Proving God Should Be Easy

It is often said that science or atheism can't PROVE that god doesn't exist. What is less often said is that the reason this is the case is because of the weakness of the definition of god, not that there is any issue with proving or dis-proving god. Anything that has any basis in reality has properties which make it real (color, mass, location, size, etc) and these properties also can be used to verify or deny things about it.

The reason god cannot be proven to be false is that god doesn't have any definitive properties - god is anything you want him/her to be.

It could also be argued that it is not up to atheism to prove or disprove God. If theism says there is a god, it is up to them to prove it. If god is so important to believe in that it determines the state of our eternal existence after this life then why wouldn't that be something you would be able to prove?

Why is talking about god in definitive terms shunned by theists? Many religions have some sort of dogma saying that it is impossible to prove that god exists or that it is a sin to try.

From a non-believer point of view the answer is obvious - you can't prove something exists that doesn't exist. For many years I was a very adamant believer for a long time and yet for most of my time as a Mormon christian I didn't think it was important at all to prove god's existence.

What if god DID exist and theism wasn't afraid of giving evidence for god? What would that look like? Let's pretend that a lot of the stereo-typical properties that the judeo-christian-muslim god is often said to have was ACTUALLY REAL. What would a real god be like?

1 - Human male with long white beard

The stereo-typical appearance of god, in who's image we are created, would mean quite a lot. It would indicate that if we ever did come across this god that he would take up a similar amount of space as a person. That would limit the places he could be, but not by much. Human's are pretty small when compared to the rest of the universe. When it was thought that god lived in the sky that was a pretty big place, but not so big of a place where he is thought of to live now - in the rest of outer space (of course this change in god's living space was directly caused by scientific advancements in the understanding of our planet and it's place in the universe - not because god revealed anything about the Earth being a planet like other planets orbiting the sun).

Limiting god to this appearance seems to be too much for modern religions as most say that he can appear as anyone or anything, but if he DID have a specific face with features it would be a good start. What color are his eyes? What size is his nose? Does he wear a white robe or blue-jeans? In some stories in the bible god is not able to be looked at, but you would think that if god was truly all-powerful he could make some sort of god-power filter so that normal humans - or at least cameras - could see what he looked like.

In other words we could have a photo of him.

Wouldn't that be interesting to have a photo of God? I mean we all know what many of the worlds leaders throughout history looked like but we really have no idea of what god's features are. Christians at least have some idea of what ethnicity Jesus was (at least half of his ethnicity - we don't know what his father looks like at all).

There are many many excuses religions make for not knowing what god looks like. Back in the days before photography most of them could be accepted, after all most people didn't know what most people looked like. Wanted posters were either sketches or descriptions through most of history. But these days where a photo of god would be such a common thing it seems a bit more difficult to think that it would be a big deal.

One big excuse is that people would worship the "image" of god rather than actually worship the personality and principals of god. This is a silly argument as most theistic religions either have plenty of fetishized images of god or Jesus or they worship the holy books like the bible, torah, or quran as a god and use the borders of it's pages to limit what their "all powerful" god can do or say.

If god had a face we could have a photo of him/her. Would that "prove" that god existed? Not really, but IF god DID exist and if he had a face then that would be something that we could use to judge things in the future. If someone else was talking and they didn't look like god we would be able to say, "Hey! You aren't god. Go home, man!"

God having a body would also mean he would have a voice. What would that voice sound like? Would he have a deep voice or a high voice? Would he have an accent? Even if he spoke every language "perfectly" some group of people would say he had some sort of accent when speaking that language.

The idea that god can look anyway he wants and sound any way he wants (or perhaps speak in some magical language that everyone could immediately understand) that even as an atheist it is a bit odd to think of what god would look and sound like.

Of course if he had a body he would also have other qualities like smell, warmth, strength, etc. What would it smell like if he whispered in your ear? How warm is his hand? How tightly would he hug you?

He might even have finger prints, blood-type, genes, brain-patterns, etc. So many measurable qualities from one small property like having a body.

2 - God's House - Where is Heaven?

If heaven really exists, then it would make sense that it was a real place. Some religions put heaven on Earth in the future or in another dimension, but most have no real idea where it would be. (Mormon's say that God lives on a planet near a star called Kolob.) Even narrowing down where Heaven was to a star or portion of the galaxy would be a great start.

What sort of properties would heaven have? What would it look like if we saw it through the Hubble telescope?

There seems to be very few reasons given by religion for why we can't see heaven other than because we also can't see dead people and that is where we hope our dead loved ones live. The truth of the matter is that if religion is saying that all of the treasures promised us by following god are in heaven then it is a pretty big deal if it exists or not.

If we never get to see our families or get rewarded for devoting our lives to god then that would be a huge bummer. As a non-believer that is my best guess for why there is not much said about the location of heaven by religion. It's pretty easy to check on the existence of a place anywhere in the universe and science is getting better at finding far off places every day.

Another good reason for not describing heaven in too much detail is because, unlike god supposedly, religious people can't read your mind to tell you what you would most like to have in your own version of heaven. If heaven had concrete properties then maybe those properties wouldn't be much to your liking. What if you hated white marble buildings and cities of gold? Maybe  you like warm dark places with flowing lava better?

If heaven is a real place then it shouldn't be too difficult for theism to give some details about it. But the danger in giving details is that they are easy to prove or disprove. And so far all of the details about Heaven being in the sky or some sort of crystal sphere have proven to be false so theism pretty much sticks to a generalized "it's pretty awesome."

3 - Miracles that are Miraculous

If miracles are actually possible (miracles in the sense of some sort of violation of the scientific laws of the universe) then it should be pretty easy to prove this. The fact that miracles don't happen regularly is a problem.

But don't they happen? Don't people get miraculously healed and helped all the time? Don't prayers get answered every day? Here's the problem - there are very specific ways that prayers are answered and specific ways that they are never answered.

You often hear about prayers that where answered regarding someone getting over an illness but less about prays about someone who was dead coming back to life. People may have their prayers answered regarding their broken arm healing but nobody has their prayers for their lost limb to grow back answered.

Here are a few things that miracles SHOULD be able to do if god could do miracles:

• Regrow limbs - The stereotypical atheist objection to miracles is the lack of limbs growing back in response to prayers. If god heals people why are there restrictions to the healing if they are miracles?
• Regrow lost organs (eyes, lungs, kidneys, etc) - Similar to the above.
• Alchemy in any form - turning water to wine (Kool-Aid doesn't count), lead to gold, coal to diamonds. All of this should be just as easy for an all-powerful god as any other miracle
• Predicting the future. This is one that is so stereotypical it is almost unbelievable that it is still a trope. It should be relatively easy to make some sort of highly specific prediction about the future and then place it in location that can be monitored independently to make sure it is not disturbed and then accessed after the event and compare it to the predicted event. 
• Anti-gravity should be something pretty simple for a god who can control the laws of the universe and also pretty easy to verify by independent means.  
• Teleportation
• Mind reading - this is something that has been demonstrated to be possible by computers. Subjects can picture something in their minds and it can be (very hazily) pictured by a computer. This should be childs play for god. It's a trick that is often used by sham tv evangelists but should be pretty easy to verify scientifically if it existed. The fact that it hasn't means that it doesn't exist, not that there is some sort of problem with science actually figuring out how to disprove it.

Putting it all together

So to sum it all up, it should be really easy to PROVE god exists. Just have him show up somewhere in front of cameras and perform some miracles. Have scientists (and religious leaders) there to verify everything is on the up and up. There shouldn't be anything to fear by god. If he's legit he's legit.

I think the idea of god actually appearing in front of a TV camera and subjecting himself to blood tests and showing off his miracles actually terrifies most religious leaders. If god actually exists then at least somebody is going to be wrong about what he looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc.

The fact is that most people just want god to be their ideal god is. They don't want a god who actually exists because then maybe he wouldn't be who they pictured. Maybe he would be a jerk. Maybe he would say something dumb or say something embarrassing.

As an atheist I can honestly say that if god did show up some day and pose for the cameras and show us how powerful he is that I would love that. I would not be sad or angry that I was "proven wrong." Because I don't believe that god doesn't exist because I don't want him/her to be real. I don't believe in god because that is what everything in the real world points to.

The universe isn't some test by some all-powerful sadist who is trying to trick us (or allow us to be tricked) into seeing it some other way. The universe is a real thing that exists whether we are here or not. Whether we believe in it or not. If there is a god, he or she doesn't care if I believe in them or not. They don't need me to worship them or sing songs about them. If they actually care about goodness or mercy or happiness they would want me to show goodness or mercy and spread happiness.

Regardless of what you believe I think most people believe that goodness, mercy, love, and happiness do exist. Those are things that are not able to be touched but can be felt powerfully. I think those things are behind the idea of god, and it is those ideas that should be cherished and idolized.

Even if you can't prove or disprove god, go out and prove goodness and spread happiness. This is what makes life worth living, not dreams about promised treasures in another life. The universe is vast and life as we know it is only given to a few. If you are reading this then you are one of the privileged few who gets to experience it. Don't waste it on defending fiction.