how can we know He exists? — Panzerfaust

Faith. Isn't that how it works? Belief that requires evidence is science. Belief that does not require evidence is religion. If you require evidence, you're doing science, not religion.

In other words: God does not need a "friends and family" data plan. You know God exists and your knowledge does not require evidence.

If you reliably demonstrate that God exists, this seems to put the whole concept of faith into jeopardy. Kant's maneuver allowed him to make room for faith by denying knowledge of God.

To the extent that someone thinks religion is about "being right", they're either a nincompoop or a fascist.

Wow, thanks a fantastic analogy and question. So clearly, it means that choosing the "right" faith isn't so simple or else anyone would be able to do so. A good God would not allow us to damn ourselves thru sincere beliefs that happened to be mistaken. Perhaps we could be responsible, and should be, for what we do that is informed by these beliefs. But we shouldn't be responsible for the beliefs themselves.

So there must be some unity of religions. But then wouldn't god tell us tell us this? He did,time and time again. Jesus told us salvation isn't just for the Jews. Mohammad told us that faith needs no intermediaries and God has no partners and Baha'u'llah told us we are all one people, one faith but just don't realize it. Maybe one day we'll listen!

I have been both a believing Christian and a non-believing 'cultural Christian'. I used to pray, and I tried very hard to hear some kind of response. Never did. Which, by the way, I never interpreted as evidence that God didn't exist, because Christians don't expect an unmistakable audible response. Indeed, I found/find believers' testimonies about God arranging very happy coincidences in response to prayer highly disingenuous.

My guess is that the psychology of people who pray to Allah, Jesus, YHWH, Buddha, Krishna, or Jupiter is pretty much the same. It feels good to get one's earnest prayers off one's chest, and so one feels at least that Then bad headaches go away, someone dies in peace, the sick get better, one doesn't get evicted onto the street, or one does get evicted and then immediately finds finds a total dump to move into, but one is at least saved from living under a sheet of plastic, one's lost cat returns, one catches several fish, and so on--whatever it was that was earnestly taken to the Lord in prayer.

Prayer is supposed to make one feel better. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ritual works that way. Sometimes ritual is about all people have got.

So, my belief is that all 10 people in the room are all on the phone to the same Absence, whatever his or her name is. All 10 lines hear the same static, and think it is the music of the spheres, containing the message from god.

God is our creation, and we have set God up just being our reach. God can't be too specifically described, addressed, or thought to be in communication with us. It would be like our dreams calling us.

Gabriel Marcel was a Christian existentialist thinker who taught that the nature of prayer was such that one could not pray for material things, but only to become a better person. The nature of God is such that that the religious person could be sure that God heard and would respond.

He believed that prayer and belief in God were not things open to verification.

His thoughts may be frustrating to someone trying to prove or disprove God, but that wasn't Marcel's focus. He only meant to explore the concepts of God and prayer from a 1st person perspective.

Marcel came to those conclusions about God and prayer through his study of consciousness (he was a phenomenologist) alone despite the fact that at the time he was not a follower of any religion, and he was raised in a non-religious home.

well it's interesting because all of the religions claim to get their own kind of 'feedback' from their god and some claim to have literally spoken to their god and so that is why it is difficult for non-believers to believe, there are just so many gods that haven't given us actual proof of their existence. in reality, in your scenario all of the phones would be silent because never has there been such proof that one of them exists.

@Panzerfaust
It sounds like you are concerned about the seemingly obscure evidence for God’s existence and questioning whether the higher power explained by religion even exists. Here is the proof of your argument:

1) If God exists, then only one religion explains God’s existence.
2) If this religion exists, it should be obviously different from the other religions.
3) No single religion is obviously different from the others.
4) No single religion is obviously different from the others, so this religion doesn’t exist (MT 2, 3).
5) This religion that explains God’s existence doesn’t exist, so God doesn’t exist (MT 1, 4).

In my response, I will assume your observation that no obvious differences exist between religions is true and propose other potential explanations for the lack of obvious differences you’ve observed:

1. God does exist and is explained by one religion, like you proposed.
2. God does exist, but cannot be explained by religion.
3. God does exist and is explained by multiple religions.
4. God does not exist and cannot be explained by religion.

According to the initial premise that assumes God’s existence is explainable by religion, options one and three are the only possibilities to be concerned with because God cannot be explained by religion in the other options. However, options one and three contradict the second premise that assumes a single religion would explain God’s existence and also be obviously different from other religions. The premises are not satisfied by any of the options, so you are left with two options: 1) deny God’s existence because one religion doesn’t appear to be obviously different from other religions or 2) accept that God does exist, but is not confined to a single religion. For a more full discussion, I think the premises of your argument should be altered.