Hello, Anyone interested in a debate?

[Anima]

First of all, not believing in god is not necessarily an intention. I never have believed in god, at least not that I can remember.  What I do remember is sitting in church during a sermon based on Cain and Abel, and thinking "why do grown-ups believe this?"

And others do not ever remember not believing in god. What they remember is sitting in church during a sermon thinking, "there is no way people do not believe this."

I don't go around subjecting all possible beliefs to a hard core standard of proof.  I don't think this is hypocritical, just practical.  The amount of proof I require before believing a claim has to do with the likelihood of the claim, and it's importance.

Interesting. I believe the crux of francismjenkins issue is that people are making decisions based on religious convictions when they should be basing them on scientific facts. As such I imagine francismjenkins would state that religion should be subject to a hard core standard of proof due to the likelihood and importance of the claim in decision making (I would not say theistic people are so religion oriented in their decision making, but I am not talking about my view). Now if one shall be replacing religious convictions with scientific facts as the basis for their decision making, shouldn't those facts be subject to a hard core standard of proof due to the likelihood and importance of the claim in decision making? Just a thought. Otherwise we would be saying that decisions may be based on information that does not pass a hard core standard of proof. In which case in making a decision the information for the basis does not need to meet hard core standards of proof for religion based any more than for science based based.

But in the words of one Captain Jack, "So we agree that my theory is sound in principle and now we are just haggling over price."

It's not an intention, it a state of being. I don't believe and never have.  It takes no intent or effort.  Faith takes intent.

To paraphrase: "It's not intention, it a state of being. They believe and always have. It take no intent or effort."

Indeed.  Not to mention that the universe doesn't really appear to be intelligently designed in the first place.  
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Hmm. Would not say that? The universe seems to adhere to various mathematical formulas and to have an overall structure and direction with a tendency to eliminate redundancies. It would appear that it is not chaotic and in some way has intelligence to it. However, the intelligent design argument supplants order for artificiality. Artificial structures are implicit circumstantial empirical proof of intelligent design, while ordered structures are indicative of intelligent.

[quote='Jenny A' pid='954904' dateline='1433042252']
It isn't really an argument until someone offers some proof of god.  Until that point, which is where we are now, it's just a naked claim that god exists.

And back we go to proof. Which I again to take to mean that when it comes to God there must be direct explicit empirical proof. That is to say a threshold of proof that nothing meets save tautologies. So even if presented you would say it is tautology and thus circular proof.

I am satisfied with a lesser threshold of proof for God than you (as I maintain the same threshold of proof for god and not for god). I understand the desire for a higher threshold for God and for everything else for that matter. But, as a matter of practicality such a threshold does not exist for things which are not God so I do not hold them to that threshold. Since nothing which has ever served as proof has met the threshold being set for God, could we not say we are being impractical to expect this one thing to meet such a threshold?