Christians, what is your VERY BEST arguments for the existence of God?

[Watson]

Oh yes, and I'd like to see some evidence for this "free will" you speak of. If we are organisms, there is no explanation for "free will", merely the illusion of free will. Currently, the scientific evidence points away from its existence.

Please correct me if I am wrong, Adrian:

Your position is that free will is merely an illusion, i.e., we do not have free will.

It would then seem to follow from this:

1) that the only reason why you debate or discuss anything with anybody else is because you are compelled to based on your genetics, environment, etc.;

2) you have no reason to believe that anything you say could convince someone that you are "correct" in any position you take because the person you are talking to is compelled to think what they think also (unless of course you are compelled to believe such a thing);

3) there is no such thing as "correct", "right", "true", "correct application of logic" etc., it is only what a person is compelled to perceive/think; and

4) in reality, scientists are compelled to think free will doesn't exist regardless of what evidence they look at.

I guess that would mean there is no real point to any communication and it certainly diminishes (to zero)the weight of any argument put forth here on this forum.

I, for one, am glad we don't live like there is no free will. It would make a boring world (or maybe I am just compelled to think this).

My comments above were a bit "tongue in cheek" (I suspect I am missing some things regarding your point of view that would make my conclusions above not really apply). So my serious question, Adrian, is could you please elaborate on what you mean and how it works from your point of view?

I do not think that we have free will. When you look at very complex things very closely, it all boils down to the basics. Our brains are made up of atoms as is everything else. If you were to mix any strong acid and strong base together you'll get a salt and water because that is how the atoms react. Our brains are nothing more than very complex chemical reactions. In theory we should be able to predict what will happen, but because there are near an infinite amount of actions and reactions and other variables I do not think we'll ever be able to truly predict the future.

1) There could be an infinite amount of reasons for why he decides to debate, it is whatever stimulated his brain to do so.

The rest of the numbers are blatantly false.

I will not start on the nature of free will itself, unless it is within context and relation to my points further down the line. To do anything else would be a complete digression from the initial topic, which I find to be all too distracting, really.

haha I do not, in fact, have a problem with coincidence and I do not take offense or see ad himinem in what you said. However, I find my own definition of coincidence has brought me much more accurate and applicable results when going about my day to day life. This is because I believe in my own words as true, and put the utmost faith in them first and foremost.

You can define any word you want to have its own meaning to you, but that doesn't make your definition correct. The definition found in the dictionary is the definition accepted by the majority of people today. It doesn't matter how you define coincidence because I assume you go by the accepted definition, if you want to change the definition to fit your reasoning, then you are no longer using the word correctly.

H.) But why use the dictionary definition when, in past experiences, said definition has failed to shed light on the experience in question? My own definition is based upon real life observance of coincidence as it has occured before me. It would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You also point out that that definition is accepted by the majority of people as true, but remember, so is Christianity.

I.) And on top of that, I have outlined where the dictionary definition itself can be faulty and used against itself in contradiction. "happenstance (something which might have been arranged but is actually accidental.)" By it's nature, this definition rules out and simultaneously confirms that the perceived 'coincidence' could actually have been arranged. So in the case where something seems purely random or uncaused, the actual event was arranged and the most likely candidate since you surely cannot produce any other being in His place, is God.

I would also like to point out that I pretty much knew I would be accoted for using 'my own' definition of the word coincidence.

B.) You still have failed to point out the original 'action', however. You must take into consideration the event and it's pieces as a whole, look at the bigger picture, and tell me where there is a more likely cause than God that set the chain of events in motion.

To do so is impossible. I have absolutely no way of knowing what was stimulating his brain.

J.) So to rule out the possibility that his connection and friendship with God was what caused him to act is entirely closing one's mind to an array of possibilities. This is not an accusation, so please do not take it as such. It is simply an observance.

D.) There appears to be no natural stimuli for my friend's having made the choices he did in the sequence he did, as I have already showed you where the definition of 'coincidence' could be considered faulty or to my use, and there still appears to be no original 'action' which he could have acted and reacted upon.

I don't care if there doesn't appear to be a natural stimuli or not. Does there appear to be a force acting on my calculator on my desk? It doesn't appear so, but actually the force of gravity is pushing down and the force of my desk is pushing up, along with any other invisible force acting on my calculator such as wind or anything else.

Yet you cannot prove that such a thing as 'gravity' exists. I am not denying the natural force itself, merely pointing out that to presume if you throw the calculator up, it will come down, is an excercise of faith. Merely because, you cannot for certain know whether gravity will act on it without assumption or belief. To assume is arrogant, however, because it is without basis at all. That is why it is an assumption.

Only your definition is considered faulty. Anything straying from the accepted definition is no longer a correct representation of the word unless we have both agreed to what we want the word coincidence to represent.

H.)

I didn't see the very last part of your post until I double checked your post and I already wrote a response so I'm just going to post it. I have a ton of homework to do and I don't know if I'll be on again today so just post a reply to this instead of editing your original post.

No problem. If you have the time, some time soon, please address the further points I made, as some of them relate and answer things you pointed out as 'incorrect' in my post.

downbeatplumb- I refer you to F.) and G.) of my post after yours.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Book of Genesis is in the Old Testament, no? Regarding the Old Testament: that was God learning. God sees the world through the eyes of love, but at one time, He did not fully understand this Himself. So within the Old Testament is God laying down groundwork, and then, like a child playing with His new friend, He had to learn the proper and improper way of treating those He loved.

Within the New Testament is Jesus, whom is God's way of manifesting Himself in a way which humans are all capable of recognizing; a man who could perform extraordinary feats, and with extraordinary understanding of man and God and the relationship between the two. Jesus foresook the actions of God in the Old Testament, as a way of showing that God had changed.

EvidenceVsFaith-
1.) Because no scientific explanation can accurately explain what led my friend to the decisions he made that night.

2.) No, it is not correct to take coincidence as a more probable alternative because coincidence by definition is a flawed view of things. H.) & I.) demonstrate this, I believe.

3.) This is the problem one ultimately comes across in trying to discuss with someone who has an opposing view-point. From your perspective, evidence of God would be some verifiable claim, witnessed event with reprecussions obviously impossible without divine intervenion, or something otherwise impossible to explain through science.

But, this is flawed because it is viewing 'proof' as only on specifc kind of evidence. You are instantly writing off an array of different kinds of evidences which may be legitimate proof.

Here's a Sherlock Holmes quote for you-
"What seems strange to you is only so because you do no follow my train of thought--"
And how curious, I read this quote just today, and the one you referred to! Now, onto an explanation of said quote:
When one writes off the existence of God, they immediately close themselves off from His 'train of thought', so to speak. Since you do not follow His train of thought, what seems strange or coincidental to you is really a straight-forward, logical process. To present someone with the 'evidence', as defined from your view-point of God, God would in essence defeat the point of being believed in. So to take the proofs which God presents us with as more than coincidence, which already is faultily defined, we require faith as evidence, since faith denotes belief. So, just as a joke, your name could probably work better as "EvidenceAndFaith"!

theVoid- Refer to my answer for 3 above. You expect God to 'prove himself' in some extraordinary way, but that reasoning is flawed because then there is no reason to believe at all. God would be much more terrifying in that sense, AKA the Old Testament.

On the matter of good things happening to bad people: Sherlock Homes has already provided the answer in the instance above. God's motivations seem strange to you, because you don't follow His train of thought and are on your own, completely different train of thought. So when something good happens to a bad person, of course you don't understand it, because you don't understand God's logic for doing it.

I know I didn't respond to everyone's points, but that is mostly because the ones whom I did not answer seemed to me to be either digressing from the topic at hand, or would find my answers within my responses to other people.

-Watson