I have not seen or heard any evidence compelling enough to lead me to believe that the god you believe in exists.
What is compelling to one, is oft times hear-say to another, It all depends on how much you want to believe in my God and how much you have tried to discredit Him, and those who believe in Him, which is going to impede any attempt to have another commitment go this time, as you will have to lower your pride and eat your words. Everyone is capable of answering that knock on the door that Jesus gives to everyone. You either want to know who is there or you don't. Maybe you just don't? Maybe you do not have room to invite Him in?
I never said believers are liars or mentally challenged people. Do not put words in my mouth.
I am not putting words in your mouth. I am tarring you with the atheist brush.
So you do believe that God exists then. If you do not think that believers are liars, intentional or unintentional, then you must believe that they are telling the truth.
It is not unusuals for a dedicated atheist to accuse a Christian of being mentally deranged for believing in someone who they believe doesn't exist.
No. You are taking my lack of belief and trying to make it a belief.
No, I just said "So you also believe that you lack in belief in that God." No word play just and explanation of what you believe is true and not true. You don't believe in God, that is your belief.
Yes I do think that there needs to be compelling reasons and evidence present in order for a belief to be justified and/or considered a fact of reality. If you don’t agree, then do you also believe in dragons, fairies, garden gnomes, aliens and every other thing that anybody has ever claimed the existence of?
If there was the same numbers involved in those pretty unlikely representations of deity than I would take a closer look, as I did with Christianity, to determine the validity of these claimed entities, however, none of your examples meet with that criteria.
Like I said, if we don’t rely on evidence in order to verify the existence of things, then we have to just believe in everything until somebody can prove that it’s wrong or doesn’t exist.
No, we can exercise faith, as we all do, everyday. Our lives are full of events that we endure without any knowledge of the outcome of our actions. Indeed, we are in the realms of supposition far more than we are in a world of evidentiary reasoning and facts. Like you said "
we don’t rely on evidence in order to verify the existence of things" we don't, much of what we believe the world to be never requires evidence. The next time that you lose your way and have to ask for directions will you ask the person helping you for evidence that what they are telling you is true, because sometimes, intentionally or unintentionally, it is wrong. By the way, do you thoroughly check your change at a supermarket,
Really? Okay then would it be safe to assume that you believe in fairies, alien abductions, Zeus, Thor, Osiris, Allah, ghosts, the flying spaghetti monster, the mothman, and the chupacabra?
Not really a question that you should be asking when claiming that you are intellectually astute. Just ask yourself what likelihood is there that fairies, alien abductions, Zeus, Thor, Osiris, Allah, ghosts, the flying spaghetti monster, the mothman, and the chupacabra exist. Do they all have 2.2 billion followers as Christians do? Do they have a plan of redemption? It is not hard to dismiss fantasies. That is why Christianity has remain steadfast and resilient to attack by the heathen.
You have a history with your wife. You probably know that she doesn’t usually say it’s raining if it’s not raining. You know she’s generally not much of a liar. You know that rain exists and that it rains from time to time. You have all kinds of evidence available to you that you don’t even really think about because rain is such a mundane thing.
I still have to apply faith in her words. We are very close but we are not the same person, and we are getting older, so our memory is not as it was. Maybe she has confused today and yesterday, when it was raining, and she has unintentionally mis-informed me. If there is any familiarity evidence to be had then it is not on a par with the scientific evidence you refer to.
But what if your wife told you that it was raining chocolate chip cookies or puppy dogs? You’d probably go take a look to check it out if she told you that. You might initially think she was pulling your leg or that she had lost her mind. The type of claim being made is important. Saying that it’s raining outside isn’t an extraordinary claim in the same way that claiming that there is an invisible deity that created everything in the universe is an extraordinary claim.
Again we come to probabilities. Is it likely to rain chocolate chip cookies or puppy dogs. We would have streets full of melted chocolate and dead puppies. It would be an obvious joke or intentional lie. But like my lack in a need for evidence to corroborate my wife's claim about the rain, so the need for evidence on the likelihood of God existing is unnecessary as It is more likely than not.
There were photos of her mangled car and the crash site on every news station. There was a funeral in which her family was all in attendance. There were compelling reasons to believe that she had in fact died that day. Now, if instead the news did not show the mangled car and crash site or showed a photo of her car without a dent on it, and there was no funeral or burial and several people had snapped photos of Diana walking around London the next day, I might have reason to question whether she had really died at all. As it was, there was enough compelling evidence for me to believe that she had died without having to fly to England to see her body.
I cannot add anything further then, "When I heard, on the news, that Princess Diana had died in a car crash I did not jump on a plane to France and demand to see her body as evidence. None of us did. Did you want to? When ever we are told anything we always determine for ourselves if it is likely or unlikely to be true by examining the circumstances." I do not require any further evidence to confirm her death. I was making a point that evidence is not always necessary. Whether it was a put up job or not is a completely different question.
There are a number of problems with such god claims. You tell me that the god you believe in exists. A Muslim tells me that the god he believes in exists. A Hindu tells me that the gods he believes in exist. All throughout mankind’s existence, people have claimed the existence of thousands of different gods, most of which have since been dumped into the trash heap of history. Why would decent and respectable people such as those tell anybody that god exists when they know “he” doesn’t? Because they don’t know that. I haven’t claimed that people who believe god(s) exist actually know that they don’t exist so I don’t’ know why you’re going there.
I am sure that you are aware that evolution is a theory.
Darwin said there would be change of KIND over many years, however, there has never been any evidence that it has happened. Indeed, because of the time required fr one kind to change into another it cannot be tested using the scientific method. We have absolutely no evidence to show that one kind changes into another kind. The whole theory is based on conjecture, suppositions and circumstantial evidence, yet our children are taught that evolution is a fact, a potential lie. Science treats it as if it is a proven fact yet there is no evidence to verify it, but they expect us to believe in something for which there is no evidence. Hang on, that rings a bell. Christianity is not a proven fact, there is no single piece of evidence to corroborate Gods existence. It is all based on conjecture, supposition and circumstantial evidence. Exactly the same as evolution, however, religion has been ostracized and removed from our schools, those who believe are treated with scepticism and there is a law to prevent any public religious display. In fact christianity recieves the polar opposite treatment to science under the same criteria. Why do you think that is. Why is it alright for science to treat an idea as a fact but 2.2 billion people are wrong when they do exactly the same? Sound very ominous to me.
There is only one God. I worship the same God as everyone else worships.
There was a time within the last few decades where reports of alien abductions were everywhere. Now we hardly hear a thing about them. Did aliens just stop abducting people? Maybe. Or maybe the claims were bogus and subject to the cultural phenomenon of the times.
My mind is open to the existence of aliens. I think it arrogant to think that in a universe, as vast as it is, that we are the only life that exists. Again, there is a good probability that there are aliens and that they do visit this earth, for some reason, however, I would not bet on it.
Normal trusting people believe everything claimed to exist actually exists until proven otherwise? Normal trusting people believe in things without compelling evidence? I hope that’s not true.
That you do not recognise that it is a reality is disconcerting.
Why don’t I believe what?
That God exists
I asked you to point out what claim(s) you think I am making rather than just trying to tell me what I believe.
I don't beleieve that to be the case
Okay so you prefer the cop out answer.
No!
Right. Whatever beliefs individual atheists may have about anything are not shared by all atheists. It’s just the nonbelief in god(s) that we all share.
It is my belief that the label of "atheist" is for those who do not believe in God.
An "Atheist" is a non-believer, non-theist, disbeliever, unbeliever, heretic,sceptic, doubter, doubting Thomas, agnostic, infidel, irreligious person, heathen, pagan, freethinker, libertine, nihilist
So please explain how lacking a belief in something is akin to making a claim or assertion.
You are arguing with a dictionary, which proves my next point.
Again, you should be able to easily prove me wrong and yet you refuse anyway
And here in lies the problem. You do not accept being wrong on anything. You do not even concede to reality, you just move the goal post or construct a straw man to knock down in place of my argument. You will not agree with anyone unless they give in rather than enter the world of huge posts.[/QUOTE]
