Evidence for a god. Do you have any ?

[Angelina]

Other people do offer identical but competing assertions regarding what they consider to be God. Although if you were talking about Judaists or Muslims, that is all the same God (the God of Abraham). If it were say a Hindu or a Jainist or sikhist, I would not criticize their right to believe in what I would call simply a different version of the same God. I would encourage them to embrace the teachings of Jesus and I would share my own experiences with them.

I'm getting tripped up on the phrase "different version of the same God."

God is supposed to be real, right? If you had a friend named Ted, and coworker described a relationship with someone who sounded very similar, you wouldn't call this new person "a different version of the same Ted," would you? You wouldn't do that if it was some other individual (who is not Ted). And you wouldn't do it if your coworker knew the same Ted as you knew, but related to him differently. Hence "different version of the same God" sounds odd to me. Which is it? Is it the same God or not?

I'm not trying to be contentious. It just seems to me that believers have faith in a great deal more than God's existence: namely, a tradition (that was at times spread through violence and monied interests) and/or a set of texts (which accumulated largely due to historical happenstance). A creationist is not merely resolute in his belief that God created the world in six days. He is convinced that the authors of Genesis delivered an unblemished account of the proceedings. Faith in this is not just faith in God. It is faith in people... like those who wrote the Bible... and those who followed thereafter, believed it to be true, and impressed the idea of Biblical authority upon their children.

Religion spreads like languages spread-- through conquer, migration, etc. People are generally raised with a given religion. It is not the case that people generally encourage agnosticism in their children and then allow them to chose --or not choose-- religion whenever they wish (which is a good way, I think). But this isn't the way religion is given to people. It is culturally instilled.

So to return to the "different version of the same God" thing: you could say that Sikh or Jain religions are rooted in contact with the same God described in the Bible, but that would open a whole new can of worms, wouldn't it? It would be considered a heresy by most religious adherents across the globe. Not because it denies their God... but because it would undermine their faith in particular people (say, the authors of the Bible) whom they believe are the only ones to have accurate information about God.

There is only one God who is the creator of the universe and all life. If they feel that had an experience with God, I believe there is only one possible that they could be referring to, no matter what their religious beliefs may be. Also, I am not a biblical literalist. The Bible is a series of important metaphors and morals lessons.

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No;the existence of a thing is not evidence for the cause of that thing. The cause must be shown to exist and be capable of the effect to be taken seriously.  Simply claiming that it exists doesn't cut it.

So you're saying things just mysteriously created themselves then? Not possible. And don't try to claim science can explain how things can exist, because I know science cannot really do that to any great extent.

Do you think an incredibly complex, powerful, intelligent consciousness could have just materialized out of nothing on its own?  If so, how do you justify this belief?  Claiming "god" doesn't resolve any questions, it just pushes them back one level and sets up a different infinite regress.  

If you claim that the god always existed then you have to explain why that's possible but it isn't possible that the energy that makes up the universe could not have always existed.

God is eternal, with no beginning and no end. Energy did always exist, but it required God in order for it to exist for us in it's current forms.

Abiogenesis and evolution are fascinating processes and provide plausible frameworks for all of the diversity of life.  It is personally much more satisfying to have an actual explanation than to just give up and claim it was a magical being.

God is not magical, God is all knowing. Abiogenesis is an unproven hypothesis and evolution does not explain the beauty of flowers at all.

The only cop out is to throw in the towel and say "god did it" because you don't know something.  Saying it was god actually doesn't mean anything as "god" is reduced to a word that means "unknown" but lets people pretend they have an answer.

God is the only plausible option.

Exactly.  The thing is not evidence of the cause of the thing.  The existence of the universe is not evidence for the cause of the universe.  You have to provide evidence for the proposed cause itself.

No, the enormity, beauty and complexity is definitely evidence of a cause.

That is an equivocation of the word "living".  Being in motion doesn't make something alive and plenty of things exert force on other things without any part being alive.

I don't agree with you. Nothing exerts force without a cause. You just don't believe in God so you pretend all the forces just happen out of nothing I guess.