Strong Atheism starts from faith

[fr0d0]

I clearly said it exists as a CONCEPT only, and does not reside in the reality. I can believe that there are invisible 70 foot green dragons flying around in space somewhere it would have just as much reality as your definition of God. A concept, whether it is true or not can have effects that manifest in reality through subjective experiences. This does not, in any way make them real, since we have methods to judge what we perceive to be reality.

Whilst my claim cannot be proven I don't agree that he isn't present in this reality. Likewise you cannot prove that he doesn't. Of course the effects are real... Christians acting on their belief will have a discern-able impact. But why does god have to fit 'real'? Temporal entities don't exactly fit into the category, which highlights the fallacial nature of your premise.

I was illustrating the fact that religion held vast amounts of social and political power in the world for most of man's history. Don't for a second think that that's not their goal now. Every year we get lots of challenges to the separation of church and state, we as a country oppose gay marriage and abortion due to religious ideology, and have "In God We Trust'" on our money. It all stems from the need to control people's actions. Religion in itself is, at its core, another force to divide people and it does so quite efficiently.

You're repeating yourself. Let me reciprocate: Religion is abused for power... that isn't people acting in a Christ like manner; that's people being people and abusing power. Not only religion is marred by this; although religion is a prime target in that it's so easy to manipulate people using it. I'm not shying away from anything here... gross atrocities have been committed in it's name.

All evangelical Christians accept it without exception. The Church of New Jerusalem isn't accepted as Christian. Well done tho' that's a far better effort than we usually get with Mormonism and Jehovas Witnesses claimed to be mainstream Christian.

http://christianity.about.com/od/christi...ecreed.htm

"Some evangelical Christians, however, reject the Creed, specifically its recitation, not for its content, but simply because it is not found in the Bible."

http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php/Nicene_Creed

"However, other evangelical Christians who take an extreme view of sola scriptura reject the Creed (and especially the reciting of it), not necessarily because it contains objectionable content, but simply because it is not found in the Bible."

I never said JW and Mormonism was mainstream anything. They are denominations of Christianity, and the fact that they reject this creed creates a rift between the faiths.

Your sources are wrong.

Only in fairyland are Mormonism and JW denominations of Christianity. You seriously need to check your facts.

You haven't made any clear logical conclusions about anything we've discussed.

You say your God is real and in everything, then you say he's unverifiable, the bible is a metaphor, and the basis of Christianity is at best a nice story. I'm making the statement that if something is real, it exists in reality. Your god does not exist in reality, therefore he is NOT real. At best he is a concept in your mind. Can you understand that?

You're drawing illogical conclusions. God is everywhere and in everything in this universe.. that's standard theology. We cannot prove this transfer-ably and that is consistent with Gods' nature.The Bible isn't a metaphor - you keep repeating that and getting it denied... but it seems stuck in your head. God is transcendent ...his existence is irrelevant to this reality.

Read this and take it in this time:

Your insistence on empirical reasoning is in fact a logical fallacy. if you ask for scientific evidence for God according to the principles of the scientific method, you are commiting the fallacy of question-begging, for God is not within the scope of investigation of the scientific method, according to it's own principles.