(September 6, 2009 at 2:25 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: No I can fully understand your reasoning, and have said so many times. I just don't accept it. I know better in my own mind.
My point was that you say that I can't understand your reasoning because if I did then I would accept it. I'm saying that I could just as easily say the same to you. You say that you understand it 'fully' but don't accept it, but I'm then saying that if you really understood it fully then you would accept it! Just as you say to me.
Quote:You are different to me - you won't begin to let yourself understand (a self imposed restriction) with your proviso that you must have reason to accept the whole thing first.
This has been your own claim. As I have said time and time again, I'm totally willing to consider your views, that's the point of this debate. I just don't accept them as truth because I see no evidence, just as you don't accept mine.
The point has been me asking you why you believe belief without evidence is ever rational, why God is a special case, and why evidence not being possible for him - makes it any more rational to believe in him without it! Why believe at all?
Quote:As we've been over many times, there can be no corroboratable evidence of God. That is the nature of God as we (Christians) can know it, assuming God. It is an entirely rational exercise, unlike most other subjects that can be evidenced, and therefore do not require rational cognition.
So: The assumption can have no basis in corroborated evidence.
Once again, not relevant to my question. As I said, whether there can be evidence or not what I'm asking. I'm asking why you should ever believe without any. If you don't have corroborated evidence, then what evidence do you have? Whether there can be evidence or not is not what I'm asking, what I'm asking is why you believe it's rational to believe in God without evidence.
If you have evidence of any form, what is it?
Quote:God is not just unprovable according to me. It is according to Christianity... a 2000 year old belief that has always held this view. The idea is common across many other beliefs too. Not that that is of any significance, other than to counter your attempt to make me sound like I am unique in holding this POV.
I'm not questioning whether there can be evidence for God, I'm not questioning the provability/unprovability of God - I'm questioning why you think it's rational to believe in God without evidence, when in other cases you believe on evidence. Now you are saying you do have evidence, it's just not corroborated evidence, right? So I'd like to know of this evidence then. If it's not evidence that can be known of, in any way, shape or form, then what are you talking about here exactly, and how is it evidence? It has to just give credence to the God belief in some way otherwise it's not evidence...and if it's not evidence then why are you believing in God without evidence, when you don't with at least many other things? Why believe at all, without evidence?
Quote:Other gods (as in the definition of other gods) fail to rationally satisfy serious inquiry. Believers in those gods would disagree with me, much the same as you disagree given your standpoint. As I started, I can understand all these POV, even though I don't accept them.
One thing all these Gods share in common, is that their believers believe in them, and they believe that they have evidence, or - like you - they don't believe in their God with evidence (or they believe in some 'other' evidence that they have so far, failed to give), but then they at least seem to always fail to explain why it's rational to believe without any, when in at least many other matters they would expect evidence first before believing. They just treat God as an exception.
EvF
