Attn: Theists - What would it take to prove you wrong?

[Silver]

Here, something Ravi Zacharias said is so pertinent...

A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.

I see that Ravi is keen on resorting to conjecture.

I can do the same thing.

A man accepts God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of an abundance of evidence. A man accepts God because of a lack of an innate moral compass that drives him to concede his need for God.

[Theo Zacharias]

Ok, so you're backing away from the miracle claims that you first brought up to say that they cannot be studied.

I never said that they cannot be studied. You're attacking a straw man here.
What I said is, maybe they cannot be studied and maybe they can. What you said is, we *must* be able to study it. Do you understand the difference here?

Also, don't forget that you are the one who claim that if God exist and affects the world in *anyway*, it must generate some form of evidence. What I'm doing is to refute this claim by arguing that maybe it generates some evidences but maybe not. I don't agree that it *must* generate evidence because it's possible that it does not generate any evidences.
Now, do you still hold to this claim especially the *anyway" part? Or you want to modify the *anyway* part?

No, I'm not backing away from that part. It must generate evidence, whether or not our technology is advanced enough to detect this evidence, it must generate evidence. If you put a cup in front of me, and I say I affected it, but in fact I did not at all, can you call me a liar or are you going to say I affected in but did not change anything at all? Which is what you're trying to say here. If god interfered and produced chances, evidence is generated. If he interfered but everything remained unchanged, he did not interfere.

Your analogy is totally incorrect. You said "in fact I did not at all", then it means, in you example, it is a fact that you did not affect the cup. In God situation, we don't know what the fact is. We don't know whether God affect the world or not, and we don't even know whether God exists or not.

I'm sure you realize how fast our technology advances in recent years. Can you imagine what kind of technology we will have in 100 years? How about in 1000 years? In million years?
Are you honestly said that you can't believe that a God or alien natural beings with technology far more advanced than what we have now cannot affect our world without leaving any evidence that can be detected by our current technology if they want to? You haven't answered this questions before.

Ok, I just did. But I think you missed my point, which is, there is no reason to think any of this is going on without evidence.

Again I must say that you are the one who make assertion here by claiming that if God exist and affects the world in *anyway*, it must generate some form of evidence. The burden of proof/evidence is on the person asserting a claim. You cannot defend your claim by saying that your opponent has no evidence that you're wrong.

I will ask my question again:
"If there is a natural alien beings with technology far more advanced than what we have now (say million years more advance), if they want to, do you think they can affect our world without leaving any evidence that can be detected by our current technology"
Please answer this, yes or no?

And even if you want to push for that and say SOMETHING has to be interfering simply because it's theoretically possible, that possibility is not limited to your god.

Yes, I agree if something is affecting our world in a way that cannot be detected by our technology, the possibility is not limited to my God.
I never said otherwise.

[discipulus]

Here, something Ravi Zacharias said is so pertinent...

A man rejects God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of the scarcity of evidence. A man rejects God because of a moral resistance that refuses to admit his need for God.

I see that Ravi is keen on resorting to conjecture.

I can do the same thing.

A man accepts God neither because of intellectual demands nor because of an abundance of evidence. A man accepts God because of a lack of an innate moral compass that drives him to concede his need for God.

The innate moral compass that tells us something is wrong if it is not conducive to the survival of our species and that something is right if it does aid in the survival of our species?

That moral compass? The moral compass that ultimately demonstrates morality is illusory? The moral compass that allows for someone to call someone else's views bullsh** just because you disagree with them?

You think you are acting morally when you do such things?

[Silver]

The innate moral compass that has evolved independent of religious thought, the same moral compass that is much akin to doing what one wills so long as it harms no other. Basically, the moral compass that informs one to treat others as one would like to be treated.

[discipulus]

The innate moral compass that has evolved independent of religious thought, the same moral compass that is much akin to doing what one wills so long as it harms no other. Basically, the moral compass that informs one to treat others as one would like to be treated.

You have harmed me.

Therefore, you have violated your own moral compass.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Ok, so you're backing away from the miracle claims that you first brought up to say that they cannot be studied.

I never said that they cannot be studied. You're attacking a straw man here.
What I said is, maybe they cannot be studied and maybe they can. What you said is, we *must* be able to study it. Do you understand the difference here?

No, I'm not backing away from that part. It must generate evidence, whether or not our technology is advanced enough to detect this evidence, it must generate evidence. If you put a cup in front of me, and I say I affected it, but in fact I did not at all, can you call me a liar or are you going to say I affected in but did not change anything at all? Which is what you're trying to say here. If god interfered and produced chances, evidence is generated. If he interfered but everything remained unchanged, he did not interfere.

Your analogy is totally incorrect. You said "in fact I did not at all", then it means, in you example, it is a fact that you did not affect the cup. In God situation, we don't know what the fact is. We don't know whether God affect the world or not, and we don't even know whether God exists or not.

Ok, I just did. But I think you missed my point, which is, there is no reason to think any of this is going on without evidence.

Again I must say that you are the one who make assertion here by claiming that if God exist and affects the world in *anyway*, it must generate some form of evidence. The burden of proof/evidence is on the person asserting a claim. You cannot defend your claim by saying that your opponent has no evidence that you're wrong.

I will ask my question again:
"If there is a natural alien beings with technology far more advanced than what we have now (say million years more advance), if they want to, do you think they can affect our world without leaving any evidence that can be detected by our current technology"
Please answer this, yes or no?

And even if you want to push for that and say SOMETHING has to be interfering simply because it's theoretically possible, that possibility is not limited to your god.

Yes, I agree if something is affecting our world in a way that cannot be detected by our technology, the possibility is not limited to my God.
I never said otherwise.

Did you deliberately ignored what I said about interferences have to produce changes to even qualify as interference? And that changes by definition changed something so generated evidence?

You are making the positive claim that god could be interfering with this world without generating evidence. You have yet to defend your statement.

[Theo Zacharias]

Btw, you mentioned about the possibility that Jesus is just an imaginary, fraud, improperly documented, or a near-magical future being. I don't believe that but I admit it's a possibility. Do you have any evidence of this? If you do, what's the evidence?

Why are you asking for evidence of this when you just got done telling us you believe JC is the son of "God" on the basis of there being no evidence against it (which is a basic shifting of the burden of proof but we can let that go for the moment)?

The question is to Golbez, not to you. Why I asked this? It's because he mentioned this before. If he does not mention this, I won't ask him.
Also, what I said is, *as far as I know* there is no evidence that Jesus is or is not Son of God. Emphasis *as far as I know* here. I still open to the possibility that there is evidence that Jesus is not Son of God. That's why I asked him, in case he has the evidence.
The basis you said above is also incorrect. I have explained it before.

[Silver]

You have harmed me.

False persecution, something most religious people are quite adept at accomplishing.

[The Reality Salesman01]

A man that reads the bible for the first time uses his innate sense of morality to discover that the bible is an awful and dreadful book that describes a narcissistic, petty, malevolent God. It's also the same sense that could lead a man to cherry pick the parts that make him feel good, and deem it so. Morals precede Christianity, and flourish in spite of it. It is the moral duty of mankind to do away with Christianity and other similar religions that promote morality's demise. Faith is not a good reason to hold any degree of certainty about the "truths" taught in religion. Just because some of you are okay with flipping past the parts in those old books that don't fit your idea of a God, doesn't mean there aren't radicals paying very close to those parts, and believing them true enough to kill for.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

@Theo:
what you said:

Also, don't forget that you are the one who claim that if God exist and affects the world in *anyway*, it must generate some form of evidence. What I'm doing is to refute this claim by arguing that maybe it generates some evidences but maybe not. I don't agree that it *must* generate evidence because it's possible that it does not generate any evidences.
Now, do you still hold to this claim especially the *anyway" part? Or you want to modify the *anyway* part?

And then later you said undetectable by current technology. But I've bolded here what you said that is absolutely wrong. In my previous replied I have said that maybe the evidence generated is undetectable by current technology, I don't know why you ignored that and posed the question again. But don't confuse that with no evidence at all, which was the position you were trying to argue for right here.