Why is belief in a higher power required?

[Ryantology]

The claim, “you are making the positive claim, it is up to you to prove it” is itself a positive claim, so first you must prove this claim before I will accept it as valid. Please follow your own rules.

Well, if you don't accept that premise, then you have to disprove the claim I made as it is true until you demonstrate that it isn't.

I am the creation of a rational God who desires for me to learn about Him through His revealed word and His creation, therefore I can trust my senses enough to learn about His world and His word. You have no justification for trusting your senses because you believe we live in a Universe that is nothing more than matter.

Special pleading.

So? That’s not fallacious. Pointing out that you have to use circular arguments in order to justify your belief that your senses are reliable is completely valid.

I'm sorry, have I missed where you have proven the existence of God and validated even one claim you've made?

So you’re not in your right mind because you believe your senses are reliable and yet you cannot prove they are without using circularity?

If I can't, then everything, including you and the concept of your God, may not exist as anything more than an element in my own personal delusion. If I cannot trust my senses, I can certainly never trust anything you suggest which proves the existence of God, because I must process those through my senses as well. So you still lose.

I have to assume my senses are reliable because existence itself, as I experience it, relies upon this assumption. Since there can never be 100% certainty that my senses are being honest, this is why it is only valid to trust sensual experiences which can certainly be experienced, without special conditions such as a/s/k, by other people.

I see no problems with what He has made.

Your God has many problems with what he has made. Your personal opinion is certainly not relevant next to his, if he's there.

But we do know what the originals said, so that question is based on a false premise.

How do you know what the originals said? How do you know they were truly original? How do you know they were accurate, especially when describing events the authors could never have witnessed, not even accounting for the fact that humans are very capable of embellishing, lying, or getting things wrong?

Why is that the correct definition of evil? Because you say so?

If it's good enough for God, why isn't it good enough for me?