INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[dantech]

over a thousand posts and still not a single indisputable rational proof to be seen...

There hasn't been a single indisputable rational proof that He doesn't exist either.

 

[1robin]

What? No. I’m saying “it’s tradition” isn’t a valid argument. Lots of “traditional” things have been done away with, and should be, as civilizations progress. And civilizations do progress.

1. I never said that traditional morality should not be dismissed because it has the label of traditional. In fact I went to great links to give the evidence that since it has been overturned by our new secular moral insanity most of the stats we measure moral health by has skyrocketed. I never made a semantic argument.
2. I never said anything about whether civilizations progress or not. I said claiming specific things were progress (at least if progress means good) were completely wrong but not that progress does or does not occur. The fact that morally in many ways we have regressed is also an obvious point I made.

How are you personally affected by someone else partaking in a same sex relationship?

1. My taxes are higher because we have to treat diseases spread many times more rapidly because of their habits. This strangely enough, is almost exclusively male male problems.
2. I was in the Navy in 88 when Clinton was elected. I saw countless very good soldiers take early retirement because among other things they thought gays in the military would be a reality soon. Fighting fires was much more dangerous when 25% of the experienced personnel were gone and replaced by new recruits.
3. It took longer than they thought at the time but eventually homosexuality was permitted in the military. Even if nothing what so ever is wrong with being gay it still caused major unit cohesion problems. Over 1000 officers of the highest level petition congress to stop it and of course were told that was not PC and to shut up and go die as they were told.
4. Navy doctors along with treating legitimate injury have now to treat the most diabolic and depraved issues imaginable that only homosexuality produces. I will not get detailed about this.
5. My already broke government will have to borrow even more money it does not have to treat the issues exclusive to homosexuality.
6. I could very easily contract a disease that would in all likelihood not exist if homosexuality was not practiced even though I do not practice it.
7. Whether something is inconvenient for me has nothing whatever to do with it being wrong or right. This list is getting too big and I will leave it there.

Except that they’re considered chattel, like in the 10 commandments.

What? The movie or the Bible? No one voted in Phoronic Egypt and movies do not count. BTW it was the men who died in the mud brick pits not the women.

Women have been considered chattel for most of human history, right up until the early 20th century. So traditionally, women should still be considered chattel. That’s if we’re using your tradition argument.

I never said anything about anything being labeled tradition is good and I am pretty sure you know that very well. I used the "label" traditional as it applies to approx. 1940-50 United states. What stopped women from voting was not the Bible? Women are given almost equal and in a few cases more value than men. In a few instances women have less rights than men. For example their testimony is considered less valuable than men and they are told to be quiet in Church (that verse is woefully misused by your side. It was to one church at on time because the women were being disruptive and is no general command). Some say any inferior status women have is linked to Eves greater sin in the Garden but I don't know. However God appointed women to judge the entire nation of Israel, used them to save the majority of the Hebrew culture, used them as the first witnesses of teh resurrection, and made countless more prominent heroes. If you are saying God is oppressive to women you are incorrect and that is a desperate claim.

Practicing safe sex at any age is not a shameful act. It’s an act of personal responsibility, whether you’re 18 or 95. Like I said earlier, if you want to know why teen pregnancy has skyrocketed in the US, look at the programs that have been instituted, like abstinence-only education which denies the fact that people will ever have sex at all. Given that the vast majority of human beings will indeed have sex at some point in life, it only makes sense to educate them on how to do it safely and responsibly. There is no removal of personal responsibility being done by my side. Quite the opposite. Your side just imagines that people will never have sex if you just tell them not to or that god is watching them, I guess.

I am not against safe sex. I am against it being used as replacement for abstinence. No Christian I ever heard of thinks that abstinence is a guaranteed event. In fact of all the people I have known Christians are far more aware of our fallings than anyone. You do not understand the issue from our side and it would take far too long to clarify. One thing is an absolute fact passing out condoms is in effect a condoning of adults to sex in most teens eyes and parents not the state run schools are supposed to fill that role (though I am not against it, but it should be done within the context of the spiritual system that sufficiently explains what is at stake). Liberals are destroying the government and the country and should stay away from our kids.

Why do you think teen pregnancies in the US are the highest in the developing world, especially compared to say, the more secular and more sexually expressive Europe which have very high birth control use and very good sex education? Or how about the fact that teen pregnancy rates in underdeveloped countries that have absolutely no sex education whatsoever are astronomically high?

You made self-contradictory points here. You said the country with the most sex education and the ones with the least have the highest rates of teen pregnancy, that means education is irrelevant. Do you actually think that people do not know what causes babies? I can tell you exactly why underdeveloped countries have high pregnancy rates but you would not believe it unless you researched it, I didn't. I see no point made here.

It has nothing to do with shaming people into not doing it and everything to do with comprehensive education. And again, if you want to lower abortion rates you need to support sex education and birth control and the institutions that provide such things.

Yes we need to educate people about a God that can help fight these urges, the reasons why they should be fought, and what to do when you lose the fight and give in. I am not a Catholic and I do not agree with their methods. Every Christian family I know says to be abstinent, what the enormous cost is for failure, and provides understanding and support when mistakes are made. My parents actually gave me condoms and a long talk that included the truth (which secularism is devoid of) of the nature of the acts involved. Protestant Christianity provides everything that secularism does but adds the power to fight these urges, the proper context the issues are included within, and spiritual support when failure occurs and leaves it in the hands it belongs in (the parents) instead of a government that can't even balance its checkbook or do virtually nothing it is required to effectively and efficiently.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

Simply telling people not to have sex and then shaming them and their child for their entire lives aren’t going to cut it. We need practical solutions.

Would you please quit slanting things whichever way and to whatever extent is desired whether accurate or not. The word chattel does not even appear in the Bible yet you have used it in connection with it many times and the concept its self is forbidden. I never said anything about a lifetime of shame and no Christian I ever met thinks like that. Its these dozens and dozens of instances where things are distorted for effect that make it clear the lack of faith is based on bias and preference not evidence. Ravi by any standard is one of history’s greatest philosophers and here are a few of his comments about shame.
· Secularism (Webster definition): indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations
· When shame has jettisoned from our society you will find how incredible the mind becomes

· When secularism has done its doing we may actually end up producing a generation of men and women who have lost their sense of shame – when a man or woman has lost their sense of shame, I will show you potentially dangerous man or woman you are looking at

• Adolf Hitler: “I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of a conscience, imperious, relentless and cruel.”

“You show me a society without shame, and I will show you a society that is flirting with hell. You cannot, simply cannot, build a culture where nothing is shameful anymore.”

Sure, shame is merited for certain acts, like rape or murder or lying.

That is until the secularists decide they as well are no longer wrong as in the case of abortion.

I don’t think it’s fair to shame someone for being who they are, and in fact, I’d say you’re hurting them much more than you’re helping them.

That is impossible to prove or know even if true. How many girls chose to say no because of the repercussions another less conservative girl experienced. Shame is natural no one need invent or apply it. The human conscience rebels at what secular people claim is not even wrong.

Why do you think young gay people commit suicide at such high rates?

I believe homosexuality is in large measure a symptom of a much bigger problem and that problem also comes with the ingredience that makes suicide more likely and is another example of nature’s rebellion against secularism.

Is that your goal, in shaming them?

I have nothing to do with it. It comes by betraying a moral code existence in the moral fabric of the universe and secularisms denial of that obvious fact causes vastly more harm than shame has.

And you keep saying, “oh gay people kill millions and cost us billions” which again, you appear to just be making up out of thin air.

I will assume you wrote this before I posted the numbers (far greater than I claimed) for civil war sanitation deaths. I will not accept these claims of thin air from this post on. I got those numbers from an in-depth debate on homosexuality I had with a person as prolific and as wrong as you are about the issue and provided the numbers for that as well.

I hate to tell you this but HIV/AIDS isn’t a gay disease and you seem to be assuming that all gay people are passing this around simply by virtue of their existence.

If that is what I meant that is what I would have said. Please stop purposefully misstating what I claim. I specifically said the rates at which the diseases are passed is a result of the practice not that they invented aids. Aids came from scientific ignorance not sexual obscenity.

Say there are two gay men living together, building a life together, loving each other and not affecting anyone else in any way at all.

A wrong thing does not become right because you clothe it in dress that for one is a gross misrepresentation of things in general and also assume the dress remains static and that again is not the average case. Homosexuals are far more promiscuous than heterosexuals, (again because it is a much larger problem that homosexuality is only a symptom of).

What is your objection to that?

I am against a practice even if you find an example where it is less destructive. Stealing is not right because sometimes it looks just or sometimes it does not hurt anyone. The lengths secular folks go to excuse and explain away things so absolutely destructive is appalling. You quite literally compromise with immorality.

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

• Illustrated London News (23 October 1909)

Not to mention the fact that all of your “they spread disease and kill millions” talk completely ignores the existence of lesbians. You seem to only be referring to gay men in your arguments. How are my lesbian cousin, her wife and child negatively affecting anybody? I’ve never seen my cousin happier in her entire life, now that she’s being who she is.

This is getting way off track. I do not have to evaluate every single person or example where a certain practice is maintained. It is quite absurd to absolve Murder of wrongness even if you can find a case where the wrong is hard to find. That is like saying you can't call Osama Bin Laden or Sadam Hussein evil because at times they did good things. Besides I do not nor do I have the power to condemn people. I only condemn acts.

I have talked to many of these women who tell me that their priests tell them to go home to their husbands because divorce is an abomination in the eyes of god. Real sick stuff.

That is absurd. Though I imagine that the absurd happens from time to time. I was a prayer counselor for years, I have read books and attended seminars on divorce counseling and nothing even remotely like this was ever taught or condoned. This is simply another slant and amplification for effect.

It was an American custom until the Supreme Court decided sometime in the 1960s that it was okay for married couples to use birth control which I
can’t even believe was forbidden in the first place. How does the state have the right to tell anyone that??

How many times do I have to claim I have nothing against birth control to get you to stop mentioning it. Customs are not changed or addressed by the supreme court, laws are. Laws are secular institutions.

Were you not defending Catholics in regards to the withholding of condoms from poor people living in places around the world where AIDS is most prevalent?

No, I think that is a terrible idea. Where did you get this from?

It appears to be helping me.

What doesn't, in your head?

I’ve always been under the impression that they’re referred to as the greatest generation because they fought and won World War II and beat the Nazis for us. I don’t know what the rest of this has to do with 1950 versus 2013 in terms of the moral landscape. The 1950’s may have been the best time in the US if you were a white male, but that’s about it.

If you can't even see what I am saying elaborating will not help. Try and look at the shows in a 1950 TV guide or other listing (almost all family and educational). Today they are full of sex, violence, and news shows that invent the news. Thanks again secularism. It is not that secularism was tried that bothers me. It was that it was tried and it failed and the failure was denied and excused.

Continued below again:

 

[1robin]

There has never been a completely secular society in the history of the world, as far as I can tell. The founding of the US is the closest thing to it that I know of.

This is another secular distortion. The US was founded on Christian values and was made up of 85% plus Christians. Most of them had come from England which had incorporated the Church and oppressed any opposition and that is even why most came here. They did not want any government to dictate religion again and so set it up where the government was not allowed to condone any certain religion. It was not meant to be secular it was meant to be theologically free. As in most cases people now use those laws for purposes never intended and even insert things like "separation of Church and state" into places it does not exist.
I agree that no country is 100% secular but the closes are the atheistic utopias like Lennon's and Stalins Russia, or Mao's China a few years back, or Kim Jong Ills atheistic N Korea. Not a good track record at all. Stalin alone killed 20 million.

So you want me to believe that secularism took over in your country sometime in the 1960’s. Okay, so how many atheistic members of Congress have there been since then, and how many are there now?

I said secularism not secularists on purpose. What country do you live in? Currently my country claims at least to be about 80% Christian and few politicians would not claim to be one. However we now for the first time have openly atheist members of Congress, plus Muslims, etc.... What they are is not the issue anyway it is what they do? As bad as they are it is not them causing most of the damage it is secular groups like the ACLU who in the name of tolerance do not tolerate whatever they choose and the politicians no matter what they claim are in their pockets. Except for some of the deep south Christianity is under attack by the media in general. Add in the unions, gay activist groups, in fact just go to this site and count how many groups there are currently for the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_secularist_organizations
Every one I checked was post 1950.
However the worse by far are the media and the academic community. As an apologist I have viewed the stats and at the majority of Universities at least one professor will attempt to counter faith whether it has any application to the class or not. The more liberal institutions like Berkley and Harvard relentlessly attack faith and the traditional institutions and beliefs that made the US of 1950 the greatest country in human history. Since secularism has taken over our no 1 position has been steadily eroding in almost every statistic yet the ones at fault will not even allow a problem to exist much less fix it. If something is not broken secular liberalism will fix it until it is.

 

[1robin]

Okay, so you concede the point that science has an amazing track record? Everything we know about the earth and the universe comes from scientific investigation. Everything we know about the human body comes from scientific investigation. Everything we know about the composition of the earth, the stars, the moon, and organic matter comes from scientific investigation. Everything we know about medicine comes from scientific investigation.

Science as I have said is not a thing. It is a concept that incorporates things done long before the concept existed. Observation was done from day one of humanity and just because science claims observation does not mean that science deserves praise for what it adopted. I deal with the end product of science every day at work. It is a very inefficient, faulty, expensive, overly complicated, and messy field that promotes arrogance and claims to know what it doesn't and produces more failure than success. I can't understand the almost worshipful mezmerization (if that is a word) people have with the field. Of course it eventually corrects its mistakes (that is what my job is all about) yet it deserves little praise for doing what Math, History, Literature and every other field of study does as well. I deal with defense technology. It is a field that hemorrhages vast amounts of money that could be put to better use by repeated failure of its most technically senior experts. I currently have a greater than 90% failure rate of instruments for the F-15 which is an old technology. Science is simply science and it deserves no special commendation outside the rare person who discovers (many times by luck or accident) an especially useful cure or invention) but most fields deserve the same. I just do not get this reverence.

1. Meaning is whatever you make it. We don’t need science for that one. And I don’t agree with the meanings described in the Bible. Both this and 2. are the interpretations of these questions by ancient desert dwellers. Maybe there is no grander meaning.
2. Same as above. I don’t see why or how our purpose is to worship an invisible god despite the fact that that may have been what the ancient Hebrews imagined. Maybe there is no grand purpose.
3. I’d love to know how the universe was created. But the Bible again is simply the result of ancient peoples simply trying to understand the world around them, just as we do. What they came up with was Yahweh. The ancient Greeks came up with Zeus and Hera, and the Muslims came up with Allah. So what exactly is the answer? Who knows.
4. As far as I can tell, when we die, we cease living and our body decomposes. Those are the only real answers we have at the moment.
5. Why is this one of the most important questions of life? Who says there is something wrong with man?
6. I think a better question would be, how do we minimize suffering?
7. Now that is a good question. The Bible’s answer is to do what you’re told. I think we decide this the way we have always, and that is the way Richard Dawkins describes it (see my last post).

I see you have done what you do with morality. You have no answer so you either redifine the issue or deny teh necessity. Those issues were not invented by me. They are what philosophers and theologians say they are asked the most when the issue of life’s most important questions is breeched. By the way for your number 6, instantly revoking all secular distortions and reestablishing the moral codes we lived by when Christianity ruled the US in the 40's and 50's would instantly save millions of lives, billions of dollars, and get millions of kids off the dope they have to take to rectify the damage done by secularism in the modern era. That would be one heck of a start. Science not only has few answers to number 6 it actually causes the problem to be far worse.

None of us truly knows the answer to most of these things. But just claiming an ancient book has the answers and leaving it at that, I think, doesn’t really help us answer them. Just to start off with, whose book do we use? Why do we assume the Bible is the one with all the answers? Why should we assume that people living 4000 years ago knew all the answers to everything everybody will ever need to know?

No we should not assume so but we should investigate and be willing to follow the truth. We should not look primarily to science to causes as many problems or more than it fixes, is impotent to answer those questions, and in its arrogant omniscience even denies the actual cause of most of our problems, sin.

It doesn’t seem that way to me.

Then you do not understand the questions.

Trust me, I have no interest in debating Boolean differential calculus at all!

Good because I hate it.

I don’t think anything will get me into heaven because I don’t think heaven exists in the first place.

I would alter that to say for some strange reason you assumed this and then set about proving it though I will say you are less preference driven than many atheists.

1. I guess we differ on what we think life’s greatest questions are then.

If you disagree with the questions then you disagree with the average person not just me. These questions have been known to be the most profound issues of humanity for a very long time.

2. Science isn’t done to challenge the Bible. It’s done to learn things.

I really have no idea what and why you think the Bible is so reliable about. Especially in comparison to the scientific method’s ability to reveal the truths of reality to us.

I have already painstakingly illustrated this several times. One last time and that’s it.
1. I believe what is known to science as fact or highly likely is perfectly consistent with the Bible.
2. I do not think true science and the Bible conflict and there is no problem.
3. The area of science that is used to contend with the Bible is almost always within the theoretical sciences and is not reliable and is full of faith, speculation, falsehoods, and arrogance and that is where I have a problem with it.
I like science and respect scientific people. I do science and have studied it. It si only that terribly faith based, speculative, unknowable theoretical area where I contend with it. I would not even do that if it were not for its misuse in theological issues by Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc.... and poor people so mesmerized by it they believe what they say. If Christians had never existed the very heart and soul of science would disappear. A large portion of its greatest discoveries and greatest scholars would never have existed. There is science and crap called science and within the crap is where Biblical contentions originate. What do you do or what are you supposed to be doing for a living that allows you so much free time to post? Do you sleep? Why are you so prolific? I do not believe aliens exist and I live my life as if they don’t, I do not debate them.

 

[McBell]

There hasn't been a single indisputable rational proof that He doesn't exist either.

Forgetting for a moment that your comment is off topic...

Do you use this same standard with all things that cannot be disproven or does your god get a free pass?

 

[dantech]

Forgetting for a moment that your comment is off topic...

Let's see for a minute. The topic is about rational indisputable proof that God exists. Yet, proof of Him NOT existing is off topic? Alright, if you say so...

Do you use this same standard with all things that cannot be disproven or does your god get a free pass?

What standard would that be? I was not saying that He exists just because you don't have proof that He doesn't. I was merely pointing out that the way you formulated your sentence, assumed that because no one has been able to prove of His existence, that He doesn't exist. I was only using your standard. Or perhaps I misunderstood what you meant.

The thing is, you will never be able to prove either, unless He decides to show Himself and tell you that you are right or wrong.
What you can do meanwhile though, is to accumulate substantial evidence. I believe He existed with the evidence I have studied about my entire life. You believe He doesn't based on your studies and evidence. If you would like to discuss these evidences, then you have a possibility of coming to a bottom line. Otherwise, I am afraid you will not ever get indisputable, rational proof of his existence or non-existence.

 

[McBell]

Let's see for a minute. The topic is about rational indisputable proof that God exists. Yet, proof of Him NOT existing is off topic? Alright, if you say so...

This thread is for presenting indisputable rational proof that god exists.
I understand that you do not have any.
No need to divert the thread topic.

Now if you want to discuss the lack of proof of god NOT existing, feel free to start a thread.

What standard would that be? I was not saying that He exists just because you don't have proof that He doesn't. I was merely pointing out that the way you formulated your sentence, assumed that because no one has been able to prove of His existence, that He doesn't exist. I was only using your standard. Or perhaps I misunderstood what you meant.

You assume far to much in your claims about my alleged assumptions.
I was asking if you apply this same standard to everything that has not been proven to not exist or does god get a free pass.

The thing is, you will never be able to prove either, unless He decides to show Himself and tell you that you are right or wrong. What you can do meanwhile though, is to accumulate substantial evidence. I believe He existed with the evidence I have studied about my entire life.

And I have no problems with you believe in god.

However, the fact remains that there has not been any indisputable rational proof that god exists presented in over a thousand posts of this thread.

You believe He doesn't based on your studies and evidence.

You assume to much.

I do not know if god exists or not.
I make no claims either way.

If you would like to discuss these evidences, then you have a possibility of coming to a bottom line. Otherwise, I am afraid you will not ever get indisputable, rational proof of his existence or non-existence.

Are you claiming to have indisputable rational proof that god exists?
if so, please be the first one in this thread to present some.

 

[dantech]

This thread is for presenting indisputable rational proof that god exists.
I understand that you do not have any.
No need to divert the thread topic.

But by proving that He doesn't exist, you would have proof that there is no possibility of Him existing. I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to see the link. I am not diverting the thread, I am simply saying, like you have, that in the passed 1000 posts, no one has been able to prove that no one will be able to prove that He can exist, ever.

Did you go ahead and tell everyone else who argued against his existence that they were diverting the thread?

Now if you want to discuss the lack of proof of god NOT existing, feel free to start a thread.

Thank you for the suggestion, I might take your advice.

You assume far to much in your claims about my alleged assumptions.
I was asking if you apply this same standard to everything that has not been proven to not exist or does god get a free pass.

I am not quite sure, to be honest. Give me an example, I may be able to answer more efficiently.

And I have no problems with you believe in god.

Good, I have no problem with others who don't either.

However, the fact remains that there has not been any indisputable rational proof that god exists presented in over a thousand posts of this thread.

The fact also remains that there has not been any indisputable rational proof that God doesn't exist in over a thousand posts on this thread either.

You assume to much.

Your opinion is valued and will be taked into consideration.

I do not know if god exists or not.
I make no claims either way.

To each his own

Are you claiming to have indisputable rational proof that god exists?
if so, please be the first one in this thread to present some.

Proof? no. Evidence? Yes, but this is not what I came to discuss. I just came to say that you will not have proof in a million posts, from either position on the subject.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Proof? no. Evidence? Yes, but this is not what I came to discuss. I just came to say that you will not have proof in a million posts, from either position on the subject.

The burden of proof lies with the people making the claim, and in this thread it is claimed that there is indisputable rational proof for the existence of God. Nobody has claimed that there is proof that God doesn't exist, so your point is both without provocation and entirely meaningless.

 

[1robin]

The burden of proof lies with the people making the claim, and in this thread it is claimed that there is indisputable rational proof for the existence of God. Nobody has claimed that there is proof that God doesn't exist, so your point is both without provocation and entirely meaningless.

I am not disagreeing with anything you said. I am just using your post to illustrate something I think needs to be said.
The burden in this thread may be on the believer but on the issue of evidence for God as a whole I wanted to make a few points.

1. Faith is what Christians in general claim.
2. Faith's only burden in a defense of it is to show that the evidence for the faith is intellectually permissible (reasonable).
3. We or I admit in every circumstance that there is no proof for God. There is evidence in such abundance and quality that it gets very close but never quite there.
4. I believe it likely this is intentional. God for his own reasons demands faith. Faith precludes proof. So I would expect to find much evidence that indicate very strongly God exists but to always fall short of proof. If I made the thread that is what I would claim. I do not know who or why the person made this one and it does carry with it a larger burden that faith actually has.
5. It is science that always purports to be based on proof and in most cases, it is.
6. However all the areas (I am aware of) that are used by science to contend with God lie within the theoretical arena of science.
7. IMO they have every right to use faith based, guess based, or even logical but preference based scientific claims against God.
8. They however should do as I have done and clearly illustrate the nature of those claims. They import a verifiability that is a component of other areas of science into the theoretical and they do not stop there.
9. They then accuse a faith based system of making faith based claims where they are appropriate.

Ever since I have posted in this thread I have been meaning to clarify that I do not claim there are any undeniable proofs for God and thought I was being a little off topic until I could post this. Not really an argument here just illustrating the actual nature and burden of faith as it exists in reality outside of a thread.

Armand Nicholi, of Harvard Medical School, speaks of J. N. D. Anderson as "...a scholar of international repute and one eminently qualified to deal with the subject of evidence. He is one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law...He is dean of the faculty of law in the University of London, chairman of the department of Oriental law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London."

This outstanding British scholar who is today influential in the field of international jurisprudence says: "The evidence for the historical basis of the Christian faith, for the essential validity of the New Testament witness to the person and teaching of Christ Himself, for the fact and significance of His atoning death, and for the historicity of the empty tomb and the apostolic testimony to the resurrection, is such as to provide an adequate foundation for the venture of faith."
http://www.angelfire.com/sc3/myredeemer/Evidencep29.html

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I am not disagreeing with anything you said. I am just using your post to illustrate something I think needs to be said.
The burden in this thread may be on the believer but on the issue of evidence for God as a whole I wanted to make a few points.

1. Faith is what Christians in general claim.
2. Faith's only burden in a defense of it is to show that the evidence for the faith is intellectually permissible (reasonable).
3. We or I admit in every circumstance that there is no proof for God. There is evidence in such abundance and quality that it gets very close but never quite there.
4. I believe it likely this is intentional. God for his own reasons demands faith. Faith precludes proof. So I would expect to find much evidence that indicate very strongly God exists but to always fall short of proof. If I made the thread that is what I would claim. I do not know who or why the person made this one and it does carry with it a larger burden that faith actually has.
5. It is science that always purports to be based on proof and in most cases, it is.
6. However all the areas (I am aware of) that are used by science to contend with God lie within the theoretical arena of science.
7. IMO they have every right to use faith based, guess based, or even logical but preference based scientific claims against God.
8. They however should do as I have done and clearly illustrate the nature of those claims. They import a verifiability that is a component of other areas of science into the theoretical and they do not stop there.
9. They then accuse a faith based system of making faith based claims where they are appropriate.

Ever since I have posted in this thread I have been meaning to clarify that I do not claim there are any undeniable proofs for God and thought I was being a little off topic until I could post this. Not really an argument here just illustrating the actual nature and burden of faith as it exists in reality outside of a thread.

That's all good. The important thing to note is the difference between claiming a belief in God and claiming indisputable proof of God. While both, in my opinion, carry the burden of proof, one has a significantly higher burden than the other.

 

[1robin]

That's all good. The important thing to note is the difference between claiming a belief in God and claiming indisputable proof of God. While both, in my opinion, carry the burden of proof, one has a significantly higher burden than the other.

I agree, do you know of anyone that claims to actually have proof for God? I have never met anyone that claimed such. Did the person who made this thread claim to? I am out of time have a good weekend.

 

[Ouroboros]

But by proving that He doesn't exist, you would have proof that there is no possibility of Him existing. I don't understand why it is so difficult for you to see the link. I am not diverting the thread, I am simply saying, like you have, that in the passed 1000 posts, no one has been able to prove that no one will be able to prove that He can exist, ever.

Actually you are diverting it.

The topic was proof for the existence, not proof for the non-existence. Just because there are no proof for the existence doesn't necessarily imply that there are or are not proof for the non-existence. It's a separate debate.

But if you insist, a proof for the non-existence of a god of any kind would require to first establish the parameters for what this god is. All the properties, actions, behaviors, signs, whatever, must be established first. If we establish what Zeus must be, we can then create tests and ways of proving for or against Zeus's existence. But since this thread has been very vague (and full of arbitrary views) about the parameters for who/what God is, there's no way of constructing any proof (for either side). Proof requires clear lines for context.

 

[Sha'irullah]

The ironic aspect that occurs when people try to refute atheist and make proof for the existence of a god they rely on their own religious scripture to control the viewpoint of that deity and that often leads to the disapproval of one's' own god.
So really such debates come down to the existence of a god but for the existence of Yahweh, Vishnu, Zeus or Jesus instead of a belief of a general deity.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I do no remember any attempt to show murder wrong by you. I am sure you put some words that included murder together at some point but you have never shown that ANY instance of Murder is actually wrong without God. You may show it is not popular, not preferred, sad, or against someone’s opinion but it is impossible to show it actually wrong without the transcendent. Self-defense is not murder but that is beside the point. Prove any murder wrong. Prove that killing all life in existence for no reason is actually wrong.

I went on in great length on the subject, a while back in the discussion. I really don’t feel like looking for it at the moment.

It is not impossible for murder to be shown wrong without inserting god into the equation. What we use to determine right from wrong are rationality, reason, emotion, and logic. In other words, we use our brains. We can observe our brains and see these things going on. You have no problem applying logic and reason when it comes to expressing the supposed existence for your god, and yet you somehow think it cannot be applied to determine morality and ethics. How does that work?

Self-defense is the taking of another person’s life, nonetheless, and yet human beings determine that it is acceptable, including you. We also determine that killing a person on the battlefield is not considered murder or “wrong,” which indicates yet another nuance in this discussion. This demonstrates the actual subjective nature of morality. Same goes for lying. We generally say that lying is wrong, and yet we accept that in some instances it’s okay to tell a lie in order to spare someone’s feelings, or save a person’s life. This is subjective and specific to varying situations.

Why would murdering ourselves out of existence be wrong? Well, because we wouldn’t exist anymore. Human beings decided long ago, that in order to live together in socially cohesive units (we are social creatures after all) that we have to agree to a few things. Not murdering each other being one of them. People don’t enjoy living in fear; we tend to prefer wellness and happiness. If we are to value anything it is human life. We want our species to perpetuate. If we don’t then we are gone from this planet. One thing we know for sure is that we only get a brief life in this world. We’re better off maximizing happiness and wellness for ourselves and everyone else than we are living in misery and pain.

 

[SkepticThinker]

What evidence. This is a paradox that has been studied quite a bit always winds up being assumed. The only thing absolutely knowable (maybe) is that we think. My God has nothing to do with the question and I have no problem admitting faith, it is your side who relies on it so much but will not admit it.

Every piece of evidence we have indicates that the earth is billions of years old. That is all we have to go on. Of course it is possible that the earth was created 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age, but it doesn’t seem likely. I’m not employing faith, I’m applying rational analysis to the available evidence. It’s also possible that our entire universe could be perched on the head of flea sitting on a dog’s backside. How likely do you think that is? We have to use evidence to at least attempt to determine what is going on here, and it appears that all possibilities are not equally likely simply by virtue of being possible.

If your god exists, and the earth was created 5 minutes ago with the appearance of age, then “he” has some explaining to do.

Where do you keep this meaning you give to it. We do not have it to give. Either God gives it absolute meaning or we invent transitory and futile meaning usually founded in pleasure. We can find the lesser meaning with or without God, but God gives ultimate meaning. As usual there is only gain with the God you resist.

I keep it in my brain which is the same place you keep yours. We don’t need to have been created by a supernatural entity in order to be able to find meaning in life. Some godless people feel a certain transcendence when looking at the stars or imagining the scope of the universe. This can be experienced in the absence of belief in a god.

First of all many of those have a God (in theory anyway). My point was about a God in general. Second I think you misunderstand. I am not asking what we find in life to be meaningful to us. I mean what meaning our lives actually have. Two flies that exist for 24 hours have very little meaning. Our lives are just as temporary and on a geological scale just as finite. Biological accidents with a cosmic blink of existence are infinitely less meaningful than a child of an all powerful God carrying out his purposes and who will live eternally with the impact of the deeds he has done.
The things you must deny to save your worldview are astonishing. Forget life, to even have a universe of structure at all, conditions had to be balanced on a knife edge. The chances of a universe containing only one example of life are trillions of trillions of trillions etc... (literally) less probable than a universe that can't possibly support life of any kind that even those dreamers can think of. (That comes from secular science by the way). It is resistance to obvious facts like this that do more to justify my suspicions than any other.

Some have gods, some don’t. Those that don’t, have different qualities and characteristics attributed to whatever god(s) they believe in. That alone to me, indicates that religion is manmade, but that’s beside the point.

The meaning we give to our lives comes from ourselves and what meaning we wish to have. Whether one is religious or nonreligious, this is what we are all doing. You believe your meaning is to serve god, probably among other things. I think, to find meaning in my own life would be to try to leave the world a better place then I found it, and to try to positively affect the lives of others, if even only in some small way. Other people are going to give other answers. We all make our own meaning and this is done without any need for a supernatural creator. There doesn’t need to be meaning in some supernatural realm for all of us to matter. The fact that we all get to share this planet together for a brief time in history is meaning enough for me. A fly’s meaning is to do whatever a fly does in this intricate and beautiful natural world that we all contribute to in some way.

What I need to believe, in order to accept your fine tuning argument is that the universe was created almost 14 billion years ago, perfectly designed to support human life, which wouldn’t show up until several billions of years later, on one small planet which itself has vast regions of space where human beings cannot live. Not only that, but this is the only life in the whole gigantic space which is the universe. And you wonder why I don’t immediately jump to this possibility?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I do not get nor see the application for either of these statements.

The fine tuning argument is the equivalent of a puddle thinking, “Look at this interesting hole I’m sitting in. It fits me perfectly. It must have been made to have me in it!” (Douglas Adams)

It only appears that the universe fits us perfectly, but it is the other way around.

That is exactly what you said for aliens but in that case you rejected them but bought into this. I wonder why? I have never said that abiogenesis is impossible, only extremely unlikely, and currently unproven at any level.

I said science has shown us that it’s possible that aliens seeded life on earth? I don’t think so.

Anyway, the point is that it looks a lot more likely than it used to.

Amino acids were not the goal. Hence failure. I would have predicted they would have produced more than amino acids. In fact it is a virtual certainty that nature can. But eggs and butter (not that they got these either) an omelet restaurant franchise do not make.

The goal was to see what would happen, and what could be produced. What happened was that the most basic building blocks of life were produced from inorganic compounds. And let’s not forget that adenines have been produced in these studies as well. Adenine being one of the most important nucleobases for life.

What do you think they thought they were going to produce? Tiny little men or something?

No, it's looking exactly like it always has. Nature can make low equilibrium complexity but will fail at high levels every single time, and all experiments have shown that. They have done exactly what I would have said they would have and not done exactly what I would have said they couldn't. The difference between amino acids and life is far more extreme that producing iron and sand (which nature does) and claiming New York is a natural structure. Why do you then say, well sand and iron proves cities are natural. What in the world is it you think allows that claim?

What are you talking about and what experiments have shown it?

The difference between amino acids, adenine and life isn’t as impossibly vast as you think and your lack of imagination on the subject doesn’t serve you well. As I already pointed out, amino acids are the building blocks of proteins which are the building blocks for enzymes, cell production, and reproduction and serve as catalysts for biochemical reactions, and RNA and DNA duplication (among other things). Adenine is one of the chemical bases of DNA and RNA. These are not insignificant findings in any sense of the word.

 

[SkepticThinker]

First how do you know this? Do you have an equivalent statement by him that states this? If so then I do not agree that even he should be doing it either. Find me one claim that he made where he resisted any scientific truth as a scholar because of faith. Again that would be a scientific failure but I do not think the situations equal. I will think on that. The Catholic Church put dogma (false dogma) in front of science and I condemn them for it. Why could you not do the same for your side?

Francis Collins has theological preference, but he doesn’t let it interfere with his acceptance of the evidence, as any good scientist does. It doesn’t matter what your personal preference is, it matters what the evidence says.

“At this point, godless materialists might be cheering. If humans evolved strictly by mutation and natural selection, who needs God to explain us? To this, I reply: I do. The comparison of chimp and human sequences, interesting as it is, does not tell us what it means to be human. In my views, DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God. Freeing God from the burden of special acts of creation does not remove Him as the source of the things that make humanity special, and of the universe itself. It merely shows us something of how He operates.”
― Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief

Preference has no place in science. End of story. What if the evidence (assuming that is what won the day) was not as strong then it is very easy to see that at some point preference exceeds evidence and produces crap under the same label as it's good conclusions.

I would have dropped this weeks ago if you would have just admitted they are perfect or even said they are the exception, but no you rabidly refuse to concede the most obviously lost ground imaginable. I should have the more dogmatic position but if you look back I am the only one that has shown any ability to concede obvious facts. Preference is the arch enemy of fact and has no place in science yet still does and in some cases overcomes other legitimate concerns. That is an absolute fact, if you can concede a fact then do so and it will be dropped. I have several times and I believe my case by far the stronger. In fact my willingness to concede any obvious point is evidence that is is the stronger or at least I am more secure with my claims.

Your argument fails on one fact: That these people accepted the scientific evidence, as scientists must do. They didn’t let their personal preferences bias the facts, any more than Francis Collins does even though he’s an evangelical Christian.

I nor any human on Earth has a likely candidate other than God however what you stated is not what I claim. The Big Bang is the most consistent with God of any of the cosmological concepts that have been put forth. God may not be the cause but there are no other likely candidates outside science fiction or fantasy. That is exactly why preference reared it's head in science with this conclusion.

Even if that is the case, the likely candidate wouldn’t necessarily be your god. At most, you could propose some sort of deistic god but to get from there to the Christian god is a loooong way.

God isn’t a likely candidate either because you’re still stuck explaining what created god.

. Well that backfired on you. I do condemn most creation based science. There is maybe 20% of it that is very very good and is founded on much better foundations than much of secular science, much of the other 80% is garbage and I do condemn it. I even believe I have said this very thing many times before. I do not get my information from the Hovinds of the world I get it from the Sandages, Eddingtons, Newtons, and Wilders. I wish your side was as critical of their sources.

That definitely didn’t backfire on me.

Then why do you keep quoting from a website that openly identifies its preferences and biases?

 

[Skeptisch]

...do you know of anyone that claims to actually have proof for God?

How can anyone prove what does not exist?

By the way not everyone feels about this guy the way you do!
The Immoral Minority: Atheist Richard Dawkins named as the world's "top thinker."