Do you believe in God(s)?

[isaacx]

So... how did you guys start being Christian/whatever? Because my understanding of a system of beliefs lead me to think that you either have it forced down your throats while you are young, and then assume it to be self-evident once you've grown up, or you've had some personal experience with God himself, right? Because I can't understand what would drive you to believe something exactly the same as someone else would arbitrarily believe.

Like, I can believe in God for whatever reason, and yet, I can still not go out of my way to find a faith that just happens to fit with every single thing that I believe. Seems like there should be more disparity between people's faiths unless it's a handed-down thing.

I started off very unsure about all these things at first a couple years ago as it was what my parents believed, but about two years ago, my church got a new pastor and we started to have various missionaries and evangelists come in at least two per month, and since then, i dont believe in Christianity because my parents do, but because i want to and i accept the teaching and such

You believe in God because the world (or the universe) requires a creator. However, your god must not require a creator, or else we're not getting anywhere. So, if God doesn't require a creator, why can't the same apply to the world? What's more acceptable about God not requiring a creator than the universe not requiring a creator?

Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth

Matthew 24:35 - Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.

God came before the world, even before heaven. God's word (the Bible) is the truth. God created heaven and the Earth. I really find the Big Bang stuff unrealistic. It's a story from the devil to cover the eyes of the people from the truth, as the true will set them free from bondage of hell.

Ill continue later. lunch at school ended

[scythe]

I started off very unsure about all these things at first a couple years ago as it was what my parents believed, but about two years ago, my church got a new pastor and we started to have various missionaries and evangelists come in at least two per month, and since then, i dont believe in Christianity because my parents do, but because i want to and i accept the teaching and such

You want to place arbitrary restrictions on your life for something you admit not to understanding?

You believe in God because the world (or the universe) requires a creator. However, your god must not require a creator, or else we're not getting anywhere. So, if God doesn't require a creator, why can't the same apply to the world? What's more acceptable about God not requiring a creator than the universe not requiring a creator?

Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth

Matthew 24:35 - Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.

God came before the world, even before heaven. God's word (the Bible) is the truth. God created heaven and the Earth. I really find the Big Bang stuff unrealistic. It's a story from the devil to cover the eyes of the people from the truth, as the true will set them free from bondage of hell.

Ill continue later. lunch at school ended

I really find the Bible unrealistic. It's a story created by the Invisible Pink Unicorn to hide people from the True Way of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

[SlappyMcGee]

First off, arguing that God doesn't need a creator because God said so? That sounds cyclical.

I started off very unsure about all these things at first a couple years ago as it was what my parents believed, but about two years ago, my church got a new pastor and we started to have various missionaries and evangelists come in at least two per month, and since then, i dont believe in Christianity because my parents do, but because i want to and i accept the teaching and such.

That doesn't explain why you are faithful. If I gave you a copy of the movie Cube and told you that Cube was entirely factual, you would reason that it probably isn't. People aren't trapped in giant cubes and forced to solve puzzles using a retard and some shoes. In fact, I would say that a matured individual would have a difficult time convincing another matured individual of the existence of giant death cubes.

To actually believe in death cubes, I would need to do one of three things:
1) Experience something involving a death cube myself, or
2) Have the overwhelming majority of people tell me that these cubes exist, or
3) Grow up being told the death cubes exist, and later just presumptively believe that it is true and that argument is invalid.

Your claim is that your parents haven't influenced your ultimate decision, and that you aren't just believing in God because you were told that he existed. SO. Let's look at the other two options,

1) Have you had some sort of personal experience with God? You don't have to share it, but I will completely understand if you had some sort of hallucination that you believe was communication with the Big Man. There's no point in debating what you know at that point, though, because you only believe it because you saw something nobody else can, and we will assume it was merely some sort of illusion. All I posit to this individual is to ask himself why he was chosen to see and the rest of us, whether we are atheist, agnostics, or of another faith, have not seen and been converted. Or why people of other faiths claim to have experienced the same thing. Are their claims invalid because you believe you are without fault? No man is without fault.

2)Have there been an overwhelming majority of people in your life who, by sheer number, have you convinced that Jesus and God and Abel and the whole cabal actually existed? Because if that's the way it is, and it sounds like it, because you mention preachers and missionaries, then I ask you to look at a global scale and realize that you are not the majority. That nobody knows any better than you do, and cannot know better than you do, but that you certainly cannot know better than them. Unless, of course, #1 is true.

Finally, you mention embracing the teachings of the Bible. I am all for that. If you believe not in God but the palette of morality that was displayed in the Bible, then stop hiding under the guise of Christianity. You are a person with the same morals as them, but you do not have to believe that all gay people are going to hell just to believe that homosexuality is wrong. You can believe these things for any reason. For instance, I learned from Cube that I need to work as a team, that I need to question authority, and that I need to keep a cool head under pressure, and I learned all of that without believing that death cubes were real.

And please, please don't respond to a single sentence of this with some witty retort that only applies to the sentence you quoted. Read it all, reflect, and see if you can renege what I've said. Close mindedness can only lead to being trapped in a horrible death cube, after all.

[isaacx]

want to place arbitrary restrictions on your life for something you admit not to understanding?

I really find the Bible unrealistic. It's a story created by the Invisible Pink Unicorn to hide people from the True Way of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The Bible, you can't understand very much very early in your spiritual life and walk with God. Especially because I'm only 13, it's hard for me to understand it. No one will ever understand the complete Word of God (another name for Bible).

Same thing with finding it realistic or not, it's harder for people to believe some parts of the Bible more than others. The Bible talks a lot about faith in the New Testament. Jesus himself is suprised at only one thing : Faith, whether it is having an abundance or a large amount of of faith, or a lack of it. The same thing applies here, a lot of stuff in the Bible is quite unbelieveable, like most of the miracles that Jesus did in his 3 years of his ministry, but to understand the Bible more fully, people need to believe and have faith in the Bible in order too.

I really don't think a lot of the stuff is realistic in this time, but Jesus is GOD, that's what I know and that God can do supernatural things. Of course then a lot of the stuff in the New Testament is unbelieveable, but I don't know about the Old

@SlappyMcGee - um wow, that's a lot of stuff. i'll have to think a bit so i can understand your post. What's this death cube thing? Ive never heard of them

[乳头的早餐谷物]

@SlappyMcGee - um wow, that's a lot of stuff. i'll have to think a bit so i can understand your post. What's this death cube thing? Ive never heard of them

I'll try to clarify things, because it'd be great if you did respond to SlappyMcGee's post. You needn't be confused by the notion of 'death cubes' (paragraph 1). They're just an example of a concept that we know to be fictional. You could replace the scenario of believing in giant death cubes with the idea of believing in the Star Wars universe, or Spiderman—or, believing everything in the Bible.

In all those cases, there's little real-world evidence that the events presented actually occured. In the case of Cube, Star Wars, and Spiderman, we know it's fiction because it's explicitly presented as such. The Bible is presented as fact, and you believe that it is factual, but that's a matter of faith.

So, the question becomes 'why do you have faith'? SlappyMcGee presents three options that could lead to him believing in death cubes (paragraph 2), and the same three options can be applied to believing in God (paragraph 3 and onwards).

[Atilla]

Or, to put it even more concisely - if the stuff in the Bible is "unbelievable", why believe it?

It's all very well to say "you have to have faith" or "God can do the supernatural", but that can be used to 'justify' anything. For example, observe as I replace some words in your post above:

I really don't think a lot of the stuff is realistic in this time, but Jesus Thor is GOD the God of Thunder, that's what I know and that God gods can do supernatural things.

Now, I think it's fairly clear that the above isn't a good reason to start worshiping Thor. And Thor is one of the more sensible examples. I could have replaced Jesus with "the Magical Teapot Fairy" and it would still work (magical fairies can do supernatural things, after all). By the same token, even though there's not much evidence for the existence of the Magical Teapot Fairy, I can say "Ah, but you have to have faith. Only then will you understand how the fetching stripes on this teapot prove the divine nature of the Magical Teapot Fairy." Can you see how this sort of argument doesn't look very convincing to unbelievers? It can't explain how you came to believe in the Teapot Fairy in the first place, because for it to work you have to already believe the Teapot Fairy exists.

[jean-luc]

Or, to put it even more concisely - if the stuff in the Bible is "unbelievable", why believe it?

It's all very well to say "you have to have faith" or "God can do the supernatural", but that can be used to 'justify' anything. For example, observe as I replace some words in your post above:

I really don't think a lot of the stuff is realistic in this time, but Jesus Thor is GOD the God of Thunder, that's what I know and that God gods can do supernatural things.

Now, I think it's fairly clear that the above isn't a good reason to start worshiping Thor. And Thor is one of the more sensible examples. I could have replaced Jesus with "the Magical Teapot Fairy" and it would still work (magical fairies can do supernatural things, after all). By the same token, even though there's not much evidence for the existence of the Magical Teapot Fairy, I can say "Ah, but you have to have faith. Only then will you understand how the fetching stripes on this teapot prove the divine nature of the Magical Teapot Fairy." Can you see how this sort of argument doesn't look very convincing to unbelievers? It can't explain how you came to believe in the Teapot Fairy in the first place, because for it to work you have to already believe the Teapot Fairy exists.

You've just, perhaps unknowingly, made an analogy very similar to Russel's Teapot. Russel's Teapot is a small china teapot that orbits the sun between the Earth and Mars. We cannot prove that the teapot does not exist - it is simply too small for our telescopes to detect. To know that the teapot exists, we must simply have faith in it.

Bertrand Russel, who first described Russel's Teapot (hence the name) used it to explain how the argument that "Jesus must exist because science has not proved that he doesn't" is ridiculous.

[Atilla]

Yes, I know of Russel's Teapot. I went with Magic Teapot Fairy because it's explicitly supernatural, and far more hilarious. It also works on the same principle as the Invisible Pink Unicorn - the unicorn must be invisible, because nobody has ever seen it, and we have faith that it is pink.

[bobaganuesh_2]

yes I do beleive in God, because the Big Bang theory and the formation of the earth theory (gases condensed over time, I think) doesn't seem legitamate. This is probably because I don't know much about science (irrelevant) and consequently cannot make sense of the examplified two theories, and because as I child I was forced to go to church. The reason I continue to call myself Christian is mainly because of the science ignorance thing as mentioned already, and because it means alot to some of my family members that I keep the faith. It's not about me beleiving in God for my sake, but for their sake.

The whole "there's no proof that gods exist" line doesn't really work for me. Do people need solid evidence to confirm anything, albeit a spiritual entity? Perhaps our current technological process is what's hindering us for attempting to find evidence of God/gods. Who knows, one day in the future humans may be capable of discovering the existence of gods/spiritual deities by taking a sample of air. If you absolutely need deductive evidence to confirm something, then there is something I remember hearing about. Someone once told me that some peolple, could've been explorers or scientists or something, found evidence of wooden timber that they think was the remnants of Noah's Ark. Of course they think, so they don't know for sure that the timber could prove th evidence of Noah or God (somewhere in Norway or Greenland I believe). Apparently the Bible was originally a collection of ancient scriptures; if the scriptures exist, then perhaps God does right? Perhaps not, cuz for all we know someone back then could have been bored out of their skull and decided to write some epic story, as many others (e.g. Sophocles) before have.

[SlappyMcGee]

The whole "there's no proof that gods exist" line doesn't really work for me. Do people need solid evidence to confirm anything, albeit a spiritual entity? Perhaps our current technological process is what's hindering us for attempting to find evidence of God/gods. Who knows, one day in the future humans may be capable of discovering the existence of gods/spiritual deities by taking a sample of air. If you absolutely need deductive evidence to confirm something, then there is something I remember hearing about. Someone once told me that some peolple, could've been explorers or scientists or something, found evidence of wooden timber that they think was the remnants of Noah's Ark. Of course they think, so they don't know for sure that the timber could prove th evidence of Noah or God (somewhere in Norway or Greenland I believe). Apparently the Bible was originally a collection of ancient scriptures; if the scriptures exist, then perhaps God does right? Perhaps not, cuz for all we know someone back then could have been bored out of their skull and decided to write some epic story, as many others (e.g. Sophocles) before have.

People -do- need solid evidence to confirm things, because that's what confirms them. You can say that you believe something, but that doesn't make it true! It's extremely frustrating to me that isaacx hasn't responded to my post, and you only made a cursory effort to do so, because it covers what I want to hear. You don't need solid evidence to believe in anything, but the question then remains: Why do you believe it? If you have no personal reason to believe in a God, then it makes no sense to choose any God before any other God. Did you sit down and flip a coin and choose the first one that landed on heads? The only redeeming factor I'll give to you is that you said you are mostly doing it for your family, which hearkens to my third possible reason for believing in God, or maybe even my second.

[bobaganuesh_2]

The whole "there's no proof that gods exist" line . . . many others (e.g. Sophocles) before have.

You can say that you believe something, but that doesn't make it true! It's extremely frustrating to me that isaacx hasn't responded to my post, and you only made a cursory effort to do so, because it covers what I want to hear. You don't need solid evidence to believe in anything, but the question then remains: Why do you believe it? If you have no personal reason to believe in a God, then it makes no sense to choose any God before any other God. Did you sit down and flip a coin and choose the first one that landed on heads? The only redeeming factor I'll give to you is that you said you are mostly doing it for your family, which hearkens to my third possible reason for believing in God, or maybe even my second.

I believe in God because it makes the most sense to me. As a child I believed in God because enough people convinced me, your 2nd option, and as I got older I reflected on God's existence and the Christian theory of creation and thought "hey, why the hell not?". One idea is that if I beleive in God hard enough, then He must be true. But then I would be stupid and close-minded. Does embracing the fact that there's no deductive evidence that God exists, so He therefore must not exist, and knowing what the world is really like worth sacrificing my happy close-minded life for? (exemplified in The Matrix)

People -do- need solid evidence to confirm things, because that's what confirms them.

Hmm. There have been many cases about some man that was wrongly accused of murder, and he put into jail for 50 years because solid evidence confirmed that he was the killer. Then 30 years later, after technology has improved suffieciently and someone re-examines the case, the same evidence can now be processed differently and mopre accurately than in the past, and they find that the man is not guilty, but wrongly accused and has rotted in jail for no reason for the past thirty years.

Perhaps our current technological process is what's hindering us for attempting to find evidence of God/gods.

[SlappyMcGee]

I would say that the solid evidence that was found certainly made it extremely likely that the man was a murderer, and later, we realized that the minority was in fact correct. In the same way that it is extremely likely that there is no Christian God based on what we know now, what with historical inaccuracies and a world that predates the best guess of whoever wrote the Bible, and although we may find out in the future, BAM! God existed all along, that's no reason to assume that the majority of evidence we have now is wrong.

Even if we have no way of definitively proving that there is no God, the concept of God is as fabricated as the notion that faith is somehow a good thing. Faith is a blanket term used by people who don't want you to question their actions, because, bobaga, the second you start to question, "Hey, I don't actually know that anything happened in the Bible was fact.", or, "Wait, why does God not want everyone to believe in him?", or finally, and this is a big'n, "Why does God make science prove his non-existence?", that's when the whole thing falls apart.

So, give me a valid reason to believe in God that isn't included in my list. Because "Why the hell not?" isn't good enough.

[blue_tetris]

I believe in God because it makes the most sense to me. As a child I believed in God because enough people convinced me, your 2nd option, and as I got older I reflected on God's existence and the Christian theory of creation and thought "hey, why the hell not?". One idea is that if I beleive in God hard enough, then He must be true. But then I would be stupid and close-minded. Does embracing the fact that there's no deductive evidence that God exists, so He therefore must not exist, and knowing what the world is really like worth sacrificing my happy close-minded life for? (exemplified in The Matrix)

So if I believe in anything hard enough, it becomes real. There are people who believe in ghosts really hard, so those are real. There are people who believe in aliens really hard, so those are real. There are people who believe in other religions really hard, so all those religions are real. There are people who believe in the female orgasm really hard, so those must be real.

Surely some, if not all, of those things aren't real. But someone believes in them really hard.

Hmm. There have been many cases about some man that was wrongly accused of murder, and he put into jail for 50 years because solid evidence confirmed that he was the killer. Then 30 years later, after technology has improved suffieciently and someone re-examines the case, the same evidence can now be processed differently and mopre accurately than in the past, and they find that the man is not guilty, but wrongly accused and has rotted in jail for no reason for the past thirty years.

So, you're saying that something people used to believe a long time ago might become wrong when science and new evidence gives us a broader view.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

yes I do beleive in God, because the Big Bang theory and the formation of the earth theory (gases condensed over time, I think) doesn't seem legitamate. This is probably because I don't know much about science (irrelevant) and consequently cannot make sense of the examplified two theories

That's about where I stopped reading.
Here's what I just read:
"I admit that I don't know the first thing about logic, but I have concluded logically that I don't need to know anything about logic."
I mean, if you have a tentative grasp on how logic works, then you are no authority on whether or not this is important or applicable to any given subject -- but of course you can't understand this if you have a tentative grasp on how logic works! I just find this situation extremely amusing (and have concluded that you have no prefrontal cortex).

[bobaganuesh_2]

That's about where I stopped reading.
Here's what I just read:
"I admit that I don't know the first thing about logic, but I have concluded logically that I don't need to know anything about logic."
I mean, if you have a tentative grasp on how logic works, then you are no authority on whether or not this is important or applicable to any given subject -- but of course you can't understand this if you have a tentative grasp on how logic works! I just find this situation extremely amusing (and have concluded that you have no prefrontal cortex).

logic doesn't always prevail. If I know anything whatsoever, then logic should work like this: if I steal a cookie from the cookie jar my father will beat me. I take another cookie the next day, he beats me. Everyday for a week I take a cookie from the cookie jar and I get a beating from him. So if my sense of logic works, then it would say "don't take a cookie from the cookie jar". 5 minites later I take a cookie from the cookie jar, and I don't get beat because my father is stone drunk! I don't know what to do anymore! every single time I've taken a cookie from the cookie jar I would get beat, but I just took a cookie and nothing happened! What's going on?! Relating that to this topic/thread, the Big Bang theory seems just as "fabricated" and far-fetched to a Christian as the idea of God and faith would seem just as fabricated and far-fetched to an atheist. Science is applied to children in a similair way religion is. If I read enough about cellular biology, then sooner or later I might accept that cells exist, without needing proof. I would need substantial proof that the Big Bang theory is canon, although I have previously accepted it because teachers have told me that it's true, because they apparently know more than I do. Who knows, maybe I don't have a prefrontal cortex! I've never gotten the chance to crack open my skull, pull back the meninges and take a look.

So if I believe in anything hard enough, it becomes real. There are people who believe in ghosts really hard, so those are real. There are people who believe in aliens really hard, so those are real. There are people who believe in other religions really hard, so all those religions are real. There are people who believe in the female orgasm really hard, so those must be real.

Surely some, if not all, of those things aren't real. But someone believes in them really hard.

That's why I called that an "idea". Well, I guess that's the conteroversy with any faith, as you implied. Yes, that's the idea, if someone beleives that corn on the cob is to be idolized, then eventually they might think that it's appropriate to worship corn on the cob. With some religious believers, no matter how much scientific evidence may prove God's non-existence, they will still worship Him because that's what they've put into their head. Hitler and his beliefs would be another prime example. Arizona (I think) or Saskatchewan and itheir non-beleivance in day-light savings would be another.

So, you're saying that something people used to believe a long time ago might become wrong when science and new evidence gives us a broader view.

yeah, that's one side of the pancake. and maybe the scientific evidence of that murder case will point to someone else being the murderer. So something that people doubted a long time ago could become true. Beleiving in faith/religion and science would be a pretty broad view wouldn't it?

I'll have to get back to you, Slappy, later, just not right now

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

That's about where I stopped reading.
Here's what I just read:
"I admit that I don't know the first thing about logic, but I have concluded logically that I don't need to know anything about logic."
I mean, if you have a tentative grasp on how logic works, then you are no authority on whether or not this is important or applicable to any given subject -- but of course you can't understand this if you have a tentative grasp on how logic works! I just find this situation extremely amusing (and have concluded that you have no prefrontal cortex).

logic doesn't always prevail. If I know anything whatsoever, then logic should work like this: if I steal a cookie from the cookie jar my father will beat me. I take another cookie the next day, he beats me. Everyday for a week I take a cookie from the cookie jar and I get a beating from him. So if my sense of logic works, then it would say "don't take a cookie from the cookie jar". 5 minites later I take a cookie from the cookie jar, and I don't get beat because my father is stone drunk! I don't know what to do anymore! every single time I've taken a cookie from the cookie jar I would get beat, but I just took a cookie and nothing happened! What's going on?! Relating that to this topic/thread, the Big Bang theory seems just as "fabricated" and far-fetched to a Christian as the idea of God and faith would seem just as fabricated and far-fetched to an atheist. Science is applied to children in a similair way religion is. If I read enough about cellular biology, then sooner or later I might accept that cells exist, without needing proof. I would need substantial proof that the Big Bang theory is canon, although I have previously accepted it because teachers have told me that it's true, because they apparently know more than I do. Who knows, maybe I don't have a prefrontal cortex! I've never gotten the chance to crack open my skull, pull back the meninges and take a look.

The glorious irony here is that you'd understand why your response was illogical if you only understood logic.
You're a riot, dude.

[SlappyMcGee]

I'll have to get back to you, Slappy, later, just not right now

Please don't bother. Your arguments were largely illogical, and I doubt that you could give me a straight answer that didn't just come down to wordiness, and I'd rather not get frustrated.

[origami_alligator]

logic doesn't always prevail. If I know anything whatsoever, then logic should work like this: if I steal a cookie from the cookie jar my father will beat me. I take another cookie the next day, he beats me. Everyday for a week I take a cookie from the cookie jar and I get a beating from him. So if my sense of logic works, then it would say "don't take a cookie from the cookie jar". 5 minites later I take a cookie from the cookie jar, and I don't get beat because my father is stone drunk! I don't know what to do anymore! every single time I've taken a cookie from the cookie jar I would get beat, but I just took a cookie and nothing happened! What's going on?! Relating that to this topic/thread, the Big Bang theory seems just as "fabricated" and far-fetched to a Christian as the idea of God and faith would seem just as fabricated and far-fetched to an atheist. Science is applied to children in a similair way religion is. If I read enough about cellular biology, then sooner or later I might accept that cells exist, without needing proof. I would need substantial proof that the Big Bang theory is canon, although I have previously accepted it because teachers have told me that it's true, because they apparently know more than I do. Who knows, maybe I don't have a prefrontal cortex! I've never gotten the chance to crack open my skull, pull back the meninges and take a look.

I'm sorry you had such a rough childhood ;___;

Also, your analogy didn't correlate at all with relating it to the thread. It would be like saying you take a cookie every day and you get beat every time you take a cookie but one day you take a cookie and you don't get beat because your dad is drunk. Similarly, every week you are taken to church and you are told that God exists and that God loves you but one day you don't go to church and you aren't told that God exists or that God loves you because your alarm didn't go off. Does this mean God stopped loving you or that God doesn't exist? No, but it also doesn't mean that you won't get a beating later for taking the cookie.

[Nonoke]

I guess that logic must've won because your dad was drunk, so you didn't get hit.
Really, I don't see how it isn't logic that something's different under changed circumstances.

[isaacx]

To answer Slappy's question on page 14, I didn't care about God or church until i was about 10. Church was just a place the my parents once a week, and i'd just spend a few hours with my friends. Around 10, i had an experience with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit ain't God or Jesus, but it's part of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.) Im not sure if the following is still related but oh well.,

Then, when I was around 12, something happened. One of my cousins had something wrong with her brain. Her brain started to swell to immense sizes, from what i've heard, died for about a minute once, and came back, all this stuff happened about for a year. Now shes fully recovered and is almost 14. You can think otherwise, but we still consider it a miracle.

"Why does God make science prove his non-existence?"

Proverbs 16:4 says, "The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil." So just like Job, who lost everything after being the richest in the land, was rewarded soon after double, so God could glorify himself

[Atilla]

Inductive reasoning never claimed to be infallible in the first place. That's one of the things which differentiates it from deductive reasoning - in a logically valid deduction, the conclusion must follow if the premises are true, whereas inductive reasoning tends to involve a "softer" assertion that something is "more likely" or, indeed, "tends to".

Also, when you're using inductive logic you should adapt your views as you encounter new observations - after you got away with taking the cookies, proper inductive reasoning would tell you that taking cookies will get you beaten unless your father is stone drunk, because that's what you've just observed.

[SlappyMcGee]

To answer Slappy's question on page 14, I didn't care about God or church until i was about 10. Church was just a place the my parents once a week, and i'd just spend a few hours with my friends. Around 10, i had an experience with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit ain't God or Jesus, but it's part of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.) Im not sure if the following is still related but oh well.,

Then, when I was around 12, something happened. One of my cousins had something wrong with her brain. Her brain started to swell to immense sizes, from what i've heard, died for about a minute once, and came back, all this stuff happened about for a year. Now shes fully recovered and is almost 14. You can think otherwise, but we still consider it a miracle.

"Why does God make science prove his non-existence?"

Proverbs 16:4 says, "The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil." So just like Job, who lost everything after being the richest in the land, was rewarded soon after double, so God could glorify himself

First of all, let me say this: Your experience with the Holy Spirit is fine and good, and I appreciate that you actually have a reason you believe in God. However, once again, I think this proves just how irrelevant any argument you can make would be. How do you intend to convey your idea or convince us of the existence of your God if the only proof you have is non-concrete and is therefore impossible for us to confirm or disconfirm its existence?

Furthermore, your cousin may very well have been some sort of miracle. So, why do other young people die? Why is it God decided that your cousin is better than those he decided to sacrifice? You can say "God does not want us to question his ways" or whatever, or that he has his own purposes, but at that point you're already making a huge logical leap. To prove God's existence, you've mentioned a spectacular event which you attribute to God. When I try and disprove God's existence by asking why he doesn't do more spectacular events, the argument almost invariably circles around to, "No, our God has a clause that says if we question his existence, we our unfaithful. That if we question his actions, we are unfaithful." If you believe that God exists, then you can't question whether or not he exists, because then you believe you will go to Hell.

So, cyclically, do you attribute all of the good things that happen in the world to God? If the entire planet dies, and all of the people on it, will this still be part of God's plan? Why has God's plan not become apparent in thousands of years?

And finally, are you saying that God is putting deductive evidence that he does not exist, so that people who ignore this evidence will become even more faithful? Because this seems like another case of, "I believe in God. If I question God's existence, I am unfaithful."

So, basically, you are saying that the only way to prove that God exists is to become entirely faithful to him, believing everything he says is true, and shutting yourself out from anything that disagrees with him?

[isaacx]

Furthermore, your cousin may very well have been some sort of miracle. So, why do other young people die? Why is it God decided that your cousin is better than those he decided to sacrifice?

The thief comes only to steal,slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

The thief is Satan, the devil. It is Satan that does that does that kill.

So, cyclically, do you attribute all of the good things that happen in the world to God? If the entire planet dies, and all of the people on it, will this still be part of God's plan? Why has God's plan not become apparent in thousands of years?

Same thing above applies

And finally, are you saying that God is putting deductive evidence that he does not exist, so that people who ignore this evidence will become even more faithful? Because this seems like another case of, "I believe in God. If I question God's existence, I am unfaithful."

Just like in the book of Job, the Satan does the bad things, to try to make the good stumble:

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

"Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." (Job 1:8-11)

Satan caused all that to happen, and God used those tests to benefit Job more as Job remained faithful to God, and to bring praise to himself

Satan makes everything seem like evidence that God isn't real, and in Job's case, against you. He knows that he can make Christians go to hell, so he tries to make sure that as little people believe so more will go to hell.

[SlappyMcGee]

Furthermore, your cousin may very well have been some sort of miracle. So, why do other young people die? Why is it God decided that your cousin is better than those he decided to sacrifice?

The thief comes only to steal,slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

The thief is Satan, the devil. It is Satan that does that does that kill.

So, cyclically, do you attribute all of the good things that happen in the world to God? If the entire planet dies, and all of the people on it, will this still be part of God's plan? Why has God's plan not become apparent in thousands of years?

Same thing above applies

And finally, are you saying that God is putting deductive evidence that he does not exist, so that people who ignore this evidence will become even more faithful? Because this seems like another case of, "I believe in God. If I question God's existence, I am unfaithful."

Just like in the book of Job, the Satan does the bad things, to try to make the good stumble:

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

"Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." (Job 1:8-11)

Satan caused all that to happen, and God used those tests to benefit Job more as Job remained faithful to God, and to bring praise to himself

Satan makes everything seem like evidence that God isn't real, and in Job's case, against you. He knows that he can make Christians go to hell, so he tries to make sure that as little people believe so more will go to hell.

This is the cyclical argument I previously mentioned. I don't want to know how you're rationalizing these things to yourself. Pretend for a moment that you don't believe in God and read your own argument towards me. You plugged all of the logical holes I poked in your faith with more faith. You aren't showing me why God exists, or why you believe it; you're showing me that once you believe God exists, then logic is irrelevant.

I would like to reiterate that if you had an experience with the Holy Spirit and this is the reason you believe in God, then you can't debate here, because you're expecting us to believe in something that we haven't experienced and, from basic logic, we must assume was nothing more than a hallucination brought on by the stress you were having about your faith in God.

So, please please please, stop arguing that God exists because of something God said. I don't think those things are true. I am using reason to deduce that those things are probably not true, and I have no reason, and you've given me no reason, to believe that God is anything more than a pipedream.

[Condog]

Furthermore, your cousin may very well have been some sort of miracle. So, why do other young people die? Why is it God decided that your cousin is better than those he decided to sacrifice?

The thief comes only to steal,slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

The thief is Satan, the devil. It is Satan that does that does that kill.

If it's Satan that does the stealing, slaughtering, and destroying, then why does God let it happen? If God didn't want it to happen, he would not let it, him being omnipotent and whatnot. So, the logical conclusion is that God approves of the work of Satan and encourages the maiming and slaughtering of innocent children.

And finally, are you saying that God is putting deductive evidence that he does not exist, so that people who ignore this evidence will become even more faithful? Because this seems like another case of, "I believe in God. If I question God's existence, I am unfaithful."

Just like in the book of Job, the Satan does the bad things, to try to make the good stumble:

Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

"Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." (Job 1:8-11)

Satan caused all that to happen, and God used those tests to benefit Job more as Job remained faithful to God, and to bring praise to himself

Satan makes everything seem like evidence that God isn't real, and in Job's case, against you. He knows that he can make Christians go to hell, so he tries to make sure that as little people believe so more will go to hell.

Why would God do that? Why would he tear down and destroy everything his most devout and steadfast worshipper has ever loved and cared for? And all just to prove a point to Satan? What kind of a God does that? And what person would willingly and blindly worship such a being, knowing full well he could turn around at a moments notice and say "Oh, sorry buddy, but Satan over there bet me that you are just worshipping me cos i'm nice, then called me a pussy, and i totally wasn't gonna take that from no punk-ass devil, so i'm just gonna go completely and totally annihilate anything and everything you've ever loved, alright? kthx bye."

Also, you saying that God did that to Job sort of conflicts with your argument that God doesn't do anythign evil ever.