We think about this in different ways.
Most embrace one or another narrative/agenda pertaining to one or another God. They say that their own religion is the right one.
Furthermore the major religious denominations [on this planet] argue that God will judge our behaviors on this side of the grave. And that, if we pass muster, our reward is immortality, Salvation and Divine Justice.
Now, sure, we can define a “demonstration” of God’s existence here with either more or less specificity.
But the bottom line [mine] is that there are still many different renditions of God out there with any number of conflicting scripts relating to any number of different human behaviors; and they all more or less insist [like those missionaries above] that you either get it right…or else.
[b]How about you?
What “here and now” do you believe your own fate to be “beyond”? How is this related to your current belief in God? And what of those who reject your frame of mind – the stuff that you claim to believe or know to be true “in your head”? What is to be their own fate?
Is there any way at all that you can take this out of your head? A way that you can demonstrate that your own moral and political values are in sync with the one true God?[/b]
Indeed, I’ve lost count of how many times that I have tried to pin religionists down on this.
Scientists have been successfully accomplishing this now for centuries pertaining to the “laws of nature”.
And the ethicists?
The thing is … you don’t accept anything as a valid measure of ethical conduct.
On the contrary, I recognize that those on either side of any particular moral conflict of note can make reasonable arguments. Conflicting good, remember?
And then there is the argument of the sociopath. Or the argument of those nihilists who own and operate the global economy and predicate almost all transactions on a scripture that commences with “show me the money”.
But most folks “resolve” this dilemma by positing one or another God. It’s all settled. Behave as you should and you are rewarded, behave as you should not and you are punished.
I’m just trying to grasp the extent to which you think like this? Do you? And, if so, name a particular behavior out in a particular context out in this particular world.
Again, bringing it all down to earth. Existentially as it were.
If someone came along and rejected all measures of length (or time), then scientists would not be able to demonstrate the “laws of nature”. Demonstrations require some agreed and accepted standards.
Many scientists recognize that the laws of nature are still embedded in David Hume’s radical skepticism. Correlation [no matter how many times A begets B begets C] does not necessarily equate with cause and effect.
Sure, there are things about both time and space [space-time] that we may well be far, far, far from fully understanding.
The point though is this: is it either 1] one or the other re the immutable laws of nature or 2] is there a teleology behind it all? That which most call God.
And it is with God that [supposedly] the world of is/ought [on this side of the grave] is able to be reconfigured into a world of either/or on Judgement Day. You either get in or you don’t.
All I do here is poke the religionists in the side and say “let’s talk about it”.
Only “out in the world” of actual human interactions rather than up in the stratosphere of intellectual contraptions.
Or as all of this pertains to the psychological defense mechanism that some construe “blind faith” to be.