(July 19, 2015 at 8:06 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Fair enough. I would too, if the evidence was strong enough.
But that's just it, Jenny, God is not in the business of FORCING anyone to make a decision based on evidence. That would be coercive.
He provides just enough clues for each soul to find and follow IF you are so inclined, but He does not force Himself upon you.
That is the biggest cop-out there ever was. Evidence is not coercive of choice, it's just information with which to choose. In your trial hypothetical most people would choose to convict or not based on the evidence, but we could do otherwise. People vote against their conscience and/or take bribes. Doing the honest or right thing with the evidence at hand is a choice.
Given evidence of god, one could choose whether to worship him or not. That is a choice, though given the threat of hellfire not much of one. Without evidence, there's really nothing to choose.
Believe in me without evidence is the snake rattle of a charlatan. That all religions appear to need it, tells me something rather basic about religion and it isn't complementary.
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.