Challenge for Atheists

[Dretlin]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

If their is certainty then their should be no issue.

Have you be any chance read Descartes' Meditations?

[The Magic Pudding]

The master has addressed this issue.

"I refuse to prove that I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But", says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear", says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

"Oh that was easy" says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

[McQ]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

No; the "God of the Bible" does not exist, therefore it is imposslible for it to reveal anything to anyone.

So how can you (and the rest of humanity), without God, know anything for absolute certainty?

This is where I can see you are confused. Answer these questions:

1. What is meant by knowing with absolute certainty?
2. Why is it necessary to "know with absolute certainty"? By your definition of absolute certainty, of course.
3. Why do we have to presuppose a god in order to have a discussion of what we can or cannot know? Shouldn't there be able to be a discussion of what it means to know, without that presupposition?

Also, your question is stated in such a way that in order to give it the seemingly straightforward answer you want, then an atheist would have to agree to your definitions of god, knowing, revelation, and certainty. We probably won't come to agreement on even those terms.

For the sake of your argument, if I agreed to your god, then in all fairness, we could have discussions of lots of things. Such as:

1. (from the age-old playground question) Can God create a rock so heavy that even he cannot lift it?
2. And the old problem of evil, as stated by Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing?       Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

Can't really even say I would be willing to waste any more time discussing it, quite frankly. But you go right ahead. You might get some good discussion out of it with some others. Just don't proselytize or preach, and you'll be ok.

[TheJackel]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

No,

Because I wouldn't consider anything a GOD. To me GOD's don't exist, even if some entity tried to claim itself as one. GOD is only relative to those that worship it as such. It's a title of opinion.

[McQ]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

No,

Because I wouldn't consider anything a GOD. To me GOD's don't exist, even if some entity tried to claim itself as one. GOD is only relative to those that worship it as such. It's a title of opinion.

This is very well put. Nice!

[DropLogic]

I think all the logic going on here scared our friend off.  He will be mis--- jk.

[Thumpalumpacus]

On the odds of a royal flush, if they were the same, wouldn't Vegas then pay out for a hand of 2, 7, 10, J, and Joker in mixed suits?   Actually the odds are almost the same as Man, being that the Joker isn't normally in play, or non-existent.

They are the same, and you can do the math yourself if you'd like.  The reason why Vegas doesn't pay out on any random hand is that they have no cognitive significance, such as matching suits or numerical continuity.  You see, royal flushes aren't special, except that we humans make them so.  The odds of any randomly predefined five-card hand are (1/52)*(1/51)*(1/50)*(1/49)*(1/48), in a joker-less deck.  (Can you tell I'm not a Vegas kinda guy?)

You are participating in a discussion (that you initiated) about comparing two probabilities that cannot be calculated or estimated. My contention is that this exercise is meaningless, and not only for that reason. The underlying question here seems to be, what would it take to convince an atheist that "the God of the Bible" exists? One person stated what would convince him. The thing is, I'd wager he was joking, and even if he was completely serious, that doesn't mean it would convince every atheist. Me, for example.

For what it's worth, I agree with everything here but the joking part.  I personally would regard such an event as being powerful evidence of Jehovah, and not, say jovial aliens.  But you're absolutely right, this in no way reflects on anyone else, and anyone reading this thread who thinks otherwise, I ask you to abstain from hitting other atheists over their heads with my words.

[Asmodean]

You have not explained to me how you know anything for certain. Please tell me anything you know for certain and how you know it to be certain.

Probability.

Certainty is the upper percentage and the lower percentage of likelihood.

For instance, 100% of people born 300 years ago are now dead, to the best of our knowledge. Therefor, we can claim certainty to our knowledge that we will not live to see our 300th birthday. The margin of error will be low enough to be negligeable. Modern day science is trying to push that margin upward, but the rate is reasonably slow.

Uncertainty is the middle of the scale with varying degrees to it. Uncertainty of winning a lottery, for instance, is greater than the uncertainty of catching cold in Norwegian autumn.

So yes, we can know things for certain based on statistics. However, even those things can occasionally be proven wrong or have exceptions.

[Gawen]

Is it possible for the God of the Bible to reveal things to us in such a way that we can know them for certain?

It is my personal experience and through observation of other people's experiences that there is no god of the bible or any other god to reveal anything to us.

Trot out that god from behind the curtain, give everyone on the planet the exact same experience and stigmata at the exact same time and you might have something going there. The only problem with that is how would everyone know that it wasn't Satan or some other god doing the 'miracle' as a joke, per say?

[The Magic Pudding]

Well I don't think you can be certain of anything, 99.9999999% certain isn't certain, not to me anyway.
Maybe Zhuangzi has gotten tired of butterflies and he's dreaming puddens now.

I think lack of certainty gnaws at some people, and they end up accepting pretend certainty provided by some preacher.
99.9999999% certainty there is no god is good enough for me.

If, for the sake of argument, the infinite God of the Bible exists, could He reveal things to the human race such that we could know them to be certain?

No he couldn't do that, it wouldn't be mysterious enough, god works in mysterious ways you know.

[Asmodean]

99.9999999% certain isn't certain, not to me anyway.

This does, of course, boil down to personal definition range, but that likelihood in daily life IS certainty - just not absolute certainty. You'd have to delve into the realm of physics or very specific statistics or engineering (like space flight trajectories and such) for 99.9999999% to be regarded as uncertain. In most people's life, it's good enough. If the steering on your car is that precise, it's a good car. If your clock is that good, it's probably a chronometer and an expensive one at that. If you have good sex 99.9999999% of the time, lucky you and the list goes on and on and on.

[The Magic Pudding]

Yes but sometimes nine nines aren't enough.
If we estimate the certainty of an individual female not giving birth to the messiah at 99.9999999%
We could be in trouble.

[Asmodean]

Yes but sometimes nine nines aren't enough.
If we estimate the certainty of an individual female not giving birth to the messiah at 99.9999999%
We could be in trouble.

Such cases are rare, but they do exist. All I'm saying is that to say that a certainty of ninety nine point seven nines is universally too low is not really wise in regard to our daily life operations since they depend on much lower probabilities and margins of error than that.

[The Magic Pudding]

I worry you take me too seriously, would it have helped if I said:

Yes but sometimes nine nines aren't enough.
If we estimate the certainty of an individual female not giving birth to the messiah at 99.9999999%
We could be in trouble.
We already have two messiahs in the cells, and if we get any more they might start talking.

Goodnight.

[Sophus]

In what way is this a challenge? If there were evidence for God there would be evidence for God.