Oh? Somehow justice, freedom from oppression, and care for our planet seem to be pretty strong arguments for theological constructs that address these cultural ills.
None of those, however, require God in any way to exist. You can easily take anything in the world and put it down to God, or my pink elephant, for that matter; that makes no difference to whether or not God exists.
I also noticed that you seem to rate theology highly. My criticism of any such idea is that the OP was asking for arguments pertaining to the existence of God; he was not asking for theological assertions (because the only realm in which theology has any worth next to logical reasoning, if it can be truly be called a realm, is in that of pointless assertions; take it from someone who knows 2 people with PhD's and another with a Masters' Degree in theology). You will notice that, when it comes to providing evidence for God's existence, and proving that he is not infinitely unlikely to exist, theologians who come up with arguments unanimously have these arguments torn down and their simple flaws horribly exposed, not by theologians or advanced logic, but simply by a basic and unadvanced application of the scientific and logical mind, which is the only mindset through which human advancement is possible.
Oh? Didn't make any sense for me to fall in love with my wife, yet she's the best thing that's ever happened to me... perhaps there's more to the "inner eye" than you're willing to concede here.
There's a difference between using logic to reach a conclusion about the truth or otherwise of a concept and using instinct to decide which direction you want to take your life. To put it simply, thanks to your instincts, you have the right to say that your wife was the best possible person for you to marry, and the best possible woman in the world, but subjectively, and subjectively only. However, if you want to give other people evidence on which to base their opinions, it will have to be objective - it is akin to you having to give them an objective reason why your wife is the best woman in the world (which, while it is possible, is highly unlikely, just looking at probabilities). I don't mean to go off topic, and I apologize for taking the risk of being insulting (I didn't mean any offence); I just needed to clear up that the way your using instinct is as a "personal experience" sort of argument, and while there's no doubt that personal experience may count as full subjective proof for the person recieving it, there is also no doubt that it ought not to be considered as even a shred of
objective evidence for anyone else.
You also seem to think that, if there is no objective evidence for anyone else, trying to decide on whether or not there is a God is (for everyone else) "a waste of time". Here's where you don't understand atheistic positions: in the absence of your (entirely subjective) instinct that God exists, which (let me remind you yet again) counts as no evidence at all for anyone other than the person with the instinct, the concept of God may be rated as any assertion is, and that is by logic, which reveals his infinitely low probability, and which, in the absence of your instinct or, indeed, any objective evidence, is the probability we take up when going about life.
Good! Brute beasts have not been responsible for systematically screwing over our planet.
There is nothing good about being animalistic. If you rate this planet more highly than you rate our species, there is something fundamentally (yes, fundamentally) wrong with you.
"God" seems like a perfectly ingenious thought to me...
Maybe he does to you, because you've been brought up to believe in him. People have not been brought up singularly to believe in computers as great, and that's why they may take them for granted, as you are doing now. But there is a massive gulf in the current positive effect on society of science (the modern world-view) and the current effect of religion (which I consider deeply negative, though I must admit that religion was a necessary factor early in our development and its arrisal was not a bad thing).
Pink elephants have little -- if anything -- to do with theology.
Theology, as I have explained, is unimportant when it comes to logical decision-making, or giving objective evidence for God, which is what this thread is about.
In any case, you seem to have missed the point, which is that, if God is a personality (as he is depicted in the Old Testament), there is no tangible difference in probability to be had between him and any random figment of anyone's imagination, including a pink elephant.
No, you don't. Don't kid yourself; you don't know anyone who puts their children to bed by reading from The God Delusion. You've made that up right now.
Hyperbole isn't very helpful.
Yes, actually, it is exceptionally helpful in proving my point, though to you, it may be rather unhelpful, since it derails yours.
I have? (Talk about wish fulfillment!) Please post a reference to a post here where I've made that assertion.
Your belief that God exists shows through in your posts; not only that, but you have admitted to being a theist. I do accept that you have not "insisted" that God exists.
Shame the world which would not look on such a "believer" as a mad-man.
Your ad hominem is neither appreciated nor called for.
My point was absolutely correct and I stand by it. However, I accept that I strayed into the uncalled for in this section, and you have my apologies for that.
I already did. With logic.
I never said that. Interesting, though, that you did!
I've never claimed that God does that. Interesting, though, that you do!
Actually, despite your conviction to the opposite, you did say both of these things, or at least imply them in a way such that my surmission was the only possible one, and thus, you did genuinely imply what I wrote (such that no other conclusion could be drawn from what you said except for what I said).
We're here, aren't we -- despite all odds?
Talking to you amazes me! Sometimes you give the impression of a fairly advanced theist with some knowledge of the arguments at work, and at others, you seem to follow lame and weak provisional arguments! Here, you're using a strand of the Design Argument as evidence for the existence of God; in reality, us being here only counts as evidence if it really is "despite all odds", and as the counter-arguments to the Design Argument show, it is not.
My argument??? I've never asserted any of these things about God. It would seem that your straw man is not very well disguised.
Yes, you did. You implied every one of them in a way that it follows from what you said that God is "testing" us, and yet when I used the phrase "testing", my change of wording sufficed to make you disown your statements!
