Manny people say they believe in a god. But What is the best proof of God’s existence?
Gods come and go as ideas in the minds of those wishing to explain the source of creation or ruler of the sea, the sun, love, war, thunder, etc. So, the God of the bible exists within the bible, and then also in the minds of those who read it and decide for themselves if God is fiction or not. For those who believe in a literal God, he does exist for them, in their minds, and will cease to exist as a real entity if/when they stop believing.
Just like the placebo effect or psychosomatic illnesses feel real to the sufferer of illness, it may be all in the mind, but is a real idea. God as an idea is real. I see no proof for a literal physical God, whether it be Zeus, Odin, Thor, Neptune or Maui. Stories written about a God makes them real for the purpose intended for the story.
Which God ?
If you mean the Christian God, Then the best proof usually offered, is the authority of the bible and the institutions based on it. But the bible is a book written over perhaps six centuries or more, by forty or more different authors, with several different agendas who do not always agree, We know that most of the names given to the supposed authors are fake, we do not have any original manuscripts, we know that it was reedited and mistranslated many times, we do not know who the editors/translators were for the most part, and we do know that a lot of content was edited out, we do not know who first marketed a lot of the books, we do not have any exact dates or locations for most of the writings and editings, and we do know that it gets both the history and physical geography of the lands in which it is set wrong several times.
In short. It would be hard to deliberately, make/design a book, which was worse evidence for anything, or more doubtful. And that is claimed as the 'best' evidence.
There is certainly no proof. The EVIDENCE for god consists entirely of assorted arguments, most of which are fallacious. Examples would be: 1) The appearance of order. 2) Physical fine tuning of physical constants. 3) Individual revelation. 4) The appearance of consciousness. 5) The existence of life.
Certainly none of these are based on the god of the Bible, but represent a diminishing god of the gaps after science develops these issues. Evolutionary science neatly disposes of the Christian god as a corollary to human anthropology.
Most people say they believe in a god because they have been brainwashed to do so. That means they have been intimidated to be loyal to the idea of god under threat of eternal damnation and a thousand other lies. Once indoctrinated, their loyalty comes from a version of the Stockholm Syndrome.
Which god are you talking about?
Also, there is no such thing as proof in science.
One just works towards a greater likelihood of being correct.
@Mcflewster I would not even go that far. I limit myself to saying science produces increasingly useful models of the natural world. I cite Newtonian mechanics and Einstein's Theory of General Relativity in that context.
@anglophone I think we are both saying the same thing.