by David Bowie

Created on: March 29, 2008

Throughout the ages man has attempted to prove that God exists, but how can you reliably prove that something you can not see exists? How can man prove the existence of something beyond himself? It does not lie in man's ability nor is it his duty to prove the existence of God. It remains solely with God to prove his own existence. So, has God proven that he exists?

Some would say that he has proven he exists because of "miracles" that have been performed. Such miracles could be a statue that cries blood, signs in the sky, healing of people, etc. But can these means reliably prove God's existence? Not really. "Miracles" have often been proven to be elaborate hoaxes, coincidences, mass delusions, and the product of inaccurate memory.

The above "miracles" often rely on eyewitness accountings, yet memory has been proven to be errant. There are several different causes for memory not being reliable: Memory is blurred, it fills in the gaps, systematically distorts perceptions, is personal, is biased, and changes over time with retelling (Your Memory: A User's Guide). Based on the fact that memory can not be trusted, any sort of evidence for God that relies on memory can not be trusted.

What about when you have collaborating testimonies from multiple people? Often these things can be explained as mass hysteria, which needs six things to come about:
1. "'Regional conditions must be conducive' to the mass hysteria's plausibility.
2. Channels of communication must be available for the reports to spread.
3. Social and economic stress, as well as a lack of faith in the authorities, predispose people to embrace unconventional interpretations.
4. [E]very culture has marginal traditions that offer alternative explanations.
5. A triggering episode often serves as the pebble that commences an avalanche of reports.
6. [O]utbreaks of unusual manifestations are aided by breakdowns in official control." (Dash, Mike. (2000). Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown.)
Even if mass hysteria is not a true phenomenon and just a term used to try to ignore a supernatural explanation, it still leads to too much doubt within the public, thereby rendering miracles and visions as an unreliable means for God to prove his own existence.

For God to prove his own existence, he must have a means to relay to everyone without a doubt that he does indeed exist. How can God possibly do this? We have just shown that visions, displays, and miracles can be explained away as fallible memories and mass

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