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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 8:43 am
(July 7, 2022 at 8:41 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: (July 7, 2022 at 8:31 am)Angrboda Wrote: I hold myself to the same standards as I hold others. Until I can definitively conclude that the Christian god does not exist based on deductive argument, I keep an open mind.
I don't think I really understood this, to my great shame, until I started to examine my own doubts more deeply. I actually explained the difference to my daughter this weekend in terms of burden of proof and it was like a lightbulb went off for her too.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 8:48 am
(July 7, 2022 at 8:43 am)Angrboda Wrote: (July 7, 2022 at 8:41 am)TheJefe817 Wrote: I don't think I really understood this, to my great shame, until I started to examine my own doubts more deeply. I actually explained the difference to my daughter this weekend in terms of burden of proof and it was like a lightbulb went off for her too.
I'm not sure I follow you.
Sorry, my fingers were not keeping up with my brain. I mean I did not understand that many (in my experience, most, myself now included) define their atheism as "lack of belief in god" rather than "there is no god", and was previously in my christian days holding atheists to the wrong standard and demanding their evidence of no god while providing no evidence for god myself. I was also assuming a closed mind based on that misunderstanding.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 9:16 am
(July 7, 2022 at 7:40 am)Gwaithmir Wrote: (July 6, 2022 at 10:04 am)Jehanne Wrote: As an atheist, I freely admit that God may exist.
I don't. The Christian God has too many contradictory attributes.
I would say that the Christian God is highly improbable, but, somewhat more probable than Thor, Wotan, etc. I would place a 0.3 to 0.5% likelihood on Christianity being true in its essentials.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 9:29 am
(July 6, 2022 at 9:47 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: (July 6, 2022 at 4:40 am)Huggy Bear Wrote: Stating that you KNOW God exists, without evidence, by your guys own definition, is faith.
Therefore stating that you KNOW God doesn't exist, without evidence, is faith by the same definition.
Y'all came out in defense of GUBU's statement, so don't try and back pedal off it now.
Take it up with someone who says they KNOW God (and I take it this means any conceivable capital G creator God) doesn't exist.
I know the god of the bible doesn't exist, I've read the bible. I am still agnostic atheist on generic gods, though because of the lack of evidence available, I have to pretty heavily lean into th no they don't exist category.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 11:22 am
I think the Abrhamic God is a married bachelor, but the worst I can say about the existence of the God of deism is I see no evidence of it. I think the start of getting me to think plural gods are possible is to first convince me that magic is real. Even a verifiable ghost that really was the spiritual remains of a person would be something. Or a demon or angel or kami or SOMETHING. After thousands of years all we've got are crickets and tumbleweeds for these things.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 11:25 am
I would place the probability of the existence of a purely deistic God at 2 to 3%, one who is completely indifferent to the origins and/or existence of Humanity.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 2:55 pm
(This post was last modified: July 7, 2022 at 2:55 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
I wouldn't want to press too hard on the actual numbers, but why would the christian god be more probable than any other god?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 3:00 pm
(July 7, 2022 at 2:55 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I wouldn't want to press too hard on the actual numbers, but why would the christian god be more probable than any other god?
Purely subjective analysis, but, religions that survive to the present, in my opinion, are slightly more probable of being true than those that go extinct.
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 4:14 pm
Do you think that other things, because the ideology they come from is lasting, are more likely to be true?
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: A Believer's Thoughts on Faith
July 7, 2022 at 6:01 pm
(July 7, 2022 at 4:14 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Do you think that other things, because the ideology they come from is lasting, are more likely to be true?
I suppose that if their god is real, then he/she/it will preserve their religion; we're talking about a few tenths of a percent, say 0.4 of an extinct religion versus 0.7 of an extant one. My paradigm is, of course, Bayesian versus frequentist, and so, probabilities can go up or down over time.
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