(October 18, 2014 at 4:36 pm)Lek Wrote: Your list of fallacious arguments is also correct. None of these are adequate to prove the existence of God. All you in this forum have taught me a lot. All that stuff that I would bring up was just stuff that I used to support my own and others beliefs. Before I joined this forum I used to think that I could convince someone to believe in God through natural reasoning, but now I don't think that's possible. Anyone I've talked to or read about, who went from being an atheist to a christian, never never said it was because they determined it from science or history.
Yes, you have learned something.
Quote: I've come to realize that until a person accepts the existence of the supernatural, they can't be convinced to believe in a supernatural God. You do have to take a chance to believe. God didn't come about by natural means and he's not confined to the natural world.
Correct. You do really have to decide to believe. Though, not everyone can fool themselves in that particular way. It's one of the reasons the religious are also more likely than atheists to believe in the Nessy, Sasquatch, and chem trials.
Quote:I can use natural arguments to support my belief in God, but not to prove it. I believe the existence of the cosmos, which science can't explain, to be evidence of God.
Not really. But I think we've had that argument before.
Quote: I believe in miracles and demonic possession, which have been attested to by people I trust, and other stuff like that.
Then you haven't learned much about the value of anecdote, eyewitness testimony, the workings of the human brain, or the scientific method.
Quote: Most of all, I see him working in my life. If someone does not eventually experience a relationship with God, then I can understand why they would walk away from christianity, but you have to take that step off the cliff in order to experience it.
If it provides value in your life to believe, well and good, but don't think that's that is proof of anything in particular.
Quote:On the other hand, I've never heard an atheist give a natural argument that disproved the existence of God. It's all just inconclusive arguments that they use to support their unbelief.
You will never see anyone prove a thing doesn't exist. That is why we place the burden of proof on those who claim a thing exists.
Quote: I see atheists as living inside of a box. They're limited to living in this natural world and can't accept the existence of anything else.
You are limited to living in the natural world. In what way do you live outside it? And given the size of the universe, and the complexity of nature, I have a hard time thinking of it as a box. It's about as unbox-like as anything I can imagine.
Quote: You have this image of a one-dimensional being that you think God should be. Sorry if it makes you hate him, but God gets angry and he killed a bunch of people. If they wanted to be with him, then they are with him now--eternally happy. If they didn't want to be with him, then they are not. He loves us and he's holding his arms out to us.
I have several images of god more and less complex. But none of them shows the slightest of existing. And none of them as delineated by the religious show much indication of loving humanity.
Who can help but dislike the god of the OT?
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.