Do Christians actually want evidence?

[Esquilax]

How do you what you just claimed is factual? It could be true sure but this isn't something actually know. So it's your opinion then, an opinion of the evidence. Opinions are open to being wrong/mistaken of course though that applies equally to everyone.

Great, so if everything's an opinion and nothing is objectively true, then why are you even here having a conversation?

Obviously it can lead that way if there are 5 billion theists and 2 billion Christians.

And how many kids believed in Santa Claus? The only difference is that your wishful thinking regarding god is validated by this traditional structure, even after society grew out of needing it.

Of course this faith in the absence of certain factual knowledge but atheists are pretty much in the same boat here, they don't know either. They make a big issue about that in fact like it proves something.

It proves that we're honest enough not to assert belief without evidence, and that you theists are dishonest enough not to do the same.

Why is it wishful thinking? Is that just your own opinion again? You statements of opinion don't become objective fact because you stated it, that's something to get through here.

It's wishful thinking because there's always a huge leap of logic that one needs to take: like in your claim of fine tuning earlier, even if we one hundred percent accepted that to be true, it still doesn't point toward the christian god specifically, or any god at all, actually. Hence, it cannot be evidence for a god; the only reason you're claiming it is, is wishful thinking.

It's a lie and not a genuine belief people throughout history have sincerely held because of your own opinion again? Do you have a strong faith in the power and strength of your own opinion or something? So like if something matches fully your own opinion it becomes factually true otherwise can be automatically dismissed? It would nice if the world did actually work that way but it doesn't really. It's a little more complicated than that.

I find it interesting that everything I say, where it disagrees with you, is "just my opinion," and yet you don't hesitate when presenting your own views to remind us that the same is true of you. Could it be that you're trying to dishonestly remove credibility from my position, as though it makes yours more plausible?

I being 100% honest but the opinion I have appears to be different from yours. I know perhaps the idea of this will make go like this.
But it's just something to bear in mind if you want to argue for a position. You don't say something is true and it becomes true you have to explain why, show your working here.

There is no evidence for a god, or insufficient evidence, if you like that better. I agree with you that we don't know the answer for this question yet; the difference is that I as an atheist stop there and just say I don't know, which accurately reflects the current state of our knowledge. You, on the other hand, say that there was a god that did it all, which does not reflect the current state of our knowledge at all, and is therefore less honest than a simple profession of ignorance.

Either it was or it was a one in 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 trillion coincidence of pure chance. That would work if you had an infinite assortment of random universes I suppose but if you want to apply Occams Razor you can just say there is one universe and it was purposely made to generate life, intelligence, civilizations and that kind of thing. So that's an opinion I have but I supported it with some reasoning. I could have just said "No God done it" and expect that to be a hard hitting point which is the equivalent of most of your own points.

You've missed my point entirely: You say that life appearing in a universe is a very unlikely thing to occur, and probability is set against it. Okay, fine. But in order to assert that this means that the universe was fine tuned, you first need to demonstrate that life appearing in the universe was the aim of this universe. That's the difference between a fine tuned thing and an unlikely thing; two specific grains of sand touching on a beach is a highly unlikely event, but because there was never any conscious aim that those two grains touch, one cannot say that they were fine tuned to touch if they do. Conversely, your car might get a tune up to increase its maximum speed, and you could easily say that was fine tuned, because the changes made to your car were done with the objective of increasing its speed.

How do you intend to demonstrate that life in this universe was the goal of this universe, such that its success to yield such life can be attributed to intentional tuning?

How is it wishful thinking if I'm giving you what I consider to be the rational reasons for the existence of purposeful origin of the universe/life? You see I'm supporting the opinions I have while you just state your opinions as though they were factual true and can't be argued against.

See above. Hey, could you do me a favor and actually think about the things I post before you just dismiss them as opinion and move on? If you put even a moment's thought into this, you might actually understand what I'm telling you, and I wouldn't have to go through and retell you everything I've already said in excruciating detail.

The universe doesn't care about whether we live here or not but it was created by a God who does.

Now that's an unsupported assertion, and it really makes it ironic that you've been accusing me of them all this time. How do you intend to demonstrate this?

If one kind of evidence fits with the other kind of evidence then you kind of have quite a considerable amount of evidence in total. You go where the evidence takes you even if takes you towards some uncomfortable ultimate conclusions. Uncomfortable at first anyway here's a good quote from C.S Lewis.

My point, again missed, is that bible quotes aren't evidence, and so theistic assertions that time began to exist before science brought real evidence were just fiat assertions and nothing more. Blather.

It's the same difference really, and I doubt it could work how would the natural world suppose to function if nothing could ever harm anything?

I didn't propose that nothing could ever harm anything, just that criminal activity, that causes only harm, would not be allowed to continue. The harm done in, say, killing for food, is at least justified, although if I were a god, I'd probably want to design a universe where death wasn't a major fuel for life on the planet, if I wanted to be a good person...

If you couldn't do these actions no-one would try in the first place and freedom of will is entirely removed.

I don't think you actually understand what free will is.

You'll be arrested and sent to prison if you assault a cop in the street. Does that mean the police are robbing you of your free will, or that your actions come with consequences?

Free will isn't predicated on the absolute success of every action you attempt to perform. If you try and fail to do a backflip right now, is that gravity curtailing your free will? You have the power to choose: you don't have the power to succeed all the time. It's the same with what I'm proposing.

You may as well not bother making the universe at all if you're going to do that.

What's the point of having all these humans if you can't watch them suffer, eh?

He could be he didn't want to for very seriously good reason. Do you want to be able to be good through your own independent free action or not? If you do you will have to accept that others will have equal freedom to be evil. What applies to you applies to everyone else. But God has given us some guidelines both in revelation and in our own inner heart.

And yet for some reason, when people get diseases and so on that curtail their freedom, that's all a part of god's plan. But if the criminal's guns uniformly jammed, oh no, their freedom would be gone, we can't allow that! And the person he kills with that gun, what happened to their free will, in this scenario?

You are literally positing a universe where the murderer's freedom to murder is more important to god than the freedom of his victims, and everyone else who has ever been struck down due to his "mysterious ways."

It's up to us to prevent people from coming to harm on God behalf, God works through us. That's how we grow spiritually and morally. God wants a relationship with beings like us.

So how come you're holding us sinful humans to a higher moral standard than the god that you worship?

All evil doers will be brought to justice you don't have to worry about that. But they have to have the freedom to be evil if we are to have the freedom to be good. If we don't have freedom and genuine morality then there is no point.

Same question as above.