Christians, what is your VERY BEST arguments for the existence of God?

[Edwardo Piet]

Nah.

EvF

[Pippy]

i think it would be dangerous to attempt this so called "full satisfaction" thing.

It is an ideology, something to aim for in an abstract way, but also to understand it's limits and functions...

Is that avatar pic actually you Evie? Kinda stoic.

[chatpilot]

touche my good friend rjh4! So let me rephrase that statement. It is obvious to one that has not had his mind and his judgments clouded by religious dogma and beliefs that.............etc. etc. etc. feel free to fill in the rest.

See CP...it is not that hard to show your bias instead of hiding behind a facade of being nonbiased.

Of course, I think it would have been more accurate to say:

"It is obvious to those of us who have known God but have suppressed this knowledge in unrighteousness that.......etc."

Rjh4 I honestly cannot really call my position bias because I have made a sincere attempt to know this god you speak of. I have been on both sides of the fence and find that this side is so much more convincing. I have said to people I know in person that knowing the things I know now it is impossible for me to worship god or go back to serving the lord. I don't like the idea of not being able to prove in some other way that he/she/it exist without resorting to the weak argument of faith. I don't like the idea of being a servant of anyone or anything as serving god implies you should be.

I don't like the idea of original sin, nor the whole idea of serve god or pay for your non-compliance in a place of eternal torment called hell. Any god in my view who would torment someone eternally for not believing in him, especially if he does not make himself known to the normal senses is not worthy of worship.

[Edwardo Piet]

i think it would be dangerous to attempt this so called "full satisfaction" thing.

It is an ideology, something to aim for in an abstract way, but also to understand it's limits and functions...

It's like being 'more than happy' as George Carlin says, sounds "almost like a dangerous mental condition" (perhaps paraphrased a word or two).

Is that avatar pic actually you Evie? Kinda stoic.

Yes it's me. And my bro did the black and white type effect on it and made the 'EvF' look cool.

EvF

[Watson]

My very best argument would be to point to certain instances in my life, my friend's lives, and my loved one's lives which, whether or not the person who experienced the was aware of them, could not logically be explained away as mere coincidence and whose only logical conclusion could be a guiding being at work.

[Zhalentine]

My very best argument would be to point to certain instances in my life, my friend's lives, and my loved one's lives which, whether or not the person who experienced the was aware of them, could not logically be explained away as mere coincidence and whose only logical conclusion could be a guiding being at work.

Give us a specific example please. A lot of mysteries in life have been given credit to a god(s) until science debunked it.

[Watson]

My very best argument would be to point to certain instances in my life, my friend's lives, and my loved one's lives which, whether or not the person who experienced the was aware of them, could not logically be explained away as mere coincidence and whose only logical conclusion could be a guiding being at work.

Give us a specific example please. A lot of mysteries in life have been given credit to a god(s) until science debunked it.

Of course, no problem.

These will not be scientific problems, I can assure you of that. It is a matter of experience and of understanding. Therefore, I have no doubt I will be rebuttled.

A friend of mine was at his friend's house, spending time and having fun there. As the night wore on, he felt uneasy, and decided to leave. His friend's father asked if he needed a ride, but he politely declined. He chose to walk instead, and was on his way home when he wondered if I was around and willing to hang out. When he turned the corner toward my home, however, there were police cars up and down the street, so instead he walked on.

A little later he got the idea to call his cousin and see if HE wanted to hang out. His cousin declined and said he was sick, and that was the end of it. My friend walked on and eventually passed his a relative of his house. He thought about going in, but decided against it. Just as he was about to leave, however, someone he recognized but did not expect pulled into the driveway. Wondering what was going on, he went inside and discovered that a crisis within his family had occured.(for his own personal reasons I will omit the crisis itself.)

The point of that being that, had he accepted a ride home, had he gone to my house, had his cousin hung out with him, had he walked just a little bit faster or a little bit slower, he would not have been there during a time of need for his family.

Yet on that night, he was in fact there, and he is a strong enough willed person to have a prescence which is very reassuring, so his family certainly benefited from that.

I have more if you wish, but that's freshest on my mind and works best as an example.

[Zhalentine]

It seems more like coincidence than anything else, but you probably expect this answer.

According to your religion we have free will. For God to have influenced your friend into making those decisions would have taken away your friend's free will; thus, by the atheist and Christian viewpoint, it seems illogical for God to have been able to make your friend refuse those offers and eventually help his family because doing so would have taken away your friend's free will.

[Watson]

It seems more like coincidence than anything else, but you probably expect this answer.

You would be coorect, haha! When one really thinks about this, to say that something is 'mere coincidence' is a rather feeble counter-point, and a strawman at that.

According to your religion we have free will. For God to have influenced your friend into making those decisions would have taken away your friend's free will; thus, by the atheist and Christian viewpoint, it seems illogical for God to have been able to make your friend refuse those offers and eventually help his family because doing so would have taken away your friend's free will.

According to my belief, not religion, God's will and free will ar eone in the same. Since God is a part of every living, non-living, and een non-corporeal thing around us, then ultimately the events that transpire and occur around us are part of the process of getting to one ultimate goal for all.

Have you ever formed a strong emotional connection with someone in your life? Most people have. Has tehre ever come a time when, despite your own plans, that person asked you to make a decision between your plan, option A, and their plan, option B? Now let's propose that normally you wouldn't go with option B, but that you were so emotionally connected to the person offering it to you, you were instantly able to decipher it's preprecussions and purpose in relation to you, and went with option B.

You did not go with option B because the person offering it to you took away your free will, but because you understood perfectly why option B was there and in what ways it could benefit you. God presents us with the options, and the capability to nderstand those options, but if we choose to deny that, it muddles the reasoning and ultimately decisions become unclear and hard. He doesn't take away the will of the person, just gives them the answers and the tools with which to find them.

Which is why suicide is such a departure, but that is something for another discussion.

[Zhalentine]

You would be coorect, haha! When one really thinks about this, to say that something is 'mere coincidence' is a rather feeble counter-point, and a strawman at that.

"A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position." - Wikipedia

I did not misrepresent your position and then refute that misrepresentation, thus I did not create a straw man.

A rather feeble counter-point? That is up to opinion. Frankly, I think that saying God influenced your friend is a rather feeble and naive explanation for what happened. Forget about how the brain and body works making you react to every situation you are in, God did it.

Have you ever formed a strong emotional connection with someone in your life? Most people have. Has tehre ever come a time when, despite your own plans, that person asked you to make a decision between your plan, option A, and their plan, option B? Now let's propose that normally you wouldn't go with option B, but that you were so emotionally connected to the person offering it to you, you were instantly able to decipher it's preprecussions and purpose in relation to you, and went with option B.

You did not go with option B because the person offering it to you took away your free will, but because you understood perfectly why option B was there and in what ways it could benefit you. God presents us with the options, and the capability to nderstand those options, but if we choose to deny that, it muddles the reasoning and ultimately decisions become unclear and hard. He doesn't take away the will of the person, just gives them the answers and the tools with which to find them.

The person did not take away my free will. With your hypothetical situation, you said that I chose to go with option B; therefore, I made a decision based off of free will. To take away free will would require an external force (god) to make me choose a path. The person in your hypothetical is not making me go with them.

Perhaps you'll counter and say, "well god didn't make my friend choose those options."
Free will is defined as "the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies" (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/web...ree%20will) Whether your god made an option look more appealing or forced you to do something, that violates the free will he has given you because the choice is no longer unconstrained.