Evidence God Exists

[tavarish]

I agree that 'God is Love' is dogma. My God is love is not, it is merely my personal belief. I am not an organisation.
I don't consider myself authoritative. I feel affinity with those who Love, but this is not a religion. I don't feel the need to preach, only ask, as Bo Diddly did...''Who do you love?''


I also hate the iniquities of man, the corruption in the catholic church, paedos, rapists, murderers, and many other assorted scumbags. Does this hatred make me unworthy to love? Not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from?? That just makes no sense to me. If you never doubt, you'll never know.

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.

It is an ideology, not necessarily that of an organization. Nowhere in the definition does it say that dogma only applies to an organization. It is an established belief that is not doubted, which is backed up by your assertion that it just "is".

You can definitely work in the confines of dogma and still hold an entirely personal belief. By the way, is your God any different from any other God that people believe in?

[AngelThMan]

Can you show me where in the bible it actually uses the words "god gave freewill to man"? because i am sure you are repeating what someone has said to you, based on some motals reasons as to why god is so evil and does not banish all that is bad

The bible never quite says "man has free will." But faith is mentioned all throughout the bible. God's call for man to have faith suggests that God won't force man to have faith. He leaves it up to man to decide whether or not it's beneficial to follow him. From this, the concept of free will can be inferred.

[RedFish]

Ok, I agree it is a personal ideology, but I do doubt and question it, as I said. Only a fool wouldn't. 'Just is how I feel' would maybe have been better? Atheism is dogma, no?
I aspire to love the whole world. I diverge from this in my hatred of some human behaviour. It doesn't cause me problems, or make me feel unworthy. Is my God different? Well in some ways yes, in others no. Other people know their God better than I. I assume..?...

[tavarish]

Ok, I agree it is a personal ideology, but I do doubt and question it, as I said. Only a fool wouldn't. 'Just is how I feel' would maybe have been better? Atheism is dogma, no?
I aspire to love the whole world. I diverge from this in my hatred of some human behaviour. It doesn't cause me problems, or make me feel unworthy. Is my God different? Well in some ways yes, in others no. Other people know their God better than I. I assume..?...

Atheism isn't dogmatic, as it is simply a lack of belief in a God or gods. That's it.

What makes your God different?

[RedFish]

But atheism satisfies the same criteria used to label my belief, ie an ideology. Authoritative, and not to be disputed. Although I often question mine, which is dispute, I think.
My God different? Not sure, to be honest. I prefer to look for Love in a religious(?) teaching, and see it as evidence of 'connectedness' if it is there. So I'll read any old shite. In practice, peoples interpretation confuses the issue, due to their own desires. I don't see much Love in the vatican. Or Yemen. But I do see it, and feel connected, sometimes. Even if the connection is to grief, loss etc.

[tavarish]

But atheism satisfies the same criteria used to label my belief, ie an ideology. Authoritative, and not to be disputed. Although I often question mine, which is dispute, I think.
My God different? Not sure, to be honest. I prefer to look for Love in a religious(?) teaching, and see it as evidence of 'connectedness' if it is there. So I'll read any old shite. In practice, peoples interpretation confuses the issue, due to their own desires. I don't see much Love in the vatican. Or Yemen. But I do see it, and feel connected, sometimes. Even if the connection is to grief, loss etc.

Atheism isn't an ideology. It's not authoritative, and it can definitely be disputed.

I don't understand what exactly you're equating "love" to.

[RedFish]

Ok, I'll take your word for it.
You want me to equate love to something measurable? Impossible. It's either there or it isn't. I suppose the compassion that organised 'religion' claims, but does not necessarily practice, or the Love between people and the world, which is there, but hard to see sometimes. And sometimes not there. (?) That's a quick answer. I aspire to love the whole spectacle of existence, and maybe beyond, but that is an ideal. Shit happens, that is a reality.
(i did write a bit more but couldn't escapethe feeling iwas about to disappear up my own fundament, as it were.)

[tackattack]

@tav- How much Dogma (by your definition)do you believe Christianity has and what are some of them?

[Godscreated]

"Now I'm not saying all nonbelievers live this way nor am I saying all believers treat their unborn with the care they should.Nor am I saying that all nonbelievers have less respect for life than believers only a fool would make such a statement."

This is the statement I made at the end of my original reply and somehow most of you seemed to have missed it or ignored it so that you could make a mountain out of a molehill.

As respect for life goes, go back and read the entire post, I believe there are statements made by some atheist (not all atheist) that human life is no more important than animal life.If this statement is true then why do we have murder laws.

I hope this will help you to understand what I am saying when I use the terms believer and nonbeliever.
Believer=one who trust in the God of the Bible for their salvation through Jesus Christ.
Nonbeliever= eveyone else.

Yes religion has cost many innocent people their lives and yes people have killed in the name of God and wars have been fought in the name of christianity and none of this makes it right. What I want to know is why you think that true christians caused these horrible events.You are the ones making the assurtions give me your proof?

Josephus a Jewish historian born in 37 AD.The Antiquities is one of his greater works and it is the history of the Jewish nation from creation to his present time.In this work he writes about James being killed and refers to James as the brother of Jesus,who was called the Christ.Another work of Josephus called the Testimonium Flavianum refers to Jesus as a wise man that wrought suprising feats.He also states Pilate condemned Him to be crucified.Josephus also states in this passage that His followers loved Him and never abandoned His teachings.
Tacitus a roman historian tells of Jesus receiving a death sentence of crucifiction from Pontius Pilate.
Pliny The Younger writes of the executions of the followers of Christ.These executions were ordered by Pliny The Younger.
The New Testament says a great darkness fell over the land as Christ hung on the cross.There are historic records by Thallus,Tertullian that a great darkness did occur in the Mediterranean area in 33 AD.They said it was a solar eclipse of the sun.However we know that on the day of Jesus crucifiction that a Blood Moon rose over the horizion on the afternoon of the crucifiction this would make it impossible for there to have been a solar eclipse.In case someone doesn't know a blood moon refers to a lunar eclipse.
I wrote this last part in response to a statement made that there is no evidence that Jesus was a real person when indeed there is evidence out side of the Bible that supports the claim of the Bibical Jesus. I did not write this to claim Jesus is the Son of God even though that is exactly what I believe.

Please understand I do not lump all believers in one basket and all non believers in another there are a lot of different baskets that both fit in.I have many friends that are nonbelievers and they raise their children with great care and I know christians who are to lazy to provide properly for their childern.
I know people who are not christains yet they claim they are and I know people who are not christians and they do not claim they are, the latter I have respect for.Sorry if I came across as someone who looks down on people who do not believe as I do that is not what I intended and that is not who I am for the most part.I have a very hard time respecting anyone who mistreats childern (born or unborn).

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[quote='Godschild' pid='60951' dateline='1269215805']
She did say that more believers left prison than entered prison (meaning they became believers in prison.

If an inmate wants to have his parole after doing half of his sentence he'd better play the role of the good boy who converted to christianity, especially in the southern US states.

Thank you AtheistPhil for your support of my position.hock:In my last reply I gave more references to Jesus outside the Bible.

[AngelThMan]

AngelThMan wrote:
We don't have any evidence that disproves a God. If we do, can you explain?

The Problem of Evil

The presence of evil does not deny the existence of God. The bible acknowledges that there is evil.

It is claimed that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.

But evil exists
- If God doesn't know about evil he is not omniscient.
- If God knows about evil but cannot stop it, he is not omnipotent.
- If God knows about evil and he can stop it but doesn't, he is not omnibenevolent.

The way you explain it here is too simplistic. It almost turns God into a superhero. Someone gets in trouble, and God is supposed to come to the rescue, or he doesn't exist. That's not what God is about. He is much more complex than that. Since man has free will, he is given the choice on how to carry himself. We are not God's robots or puppets. He did not create us that way. In some cases, the free will he gives us will manifest itself in evil behavior. Those who have faith in the Lord will be placed under his umbrella of protection.

To give you an idea of how serious this problem is for the religionists, it is worth pointing out that some of them have suggested that evil does not exist. Serial killers are not evil, they are actually good people... Not as good as you and me, but still good. And nothing evil has happened to the victims; the victim just happened to be in a place where there was a little less than usual amount of good!

I myself agree this is a clumsy way of explaining evil. Most Christians do not believe this. Just because a few kooks came up with this concept doesn't mean atheists should use it to try to disprove the existence of God.

The mere fact that apologists find it necessary to raise such a ludicrous defense of their God is enough to suggest that the conclusions drawn from the problem of evil are more effective than they would ever dare to admit.

We can't always know why things happen the way they do. If God says there are mysteries that will be revealed later, why do people insist they need to know everything right now? We don't always know why evil occurs to 'seemingly' innocent people or countries, but God may have his reasons.

Only God truly understand the heart of a person and the amount of faith they possess. Just because someone calls themselves a Christian and goes to church every Sunday doesn't mean they truly are. Is evil or misfortune happening to that person for a reason? Only God knows.

God hates idolatry. A nation that systematically worships false Gods may experience his wrath. Who knows? My point is that God may have his reasons for allowing evil to exist in this world. It's too simplistic to say that because evil exists, God doesn't.