More Unreasonable Faith

by Bill Noorlander

As I’ve become a regular reader of Unreasonable Faith, and waded in to the comment threads, I keep asking believers the same question. It’s really a pretty straightforward question, and it goes to the core of my atheism.

Where’s the evidence for god?

Show me some quantifiable, measurable, testable evidence that god exists and I will gladly go back to being a believer. Show some solid evidence that your god exists and I will come to church, synagogue or mosque with you.

Curiously, the responses from believers have been lacking.

When I was a believer I didn’t think about this question much. I assumed that my parents who raised me in belief, and all the adults and authority figures who believed, knew things I didn’t. I thought they could be trusted to tell me the truth about something as fundamental as the existence of god.

But as I matured, learned, and asked questions, that nagging evidence problem always came back. When I finally turned to fully examine the evidence, my journey to atheism was relatively quick. I assume this process is fairly common, but that believers who have thought about evidence for god have found it to be sufficient.

Overwhelmingly, the most common response from believers is to ignore my question. Obviously that’s not very helpful.

The closest I’ve gotten to an actual response is something along the lines of “I just feel god/holy spirit/jesus in my heart.” But that is subjective evidence. It is not evidence of anything except the existence of the feeling itself. Can you imagine the state trying to prosecute a criminal based solely on evidence that the arresting officer “just felt in his heart” the defendant was a murderer? I didn’t think so.

So rather than trying to ask this in different comment threads, Daniel has been kind enough to lay it out here.

What say you believers?

Can you give us some evidence?

Bill Noorlander is a lawyer in Milwaukee, where he live with his wife and four kids. He blogs at Bill Post.