Evidence that God exists

[fr0d0]

Hahaha! You don't fail to disappoint Demonaura

You agree that Christ is the opposite to your understanding of God of the bible it seems?

I'm a serious Christian who's studied their beliefs long and hard, and come to the opposite conclusion to you, an outsider, who, according to the bible, will never get it. Hmm.. I'm not too worried I guess.

Not sure if I've said here, so I'll say again.. most here are looking for one reason to believe that religion is true. I'm the opposite. I'm trying hard to find any reason not to.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm not looking for a reason cos I want to find one.

I'm just interested in hearing of other people's views. And hopefully helping to promote 'conversational intolerance' towards religion.

I am interested in debating. If someone believes in God and wants to debate about it with me - they must provide evidence of some shape or form (what they think is evidence I mean at least).

Because the burden of proof is on them.

EvF

[fr0d0]

Seek and you shall find my friend

"Conversational intolerance" ! ..you THUG! How open minded of you. I'm sure you'd have made great progress in the 3rd Reich with that attitude. Well done!

Hold on a minute... "I'm not looking for a reason cos I want to find one." LOL

C'mon admit it - you're a bot aren't you? Stupid me.. falling for that. Should've spotted the tell tale signs..

[Edwardo Piet]

Are there any bots like me on the net??? LOl.

EvF

[Demonaura]

There are no bots programmed to be so awesome.

Assumptions are bad, mmkay? I get into to converations like this because I find theology interesting and it is an important link to psychology and understanding human thinking patterns. If I was going to find a god, according to you guys I would have found one when I was younger and looking.

You can say I'll never get it as much as you want. Personally I think you've convinced yourself into delusion. I do not mean this in a bad way but, that's what I see. I have read the bible without automatically assuming that every word was truth, as everyone should. Because if you read the bible and allow it any special conditions, if you assume anything about it then it will not matter what the book actually says. You will find what you expected to find because your attitude will shape the meaning of the vague passages as if it were a sidenote explaining each verse.

And it's worth saying again, like I say on youtube stop assuming you know anything about anyone, you don't. You also may say that you are looking hard for a reason not to beleive but, I doubt it. you have convinced yourself you are, you have created a tiny hole in the iron wall of faith that allows just enough reason inside that you can dismiss it without being overcome. I hate to use metaphors because I am willing to bet that you will get the wrong meaning from it but, we shall see.

[fr0d0]

There are no bots programmed to be so awesome.

maybe so

Assumptions are bad, mmkay? I get into to converations like this because I find theology interesting and it is an important link to psychology and understanding human thinking patterns.

I agree. Me too.

If I was going to find a god, according to you guys I would have found one when I was younger and looking.

No, the opposite. Seems you're guaranteed to evict the ideas without ever wanting to consider them seriously if you had it force fed at a young age. I was raised by atheists.

You can say I'll never get it as much as you want.

No one could ever say that. What I meant was: looking from the outside it's not meant to make sense fully. But I guess you already knew that.

Personally I think you've convinced yourself into delusion. I do not mean this in a bad way but, that's what I see.

Of course. I would expect no less.

I have read the bible without automatically assuming that every word was truth, as everyone should. Because if you read the bible and allow it any special conditions, if you assume anything about it then it will not matter what the book actually says. You will find what you expected to find because your attitude will shape the meaning of the vague passages as if it were a sidenote explaining each verse.

No problem with that. That's how everyone should read it IMHO.

And it's worth saying again, like I say on youtube stop assuming you know anything about anyone, you don't.

Backatcha

You also may say that you are looking hard for a reason not to beleive but, I doubt it. you have convinced yourself you are, you have created a tiny hole in the iron wall of faith that allows just enough reason inside that you can dismiss it without being overcome. I hate to use metaphors because I am willing to bet that you will get the wrong meaning from it but, we shall see.

Well we could both say that couldn't we? I state my position as 'changeable', because I don't assume to be stuck with my standpoint. I want to have an open mind, and be totally open to changing my mind.

It's also easy for me to look at non-theists with strong if not evangelical zeal for their ideas and think this person may not be open to other ideas.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Well we could both say that couldn't we? I state my position as 'changeable', because I don't assume to be stuck with my standpoint. I want to have an open mind, and be totally open to changing my mind.

It's also easy for me to look at non-theists with strong if not evangelical zeal for their ideas and think this person may not be open to other ideas.

Yet the fact is that if you presented me with reasonable evidence for the existence of deity I would believe it existed. Why on Earth wouldn't I?

I would argue that we (atheists) tend to be open minded but, as Dawkins says, you can be so open-minded your brains drop out ... when you consider scientific method in the context of it being a method to eliminate flawed reasoning and that it (as a philosophy) is willing to consider any relevant evidence in an open-ended fashion it actually represents the ultimate in open-mindedness.

Kyu

[Edwardo Piet]

Great post Kyu

@ Demonaura: Hey....are you saying I'm awesome?

EvF

[Kyuuketsuki]

Great post Kyu

Thanks though apparently I just say things like that to wind Frodo up ... go figure!

Kyu

[Mark]

Do you have any recommendations for stuff written by Hume?

Well, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding are probably the best places to begin.

---

Hi Mark. That's a nice bowl of word salad you're tossing there. I dunno, the extents one has to go to to find a good reason to dismiss theism these days huh!

So you think miracles are provable do you? You're the first person I've known that does. You're stretching the meaning of words to make a point. A misguided approach. It would be simple for our small brains if a god gave evidence like you say, but then doesn't that go completely against the overwhelming evidence? I'm constantly shocked at logical minds that continuously fall at this hurdle.

Jesus' birth fits the religious model of unprovable. I believe God intervened in this world and became a regular bloke. That belief cannot be proven.

Look, it is you who asserted the logical impossibility of an event happening that everyone would concede was divine intervention in this world. But if Baal came up out of the ocean and magically dominated human life as in my little story, I submit that everyone would say it was Baal's direct, divine agency. Clearly it is possible to conceive of similar events with arbitrary other gods. It is possible to conceive, for example, of Jesus floating in the sky over Detroit accompanied by a band of angels, then waving his hand and causing the city to become encrusted with gold and fine jewels. What is it about such an event that is logically impossible?

I'm simply arguing David Hume's position that a miracle is one thing (he said, the one thing) that would be direct evidence of God. I certainly am not isolated in my assertion that it is possible to imagine events so extraordinary that no one would deny that they were miracles. It is rather you who have taken the quite extraordinary position that the miracles reported in the Bible not only did not occur, but could not possibly have occurred. What is the basis for this claim, I really cannot imagine.

There is in popular philosophy a certain strange idea that science cannot confront religion because science is about nature and religion is about some never-never world, a "spiritual" world for example, of belief. But in fact, if events started to happen that were clearly inconsistent with any possible set of natural laws and appeared very strongly to confirm that god walked among us and doled out miraculous benefits and punishments and so forth, then a new science of the divine would very soon supplant the old science of blind natural forces. So it really is not quite correct to say that modern science does not confront religion: it confronts it in the sense that it consistently reports that there is no evidence whatsoever of any sort of divine intervention in this world. (Actually I think the idea that science is incapable of confronting religion became current out of a desire of many scientists precisely to avoid such a confrontation, but that is neither here nor there).

Another version of this idea is that science cannot prove the existence of God, God being non-natural and science being about nature. Well, science cannot prove anything with the force of logic, but it can conclude that the existence of something is very strongly supported by the observed facts. And under the circumstances I mentioned science would become a science of the divine.

Now you seem to have taken the mistaken but very widely accepted notion that science can't prove the existence of God, and elevated to a logical principle, to the point that it is actually a kind of restriction on God's possible activity. It is simply impossible, you argue, that God could do anything that would unambiguously signal his presence and divinity. If this were true it would be an odd restriction upon a supposedly all-powerful divinity, but would be very convenient for his believers, since it would relieve them of having to worry about the absence of any cases of divine intervention in this world. But it isn't true. Logic simply fails to dictate that if an all-powerful God existed, he could not intervene miraculously in this world.

That all possible gods are impotent to perform miracles is not a logical necessity; but that if God exists then he is impotent to perform miracles is an empirical proposition that takes its support from the very striking absence of any miracles in actual experience. The question does arise though, of how and why an all-powerful god could be impotent of doing a certainly class of deeds.