(February 23, 2010 at 1:53 am)tavarish Wrote:(February 22, 2010 at 9:59 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: What would constitute 'exist'? Something tangible we don't yet have evidence 'for'? God just 'is'. To believe in him you believe that he just is. To believe, you need to accept that this isn't something you will ever limit to validatable evidence.
Is = be = exist.
Either you believe that he exists or you don't. You're contradicting yourself on almost every post now.
No, you are refusing to address the subject. That's what it looks like when you refuse to consider something.
(February 23, 2010 at 1:53 am)tavarish Wrote:(February 22, 2010 at 9:59 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: As part of my faith, I believe that Jesus existed as a man, who was also completely God. 'Is' as well as existent in time. (putting aside the trinity question that I know is also a faith stance that of course you could not 'accept' as non validatable)
As part of your faith, you make an assertion that something in the physical world occured (Jesus' existence). This is demonstrable and falsifiable, and therefore a valid argument. What you must do now is provide evidence to support such a claim.
Why do I have to support it? For what purpose? Perhaps if I thought you were genuinely interested I'd relate my reasoning to you. Otherwise I have no reason whatsoever to convince you of what I rationalise.
And you do realise all we would be talking about would be the person and not his God attribute. His God attribute follows exactly the rest of God.. ie, the Father and the Spirit. And whilst I understand the sway of academic historian opinion is that the person did exist. Still I place no importance on that fact. My belief is in the wider person that is a combination of the attributes, and what that means to my belief.
(February 23, 2010 at 1:53 am)tavarish Wrote:(February 22, 2010 at 9:59 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: With transcendental as an attribute does that infer existence then?
It's kind of a buzz word when you try to make the point that he can't exist in reality. Saying he's transcendental doesn't give us any more information about his existence. Here's another term that's perhaps better suited for your description - conceptual.
You need to move the subject to existence, which is of course unrelated. Hence your issue. You can play with any words you like to come up with your formation of a god concept. That concept is basically flawed and I find it very odd that you can't see that.
(February 23, 2010 at 1:53 am)tavarish Wrote:(February 22, 2010 at 9:59 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: What led me personally to believe in God was the consideration of relevant questions. My actual conversion on the second occasion a couple of years ago was after discussion with a committed atheist considering all the points we currently discuss here. I realised that my logical position had changed and that my personal belief stance was such that it warranted the leap of faith to believe. So I took that leap.
What were these questions?
And what's all this poppycock about you not having an experience that led you to believe when you obviously illustrated that you did? You got your personal confirmation right here. Just do a little more and say what specific questions drew you to the religion and we'll be on the same page.
What was this experience that I'm not aware of then? Please enlighten me. The questions were too numerous to mention, and of course my rationalising went a hell of a lot further than that. Always people think there's some magic answer that will enable them to decide something without thinking for themselves. I'm really sorry to have to break it to you... but this isn't how it works. you need to do some thinking.. no one can do it for you.
