God, come out, come out wherever you are!

[Black Chakram]

Ok. So tell me this. What do you believe? What things, for you, are worth saying, "Yep. This seems true and I'm willing to believe it"

Things based on logic and experience. Since the concept of God is clearly fictional, and apparently he is unwilling to show himself to me or give me any sign that he is real, I have to conclude that God does not exist. There needs to be some kind of evidence. People only believe in God because many years ago, a lot of stupid people saw the bible as fact, and it mutated into religion.

Prove it. Can you use logic and experience to prove that the only things worth believing are those provable through logic and experience? If logic and experience are the basis of your beliefs, you should be able to prove why they're the basis of those beliefs using those very principles.

---

And why am I here on this forum? Because I believe any Christian that just blindly follows their beliefs without testing them is a fool. I'm not here to convert anyone. (If someone WERE to change their mind, it certainly wouldn't be through any argument I put forth.) I'm here to see if anyone can come up with an argument against Christianity that challenges me to look at my beliefs.

So far, I haven't heard anything particularly challenging.

Are you fucking kidding me? You're the one making the claim. YOU need to provide arguments, not us.

Take away the bible. Now, without it, prove that God exists. You can't use it as evidence. It's a fucking fictional book that has been around a lot longer than you have, so you can't possibly know it can be fully trusted.

That's not how this works. If you're so adamant that a God DOESN'T exist, then you're under just as much pressure to provide proof as I am. Otherwise, how can you so strongly support the idea that He DOESN'T exist? If you demand proof from me, show it yourself.

[Christi]

Well, I believe that the pink fairy is the creator of all. So, please prove she does not exist, and if you can't, then she must.

Sorry, but your reasoning is so false.

[Matt231]

Prove it. Can you use logic and experience to prove that the only things worth believing are those provable through logic and experience? If logic and experience are the basis of your beliefs, you should be able to prove why they're the basis of those beliefs using those very principles.

I'm not getting into this.

That's not how this works. If you're so adamant that a God DOESN'T exist, then you're under just as much pressure to provide proof as I am. Otherwise, how can you so strongly support the idea that He DOESN'T exist? If you demand proof from me, show it yourself.

I am not. YOU are making the claim. YOU have to support it with evidence. He doesn't exist because there is no evidence for his existence.

[Black Chakram]

Well, I believe that the pink fairy is the creator of all. So, please prove she does not exist, and if you can't, then she must.

Sorry, but your reasoning is so false.

I'm not saying that if you can't disprove God then He must exist. I'm just saying don't demand proof that He exists if you can't provide any that He doesn't.

All this states is that the possibility of one exists.

From there, there are many logical arguments one could employ to determine answers to, "If God exists, what kind of ways could / would he choose to interact with the world?"

He'd likely try to communicate, so we can further state that any real God is likely connected to a religion that exists or has existed.

You can logically continue this line of reasoning to get a little further, but not much.

---

Prove it. Can you use logic and experience to prove that the only things worth believing are those provable through logic and experience? If logic and experience are the basis of your beliefs, you should be able to prove why they're the basis of those beliefs using those very principles.

I'm not getting into this.

That's not how this works. If you're so adamant that a God DOESN'T exist, then you're under just as much pressure to provide proof as I am. Otherwise, how can you so strongly support the idea that He DOESN'T exist? If you demand proof from me, show it yourself.

I am not. YOU are making the claim. YOU have to support it with evidence. He doesn't exist because there is no evidence for his existence.

What about all the new species we discover every year? There was no evidence for them until we discovered them. Does that mean they didn't exist until we found them?

Come on. Read up on basic scientific philosophy. I would recommend "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Thomas Kuhn. Or Popper's "Conjectures and Refutations". Science can't PROVE anything. It can only disprove. You could drop a pencil a thousand times and gravity could pull it down each time, but you can't prove it will do it always. That's not what science is for.

[Matt231]

I'm not saying that if you can't disprove God then He must exist. I'm just saying don't demand proof that He exists if you can't provide any that He doesn't.

My proof: There is no evidence for God's existence. Since there is no evidence, I cannot believe he exists. The end.

I'm done trying to reason with you. Enjoy your delusional world with your selfish, evil God.

[Black Chakram]

Hey, Black Chakram, you seem to be conversational enough, would you mind perhaps answering these two questions?

1. Is it entirely a person's own fault he goes to hell? (or non-existence, or whatever you think exactly hell is. I know you have different views on the matter).

2. Is it wrong for a Christian to *not* witness to someone?

If you answer yes to both questions, you're going have to explain how you're not contradicting yourself, as I show here: http://atheistforums.org/thread-12571-po...#pid279128

Thank you.

Hi teaearlgreyhot,

Let's start with the post below and see where it goes. I'm interested in logically debating this. I don't know if I was able to counterpoint all your concerns, but if not, we can get them in another post.

But first one point:

This appears to be a logical inconsistency within Christianity. With that noted, all my points will be from a standpoint of assuming that the basic tenets of Christianity are true. These questions are about internal consistency, for which you need to accept basic premises to philosphically argue.

1) The Bible definitely says that it's a person's own fault if they go to hell. Through Christ, God provides the free gift of salvation from sin. Anyone is free to accept that gift if they're wiling to follow God's principles as laid out in the Bible.

2) The Bible tells us the "Great Commission" is to go out and "Make disciples of every nation". i.e. convert non-believers. Since we're being told we need to do this, it would definitely seem that it would be "wrong" not to.

So if we accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God, we're definitely being told that both of these things are "true."

Now to address your contradictory point.

IF, as you say, God knows who would accept Him regardless of whether or not they were preached to, and IF God chooses to condemn based on that, then your argument follows very logically. Going out and trying to witness is pointless because God would either choose to save that person or not regardless of your actions.

So let's see if we can find a way around the contradiction using the logical statements laid out above.

1) This point seems to leave little room for debate. Either you accept God or you don't. If you've never heard of God, MAYBE He'll judge you on the criteria of "If you had heard of me, would you have accepted me?". Let's for now assume that if a dead person is asked that by God and says "yes" that He gets to go to heaven. (Which is a little shaky theologically, but we can't really argue 2 points at once without things getting messy.)

2) This point has room for a big question. Especially if we assume the last paragraph is true, why would God command this? There's an alternate way of thinking about this:

If you truly believe in Jesus, and converting to following Him has made you happy, wouldn't you want to share that with other people anyway? People love trying to share things that have made them happy with others. It doesn't seem too harmful that a benevolent God would say "Yeah! Go share it!". On the flip side, if a proclaimed Christian said "I don't want to share it." their motives and depth of belief might be questioned. Because, once again, if you genuinely feel it has made you better, why wouldn't you want to share it? This point essentially says that not sharing it wouldn't be wrong, it would just be indicative of a lack of wanting to follow a God you claim to be devoted to.

There is another argument that says even if God decides who gets saved and who doesn't, we need to witness because He commanded it. If God is God, you do what He wants. I never liked this argument as much because I'd rather believe that God won't hand out arbitrary commands that serve no purpose but to test obedience. As such, I'm throwing this one out the window for now. I'd rather believe there's a reason - the one outlined in the paragraph above.

So in summary, we get this:

1) Is it a person’s own fault he goes to hell?
Yes, because we've been offered a free ticket out if we just choose to follow God. For now, we assume that this choice can be made either before death, or after when all is made clear.

2) Is it wrong for a Christian to not witness to someone?
"Wrong" might be the wrong word. Lack of desire or dedication to witnessing at least a little might be indicative of a person that claims to follow God, but doesn't seem to really mean it.

[Faith No More]

(1) "Free will" is a highly equivocal term. If you are not defining it biblically, then you are either begging the question or not addressing the biblical world view with it.

Poor choice of words on my part. In this thread it has been mentioned by you and others that we are responsible for sending ourselves to hell. By free will I mean whatever decisions it is that we are free to make that determine our place in the afterlife. If we only go where god intends us to go, what difference do these decisions make?

(2) The only destination in the afterlife we are responsible for is hell. God is responsible for anyone ending up in heaven.

I don't see how god can be responsible for one and not the other. If god is responsible for us getting into heaven, then god is also responsible for us not getting into heaven. Not going to heaven means going to hell, which would make god responsible.

[Godscreated]

Well, you're not out spreading the word of God while you are on here arguing with the condemned.

We are tempting you away from God, and you enjoy it.

Not even close.

[C Rod]

When we spread the gospel, we do not know personally that it will save someone. If there is a set number of those to be saved and also to be condemned, we do not know it. Acting from what we do know(we must spread the gospel) to "prove" which is going to be saved and condemn. So witnessing isn't pointless because we use it to get an effect. If one does not believe because he was not supposed to, he received in full his reward, which of you atheist are not burden with cross of Christ, you do things we don't do(generally), that is one of the most underling reasons for your disbelief, even if you say it is lack of belief because of evidence, your reward is freedom.

Christy:"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

The story told by modern physics might be told briefly in the words 'Humpty Dumpty is falling.' That is, it proclaims itself an incomplete story. There must have been a time before he fell, when when he was sitting on the wall; there must be a time after had reached the ground. It is quite true that science knows of no horses and men who can put him together again once he has reached the ground and broken. But then you wouldn't expect her to. All science rests on observation: all our observations are taken during Humpty Dumpty's fall, because we were born after he lost his seat on the wall and shall be extinct long before he reaches the ground. C.S. Lewis

[Christi]

When we spread the gospel, we do not know personally that it will save someone. If there is a set number of those to be saved and also to be condemned, we do not know it. Acting from what we do know(we must spread the gospel) to "prove" which is going to be saved and condemn. So witnessing isn't pointless because we use it to get an effect. If one does not believe because he was not supposed to, he received in full his reward, which of you atheist are not burden with cross of Christ, you do things we don't do(generally), that is one of the most underling reasons for your disbelief, even if you say it is lack of belief because of evidence, your reward is freedom.

Christy:"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

The story told by modern physics might be told briefly in the words 'Humpty Dumpty is falling.' That is, it proclaims itself an incomplete story. There must have been a time before he fell, when when he was sitting on the wall; there must be a time after had reached the ground. It is quite true that science knows of no horses and men who can put him together again once he has reached the ground and broken. But then you wouldn't expect her to. All science rests on observation: all our observations are taken during Humpty Dumpty's fall, because we were born after he lost his seat on the wall and shall be extinct long before he reaches the ground. C.S. Lewis

Replies like that seriously make me want to join a Christian forum so I can debate their false truths until they cry.

Unfortunately, I think the reality is that y'all just like to argue God down people's throats until they puke him out.