With some of the recent discussion threads (here, here, here, and here), I think it’s time to establish what my criteria of evidence would be for the existence of a god or gods. This has been covered a while back by PZ Myers (twice actually) and Jerry Coyne. Their argument is interesting, but I can’t say I necessarily agree with either, at least not completely.
Let’s put it simply, there would have to be some empirical evidence. Both sufficient enough and specific enough to prove that there is a god. It couldn’t just be some natural phenomena or mystery that scientists haven’t been able to figure out yet. It would have to be obvious, clear, and after thorough study and testing it would have to be obviously “God.”
This wouldn’t be as easy as it seems. It would have to be a very clear signature of both intelligence and power. That power would have to be at least at the level of billions of supernova. One problem with this is that a display of that kind of power would likely kill us all.. so this would be difficult.
The argument from creationists doesn’t come close since they just ignore naturalistic explanations of, well, just about everything. Sorry, but mountains and stars are evidence of destruction and chaos, not an intelligent power. Intelligent design has tried to do this, but DNA is evidence of mutations and natural selection, not an intelligent power. The proponents of a god of the gaps, namely with abiogenesis and the origins of the universe have very weak arguments. While we don’t have definitive answers yet, we are getting close, but we certainty don’t have evidence of an intelligent power being behind them, since such a being could have done a much better job and would have left some evidence behind.
All we have left would be some signal or phenomena in the universe that clearly demonstrates intelligence and power. Of course then, it would be more likely that the source would be an intelligent and/or powerful alien species. The only reason we’d have to call something like that “God” would be if it’s sending a fleet of ships to destroy our planet and the only way avoid the annihilation of our planet was to call them God and start worshiping them.
Aside from that, paranormal phenomena have all been debunked when they come under scrutiny, miracles have simple natural explanations, and personal “encounters” with the Almighty are best described as self induced delusions.
All of that being said, the evidence would have to be well studied, peer-reviewed, and reach a the level of accepted science. Odds are pretty high that this will never happen.
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"Aside from that, paranormal phenomena have all been debunked when they come under scrutiny, miracles have simple natural explanations, and personal "encounters" with the Almighty are best described as self induced delusions."
And these are part of why I believe there can be no evidence for a god. All of these areas (paranormal phenomena, miracles, 'personal encounters') are all in the Bible, which I think contains the only type of evidence that would validate a god, albeit only the Christian god (and possibly the one in the Qu'ran). In fact, if you were to scrutinize every god for every other religion out there, you'd probably come to the same conclusion.
That said, if something huge happened in this world (mind you, it should be even bigger than that), it would have to be within the constraints of the paranormal phenomena and miracles (leaving out personal encounters because they are, well, personal) that are outlined in the various religious texts. This would be key for two reasons:
1. It is a phenomena that was 'predicted' or one that happened before, as scribed by the writers of that religious text.
2. It would give credence to the religion that 'said it first'.
Two more conditions, though…
1. It couldn't be just that one phenomena, though. To give that god hypothesis weight, other phenomena in the same book would have to occur.
2. None of what happens (see phenomena above) could ever have a natural explanation. But, as I have stated before, everything has a natural explanation, no matter how long or how difficult that investigation would be to discover that explanation.
FYI, if aliens were behind the 'hoax' and it comes down to losing my life or worshiping them, I'd rather lose my life. If aliens were to come to Earth as conquerers, we wouldn't want to worship them but to fight them with every ounce of humanity we have in us.
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While I tentatively hold to the assumption that everything has a natural explanation, until everything has been explained we can't know that for sure. There is always the chance, small as it may be, that there is something for which no natural explanation can be found. This is not to say that a supernatural explanation would be necessarily, but it's not beyond the realm of imagination to think of a situation where a supernatural source would best fit the explanation.
As far as the aliens go, I would agree that it would probably be better to fight them. However the scenario I had in mind they had sufficiently advanced technology that we would be unable to fight them and they were callous enough that they would destroy the planet if there was any resistance. In that kind a scenario, it would probably be better to fake loyalty, then launch an insurgency once they're too invested to just destroy the planet.