Dragons and God

Someone once compared believing in God to believing in "dragons"

In response to the comparison of God to dragons, I replied:

How many interactions have I had with dragons? None. How many books and witnesses and accounts have I found that describe generally consistent records of people actually claiming to interact with dragons? Probably None. Does the existence of dragons somehow explain events that are EXTREMELY INSANELY INCOMPREHENSIBLY improbable, without the existence of a dragon? No.

Is believing in dragons more beneficial or pragmatic than not believing in dragons? No.

Conversely, how many interactions have I had with God? A lot.

How many books and witnesses have I found that describe largely consistent records of people actually claiming to interact with God?  A lot.

Does the existence of God somehow explain events that are EXTREMELY INSANELY INCOMPREHENSIBLY improbable, without the existence of an intelligent designer? Yes.

Is believing in God more beneficial or pragmatic than not believing in God? Yes (at least for me in the way that I believe).

Is this making sense? Do you see how grouping God with dragons is extremely silly?

That being said, even dragons are likely based on the discovery of dinosaur bones. So, also many of the traditions that people have adopted about God—even when inaccurate are roughly based on something real.

If you spend any time studying theology, you will learn that there are thousands of “gods” when you start tallying up all of the old religions that have existed in different parts of the world. Some people might say “how can you say that your “God” is the right one and all of the others are wrong?

I would argue that a hinged, sliding, or revolving barrier at the entrance to a building, room, or vehicle, or in the framework of a cupboard is a "door". If someone calls it a puerta (Spanish word for “door”)-- it's still a door. It's still a door even if they call it a dingy-dong and cut a hole in the middle of it and glue plastic stars to it. It’s still a door if it's made of metal, or if it's big or circular or whatever else.

The same thing applies to the Creator. Look at the characteristics, not at the noises people make with their mouths. Look at the function, not the color or material or other details that differ from one culture to the next. God is the creator, redeemer, and judge. He has power and dominion over the heavens and the earth. In essentially every religion there is only one creator of the universe. Some religions believe in other types of heavenly beings, but this is just fluff—its like the stuff around the door, or the things painted on the door.

By accepting the idea of Vishnu, you accept the idea of Jehovah, Ahura Mazda, Yahweh, Osiris, Kukulkan, etc. They have different names, just as Different as “Ovi” (finnish word for door) and Puerta. It’s just a different name for the same thing—the creator of Heaven and Earth. Different cultures paint the door different colors, but it has the same function. It’s the same thing, with a different name or a different appearance.

 He replied and said:

I think you've misjudged me. I said it above and I'll say it again: I have not seen sufficient evidence to make a decision about the existence of God either way. It's not that I actively believe there is no God. That would be a hypothesis. I merely don't see the burden of proof met for the claim "An intelligent designer exists."

 I replied:

This idea of there being a “burden of proof” is a problem I think. I think it’s a problem because the word “prove” is a subjective concept that essentially means “I am convinced”. So, to say, “burden of proof” is like saying that it is someone’s burden/responsibility to convince someone else of something. That can be impossible even when copious evidence is presented by honest & sane people. There is no way to “prove” the evidence. It just is what it is. You could either trust it or not trust it. If you trust it, then its “proved” to you, but if you don’t, then it isn’t “proved” to you.

There are plenty of records from people all over the world, in every culture and time period who share their experiences with the Creator. There is no default status in regards to the existence of the creator. If I walk down the beach and I see a statue of an alien standing on the shore of an island where to our knowledge, no man has ever stepped foot—the default is not that the statue spontaneously formed over millions of years of rain, waves and wind erosion. Nor is the default that a person carved the statue there. There is no default. A “burden of proof” does not exist for me to locate the sculptor, and if I fail to do so, then automatically, we must conclude that the statue was the product of weather erosion. There is no default status of the statues origin. If you found a book that was written thousands of years ago that stated that the statues origin was an alien and people documented in this book of interacting with the alien. And then other records of people on different islands also documented interacting with an alien and there were striking similarities between these accounts… then you get to choose whether or not to reject the accounts or accept them.

You may not feel like accounts about the Creator that are thousands of years old from different continents, which mostly align with records that are hundreds of years old-- that also mostly align with records that came out in the last decade, all claiming the same thing are enough evidence to “convict” you to be the existence of God.

But if we were to talk about a "burden of proof"-- I personally don’t find enough evidence, that I think is "probable" to support the theory that the universe and everything in it spontaneously assembled itself into inconceivably complex structures without any intelligent design (whether it be the design of the universe or the design of complex life-forms). Nor do I find the "burden of proof" supported by evidence (that I believe) to convict everyone who has ever claimed an interaction with God to be insane or a fraud.