What Would it Take?

Dear Internet Diary,

Question:

What would it take for you to believe in God? There's so much evidence out there that you must ignore it because you don't want to believe.

This question is complex, and requires that I make a lot of assumptions about the mind of the person asking the question. The first part is, "What would it take to get you to believe in my god?" A lot of people ignore the fact that, since there is absolutely no coherent definition for a monotheistic god between religions and individuals, everyone has his or her own partial idea of what their god does. Hardly anyone who asks this question even has an inkling about what her god is. I'd have to challenge that inkling, of course.

But I will go ahead and assume that this person believes in a sort of Judeo-Christian God, because he or she didn't say "what would it take for you to believe in the gods?" That would have been a bit more interesting. I also assume this because if the person were thoughtful enough to be a pantheist, or even a Deist, he or she would have at least attempted to say something meaningful for me.

If this God created me and is omniscient, it knows exactly what it would take for me to believe in it. If it had intended for me to believe, I would believe. I don't know why this god would be so wishy-washy as to deal in the beliefs of people anyway. It would make more sense to deal in knowledge, but what does sense have to do with religion? I'd much rather know than believe. I hope that answers the latter portion of the question.

As far as the "look around you. Isn't it pretty? Therefore, God exists" argument, well, I am not convinced. When I look at the world, I see the results of natural processes. Using the Razor, it's easy to see that in a comparison between not breaking the laws of nature and ripping them to shreds, the former wins hands down. That includes things that seem magical, beautiful or awesome, and things that are evil, terrifying and tragic.

But thanks for listening, diary.