When asked what he would say if he met God in an afterlife Bertrand Russell responded, ‘I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence.’ Some atheists will make the stronger claim that there is no evidence for God’s existence. By contrast, on this website we claim in various articles that there is evidence for God’s existence, and pretty good evidence into the bargain. Given such a disparity, it is worth asking what we mean by ‘evidence’?
Some people might think of evidence in terms of the five senses, but this is much too restrictive. Scientists, for example, don’t limit themselves to the five senses, but use various instruments to weigh objects, measure charge, detect particles, etc. Of course, the senses are important since, for example, we see the dial pointing to a certain value, but we don’t see the weight of the object or see the particle in question. Obviously though, we can’t use instruments in this way to detect God, so if this is how evidence is to be understood the evidence for God seems to be non-existent.
But this is still much too restrictive because it suggests that the only way we can know if something exists is to detect it directly using either our senses or suitable measuring devices
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