SoliDeoGloria inquired:
Has this turned into a debate over causality?
Only superficially, insomuch in addressing
your introduced caveat of a personally satisfying "disproof". I retain no
especial interest in "causality" (either "prime" or consequential), since I regard scientific explanations as both
most plausible (beyond reasonable doubt), and more than satisfactory in suit to my own sensibilities.
I am trully impressed in your vast knowledge of $20 dollar words and scripture and would love to have a one on one debate with you over the existence of God. I will even start one for you if you would like. I was under the impression that this particular thread was for believers to present possible disproofs of their beliefs.
Your initial impression/assumption
is the correct one.
I merely rebutted
your introduced caveats. You were invited to cite
specific evidence or circumstance that
you would regard as a qualified "disproof"; directly causal to an unequivocal "disbelief" of your adherent religious (faith-based) perspective. The attendant vagaries and
unspecified particulars of any "first cause disproof" are
so broad and anomalous as to be untenable in serious deliberation of circumspect and quantifiable
fact. How shall we
test some theoretically proposed "first cause"? What credible hypothesis could be crafted? By what measure or methodology shall we garner comparison in subsequent validation or falsification?
While this is a debate forum, for the sake of keeping this thread from taking a completely sidetracking direction, I propose the above.
Accepted. I await your lead. ;-)
I concluded:
It would again seem that my question of "What would it take for you to not believe in God?" remains beyond any similarly qualified response on your part, excepting:
You summarized in reply:
As a follower of calvinism, my answer to your question of "What would it take for you to believe in God?". would be a regeneration of your heart by God.
I will assume that your omission of the qualifying word "not" was a typo. ;-)
I guess now is just as good a time as any to clarify the difference between evangelism and apologetics. As R.C. Sproul puts it in his book "Defending your Faith", while the role of evangelism may be persuasive, the role of apologetics is to merely present proof.
Forgive me, but at best apologetics only manages to present defense or justification/rationalization of (contradictory, complex, or multi-facted) faith-based claims/accountings by means of in-depth exegesis. At worst, apologetics typifies circular reasoning.
"The old aphorism rings true 'people convinced against their will hold the same opinions still'.
Some aphorisms are also useless, witless bunk. ;-)
Just the same, I prefer a similar sentiment as expressed by Samuel Clemens, to wit:
"
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
That bell has a better tone to my ear. ;-)
That is why, for example, if a Christian were to win an intellectual debate with a non-Christian, the victory celebration may never take place. The non-Christian might concede defeat, thought usually not until his head hits the pillow at the end of the day.
The same may be said for atheists as well. An atheistic perspective offers no promise of bestowed extraordinary reward, nor glorious dispensation of just punishment.
No infinite afterlife of perpetual bliss or torment.
No "universal absolutes" of morality, ethics, purpose, or meaning in a mortal existence (beyond those we practice and accountably assert for ourselves).
No happy answers to painful realities; "
Why do bad things happen to good people?".
If I "lose" a debate, I experience
no material or "spiritual" loss (beyond the occasional bruised ego), for I have nothing of baiting wayward temptation or promised reward to proffer or gain either for myself, or for my countering foil.
This may never translate into conversion, but there is some value to this aspect of 'winning' an argument. On the one hand, as Calvin said, the unbridled barking of the ungodly may be restrained; and on the other, the intellectual victory provides assurance and protection to the young Christian who is not yet able to repel the bombardment of criticism from scholars and skeptics. It serves as a confirmation of the Christian faith."
Validation of faith-based beliefs is the very grist of the "majority religion" mills. Doubt and skepticism are the inherent products of an evolved consciousness and self-aware sentience. Faith
without validation and support becomes no more that popular myth, superstition, and legend. So went the "gods" of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Sumerians, Aztecs, etc. The primary accounting of "validity" in modern religions is due solely to widespread
popularity and practiced
adherence. Faith remains evidence of
faith itself, but still provides not one iota of credible evidence as to any existent "god
. 1900 years ago, Christians were regarded as cultists and kooks within the "civilized" world. Methinks it's only a matter of time...
You sought to both compliment, then scold me in saying:
While your knowledge of scripture is impressive, your exegesis is lacking. To take a book that happens to be one of my favorite and turn verses in to absolutes while ignoring the conclusion made at the end of the book; Ecc. 12:13-14; "The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgement, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil." shows nothing more than a convenient and complete refusal to use the proposed verse in it's original context. Eccl. 9:10 is a verse proclaiming the lack of activity as we know it here on earth, not a proclaimation that there is absolutely no activity when one dies or ends up in "shoel". Obviously, with the end of the verse stating "where you are going" is a statement claiming some sort of existence and activity after death.
Obviously, my intent was not to indulge some lengthy and critical exegesis of the passage in question, but to tender a referenced (albeit facile) point. I might readily engage you in critical and circumspect debate over the singular (and similarly unextended context) chapter and verse you have chosen to cite as either support (for your position) or instruction to my supposed (lacking) erudition/benefit. As you are aware, I am an atheist; and as such, not particularly motivated to either support or defend (or apologetically explain/justify) given scriptural passages as veritable wisdom or "Truth". This is not to suggest that such expended efforts are beyond my capacities - only that I am not particularly motivated nor presuppositionally enjoined to expound upon such banalities, as they are not the foundations of my argued positions. If I retained, and sought to pursue such interests, I would spend most of my available time within forums of religion-specific disscusion/debate. My notable absence from such forums is both conspicuous and recorded.
In reflection of the relative permanence of that record, I shall note once again - betwixt our rather lengthy exchanges - you tender no qualified/specified evidential disproof that lends quantifiable answer to the OP question:
"What would it take for you to not believe in (a) god(s)?"
If or until you can produce someone that has been legally, medically, and coroner-certifiably dead, and then buried in an earthen tomb for at least seven days; whom thereupon has been extraordinarily resurrected into conscious, cognizant, and coherent livelihood...with firsthand accountings validating religious claims of some "life after death" - then, and only then, will I consider stipulations of your personalized death (or someone else's) as a viable and reasonable response to the question at hand.
As reminder, I consider respondent answers of "no", "none that I can think of", or "i don't know" as legitimate reply...if not particularly illuminating or helpful in illustration or production of some prospectively unequivocal "disbelief".
It's a fair question, that deserves a fair answer.
If there is no fair or reasonable specificity to be had from proselytizing believers in answer to the OP question, then I simply maintain that "believers" - in asking "unbelievers" to fairly qualify their own requisites for adherence/acceptance to/of faith-based beliefs/claims - only reflect impotent evangelism at best, and vacuous rationale and empty rhetoric in the erstwhile medial norm.