Q: do you, Christian, claim that God exists, rather than you believe that he exists?

[truthBtold]

You don't appear to be following the discussion. Scientism is an illogical stance, whereas my beliefs are entirely rational.

Ah, so unlike most people, you think your beliefs are entirely rational. You are SO different from all the people who tell us their beliefs are entirely irrational!

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Bingo. You would "despair". This is as I suspected.


How did you recognize there was no God?



Bingo again. This is right in line with what I suspected.


Bingo again. This is similar to what both Huxley and Nagel say.

That is all what I suspected you would say.

He is as soft as baby shit..

[fr0d0]

You would believe it understanding the same evidence. The only difference is understanding.

If it has anything to do with the bible I'm quite sure I would not. I've never found a compelling reason to think that book had anything to do with God even when I was young enough to still believe.

You have to understand that I'm not looking to believe in God and have no desire to. I much prefer to allow what I believe to follow passively from what I think true. That is far from Scientism. Much of first person knowledge resists the third person requirement of repeatability and falsifiability, but that doesn't mean I reject all first person knowledge. Far from it. I simply don't count an apprehension of God among the artifacts of my first person knowledge. Who are you to rule on the validity of my first person knowledge?

I would share your difficulty with the bible. I would also share your instinct about God. That changed for me due to circumstance and opportunity. I was 25/6 then.

I wouldn't label you with scientism. I guess my own road to faith was passive. I had my own personally held ideas about the spiritual. There came a point at which the dissonance between my understanding and my belief position became untenable. I had to actively change that stance.

I'm not ruling on the validity of your knowledge at all. I'm saying that my knowledge is just as valid as yours. We're constantly berated on here that our knowledge is invalid. I wouldn't accuse you of that, but you must appreciate, and I think you do by this role reversal, that we must complain at the injustice of that accusation made towards us. We justify it and offer reason for scrutiny. Sadly the majority still deny us the right to state our position without deriding it.

[max-greece]

How did you recognize there was no God?

I was in morning assembly in school one morning and as we were singing "All things bright and beautiful" I recalled a page from my new encyclopaedia which resembled this:



I put down my hymn-book and stopped singing.

I thought to myself. What kind of God would invent something like this?

Then I realised - no God would come up with something so pointlessly horrific - therefore, there is no God.

From that moment on its all just fallen into place.

[Ryantology]

You would believe it understanding the same evidence. The only difference is understanding.

I understand psychology enough that I can't have enough faith in my ability to interpret my own mind's activity to trust anything that can't empirically manifest outside of it. If you do, I'm curious to see how you justify your superhuman abilities.

[fr0d0]

I do not assume to know what you believe on the basis of your first person experience, and neither do I judge it on the basis of third person (science based) criteria. But it seems as if it is you who wish to rule on what is real on the basis of first person experience. I don't object to your doing so for yourself but I reject your authority to do so for others.

I would never ever suppose to encroach on the subjective experience of others. It's my belief that everyone believes what they have to believe, given their knowledge. It would be impossible for two people to share identical knowledge, but knowledge is shared sufficiently that we can classify... as atheist and Christian, for example.

Within my belief I can identify very closely with shared understanding. As a theist perhaps as closely as you can other atheists. There is a vast source of religious and non religious information that I appreciate outside of Christianity. I'm constantly in awe of science and nature. I really don't understand why you think I want to impose any authority on others. Christians would question my lack of compassion for those with an inferior world view, as they see it. I don't. I will only defend myself. If that's unduly exerting pressure on others to impose my will onto them, then I am at a loss at what I'm supposed to do.

[truthBtold]

Serious question? If ur a Christian why come to this forum?

[Ryantology]

Quotas have to be met.

[fr0d0]

Serious question? If ur a Christian why come to this forum?

I like to challenge what I think
I grew up an atheist. It's home
"Atheist Forums" - it's a religious honeypot
Atheists are easy to get a rise out of
Christian forums are quite dull to me

[Rampant.A.I.]

So far we've done a lot of talking about evidence, and yet Disc seems a mite coy about actually presenting any.

Has anyone noticed this has become kind of a trend, lately? First Sword of Christ, now this guy, both asserting that there's plenty of evidence for that god, yet ignoring all requests to present it... and then pretending like their assertions that the evidence exists is the same as presenting it.

I see this post has been completely ignored in favor of getting an easy rise.

"The evidence is so overwhelming, I... I must quote scripture to show how overwhelmed I am by it!"

"What evidence? Care to present any?"

"I... There's just so much, I don't know where to begin! I know: I'll quote more scripture!"

[discipulus]

I thought to myself. What kind of God would invent something like this?

Then I realised - no God would come up with something so pointlessly horrific - therefore, there is no God.

From that moment on its all just fallen into place.

It is horrible and sad that human beings suffer from diseases like this. I can think of other even more horrific diseases than this. So I sympathize with you on this. Cancer comes to mind. My great-grandfather died of prostate cancer and it was very painful for him. I cannot imagine how he must have suffered.

If this is why you are an atheist then I respect this.

You state that: "No God would come up with something so pointlessly horrific, therefore no God exists."

Your argument against God is what is commonly referred to as "The Problem of Evil."

The reasoning is that the existence of evil and suffering in the world are incompatible with the existence of God. Since evil and suffering exist, it follows that God does not.

This is what I consider to be the most powerful positive argument a non-theist can use against the existence of God.

Are you familiar with this argument?