Abiogenesis is impossible

[Sword of Christ]

Someone once said "god does not act in mysterious ways; he acts in ways indistinguishable from his non-existence". That is what I am seeing here; a god who is explicitly untestable by science.

If you have a god that is testable and understandable to science that is the God of the Bible who is beyond all that. Of course science didn't exist when the Jews began to believe in this kind of God as opposed to the other pagan nature controlling gods who would be scientifically observable if they existed. This wasn't cunningly devised in response to modern science but an authentically ancient understanding.

There is literally no failure state for someone who ascribes to this worldview.

The theology is pretty much immune and impervious to anyone would want to prove or demonstrate it as wrong (and many people would like to or think they have) but it wasn't developed intentionally as reaction to atheism.

Nothing that happens ever can be taken as evidence against god.

That's right there is nothing we can know or find out that could ever be used as evidence against God, that's the beauty of it.

Pray and your prayer is "answered"? God did it.

He answers all prayers though of course you can't analysis and measure the answer in a laboratory. I suppose you can try to see if the healing/recovery rate is improved by prayer or not and that kind of thing but still not an easy thing to measure, even if there is some effect it will tend to be dismissed as psychological or a placebo effect. Though I think that is still somewhat interesting in itself, the mind/consciousness seems to have great deal of power and physical effect when applied a certain way, a power than can through prayer perhaps be drawn upon. Prayer has been around for many thousands had it done nothing at all I'm sure everyone would have noticed by now and stopped.

Pray and it is "answered" ten years later? Gog did it. Pray and it is never "answered"? God didn't feel like answering it. Small child barely survives devastating cancer? Praise the lord, our child is saved! Small child doesn't survive devastating cancer? It must have been his time; he's in a better place now.

While I'm sure it can help/aid survival there will be some kind of physical limit. There are some strange stories of Holy people (not always within the Christian faith) who are able to sustain/physically restore themselves on prayer when they really ought to be dead. There's an interesting and very large book I own that details some of these cases not that anything like this can definitely prove the existence of God it's just something strange and unexplained that sometimes apparently happens.

If by Yahweh you only mean "he creates", then you have deism, not Christianity.

It would only be Deism if God doesn't interact with humanity and doesn't reveal himself through revelation. But if he answers prayer in some way and the Bible is a revelation from God to humanity then that won't be Deism as he will be actively involved with us.

Deism has not been scientifically debunked (though can it be?), so at least you would be vaguely honest here.

Theism hasn't been debunked either, there are arguments against it but that isn't debunking that's a difference of opinion.

But the Bible is a whole other matter. Talk of a single couple populating the whole world and a wooden boat holding and feeding thousands of animals for several months on open water is patently ridiculous.

The historical event it was perhaps based on won't have been anything at all like that but you can read it as parable of the kind Jesus told. Flood myths in general have a universal and far retching history so there is something there that seems to resonate with the human psyche. Noah happens to be the Bibles flood myth but you'll find one in the Hindu Vedas and many other religions and cultures.

Did you not hear about the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate? Can you watch that debate and honestly still claim that Christianity doesn't conflict with science? (And, in the event that your post is taken only at face value, you technically only said god didn't conflict, in which case I would again point you to deism.)

Deism only applies to a God who doesn't interact or reveal himself to us but I would say there is a strong case to be made that God has if you take a look at human history. Belief and worship of something no matter how ill defined has always been present in all cultures all the way back through civilization and beyond.

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Not at all. The middle position - no belief in [given claim] - really is the default one.

There isn't a middle position you can't be half a Jain for instance you would either be a Jain or not a Jain. Jains don't believe God either btw, it's one of those interesting religions.

If I assert that a person is guilty of something, or that I flipped a coin and it came up heads, you're not required to have an alternative belief in order not to accept that claim. We all know that it's a popular theist tactic to misrepresent what atheism actually is, but honestly this is such a basic thing to put right that it just comes across as comically desperate every time it comes up.

Western atheism is essentially this.





There are other alternative theism in the world that aren't like this but that's sum and total of it. Some Brain Cox here.





Not that there's anything wrong with science as a tool to understand how the universe works there's just a tendency to put that in place of God.