Why do you not believe in God?

[jerNYC]

How do you define creationism? I think you are conflating creationism with believing God created the world. Likewise everyone who is feminine is not a feminist.

Creationism means that something (the universe, the world, life, etc.) was created by the God of Genesis. I assumed this was standard Christian dogma, since I’ve never met a Christian who didn’t believe in the God of Creation. Do you not agree?

I never believed based on them, and I cannot think of anyone I know who believes in God based on them.

Maybe. I’ve heard numerous arguments for an intelligent God of Creation, so I assumed that people were making those arguments for some purpose. Maybe they aren’t the sole reason for why people believe, but they must at least think it strengthens their argument for God – otherwise, why bother?

How am I throwing God into the equation? I say that the way one best knows God exists is by personal experience apart from argument.

You’ve mentioned previously that God could have had a role in evolution, and I explained why I disagree. God doesn’t in any way inform our understanding of evolution. God is irrelevant and unnecessary in the argument. Now we’ve changed the subject to instead understanding God through “personal experience”, which is fine. Except, now I have to ask you: How do I understand God through your personal experience?

Does your standard presuppose the reliability of your sense perception? If so it cannot demonstrate it without being circular.

I think it can. I can certainly rationally explain the means with which I get to the “truth” of something through logic and reason. But this isn’t “my” standard. This is a universal standard to which both you and I subscribe, since we are here engaged in a rational discussion, following those universal rules of logic.

The logic you quoted below infers that the cause is God from the necessary characteristics of it.

No. Such an inference would be illogical. If you start off with the assumption that God, by definition, is already the premise (the thing you’re trying to prove), then you’re begging the question. (See the previous 30-something posts regarding this argument).

A spaceless timeless immaterial being of immense power which created the universe sounds like God to me. I have read and responded in depth to your first post, now it is your turn to deal with the logic I presented here. You seem to be positing a "science of the gaps." All I use is the basic logical principle that something cannot cause itself to exist and the scientific evidence for an absolute beginning to the universe, and there is a good argument for God.

For the sake of moving past this, I’ll accept your argument and call the mechanism that created the universe “God.” Now, why does this mechanism care whether I worship it? In other words, you now have the duty of imposing the other characteristics of the Biblical God onto this universe-creating mechanism. I don't see how that's logically possible.

I’m also not sure what you mean by “science of the gaps.” Can you be more specific?

However, even if the Kalaam cosmological argument fails, and all others for God do too, all that would follow would be that we have no argument to prove God exists… not that we cannot know God exists or that he does not exist.

Yes. As far as I know, there are no arguments to prove the existence of any gods. But how else, besides reasoning and rational arguments, can you know that God exists? This is why I think, at least for now, a belief in god requires a great deal of faith.