It really scares me.

[Sword of Christ]

Indeed... god keeps hiding in the gaps of scientific knowledge... and when the gaps grow too tight, the concept of god changes accordingly.

God doesn't explain anything he just provides the context in which everything that exists can be explained. That way God is not only compatible with science but provides the basis in which science operates. We live in a rationally understandable universe which is the product of a rational intelligence so we can use our own reason and understanding to harness the power of the natural world. Therefore we have technology, medicine, space rockets to the moon and whatever else.

Are you saying that god could be some natural entity?

God created what we understand to be the natural world so therefore he is beyond it but he can certainly be within the natural he created as well as beyond it the Bible does seem to make this point throughout. You have immanence and transcendence two qualities of God.

Some natural entity that created the universe?

You wouldn't be able to create something you're already a part of.

Some natural entity that could be a part of a society of such entities?

God is a part of a community of entities natural and otherwise and we would be included as part of it. The Trinity is said to be a community of love within God and the love God has within his Trinity is then poured out into his creatures.

Some natural society of entities that evolved to become what they are, starting at their own version of a big bang? Or with no start at all....

Well you will need to start somewhere. A rock rolling down a mountainside was at rest at the summit before a force external to it pushed it into motion. Once its in motion it will stay in motion until it reaches the bottom you can see the universe as something like that.

Are you saying we should accept science fiction as reality and live life like that?

If God is real then God would be the supreme reality and belief in God will bring you closer to this ultimate reality and the reality of your own life and the world the creation of God. Yes there's a chance God isn't real and doesn't exist but there's a chance of almost anything, there's a technically a chance that Mormon underwear is what need to wear there's no why to know. So that's why it's good to get into the apologetic s of a faith. If it doesn't hold up to reason and criticism it can be safely discounted.

Why not?! Because there's no evidence for the existence of such an entity!

There's evidence you're not accepting as valid in your own opinion for the reasons you have. There's no scientific proof for God but that's impossible to obtain by his very definition. He's beyond the natural world we can actually observe. Even if you want to bring up miracles they could easily be caused by something that isn't God, say for example advanced interdimensional aliens. There is no way to know. So it's best to look at the evidence and the arguments and come to the rational conclusion. The conclusion being that God exists in reality ideally but you can make up your own mind, that's why God gave freedom of will.

Any evidence you may think you have can be attributed to faulty psychology, or a vivid imagination, or outright lies.

It could be yes and Joesph Smith could be a real prophet of the Mormon God on the planet Kolob or the Norse gods could exist and be the guys to worship or L Ron Hubbard could have been right about the aliens in the volcanoes. What matter is what you yourself find to be true based on the evidence and the reasoned arguments not what "can be" possible. An atheistic self existent kind of universe that somehow just made itself from itself is technically kind of possible if you want to believe that. In such a universe I think you can forget about any objective foundation to morality or your own freewill though. Without freewill you won't be capable of coming to a rational conclusion about anything just what your neural activity and chemical reactions tell you to do. The physical process of the universe would control you and not the other way around.

Well... you then want me to think that god has a god of its own that created its consciousness, and the god of god has its own god that created its consciousness... and this god of god of god has its own god that created its consciousness... and I think you get the infinite loop in here...

If you have God with a capital G you avoid all this by having one single ultimate starting point which everything and all consciousness is derived which is eternally existent being beyond time, space, energy, matter and all the rest of it.

Complex, yes.
Unlikely, yes... look around the astronomical vicinity and you find no more life...

I wouldn't be so sure there is a good chance that there is life elsewhere in our own solar system. Microbial life this case but that would demonstrate how widespread life could be throughout the universe. It would be widespread if the universe was created with life in mind.

Faith is wishful thinking.
I merely remove my wishful thinking cap and play with what reality gives me. And reality has, so far, given no god whatsoever... It has given me a lot of "faith claims" concerning such beings, but not the beings themselves.

A little philosophy takes you away from God and a lot of philosophy brings you closer to God.

Something that has a footprint on reality just like the teapot's is as equally defining of reality as the teapot.

The footprint in reality is there certainly if you know where to look for it. Not just the physical construction and fine tuning of the universe as a whole but the impact God has had in human life and the universality of belief speaks for itself. You can claim nothing left this footprint if you like as that's an opinion you can hold when we don't have certain proof.

So it's a game of personal preference, huh?

It's the same game you're playing. You're playing the naturalism/materialism card and I've countered that card with a different alternative. A very real alternative. Whether you want to accept the alternative is up to you though but you can see the arguments from the other side.

Oh really?
Why is it that I've been asking for that lot for years and none has surfaced?

Perhaps you weren't looking in the right place?

Care to present this lot to me?
Do bear in mind that dreams, visions, delusions, psychological abnormalities and other mind-based events will be ignored completely.

You labelled these experiences and accounts of God as delusions and madness to begin with and then you have ignored them all because of what you already presumed to be true. There are rational arguments beyond the subject and revelation though you will tend to end up with some kind of deism if you don't allow for God to interact with his creation and his creatures.

So, again, it's a personal preference thing, if you're on one camp or the other... right?

You want the organ grinder not the monkey. Therefore you will want a faith based on the ultimate God of all gods the ultimate foundation of everything and the creator of all existence. You can see why you wouldn't want to be messing about with Zeus or the philosophy of man when you have something a lot a better.

[Whateverist]

So, again, it's a personal preference thing, if you're on one camp or the other... right?

You want the organ grinder not the monkey. Therefore you will want a faith based on the ultimate God of all gods the ultimate foundation of everything and the creator of all existence. You can see why you wouldn't want to be messing about with Zeus or the philosophy of man when you have something a lot a better.

Sounds like you've convinced yourself which one you like best. But every time you try to imply that we should agree with you it just sounds like "and why would you want any other flavor when you could have chocolate?"

[pocaracas]

Indeed... god keeps hiding in the gaps of scientific knowledge... and when the gaps grow too tight, the concept of god changes accordingly.

God doesn't explain anything he just provides the context in which everything that exists can be explained. That way God is not only compatible with science but provides the basis in which science operates. We live in a rationally understandable universe which is the product of a rational intelligence so we can use our own reason and understanding to harness the power of the natural world. Therefore we have technology, medicine, space rockets to the moon and whatever else.

You remind me of Statler waldorf...
You guys must come from the same school of thought...

Are you saying that god could be some natural entity?

God created what we understand to be the natural world so therefore he is beyond it but he can certainly be within the natural he created as well as beyond it the Bible does seem to make this point throughout. You have immanence and transcendence two qualities of God.

And just how did you (or anyone else) come across all this information, in order to write it down?

Some natural society of entities that evolved to become what they are, starting at their own version of a big bang? Or with no start at all....

Well you will need to start somewhere. A rock rolling down a mountainside was at rest at the summit before a force external to it pushed it into motion. Once its in motion it will stay in motion until it reaches the bottom you can see the universe as something like that.

How do you know there was an external force that created the universe?

Are you saying we should accept science fiction as reality and live life like that?

If God is real then God would be the supreme reality and belief in God will bring you closer to this ultimate reality and the reality of your own life and the world the creation of God. Yes there's a chance God isn't real and doesn't exist but there's a chance of almost anything, there's a technically a chance that Mormon underwear is what need to wear there's no why to know. So that's why it's good to get into the apologetic s of a faith. If it doesn't hold up to reason and criticism it can be safely discounted.

If god is real and it wants me to acknowledge its existence, then it should make it known. Painfully obvious. Instead.... faith is required. Faith in what you or others tell me.
No thanks.
I smell snake oil a mile away!

Why not?! Because there's no evidence for the existence of such an entity!

There's evidence you're not accepting as valid in your own opinion for the reasons you have.

No, there's no evidence.
If there was, you'd have presented it... instead, you ramble on about how I refuse to accept it as evidence.

There's no scientific proof for God but that's impossible to obtain by his very definition.

"his very definition"?
Who defined god?

He's beyond the natural world we can actually observe.

Then how would anyone know about the guy?

Even if you want to bring up miracles they could easily be caused by something that isn't God, say for example advanced interdimensional aliens.

Say, for example a constantly floating rock... generate an hexagonal grid some 1km at the side that covers the whole planet. On each vertex, put a floating rock and keep it there, by magic. Gravity doesn't work on the rock. No other force is acting on it.
And top it of by appearing to everyone and imparting some of that timeless wisdom, while claiming to be the reason for the floating rocks. Repeat this every few years so you can catch up with everyone.

Would that be too above your definition of god?

Instead... we get a book written by people who may or may not have witnessed extraordinary things, and a lot of hearsay...

There is no way to know. So it's best to look at the evidence and the arguments and come to the rational conclusion.

The rational conclusion is: Everywhere we've peeked, we've found nothing but nature. Nature holds some weird stuff, but nothing that can be pinned to any god. There are places we haven't peeked yet... there are places we may never be able to peek at... I will not fill in those places with an imaginary magical entity, just to make my life easier. That's being dishonest.... the very opposite of rational.

The conclusion being that God exists in reality ideally but you can make up your own mind, that's why God gave freedom of will.

freedom of will... oh you...

Any evidence you may think you have can be attributed to faulty psychology, or a vivid imagination, or outright lies.

It could be yes and Joesph Smith could be a real prophet of the Mormon God on the planet Kolob or the Norse gods could exist and be the guys to worship or L Ron Hubbard could have been right about the aliens in the volcanoes. What matter is what you yourself find to be true based on the evidence and the reasoned arguments not what "can be" possible.

Oh, you want mental masturbation?
"what can be possible"?!!
I can do that.. -extra-sci-fi is my specialty!
On a 20-D environment, a 5th grade kid decides to draw a 3+1-D picture. It started out as a few dots, very close together, and then BANG! Just let it run and voilá, eventually Earth... eventually humans...eventually gods...oops!

An atheistic self existent kind of universe that somehow just made itself from itself is technically kind of possible if you want to believe that. In such a universe I think you can forget about any objective foundation to morality or your own freewill though. Without freewill you won't be capable of coming to a rational conclusion about anything just what your neural activity and chemical reactions tell you to do. The physical process of the universe would control you and not the other way around.

You are so oblivious of the complexity that is neural activity that you can't understand that everything that you think of is generated right there, in your brain.
You're a deterministic machine, with the illusion of free will.
You cannot say that, at any time in your life, you would have made anything different than what you did.

Well... you then want me to think that god has a god of its own that created its consciousness, and the god of god has its own god that created its consciousness... and this god of god of god has its own god that created its consciousness... and I think you get the infinite loop in here...

If you have God with a capital G you avoid all this by having one single ultimate starting point which everything and all consciousness is derived which is eternally existent being beyond time, space, energy, matter and all the rest of it.

Or maybe, I can use Universe with a capital U and remove the god non-sense.
If that god is external to all that, how would you or anyone have come to know about it?

Complex, yes.
Unlikely, yes... look around the astronomical vicinity and you find no more life...

I wouldn't be so sure there is a good chance that there is life elsewhere in our own solar system. Microbial life this case but that would demonstrate how widespread life could be throughout the universe. It would be widespread if the universe was created with life in mind.

Ah... how nice it would be to know about other life forms looking up at the stars and wondering if they are alone in this vastness...
Oh, vastness.... you know how close the nearest star is? 4-light years... that's 4 years moving at the speed of light. Now imagine a sphere with that radius. On the inside of that sphere, you have nothing but this tiny dot with water on its surface and life.

Faith is wishful thinking.
I merely remove my wishful thinking cap and play with what reality gives me. And reality has, so far, given no god whatsoever... It has given me a lot of "faith claims" concerning such beings, but not the beings themselves.

A little philosophy takes you away from God and a lot of philosophy brings you closer to God.

That's why you hear us say that "man made god".

Something that has a footprint on reality just like the teapot's is as equally defining of reality as the teapot.

The footprint in reality is there certainly if you know where to look for it. Not just the physical construction and fine tuning of the universe as a whole

There you go with the fine tuning thing again... Don't. Research into the thing and you'll find there's no fine tuning.

but the impact God has had in human life and the universality of belief speaks for itself.

Aye, just look at the impact god has had in human life, why don't you?...
C.r.u.s.a.d.e.s.... want more?
H.o.l.y..I.n.q.u.i.s.i.t.i.o.n....

So it's a game of personal preference, huh?

It's the same game you're playing. You're playing the naturalism/materialism card and I've countered that card with a different alternative. A very real alternative. Whether you want to accept the alternative is up to you though but you can see the arguments from the other side.

I can see the arguments, but they all seem either like wishful thinking or plain delusion.
Sorry, I see no reason to believe in what the other side is claiming.

Oh really?
Why is it that I've been asking for that lot for years and none has surfaced?

Perhaps you weren't looking in the right place?

The other side claims it's everywhere...

Care to present this lot to me?
Do bear in mind that dreams, visions, delusions, psychological abnormalities and other mind-based events will be ignored completely.

You labelled these experiences and accounts of God as delusions and madness to begin with and then you have ignored them all because of what you already presumed to be true. There are rational arguments beyond the subject and revelation though you will tend to end up with some kind of deism if you don't allow for God to interact with his creation and his creatures.

No, I am open to reality.... just not open to being deceived.
And because I'm aware of all these venues by which humans can be deceived, I refuse to accept them.
Think of it like a computer's firewall. I know there are bugs out there that exploit certain ports in my system, so I just close them.
Honest communication is still available, because many many ports are open. It's just those ones that are known to be used deceptively/dishonestly that are closed.

So, again, it's a personal preference thing, if you're on one camp or the other... right?

You want the organ grinder not the monkey. Therefore you will want a faith based on the ultimate God of all gods the ultimate foundation of everything and the creator of all existence. You can see why you wouldn't want to be messing about with Zeus or the philosophy of man when you have something a lot a better.

I want no faith.
I want knowledge. Information.

[Sword of Christ]

Sounds like you've convinced yourself which one you like best.

That's like saying you convinced yourself of atheism because you don't like the idea of God existing.

But every time you try to imply that we should agree with you it just sounds like "and why would you want any other flavor when you could have chocolate?"

Why believe in the worst case scenario when you can just believe in the best case scenario when either scenario can be demonstrated to be valid in light of the facts we know? If evolution and the Big Bang aren't reasons to not believe in God and science doesn't provide any reasons that negate Gods existence then whats stopping you? It's just going to be what you happen to like and your own opinion, if you want to play that card it can easily just be handed back to you.

[Mudhammam]

That's like saying you convinced yourself of atheism because you don't like the idea of God existing.

Ummmm no. You haven't even defined what God is... okay wait, so far I've gathered that God:
1) Is masculine or personal
2) Doesn't explain anything
3) Provides context to life itself, although how you never say
4) Is beyond the natural world but "he" can certainly be within the natural world he created...somehow
5) Our causal chain of physical events has to begin.. So why not just call that unknown beginning "God," eh?
6) Is supreme reality
7) Can bring you closer to ultimate reality
8) How supreme reality and ultimate reality differ from perceived reality, well, only God knows
9) There's "evidence," but not "scientific evidence."

Just out of curiosity, are you going to say something new or useful about God that desert dwellers couldn't have said thousands of years ago when they needed to think him up to explain weather events? You have said a lot...without saying much of anything at all. Again, what is your obsolete, mysterious, undefined, pseudoscientific idea of God good for? Your personal comfort? Sorry, it doesn't "do it" for me or anyone else who uses an ounce of their common sense.

Why believe in the worst case scenario when you can just believe in the best case scenario when either scenario can be demonstrated to be valid in light of the facts we know? If evolution and the Big Bang aren't reasons to not believe in God and science doesn't provide any reasons that negate Gods existence then whats stopping you? It's just going to be what you happen to like and your own opinion, if you want to play that card it can easily just be handed back to you.

Do you believe in Hell? That's the worst case scenario I can imagine. Science does provide reasons for rejecting God: he offers no explanatory power for anything anymore, as you've thoroughly demonstrated.

[Minimalist]

We can survive anywhere on the planets surface even down the deepest ocean trench, yes in a submersible vehicle but if our intellect/adaptability to the natural world is derived from being made in the mental/spiritual image of God that will still count. Yes so we evolved but if this form of evolution was intentionally set up from the beginning then we were intentionally made.

Then why didn't your silly "god" create submersibles or high-altitude breathing apparatus? Why did it take science to fix your "designers" mistakes?

You are really desperate here, lad. Give it up.

[Sword of Christ]

And just how did you (or anyone else) come across all this information, in order to write it down?

There's general revelation this the general stuff you can figure out about the nature of the universe and the general experience of being human and you have special revelation this would be the Bible and the gospels Christ, the writing of St Paul and Church fathers and all that business. You may find this kind of revelation in other religious traditions even though they do tend to disagree on certain major details. This is nothing you can prove with science but why is absolute proof with science a necessary criteria for belief/faith? Who came up with that rule?

How do you know there was an external force that created the universe?

You're saying the universe brought itself into existence from it's own existence? How does that work? What be the reason for all that? How do we come into the picture are we meant to be an accident? An incredible proposition given the level of complexity that went into this entire process and the eventual outcome. What you would in fact have is an agent beyond the physical universe that brought the universe into existence from nothing. This agent we will call God for tradition sake and we're talking of an intelligence that founded a rationally understandable cosmos rather than a random incomprehensible chaos which it otherwise could have been. We can understand it just fine and that's why we have science. And of course rather than be an accident we as part of the universe were deliberately created. Not quite the way as the Bible describes but the general principal still works exactly the same way.

If god is real and it wants me to acknowledge its existence, then it should make it known.

He did that's what the Bible (and other sacred texts perhaps) are. What did you think they were?

Painfully obvious. Instead.... faith is required.

If faith wasn't required you would be forced into a relationship with God that you wouldn't necessarily want. If there is some room for doubt you get to retain your own freewill.

Faith in what you or others tell me.

You can make up your own mind whether you would like to believe or not. It's just an option you have rather than something to be dismissed because Richard Dawkins tells you that you should. Richard Dawkins is not the supreme being he just has his own opinion and that's pretty much it.

No thanks.
I smell snake oil a mile away!

If God does in fact exist and I would say he does then you're the one who has been convinced to buy the snake oil. Someones going to be mistaken, and it could be you why not?

No, there's no evidence.

Plenty of evidence but no guaranteed proof. That's why it's called faith. Though it can still be true even if you don't know 100% that it is. Though if it turns out that atheists are actually right we can say no believer would ever find out that they were wrong.

If there was, you'd have presented it... instead, you ramble on about how I refuse to accept it as evidence.

You will have to define what you mean by evidence as I thought that's what I was doing. I know this isn't proof but no-one is claiming that.

"his very definition"?
Who defined god?

He's the creator of the natural/physical universe and all of space and time itself that's the why he would be God. If he isn't a part of the natural physical universe then he isn't observable and so therefore beyond the scope of what science can possibly observe. No-one defined God the idea is that he exists and actually told us about himself. We don't know he did but that that's the idea.

Then how would anyone know about the guy?

Because you can rationally conclude that the universe must have been created from an initial starting point as all effects have a cause and because you have revelation in scripture where he tells us about himself. You can prove the existence of God with science you can only study what God created with science.

Say, for example a constantly floating rock... generate an hexagonal grid some 1km at the side that covers the whole planet. On each vertex, put a floating rock and keep it there, by magic. Gravity doesn't work on the rock. No other force is acting on it.

Perhaps technologically advanced aliens shot the rock with an anti-graviton beam projector from a cloaked ship in orbit or something. It could be anything that would be causing that to happen so you would still require faith to believe it was anything to do with God and it would not be evidence of anything. Therefore you cannot have scientific proof of God. You can't use the lack of scientific proof for God as an objection against God if you can't have this proof to begin with.

And top it of by appearing to everyone and imparting some of that timeless wisdom, while claiming to be the reason for the floating rocks. Repeat this every few years so you can catch up with everyone.

That could just be an alien like the being from Star Trek V and not really God some kind of impostor so you would still require faith in this being that appeared. If God was to appear as a human being on Earth he would be a little more subtle about it rather than appear and start spouting off. He would partake of the fullness of human life, suffer and die as a human and all that business. The the God who would die for you that's the guy right there.

Would that be too above your definition of god?

He may have had a different and better way of doing things. Either way you would still require faith in the revelation. If some being suddenly appeared and started blasting unbelievers with lightning bolts you have reason to doubt him obvious though his actual existence would be.

Instead... we get a book written by people who may or may not have witnessed extraordinary things, and a lot of hearsay...

You have to read their experience of the divine with an open mind and judge for yourself, bearing in mind that this isn't a literal book of science and history right the way through. If something about it seems right to you on some level then you may be looking at the genuine article rather than some kind of fabrication.

The rational conclusion is: Everywhere we've peeked, we've found nothing but nature.

Everything we can see and detect would become part of the natural universe we understand by default, you can see how that works. That's not exactly a good case against the Creator. What you can do is take what we about the universe through science and try reading between the lines a little. There is a contingent and finely balanced natural order here, there certainly was a process of formation from a starting point in time.

Nature holds some weird stuff, but nothing that can be pinned to any god.

Absolutely and the Bible agrees. There no gods that control the natural world as in ancient Greece only the Creator and his creation, the natural order. Where do you think the natural order came from? Something of this order of complexity and structure?

There are places we haven't peeked yet... there are places we may never be able to peek at...

You can't find something that isn't physically there, God doesn't physically exist.

I will not fill in those places with an imaginary magical entity, just to make my life easier. That's being dishonest.... the very opposite of rational.

God fills everything that exists and you don't see him anywhere because there is nothing to see. But you have to explain why God isn't rational in the great scheme of things, what makes the alternative to God more rational?

freedom of will... oh you...

Without God or a transcendent higher power doesn't that make us organic machines run on evolutionary programming? You can't get any kind of freewill out of that. But denying the existence God you're claiming to not have your own self realized rational mind to begin with so nullifying the point that atheism is the rational proposition. You're only an atheist because of cultural conditioning acting upon your evolutionary pre-wired hardware reacting a certain way and there is nothing else to it if you accept this materialism/physicalism as true.

Oh, you want mental masturbation?
"what can be possible"?!!
I can do that.. -extra-sci-fi is my specialty!
On a 20-D environment, a 5th grade kid decides to draw a 3+1-D picture. It started out as a few dots, very close together, and then BANG! Just let it run and voilá, eventually Earth... eventually humans...eventually gods...oops!

That is more or less what you believe just put in a more colorful way. It's some kind accident and you believe it was some kind of accident for no particularly logical or factual reason. Yes there's evolution but I explained how that could work in the greater scheme of things. It's only the universe itself that had to be deliberately made.

You are so oblivious of the complexity that is neural activity that you can't understand that everything that you think of is generated right there, in your brain.

And the human brain was formed via the physical process of the universe over time from a point of creation right? If you're looking at a process of formation from a point of creation, and you are, then that still works within the context of God as the engineer and architect. Therefore what the Bible describes is still in some way at least 100% valid. Nothing in science can or has discounted it. It may have discounted Zeus but not this.

You're a deterministic machine, with the illusion of free will.

No I'm a creation/creature of God made in his image with a freedom of will that reflects his own and so are you. You may think you're a deterministic machine but this is because you have gone a bit nuts or something. There is no reason to believe such a thing to be true when you have the alternative.

You cannot say that, at any time in your life, you would have made anything different than what you did.

I can because I freewill and personal and moral responsibility given to me by my creator and so have you. You can try and prove me wrong but as far as I can tell you have absolutely nothing.

Or maybe, I can use Universe with a capital U and remove the god non-sense.

The universe is just the universe it isn't God or something to have in place of God. It is a process that God brought into existence for a reason and purpose and we are part of that. If you don't think this true then explain why.

If that god is external to all that, how would you or anyone have come to know about it?

Through general and special revelation.

Ah... how nice it would be to know about other life forms looking up at the stars and wondering if they are alone in this vastness...
Oh, vastness.... you know how close the nearest star is? 4-light years... that's 4 years moving at the speed of light. Now imagine a sphere with that radius. On the inside of that sphere, you have nothing but this tiny dot with water on its surface and life.

There could be trillions of planets just like Earth contained within this universe for all we know. So they're a large distance apart but that may be necessary to keep everything from colliding into everything else. Exceptional design you'll agree.

That's why you hear us say that "man made god".

Nope God made man.

There you go with the fine tuning thing again... Don't. Research into the thing and you'll find there's no fine tuning.

The complex and precise natural balance of the physical constants that allows organic life to exist then. This was either intentional or a coincidence we can't know. It would seem a bit unlikely as a coincidence though so I would say it's entirely intentional. What do you call an intentional creator of the universe?

Aye, just look at the impact god has had in human life, why don't you?...
C.r.u.s.a.d.e.s.... want more?
H.o.l.y..I.n.q.u.i.s.i.t.i.o.n....

That's the same thing as saying that the impact of atheism on the world was the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao and Pol Pot. You can say they didn't really represent atheism but you can say witch hunters and crusaders didn't represent Christianity. Though with the Crusades you could kind of argue that the Muslims attacked Christendom first.

I can see the arguments, but they all seem either like wishful thinking or plain delusion.

It could be you who is deluded for all you know.

Sorry, I see no reason to believe in what the other side is claiming.

But you already established that you don't possess the freedom to rationally make up your own mind anyway.

The other side claims it's everywhere...

Look within your heart then, go with your gut feeling and all that business. Some of faith is rational and logical and some of it is emotional and what you feel the two go together.

No, I am open to reality.... just not open to being deceived.

You know atheism/materialism isn't the deception and God isn't the reality because?

And because I'm aware of all these venues by which humans can be deceived, I refuse to accept them.

How do you know you haven't already accepted a deception or the false depiction of reality? If God does in fact exist and is real if there is a higher power there then this what you have done. Someone will be wrong and it could easily be you.

Think of it like a computer's firewall. I know there are bugs out there that exploit certain ports in my system, so I just close them.

Perhaps atheism/materialism is the bug you ought to have kept out of your system? You don't know if you don't know.

Honest communication is still available, because many many ports are open. It's just those ones that are known to be used deceptively/dishonestly that are closed.

That's fine but the Bible and faith in God aren't deliberate attempts at deception. The people who wrote it clearly believed what they believed as does anyone who has a faith in God. It doesn't prove it's true of course you can choose to believe it or not it's only an option.

I want no faith.
I want knowledge. Information.

What would stop you from having both?

[pocaracas]

Damn mega-post.
Do forgive me for just going through a few points, stat... this does become tiresome!.. oh, you're not stat... sure look like him!
Where is your re-spawn ship?

And just how did you (or anyone else) come across all this information, in order to write it down?

There's general revelation this the general stuff you can figure out about the nature of the universe and the general experience of being human and you have special revelation this would be the Bible and the gospels Christ, the writing of St Paul and Church fathers and all that business. You may find this kind of revelation in other religious traditions even though they do tend to disagree on certain major details. This is nothing you can prove with science but why is absolute proof with science a necessary criteria for belief/faith? Who came up with that rule?

How do you distinguish genuine revelation from genuine deception or delusion?

How do you know there was an external force that created the universe?

You're saying the universe brought itself into existence from it's own existence? How does that work? What be the reason for all that? How do we come into the picture are we meant to be an accident?

Too many questions... sooo little time.
First, no, I did not say that. I asked you "how do you know there was an external force that created the universe?"
But let's run with your skewed point a bit. Still, I did not say any of that.
I'd say that the Universe exists. How it came into being, I know not. I can guess, I can fantasize, but I cannot say how. That information is, at best, very elusive. Our current abilities can explain the Universe, in broad strokes, up to the big bang, but no further back.
This is where your god of the gaps argument comes in.
It is one possibility. A god.... A 20-D entity, A 40-D entity.... a n-D entity.... whatever...
Or the Universe was always here, but under a different guise...
Or... or ....or... the possibilities are endless... as endless as human imagination.
You yearn for a reason, for a purpose. I give you none of that, so you find my lack of answer unacceptable and choose to embrace one of the few possibilities that provide you with what you desire.
You're free to do so, but please, do not spread that need for a comforting non-truth. It's dishonest.

If god is real and it wants me to acknowledge its existence, then it should make it known.

He did that's what the Bible (and other sacred texts perhaps) are. What did you think they were?

Texts written by people to convince other people of their rules of conduit... stories designed to lend credence to their belief system.

Painfully obvious. Instead.... faith is required.

If faith wasn't required you would be forced into a relationship with God that you wouldn't necessarily want. If there is some room for doubt you get to retain your own freewill.

Haven't you read the retort to this enough times, yet?
How many angels, fully aware of the nature of your god are said to have dismissed the guy?
Did they not retain their free will?

Faith in what you or others tell me.

You can make up your own mind whether you would like to believe or not. It's just an option you have rather than something to be dismissed because Richard Dawkins tells you that you should. Richard Dawkins is not the supreme being he just has his own opinion and that's pretty much it.

You are a deluded sap...
I got to atheism all on my own. years... decades before I ever heard of Richard Dawkins, or Daniel Dennet, or Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens, or George Carlin, or any other of those... let's call them... spokespersons.
I dismissed the faith because of faith itself. The requirement of faith is a self-defeating one. Things are either known or not. Having faith means not knowing, but pretending you have the right answer... and that is dishonest.

No thanks.
I smell snake oil a mile away!

If God does in fact exist and I would say he does then you're the one who has been convinced to buy the snake oil. Someones going to be mistaken, and it could be you why not?

I could be mistaken, of course... I could be mistaken about the lack of knowledge about the pre-big-bang conditions... but I don't find your position one of knowledge... It looks like one of dishonesty...

No, there's no evidence.

Plenty of evidence but no guaranteed proof. That's why it's called faith. Though it can still be true even if you don't know 100% that it is. Though if it turns out that atheists are actually right we can say no believer would ever find out that they were wrong.

Those believers will have spent a fair percentage of their lives doing something useless... I'm not saying they would have done something useful with that time, but, when you add up all the people, something useful would have come out of that, for sure.
In the name of fairness, some faith-based groups do help the less fortunate, so that a good usage of their time.

If there was, you'd have presented it... instead, you ramble on about how I refuse to accept it as evidence.

You will have to define what you mean by evidence as I thought that's what I was doing. I know this isn't proof but no-one is claiming that.

Faulty psychological states are never evidence for anything.

"his very definition"?
Who defined god?

He's the creator of the natural/physical universe and all of space and time itself that's the why he would be God. If he isn't a part of the natural physical universe then he isn't observable and so therefore beyond the scope of what science can possibly observe. No-one defined God the idea is that he exists and actually told us about himself. We don't know he did but that that's the idea.

How would that have happened, if "he isn't observable and so therefore beyond the scope of what science can possibly observe"... If science can't observe it, then how can human observe it?

Then how would anyone know about the guy?

Because you can rationally conclude that the universe must have been created from an initial starting point as all effects have a cause and because you have revelation in scripture where he tells us about himself. You can prove the existence of God with science you can only study what God created with science.

I can rationally conclude that the Universe was, at some time in the past, in a state we call a singularity. Beyond that, I can't say anything. I can't even define that singularity properly, much less what caused it...

Say, for example a constantly floating rock... generate an hexagonal grid some 1km at the side that covers the whole planet. On each vertex, put a floating rock and keep it there, by magic. Gravity doesn't work on the rock. No other force is acting on it.

Perhaps technologically advanced aliens shot the rock with an anti-graviton beam projector from a cloaked ship in orbit or something. It could be anything that would be causing that to happen so you would still require faith to believe it was anything to do with God and it would not be evidence of anything. Therefore you cannot have scientific proof of God. You can't use the lack of scientific proof for God as an objection against God if you can't have this proof to begin with.

Sooner or later, we'd be able to measure that anti-graviton beam and mimic it.
No, this is magic I'm talking about!

And top it of by appearing to everyone and imparting some of that timeless wisdom, while claiming to be the reason for the floating rocks. Repeat this every few years so you can catch up with everyone.

That could just be an alien like the being from Star Trek V and not really God some kind of impostor so you would still require faith in this being that appeared. If God was to appear as a human being on Earth he would be a little more subtle about it rather than appear and start spouting off. He would partake of the fullness of human life, suffer and die as a human and all that business. The the God who would die for you that's the guy right there.

I see no such god dying for anyone... I see lots of people dying for stupid reasons...
I see lots of people claiming to know about a god without knowing anything about it... Well, they know as much as I know about Darth Vader, I guess...

Would that be too above your definition of god?

He may have had a different and better way of doing things. Either way you would still require faith in the revelation. If some being suddenly appeared and started blasting unbelievers with lightning bolts you have reason to doubt him obvious though his actual existence would be.

Did I not mention that this god would appear to everyone somewhat periodically?
Revelation and faith be damned, if this guy would have been doing that ever since the start.... but clearly it's not.

Instead... we get a book written by people who may or may not have witnessed extraordinary things, and a lot of hearsay...

You have to read their experience of the divine with an open mind and judge for yourself, bearing in mind that this isn't a literal book of science and history right the way through. If something about it seems right to you on some level then you may be looking at the genuine article rather than some kind of fabrication.

"Open mind"? LOL
Did you know that if you open your mind too much, your brain will fall off?

---

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Sure some of it sounds right... it's based on a collective of human life. If those people couldn't come up with something that didn't sound right to other humans, then they would be very poor writers... maybe that happened to a lot of other holy text writers... which texts were rejected from catholic canon? How many? What did they claim?

The rational conclusion is: Everywhere we've peeked, we've found nothing but nature.

Everything we can see and detect would become part of the natural universe we understand by default, you can see how that works. That's not exactly a good case against the Creator. What you can do is take what we about the universe through science and try reading between the lines a little. There is a contingent and finely balanced natural order here, there certainly was a process of formation from a starting point in time.

Was there?

Nature holds some weird stuff, but nothing that can be pinned to any god.

Absolutely and the Bible agrees. There no gods that control the natural world as in ancient Greece only the Creator and his creation, the natural order. Where do you think the natural order came from? Something of this order of complexity and structure?

The OT would disagree with that...
Oh look, Stat's latest argument... natural order, the underlying cosmic sub-quantum designed Universe!
Come on... do you really think that the people who first suggested the existence of a god had any notion of these concepts?
If you want to convince anyone, you need to use the original argument... sadly, the original argument relies in faulty human psychology, so it's moot.
Anything after that are simply rationalizations which prove nothing.

There are places we haven't peeked yet... there are places we may never be able to peek at...

You can't find something that isn't physically there, God doesn't physically exist.

And yet, the guy allegedly contacted humans... so it is possible that we find physically observable evidence of the presence of this god.... no?

I will not fill in those places with an imaginary magical entity, just to make my life easier. That's being dishonest.... the very opposite of rational.

God fills everything that exists and you don't see him anywhere because there is nothing to see. But you have to explain why God isn't rational in the great scheme of things, what makes the alternative to God more rational?

It's irrational because it's a presupposition.
You presuppose god, then proceed to rationalize it.
The bible itself starts under this presupposition, read the very first sentence.

freedom of will... oh you...

Without God or a transcendent higher power doesn't that make us organic machines run on evolutionary programming? You can't get any kind of freewill out of that. But denying the existence God you're claiming to not have your own self realized rational mind to begin with so nullifying the point that atheism is the rational proposition. You're only an atheist because of cultural conditioning acting upon your evolutionary pre-wired hardware reacting a certain way and there is nothing else to it if you accept this materialism/physicalism as true.

Correct!
And you're only a christian "because of cultural conditioning acting upon your evolutionary pre-wired hardware reacting a certain way". This realization leads to the knowledge that theism is inevitable to some people and abhorrent to others... That theism was inevitable in humanity's history... that theism will remain with us for a while more...

You're a deterministic machine, with the illusion of free will.

No I'm a creation/creature of God made in his image with a freedom of will that reflects his own and so are you. You may think you're a deterministic machine but this is because you have gone a bit nuts or something. There is no reason to believe such a thing to be true when you have the alternative.

Actually, "there is no reason to believe such a thing to be true when you have the alternative."

You cannot say that, at any time in your life, you would have made anything different than what you did.

I can because I freewill and personal and moral responsibility given to me by my creator and so have you. You can try and prove me wrong but as far as I can tell you have absolutely nothing.

How can you distinguish true free will from the illusion of free will? The illusion that arises from the highly complex interactions of millions of neurons in your brain.

Or maybe, I can use Universe with a capital U and remove the god non-sense.

The universe is just the universe it isn't God or something to have in place of God. It is a process that God brought into existence for a reason and purpose and we are part of that. If you don't think this true then explain why.

That's not how it goes, dear...
If you think that is true, then explain why.
That has nothing to attest it.

Ah... how nice it would be to know about other life forms looking up at the stars and wondering if they are alone in this vastness...
Oh, vastness.... you know how close the nearest star is? 4-light years... that's 4 years moving at the speed of light. Now imagine a sphere with that radius. On the inside of that sphere, you have nothing but this tiny dot with water on its surface and life.

There could be trillions of planets just like Earth contained within this universe for all we know. So they're a large distance apart but that may be necessary to keep everything from colliding into everything else. Exceptional design you'll agree.

Are you making stuff up? in order to keep magic from being magical?

That's why you hear us say that "man made god".

Nope God made man.

Nuh-uh!!

There you go with the fine tuning thing again... Don't. Research into the thing and you'll find there's no fine tuning.

The complex and precise natural balance of the physical constants that allows organic life to exist then. This was either intentional or a coincidence we can't know. It would seem a bit unlikely as a coincidence though so I would say it's entirely intentional. What do you call an intentional creator of the universe?

Would you say that something unlikely, like winning the lottery can happen if you have enough attempts?
Can you imagine the amount of time nature had to arrive at life? Can you imagine the amount of time it took for life to become multicellular? Coincidence had little to do with it.

Aye, just look at the impact god has had in human life, why don't you?...
C.r.u.s.a.d.e.s.... want more?
H.o.l.y..I.n.q.u.i.s.i.t.i.o.n....

That's the same thing as saying that the impact of atheism on the world was the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao and Pol Pot. You can say they didn't really represent atheism but you can say witch hunters and crusaders didn't represent Christianity. Though with the Crusades you could kind of argue that the Muslims attacked Christendom first.

So... are you saying that the inquisition had its origin in a country's government? Or did it originate in the catholic church's headquarters?
The same for the crusades...

Is there some sort of atheism headquarters where Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin were bred?

I can see the arguments, but they all seem either like wishful thinking or plain delusion.

It could be you who is deluded for all you know.

I'm not the one claiming something to be real, when there's nothing pointing in that direction.

Sorry, I see no reason to believe in what the other side is claiming.

But you already established that you don't possess the freedom to rationally make up your own mind anyway.

Indeed... nor do you.
But the complexity involved does provide that illusion... allow me to be deluded in this tiny aspect.

The other side claims it's everywhere...

Look within your heart then, go with your gut feeling and all that business. Some of faith is rational and logical and some of it is emotional and what you feel the two go together.

Really?
My gut feeling?
My gut feeling tells me faith is a dishonest proposition.

No, I am open to reality.... just not open to being deceived.

You know atheism/materialism isn't the deception and God isn't the reality because?

Because I arrived there on my own.
Because no one tried to sell it to me, unlike what happened with faith.

And because I'm aware of all these venues by which humans can be deceived, I refuse to accept them.

How do you know you haven't already accepted a deception or the false depiction of reality? If God does in fact exist and is real if there is a higher power there then this what you have done. Someone will be wrong and it could easily be you.

If god exists and wants me to acknowledge that existence, it is doing a very poor job. It is then no god.

Think of it like a computer's firewall. I know there are bugs out there that exploit certain ports in my system, so I just close them.

Perhaps atheism/materialism is the bug you ought to have kept out of your system? You don't know if you don't know.

Are you seriously suggesting I let myself get deceived to be convinced of something I know is a deception?

Honest communication is still available, because many many ports are open. It's just those ones that are known to be used deceptively/dishonestly that are closed.

That's fine but the Bible and faith in God aren't deliberate attempts at deception. The people who wrote it clearly believed what they believed as does anyone who has a faith in God. It doesn't prove it's true of course you can choose to believe it or not it's only an option.

Indeed.
I can agree that some people who wrote it believed in it. Some believed in some of it and embellished it to make it sound better, or easier to explain.... belief in the afterlife is a very ancient belief... predating polytheism.

I want no faith.
I want knowledge. Information.

What would stop you from having both?

Faith is pretending to know... not something that interests me, thank you very much.

Damit... I ended up replying to almost every point!
Damn you stat!!!

[Ryantology]

The next time any of you benighted little darlings supply any such supporting evidence of your a god/supreme power will truly be a historical, paradigm-shattering first in human history.

The word is support and this is what I'm trying to do right now, not conclusively prove beyond a shadow of any doubt. It's worth bearing in mind that naturalist/materialist philosophy as a belief is still possibly true that can't be entirely discounted. It would be disaster and a living horror if it were true not that I'm saying you should believe in God merely because of that but because it's rational, it makes sense and it's something of value in human life. The main point to get across here though is that God is compatible with science, the laws of physics (he made them), cosmology and biological evolution. You can have all your regular mainstream science and a faith in God.

The word is support. You have no positive support for God. All you have are gaps in which you can hide from science and philosophical nonsense. Whether or not god is compatible with science is beside the point. Bigfoot is compatible with science.

As I'm as close to sure as possible that there's no god, I find just as much beauty and wonder in the universe as I find horrors. In fact, the whole thing is all the more impressive to me because it's not some cosmic tyrant's plaything. I find value in human life, both my own and others. I'm happy. I don't need the imaginary crutch you apparently can't live without.

[Whateverist]

Sounds like you've convinced yourself which one you like best.

That's like saying you convinced yourself of atheism because you don't like the idea of God existing.

I can certainly understand why you'd like to think our situations are parallel. Unfortunately they're not. By choosing Christianity from among all possible religions and whatever snake-handling, tongue-babbling denomination you prefer you've had to convince yourself of a great many things. I merely remain unconvinced by everything on the menu. No thanks.