in the existence of a specific god.

My explanation, perhaps typical of a non-believer, is that human psychology is predisposed to having these experiences, akin to the feeling of something being behind you as you ascend the dark basement stairs, or a feeling of wonder as you see how tiny your town is from a neighboring mountain: while these experiences evoke incredibly strong emotions, they aren't indicators of some supernatural power.

> His experiment is more about a religious text than God Himself, but could something like that provide a framework for disproving the null at least?

If Clayton's experiment were about disproving the null, it would have to be designed around showing the null hypothesis "there is no god" to be false. As it stands, his experiment just shows that he can have a strong emotional reaction to a text he reads late at night while praying that he has some reaction to the text he's reading. To properly disprove the null of "there is no god", or more specifically "this feeling was not caused by a god" he would have to demonstrate that either (a) the god explanation has the strongest relationship over any alternatives, or (b) that no other explanations apply. This would involve things like disproving the experience "just being within his head", or caused by his usual feelings around that time of night, or that they were reproducible in a devout atheist, or similar.

This is broadly the issue when citing individual, personal experience as evidence: it is most often collected by those with an existing bias to the results, e.g. believers hoping to have their beliefs confirmed, and it certainly can't stand up to scientific rigor (repeatable with results observable from other parties, in ways that dispel other possible explanations).

For my part, I experience incredibly intense emotions when I'm listening to recordings of communications between Air Traffic Controllers and pilots in emergency situations; in fact, in the past several years those recordings are the only thing that have moved me to actual tears. Waves of emotion about how lonely it must be to be such a pilot, even as you hear ATC routing other traffic around you, or the professional strain in the ATC's voice as they're routing search-and-rescue craft to the scene, or the intense relief when the pilot confirms they're OK after a landing. Is it reasonable for me to conclude that it's in these moments that god chooses to visit me, and fill me with concern for the pilot or gratitude for the ATC or calm over some future trip I'm to take? Or just to acknowledge that when I listen to these recordings, alone in a hotel room while traveling after a long day, I'm likely more predisposed to these emotions than I am normally?

For Clayton's part:

  During my adult life I have been blessed to witness or participate in many miracles – events that the scriptures term “gifts of the Spirit.”  I have healed the sick by the power of the God.

Were he such a fantastic healer, driven by the power of God, why is he not sweeping the nation, curing all the otherwise-incurably sick? Surely this would be a stunning display of God's power, consistently demonstrable by Clayton and attributable solely to his god?

[1a]: https://www.ncsc.org/trends/monthly-trends-articles/2017/the...

[1b]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

[hi75u]

>Were he such a fantastic healer, driven by the power of God, why is he not sweeping the nation, curing all the otherwise-incurably sick?

A) He's dead[1] B) Jesus did this, and, as you can imagine, people weren't willing to see this as "attributable solely to his god". Even I can think of other explanations (e.g., fraud) if a person were going around the country loudly proclaiming themselves to be using God's power to heal anyone and everyone.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/25/business/clayton-christen...

[hi75u]

Thanks for taking the time to respond! I wasn't sure you'd see it since I got to this thread late. Glad to be engaged in a respectful discussion on a contentious topic that is dear to me.

>This is broadly the issue when citing individual, personal experience as evidence: it is most often collected by those with an existing bias to the results

Yes, I agree here. Maybe I bungled it, but I was not attempting to prove God exists through this one person's experience. Just examining it as an example of a repeatable experiment.

>reproducible in a devout atheist I would disagree here. A devout atheist presumably has a very strong bias against finding out God exists or interpreting an experience as something supernatural. So maybe "reproducible in a [dispassionate, neutral party]"?

>To this end, we have to design our experiments knowing that our brains will see causality where there may be none, and mis-remember data according to both our hopes and our doubts.

I just wonder if this is an excuse people use for never trying it out at the individual level. A person can say in their heads or out loud "God, are you there?" and observe the results. Of course, there's the question of how long one needs to go through with this. But scientists are often patient and willing to go to great lengths to prove something[1][2]. I don't blame anyone who is not willing to go through with the effort in something they see as pointless as long as they don't take the failure of one or two attempts as proof that God does not exist. E.g., Higgs et al. in a parallel universe quitting before decades passing and before having a multi-billion dollar machine doesn't prove that the Higgs boson doesn't exist.

Maybe my experiment as stated isn't it, but I think there can be a convincing and repeatable experiment along those lines. Millions of people have repeated it and experienced something convincing (to them) (I'm not trying to use "Millions of people" as proof that all of us are right or anything. Just that it can be/has been repeated). But, for sure, it is unknown whether the millions of people and I interpreted the outcome according to their hopes. I think that's why it's worth it for every individual to try for themselves.

>his experiment just shows that he can have a strong emotional reaction to a text he reads late at night while praying that he has some reaction to the text he's reading.

It is true that even very real spiritual experiences can be explained in other ways. So, you're right, the experience still has to be accepted by the observer as from God. Because I believe in an omniscient God who knows you personally, I think you'll experience exactly what you need to experience exactly when you need to experience it. I won't claim it will be irrefutable proof, but maybe it'll be enough to make you want to keep digging.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory