Is Atheism a Rational Stance?

[Technical Ben]

Ok. Thanks Griffin. I totally agree with and try to follow to my best, that advice. It's the reason I am so hard on science, to make sure it does not do those things, the things religion, does.

To clarify to DSenette what I classify as a first cause. It would be, "what the evidence points to as being the cause". I'm not saying that as some sort of tautology. I'm looking at evidence, seeing it requires a cause or points to a requirement or past event. Then, when finding that requirement or event, having no further requirements required or needed.

Like saying "I am looking for my first ancestor". When I have no further ancestors, I have the first one. I am not deciding ahead of time who (or what in the other case) the ancestor is. I accept whomever (or whatever) they turn out to be when I find the evidence on them.

In this case we have a cause. Perhaps my existence, or that of the universe. When I say "cause" I mean it in the most objective sense. A mechanism, an event we consider progressive. A logical step.

[Griffin]

Eh, there's not really much evidence for any sort of "first cause".

I've certainly never run into one, anyways. Everything always seems to have a causal trail that wanders off into obscurity. And since nothing else in life has a first cause, that I've seen any evidence for, I don't know why the universe would either. Its possible, sure, but all hypothetical at this point.

I mean I don't even think the idea "First Ancestor" has any real meaning. It seems like wherever you put the cutoff is going to be arbitrary, unless you've introduced some sort of situation constraint (like the First Anscestor to live in the US) or artificial breaking of the categorical chain (like artificially cloning someone in a lab, something we aren't even close to accomplishing yet, since we can merely induce natural cloning), you know?

Edited love to live

[Aaeriele]

(like the First Anscestor to love in the US)

Your parents never loved you.

[morriswalters]

Spoiler:

Religion, in general, and you (in particular), seem to be espousing it as a reasonable approach to interacting with the world, in many ways as a primary approach. And that is not, ever, rational.

Yup, at least for those who desire it. Of course there are undesirable side effects, but that is in the nature of humans and would exist in spite of Religion. I point out that a substantial majority of people describe themselves as Religious and the world totters right along. Experiments in societies to stamp out Religion have been less than successful. Demographics and studies tend to show Atheists as more moderate and less closed minded, and it also closely follows education and intelligence. Unfortunately they also have no unifying social structure so there is no value in identifying oneself as such. And as such the social power they have is diffuse. And it shows in peoples opinions about them.

the unifying structure is that we're humans. and we all try our damnedest to remember that.

there may be no value to YOU, or other christians (except that it throws up some "evangelize" or "hate the shit out of that guy" flags in their brains so they don't have to assume i'm drinking their koolade.) but saying there's no value to identifying yourself as an atheist is like saying there's no value to identifying yourself as a member of any other group.

I would certainly like to. However I have no openly Atheistic politicians in my corner, either local or national. No web of business relationships of like minded people. In point of fact outside of academia they are pretty much a non force. Which doesn't keep me from being an Atheist but reminds me in a very pointed fashion that I stand by myself and always have. Christians "magical thinking" does them no harm and garners them lots of benefits. If I were the type who worried too much about what pricks think I would have become a surface Christian, you know the type who goes to church to reap the significant rewards of being part of that culture but sleeps during the sermons and only pays lip service to the finer points. Pfui!!!!.

[Annihilist]

If an individual truly believes that something is imaginary then why discuss it? More importantly, why oppose it? I suppose it's because a group of individuals that do carry such a belief wield power that affects you in a negative way. However, since the only way to neutralize a belief is to sway a mind, aside from eradication, then I hardly feel that atheism is an appropriate choice. The reason being that by singling out a particular intangible you inevitably lend creedence to it, essentially giving it weight when it had none. If so-called "atheists" had any sort of merit then their focus would be solely on advocating the scientific method, logic, and ethics. It's clear that it's a matter of education more than anything else. Also, If someone was truly an intellectual and still held such beliefs, then that individual should be left to his beliefs, since he hardly poses a threat.

I refuse to argue with any religious person because there is no argument. There is no discussion to be had. And it's a waste of time to argue with them, and all it does is feed religion and make it more valid than it ever was. I think we should just ignore religion and let it die out, or reduce itself to a little niche group in society, rather than a mainstream majority. It will only take a couple of generations of disregarding religions, and it will no longer be relevant.

You can't argue with a religious person. If someone tries to argue for and defend their religion to me I will just ignore them. It is not worth my time. They won't be convinced, so I'll just let them wallow in their idiocy.

[curtis95112]

Numerous people writing Dawkins, PZ Myers and other outspoken atheists would disagree with you. It is very rare to convince someone they're wrong in one discussion. But it gets the possibility in their brain, and sometimes they do change their mind (Although the process can take years).
More importantly, you might change the mind of a spectator who was sitting on the fence.

Another point is that many people are unaware of atheists as anything more than baby-eating heathens. Ignoring religion doesn't work when nobody knows you're doing it.

[Technical Ben]

Thanks Griffin. I like how you mention there is not much evidence. That is a bit better than saying there is none. Not that I mean we should favour one piece of evidence over another, but that "black swans" exist. So we cannot discredit black swans. So is is wrong to reason (rational decision making?) on theories that include a black swan?

As to the evidence. This brings us to some older threads right? I remember there being confusion over the universe, and the evidence we currently have to help us describe it. I am not sure there was a conclusive agreement that "the universe is eternal/looped". This would agree with your stance, right? That the universe does not require a first cause, because the evidence suggests the universe(s) require no cause*.

So in that case, it would be rational to be atheist (no belief in a first cause)? It would be, as far as I can tell. What about those who see evidence for cause. This "first mover"? Would they be rational to include theism?
Remember, there are subsets of atheism, some right, some sadly wrong. What about subsets of theism?




*Just to clarify, I do not mean "reason" or "purpose". I just mean "mechanism" or "evidence of a previous state required".

[zmic]

My understanding was a "personal revelation" was something like an epiphany or turning point. Like having an anvil of knowledge fall on your head, "Oh I see now god must be real".

Some people claim they've had such experiences. If they're not lying, then it would be rational for those people to believe in god. We have no way of disproving an experience that happened in the past. So we cannot state that their belief is irrational. It may be rational or it may be irrational, we just don't know.

[qetzal]

What about those who see evidence for cause. This "first mover"? Would they be rational to include theism?

I think evidence for a 'first mover' only gets you rationally to deism. Theism, as I understand it, requires a god that remains involved in the universe (and that takes a personal interest in humans, too.)

Some people claim they've had such experiences. If they're not lying, then it would be rational for those people to believe in god.

Not necessarily. You could have such an experience, yet also realize that such experiences can be misleading, and can even be artificially induced. In that case, you could acknowledge your experience, yet still rationally conclude that it's not adequate evidence for god.

[zmic]

Some people claim they've had such experiences. If they're not lying, then it would be rational for those people to believe in god.

Not necessarily. You could have such an experience, yet also realize that such experiences can be misleading, and can even be artificially induced.

That an experience can be artificially induced tells us nothing. A sensation of smelling apple pie can also be induced by inserting an electrode somewhere in your brain and sending some current through it. That does not lead to the conclusion that apple pie does not exist.

In that case, you could acknowledge your experience, yet still rationally conclude that it's not adequate evidence for god.

You could, but it is equally rational to trust your experience and to conclude that god exists. After all, experiences is all we have.

[setzer777]

If I have a voice in my head that only I can hear, that tells me only things my mind either knows or could easily make up*, and I am aware that auditory hallucinations are a documented phenomenon, it would be more rational for me to believe that I'm hallucinating than that an invisible entity is communicating with me.

*I remember reading about cases where people are fooled into thinking the voices are real because the voices will tell them things (say, "someone is coming down the hall") that their senses detected but their consciousness is not aware of. For real proof I'd need the voice to tell me something I couldn't possibly know through my senses where I can also be pretty sure my confirmation of the information isn't itself a hallucination (so something that lots of other people can corroborate).

Edit: I'd also need to record what I was told to make sure my memory regarding the prediction doesn't become distorted after the fact to match whatever the actual answer is.

[qetzal]

@zmic

Yeah, except we have lots of independent evidence for the existence of apple pies. That makes it a lot more rational to conclude that the smell of pie probably means there's a real pie nearby.

In contrast, the empirical evidence for god is extremely sketchy, and almost all of it is more readily explained by mundane explanations. That includes personal religious experiences. We know that our senses are fallible, and we know that people claim to have transcendant experiences for all kinds of reasons, including god of course,* but also including non-theistic claims, drugs, disease, mental illness, and direct brain stimulation. In light of that, personal revelation alone is very weak evidence for god. IMO, anyway, it's not adequate to rationally conclude god.

*edit: including claims of god, that is

[zmic]

@zmic

Yeah, except we have lots of independent evidence for the existence of apple pies. That makes it a lot more rational to conclude that the smell of pie probably means there's a real pie nearby.

In contrast, the empirical evidence for god is extremely sketchy, and almost all of it is more readily explained by mundane explanations. That includes personal religious experiences. We know that our senses are fallible, and we know that people claim to have transcendant experiences for all kinds of reasons, including god of course, but also including non-theistic claims, drugs, disease, mental illness, and direct brain stimulation.

If brain circuitry is in place to receive a religious experience, you gotta wonder why that circuitry is present in the first place.

In light of that, personal revelation alone is very weak evidence for god. IMO, anyway, it's not adequate to rationally conclude god.

You cannot conclude that because you cannot know how convincing the experience really was, unless you had it yourself.

[induction]

That an experience can be artificially induced tells us nothing. A sensation of smelling apple pie can also be induced by inserting an electrode somewhere in your brain and sending some current through it. That does not lead to the conclusion that apple pie does not exist.

That an experience can be artificially induced does tell us something. It tells us that not all sensory experiences correlate with the presence of the thing being experienced. The claim is not that this fact leads to the conclusion that apple pie doesn't exist, but that this fact leads to the conclusion that the existence of apple pie is not required for this experience to occur, so further evidence is needed. Fortunately there is plenty of evidence available to lots of people that apple pie does exist, and we don't have to rely on one subjective experience that no one else can verify.

Indeed, the only reason we know what you mean by 'apple pie' is that we have learned to correlate this word with a physical object (or class of objects). The 'experience' of God is different. This thing is supposedly exposing itself to you (and only you) in a way that leads you to believe you know what it is, not just how you feel about it. I think even the Bible warns against this sort of thing because it could just as easily be an imposter (I don't have the chapter and verse memorized, sorry).

*I remember reading about cases where people are fooled into thinking the voices are real because the voices will tell them things (say, "someone is coming down the hall") that their senses detected but their consciousness is not aware of. For real proof I'd need the voice to tell me something I couldn't possibly know through my senses where I can also be pretty sure my confirmation of the information isn't itself a hallucination (so something that lots of other people can corroborate).

Even this would only be proof of something strange, possibly supernatural. It doesn't provide any evidence that such a thing has any resemblance to any particular version of God.

You cannot conclude that because you cannot know how convincing the experience really was, unless you had it yourself.

I could know how convincing it was if I was told why such a feeling was convincing of the existence of a very specific entity external to myself. What is the logical step between 'I felt something' and 'the Christian God exists'?

[TheGrammarBolshevik]

If brain circuitry is in place to receive a religious experience, you gotta wonder why that circuitry is present in the first place.

Of course you do. However, it strikes me as exceedingly likely that the reasons are relatively mundane, given that our brains also do all kinds of other crazy shit that have mundane explanations. For example, dreams: weird as fuck, and it makes sense to wonder why we have them. But it looks like the answer is something like "Byproduct of memory consolidation" rather than something like "A magical creator being wanted us to be able to see the inner world."

[setzer777]

*I remember reading about cases where people are fooled into thinking the voices are real because the voices will tell them things (say, "someone is coming down the hall") that their senses detected but their consciousness is not aware of. For real proof I'd need the voice to tell me something I couldn't possibly know through my senses where I can also be pretty sure my confirmation of the information isn't itself a hallucination (so something that lots of other people can corroborate).

Even this would only be proof of something strange, possibly supernatural. It doesn't provide any evidence that such a thing has any resemblance to any particular version of God.

I agree. I would take it as evidence that either the voice originates from some sort of external entity with senses of its own, or that I have some sort of mysterious method of detecting things at a distance (the former seems more plausible, since invisibility and something akin to telepathy are at least theoretically possible). I certainly don't consider that proof of a god.

[Shivahn]

If brain circuitry is in place to receive a religious experience, you gotta wonder why that circuitry is present in the first place.

Of course you do. However, it strikes me as exceedingly likely that the reasons are relatively mundane, given that our brains also do all kinds of other crazy shit that have mundane explanations. For example, dreams: weird as fuck, and it makes sense to wonder why we have them. But it looks like the answer is something like "Byproduct of memory consolidation" rather than something like "A magical creator being wanted us to be able to see the inner world."

Also, keep in mind that you can have these experiences without being religious - it's pretty common with people who become good at meditation. People used to think that people with epilepsy were divine, and could've asked the same question - why do these people have this circuitry that lets them be conduits for gods?

The question only becomes silly if you have the background knowledge that that's just how people tended to interpret the fits. Without that knowledge, the questions are actually pretty similar - we shouldn't treat the events as specifically being there for this one thing when there's obviously other stuff that goes on too.

[Technical Ben]

Interestingly, we had mundane reasons already. Right? The moon got there by some mundane method. A god just put it there. Hmmm. That does not seem to support rational thinking does it? Now we have an even more mundane explanation, it got there via gravity and natural processes. (Sorry for the little jokes, on a serious note, mundane is not objective here is it?) We need to go back a step and look for rational or objective reasons do we not?

If we stop looking for evidence "another explanation" or "it happened some other way" thinking is of no help. We become a philosopher trapped in their own loop without a piece of evidence to root us back down. We need to look at the evidence in question. It's not "are apple pies real" but "is this apple pie real". We effectively have to check every time. Imagine any science experiment where we stop checking, and take things for granted. What starts to happen over long trends?

The "magical thinking" comes from thinking "all food is apple pie" not "this particular food is apple pie", right? Your example, TheGrammarBolshevik, was that "dreams are from God" is a fact being told by religion? But what is being told by the evidence? As above, we are only asking "is this dream real/from a god". The evidence says no to the dreams we have. Like anything, we don't say "all phone calls come from Dave" we point to specific examples (not all swans are white/black ). So it's a faulty claim and a faulty counter-claim, so can agree not to consider it?

Can we point to a specific dream in this case? For dreams no. We need some other form of evidence. If a person cannot provide external evidence, then they cannot expect external verification! Why bring up the subject of dreams or emotional experiences though? When much better external evidence (any objective thing in the universe, right?) is available for the theories to be tested against.

[qetzal]

The only reason we ask "Is this apple pie real?" is that we have independent knowlege that apple pies do, in fact, exist. That puts it in an entirely different class than asking "Is this apparent experience of god real?"

[induction]

The "magical thinking" comes from thinking "all food is apple pie" not "this particular food is apple pie", right?

Not quite. To review: Magical thinking is expecting superstitious ritual to affect reality without any causal mechanism. Like closing your eyes and holding an image of an apple pie in your mind, and believing that this will cause someone to deliver you an apple pie.

[morriswalters]

All of this presupposes that people are interested in "proving" the question one way or the other. Absent facts the brain makes up a narrative that explains the facts. But a lot of this happens on an unconscious level. Any number of emotional things are decided in unconscious way, with no cognitive interference. Why you are attracted to a particular someone, standards of beauty, why you pick one brand of peanut butter over another. The idea of making a ration decision to accept or reject the idea of God can only happen after the fact and if the questioner has developed doubts.

[zmic]

That an experience can be artificially induced tells us nothing. A sensation of smelling apple pie can also be induced by inserting an electrode somewhere in your brain and sending some current through it. That does not lead to the conclusion that apple pie does not exist.

That an experience can be artificially induced does tell us something. It tells us that not all sensory experiences correlate with the presence of the thing being experienced. The claim is not that this fact leads to the conclusion that apple pie doesn't exist, but that this fact leads to the conclusion that the existence of apple pie is not required for this experience to occur, so further evidence is needed. Fortunately there is plenty of evidence available to lots of people that apple pie does exist, and we don't have to rely on one subjective experience that no one else can verify.

Indeed, the only reason we know what you mean by 'apple pie' is that we have learned to correlate this word with a physical object (or class of objects). The 'experience' of God is different.

Not that much different. Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X. The main difference with the apple pie being that the experience of God --real or hallucinated-- is a much more rare event.

[Aaeriele]

Not that much different. Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X. The main difference with the apple pie being that the experience of God is a much more rare event.

But neither is sufficient evidence for apple pie nor God existing.


Illogical:
"I had the sensation of smelling apple pie, thus apple pie exists"

Logical:
"I had the sensation of smelling apple pie, so apple pie might exist"

Rational:
"I can make directly make testable assertions about apple pie and then test and find them true, so it seems fairly certain that apple pie exists"


Illogical:
"I had the sensation of experiencing God, thus God exists"

Logical:
"I had the sensation of experiencing God, thus God might exist"

Rational:
"I can't make directly make testable assertions about God and then test and find them true, so I can't really be certain if God exists"

[zmic]

Not that much different. Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X. The main difference with the apple pie being that the experience of God is a much more rare event.

But neither is sufficient evidence for apple pie nor God existing.


Illogical:
"I had the sensation of smelling apple pie, thus apple pie exists"

Logical:
"I had the sensation of smelling apple pie, so apple pie might exist"

Rational:
"I can make directly make testable assertions about apple pie and then test and find them true, so it seems fairly certain that apple pie exists"


Illogical:
"I had the sensation of experiencing God, thus God exists"

Logical:
"I had the sensation of experiencing God, thus God might exist"

Rational:
"I can't make directly make testable assertions about God and then test and find them true, so I can't really be certain if God exists"

"... so I'll just ignore the most amazing experience I've ever had, and get on with my life as if it never happened. In fact, I'll think I'll have a piece of apple pie."

[Choscura]

This is an issue I have recently thought a lot about, so here is the conclusion I have come to.

For reference, just in case anybody needs clarification- "agnosticism" means "I don't know" or "maybe, maybe not", "gnosticism" refers to "knowledge". An atheist can be an agnostic atheist (I don't know if god exists, and I don't think so, but I guess it might be possible) or a gnostic atheist (no, god doesn't exist, that's utterly ridiculous, you are wrong, period).

The terms above are applied as blanket terms; the conclusion I have come to is that this is an error. Knowledge must be in reference to something or about something; therefore, you can only be a gnostic atheist in regards to a specific God or pantheon. I might be a good example here, I'm a gnostic atheist specifically in regards to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Wicca. I know these faiths are wrong in every spiritual or supernatural claim they make, no matter how accurately they may record details about human nature, historical events, or natural phenomena. On the other hand, in regards to, say, Shinto, I would be considered an agnostic atheist; I haven't bothered to learn the rituals and creeds of Shintoists.

As far as atheism being a rational stance, in regards to the faiths I have studied, it is the only rational stance. As far as the faiths I have not studied, it is still the only rational stance to begin from; if you already hold beliefs that you cannot prove or disprove, they will inevitably shape your opinions of the next set of beliefs you examine. Maybe we really were made from mud by turtles- I don't know, but if I examine the evidence from the position of assuming something is wrong, I may miss some critical evidence (eg, the ancestors of modern turtles were space aliens with matter-reshaping technologies that used 'base' component materials- such as mud - in order to fashion our ancestors to be used as concubines and sources of meat) (anybody who has not seen that video of the turtle with the shoe will inevitably be wondering if turtles eat meat).

[TheGrammarBolshevik]

Not that much different. Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X.

OK. Then the word "God" names two different things: God, as it's commonly understood, and mystical experiences. People's experiences, labeled "God," are not thereby evidence for God, as it's commonly understood. No more so than if I were to nickname a couple of books on my shelf "my enormous biceps" and try to convince people that I'm a bodybuilder.

[zmic]

Not that much different. Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X.

OK. Then the word "God" names two different things: God, as it's commonly understood, and mystical experiences. People's experiences, labeled "God," are not thereby evidence for God, as it's commonly understood.

I never said anything about evidence. I'm only saying that for a person with such an experience it is a rational decision to believe in God because of this experience. It's not about convincing others.

[TheGrammarBolshevik]

It's not a reason to believe in God, though. It's a reason to believe in mystical experiences, which these hypothetical people have decided to name "God."

I believe that mystical experiences happen. I believe in what you're calling "God." But I certainly don't believe in God, the traditionally-conceived deity.

[zmic]

It's not a reason to believe in God, though. It's a reason to believe in mystical experiences, which these hypothetical people have decided to name "God."

I believe that mystical experiences happen. I believe in what you're calling "God." But I certainly don't believe in God, the traditionally-conceived deity.

You have to read more carefully. I said:

Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X

It's this X they called God, not the experience.

[Aaeriele]

It's this X they called God, not the experience.

How do they even know that each of their X's is referring to the same thing? Unlike apple pie, it can't be recreated for people to both try the same thing and go "yep, that's it".

[TheGrammarBolshevik]

OK. So that still leaves the problem of showing that the thing that they're experiencing is God. Rather than heat stroke, or whatever.

[PeteP]

Not that much different. Some people had certain mystical experiences of something X and decided to give the name "God" to this X.

OK. Then the word "God" names two different things: God, as it's commonly understood, and mystical experiences. People's experiences, labeled "God," are not thereby evidence for God, as it's commonly understood.

I never said anything about evidence. I'm only saying that for a person with such an experience it is a rational decision to believe in God because of this experience. It's not about convincing others.

Rational... If the experience isn't god appearing before the person, and performing a set of impressive miracles like turning all the seawater on the world into wine, or something like that, then I tend to disagree.
Say you just had a mystical experience, now it's time to interpret it. You suggest it's sufficient to making believe in god rational. Let's get back to the apple pie smell. We know how apple pies smell because we have smelled them before, that's why we can use the smell as indicator for the possible proximity of apple pies. But what would you do if there is some unknown smell? If you then give the smell source a random name to be able to talk about it, fine why not. But say you remember some tasty meal, you have always wanted to eat and name the smell source after it. And you don't just name it after it, you assume the source has the same properties. You take this mysterious smell as evidence, that your dream meal is near you. Would you call that rational?

[yurell]

That an experience can be artificially induced tells us nothing. A sensation of smelling apple pie can also be induced by inserting an electrode somewhere in your brain and sending some current through it. That does not lead to the conclusion that apple pie does not exist.

No, but if no one claims to have baked the apple pie, your local grocer said he ran out of apples a week ago, your ovens actually been broken for that time, no one else saw the pie, your stomach gets pumped and there's no sign of pie then it's beginning to look like a problem. It's why scientists deal with falsifiable evidence that can be corroborated under laboratory conditions, to make sure that it's not just a freak circumstance, an error or in someone's head.

And the difference between apple pie and God is that one is a small claim, the other a large one. I am inclined to believe that you did in fact eat an apple pie because I've observed it to be a relatively common phenomenon, whereas telling me that there's an anthropomorphic creator of the Universe as described in revelation to a series of poor Middle Eastern religious fanatics and later edited by may groups of people for political reasons ... that's going to take the stomach pump.

[morriswalters]

What would be acceptable evidence?

[yurell]

Well, since he's omnipotent, winning the lottery ten times consecutively would be more than enough — sufficiently improbable that I'd be wiling to accept it wasn't by chance alone. If you're going to offer less evidence than that it may be acceptable, although it's difficult to show both omnipotence and your ability to communicate with this thing.

[morriswalters]

Statistically possible without the intervention of a deity.

[Aaeriele]

What would be acceptable evidence?

Given that I'm strongly agnostic, I don't believe such evidence could exist.

[morriswalters]

I would accept evidence to the contrary position.

[LaserGuy]

What would be acceptable evidence?

Hmm... How about this: Every single prayer that is made by a Christian is granted. Always. Just like it says in the Bible. And this effect didn't work for anybody else, but as soon as you became a Christian it would work for you, too. And none of this "I prayed for my wife's health and after her surgery she got better", nonsense. I want to see some Christians casting mountains into the sea, or handing out divine smitings, or raising the dead.

While it wouldn't be conclusive evidence, if a species of aliens visited us, and were Muslims who read the Koran (in Arabic, of course) and worshiped Allah, that would be pretty damn impressive evidence for Islam being the way to go.

God appearing bodily to every single person on Earth, speaking to them in their own language and calling them by name wouldn't be a bad start. Especially if he hung around for a few years afterward.

While it's a little late for it now, if any of the religious texts contained specific, correct, scientific information that could not have possibly been available at the time, that would be pretty impressive evidence. Say, if the Bible had included a scale diagram of the Milky Way galaxy, or had described how a cell worked, or mentioned E=mc^2. Or, hell, said that diseases were caused by microscopic organisms that could be killed by proper sanitation.

Strictly speaking, none of these pieces of data are, in fact, sufficient to establish that there is a God as described by most religious. None of these would rule the possibility, for example, that the event is caused by an extremely advanced alien civilization that just wants to mess with us.

[ahammel]

While it wouldn't be conclusive evidence, if a species of aliens visited us, and were Muslims who read the Koran (in Arabic, of course) and worshiped Allah, that would be pretty damn impressive evidence for Islam being the way to go.

Really, that isn't conclusive to you? I'd convert.