There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[mikkel_the_dane]

Apples and oranges. Posts on an internet forum are not the same as published authors.

Says you on the Internet. Where are you published?

 

[PearlSeeker]

Says you on the Internet. Where are you published?

At least he has many peer reviews.

 

[dybmh]

Says you on the Internet. Where are you published?

I don't spam post repeatedly, so that sets me apart from some of the others participating in this thread.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't spam post repeatedly, so that sets me apart from some of the others participating in this thread.

Well, that is morality.

 

[KWED]

Apples and oranges. Posts on an internet forum are not the same as published authors.

How do you know, if you haven't read them?
Some of them are actually by published authors.

 

[KWED]

I don't spam post repeatedly, so that sets me apart from some of the others participating in this thread.

How do you know it's spam if you haven't read it?

 

[dybmh]

How do you know, if you haven't read them?
Some of them are actually by published authors.

I read some of them, when it gets predicatble I skip.

 

[KWED]

I read some of them, when it gets predicatble I skip.

Indeed. I use the same principle in my studies. When I think I know what a book is going to say, I don't read it.

 

[dybmh]

How do you know it's spam if you haven't read it?

when the argument becomes repetitive I stop reading it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Indeed. I use the same principle in my studies. When I think I know what a book is going to say, I don't read it.

I can do the same with some books.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Apples and oranges

I like kiwis and avocados better.

 

[dybmh]

Indeed. I use the same principle in my studies. When I think I know what a book is going to say, I don't read it.

If a book becomes repetitive and predictable I lose interest. It's a natural response.

 

[KWED]

What like work hard, help people, give money and groceries to people that are going through a tough time, be a man of integrity,

You don't need voices in your head for that.

and give people the good news that God isn’t counting their sins against them, Jesus Christ paid it all?

I'd recommend telling people you read it rather than you hear god talking to you.

What’s your message? One of hope and peace?

Empathy, altruism, liberal socialism, and the occasional blow-out. You know, practical stuff that doesn't require psychotic episodes.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If a book becomes repetitive and predictable I lose interest. It's a natural response.

It is not just that. It can be predictable in terms of the idea it has in regards to how it want to explain the world if is about that, because it might rehash old ground.

 

[KWED]

If a book becomes repetitive and predictable I lose interest. It's a natural response.

Which is why I lost interest in every religious scripture I have read. I still stuck it out to the end though. It's only polite. (I predict that you claim yours is not repetitive and predictable though. Close?)

 

[KWED]

Yeah, I can live with your belief in wrong, which only works if you believe in it.
But to me, there are words who only have a human referent like wrong.
And referent is not semantics, btw so you are wrong.

Your opinion has been noted.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Your opinion has been noted.

Well, look up referent in regards to words. It is not about semantics, that is about meaning.
So what is the referent of the word "cat" in the standard sense?

 

[dybmh]

Which is why I lost interest in every religious scripture I have read. I still stuck it out to the end though. It's only polite. (I predict that you claim yours is not repetitive and predictable though. Close?)

I try to be selective in my responses.

What I find interesting is that here we are equating value in an internet post to published literature. But the evidence I brought for the Exodus was waved away because it didn't come from a secular peer reviewed publication. Seems like a double standard to me.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Empathy, altruism, liberal socialism, and the occasional blow-out. You know, practical stuff that doesn't require psychotic episodes.

Oh I see, well liberal socialism is just taking someone else’s money and spreading it around, isn’t voluntary but forced giving where God says as everyone purposes in their heart let them give, not grudgingly or of necessity because God loves a cheerful giver.
Empathy and altruism are good qualities yet I don’t see these being displayed by you in your comments.
Another thing is the psychosis may be something you’re experiencing because it sounds like you may be talking to yourself quite a bit.

 

[InChrist]

[QUOTE="It Aint Necessarily So, post: 7697299, member: 61691”]

I say it's because there is no such god. But since you don't believe that - you believe that such a god exists and is waiting for people like me - that somehow, I failed, because the god never fails. That to me is a problem with faith-based thought. Where I see my ability to recognize that my experience of a god was purely psychological the valuable result of considering the evidence of that experience being irreproducible in so many other congregations and a triumph for the reasoning faculty, the believer views it as weakness and failure. That is the price the unbeliever pays living in a society where millions of people have been to taught to think of him as defective by a church that props itself up on the backs of such people by demeaning them simply for being unbelievers and claiming the higher moral ground for itself even as it treats such people immorally (in violation of the Golden Rule).

[/QUOTE]

I think you misunderstand. I can’t speak for all Christians, but most believers, including myself, do not look at non-believers as defective, weak, or as failures anymore than we look at ourselves in this way. According to the scriptures, everyone falls short and we have all failed. That is the whole point of needing God to save us. So Christians really are in no position to be demeaning others. I think as finite human beings we are all prone and vulnerable to miss seeing or understanding the infinite Creator.