Oh God I want some chicken now.

Pray all you want, but only getting off your ass and driving to the chicken store is going to get you what you want.

I don't know if I'm reading you right here. Are you saying that Allah is a poor description of the one true God because Islam sprang out of the old and new testament? Or because it is describing a one god and therefore must be a poor description of the one true God? Are all deities that have cropped up over the years merely poor description of your God? Or do you accept some as poor descriptions, and others as complete fabrications? How do you decide which is which?

This is what we call a stawman as I said nothing of the sort.

But you did. Your worldview (and this might be wrong and you would have to correct me) holds that you have no belief in God. Now you have to arrive at this this really two main ways. One being that you have evidence against God or lack of evidence. Or that you systematically went through every religion and found them to be false (for whatever reason) and then therefor concluded that God does not exist. I have a feeling that you are the former, which means that you rejected the bible preemptively as the bible is based on the idea that God does in fact exist.

Atheism is not a worldview. It is a lack of a belief. It makes no assertions on its own. Belief is the assumption that something is true. If I flip a coin but do not show you the results, then ask you if you believe it came up heads, your answer will probably be no. If I then ask you if you believe that it came up tails, your answer will also probably be no. The fact that there are multiple options for potential truth does not imply you have to believe one of them is true. In the case of the coin, you do not have to believe either option, and in doing so have made no assertion as to what its value actually is in terms of heads or tails.

Prove it.

Look, if you're worried about the specifics like accepting how scientists perform experiments, you don't need us to agree to it beforehand so you can trap us with some technicality.

Just go on with your assertion, and then we can examine the premises afterwards. If one of your premises is that scientiests perform experiments, I don't think anyone will have a problem with that. However, if one of your premises is that "the way to search for the truth is to ask God from a sincere genuine heart" then that won't fly because you've done nothing to show why this is true.

So be on with it. Based on the dragging on of this thread, I'm assuming you have nothing. Afterall, if you're the first person ever to prove the existence of God, I'm pretty sure you'd be stoked to spread the love rather than piling on 200 posts worth of delay tactics.

You said nothing of the sort? You got me stumped. Care to spring the trap on me and explain why the quoted series of passages isn't you contradicting yourself?

This is not logical, and I think it is also probably not something you will even stand behind if it is carefully scrutinized.

First, my world view. My world view, as it relates to any gods, is that at first glance, they seem like fiction. That's all. However, this simple statement has a lot behind it.

For one thing, the world as I understand it does not seem incomplete, when considered without assuming any particular religion or philosophy is accurate. Thus, I am not left looking for something that a liberal/"spiritual"/deist religionist might call a god.

You know what, instead of listing more of my own background in not being religious, let me just sum it up with this: I find the notion of an all powerful being desiring my love and/or worship and/or acknowledgment being incapable of getting it from me. Mere mortals once tricked me into paying a dental bill that I was not legally (or ethically!) obligated to pay, and the facts weren't even on their side. If they could trick me, I don't think it is unreasonable to think that a god with all of the power in the world on his side, could convince me of the truth. But whatever, people want to do semantic backflips and go into obvious psychological double-speak about why he wants me to want it, or he wants me to find out on my own, etc. I think this kind of tact works best on people from age 0 to 5 years. A thinking adult who isn't already encumbered by this kind of magical thinking is unlikely to be persuaded. BUT I've drifted so far off course, I must stop this digression immediately!

The more interesting issue is, if we disregard that you somehow write-off the possibility that an atheist might be an atheist simply because of a lack of compelling evidence to the contrary (which is the answer I gave above, if you can wade through it; but also the answer you seem to be dismissing as of late, and which was the source of my message to which you replied, and to which this is a surreply, so to speak), and putting aside the "evidence against the existence" thing, because it is really irrelevant -- i.e. there can be no proof that god(s) in general do not exist, and any evidence suggesting that a particular god does not exist will be washed away if it is in fact the case that the god(s) are just make-believe in the first place -- the interesting issue is this claim that you have made that in order to be an atheist one must systematically find each religion to be false.

This is, of course, rubbish.

Let us suppose you do not like hotdogs. A ha! This must mean that you have systematically found to be disagreeable every hotdog there is! Or at least, that is the logic you are using above.

Let's put it this way: Since I wasn't born believing in the bible or any gods, all I can use is reason. I've eaten a few hotdogs, I've seen others, smelled them, heard about them from friends and family, and you know what? I think I get it. I cannot systematically claim that each and every hotdog (that has ever been, or ever will be) is nasty, but I've seen enough to form a reasonable conclusion. I've certainly seen enough that I should not be paralyzed into inactivity, afraid that there might be a good hotdog out there somewhere. They are all made of lips, peckers, the occasional ground up human, dead rats & the rat poison that killed them, and the occasional swept up rusty nails and odd bits fallen out of slaughterhouse machines.

But this dude on the street says that his hotdog is made from the thigh of a single virgin cow. Eh, maybe, but I don't care, I'm not trying it. I'm just going to eat something vegetarian.

I don't know why I went with this horrible horrible analogy, but I think it has some legitimate parallels, and is not entirely without merit. I know I can count on you to see past the obvious silliness and discuss the pertinent serious points, though. I have faith!

I did not state that you started by not believing in religion, but that you started with the evaluation of the existence of God, by logical extension your position on religion was made.

This paragraph says a lot to me, but I am not going to get into at this point.

I did not dismiss it, in fact I included it in a previous post,

Once again, go back and re-read what I wrote. I did not say that this, I said that there were two main reasons why one would be an atheist, this happens to be one of them.

It does not parallel my statement for the above reason.

I don't know what to call this.

Can anyone else weigh in on this? Jib appears to be contradicting himself, and ignoring the contents of my messages at the same time.

I'm not sure what else I can do to further the conversation.

Right. Again. Pretty much ignoring everything I've written. I don't know if this is playing games, or being defensive, or not understanding what I'm writing, or just not agreeing with me. But it feels an awful lot like I'm making a good faith effort, trying to communicate, trying to further the conversation, and you are just trying to deflect it instead of engaging with me.

I find a lot of the religious posters on this forum share this affliction, all the while accusing the atheists of being closed minded. The writing is akin to political spin sheets: they have a party line and a message and skirt around the direct questions that are asked. They like to respond to the more radical atheists and ignore completely the people who say over and over again that they approach these topics with open minds and try to engage in debate and ask some pointed questions.

I've said it before, if God exists, then God fits somehow. If God exists, then that existence should be provable: at least circumstancially. If not today, then some day in the future.

Pletho, you have expressed what you think are the guiding reasons behind a person's disbelief in God, Christianity, and religion as a whole. You feel that certain negative experiences, perhaps even traumatic experience are what lead people to stray from religion. But consider this;

Did your parents ever teach you about Santa Claus? Or the Tooth Fairy? Did you not believe these entities to be 100% real at the time of your learning? Were you not wholly convinced that a fat man in a red suit flies around the world in a sleigh delivering presents to all the boys and girls?

Arguing about God, for many, has about as much merit as arguing about Santa Claus. Nobody needs to have a negative experience to reject the idea of Santa Claus. Neither does anyone need to have a negative experience to reject the idea of god. And the reason why so many people react negatively and harshly towards bible thumpers such as yourself, is because to them (us), it is as if you are trying to preach about the reality of Santa Claus. For us to sit here and listen to it is laughable at best, and annoying at worst. Just imagine if someone came in here discussing the merits of Santa.

People stop believing in Santa because at an early age you are quite simply told he does not exist. Either your parents tell you, your friends do, a late night comedy sketch does, one way or the other you learn through popular culture that he is simply a fairy tale. However God is not like this. At no point in your youth are you outright told by the people you trust that God in fact a myth. You are lead to believe he is real for your entire adolescence. Sure you might hear people argue about it, and someone you know might dismiss the idea, but overall you are saturated in a belief system whereby 90% of what you here is confirming his existence rather than denying it. Imagine if the same were done with Santa Claus. Imagine if as an experiment, you sheltered a human from birth, and raised him all the way to the age of 44 with the belief that Santa was real. You would end up with a 44 year old man vehemently defending the existence of Santa to any who oppose, much like you do with God. He would think everyone else is simply ignorant for not understand that Santa really exists.

And therein comes a lot of the hostility. Being told by someone that Santa exists is like basically being told I am a moron for not believing this. I am somehow misinformed, ignorant, or even stupid, because I dont know such a basic premise. You might as well be telling me 1+1=2, as if im some idiot who doesnt know this. This is how many people feel being told Santa, I mean God, exists. After awhile you just want to bitch slap the next person who preaches what otherwise seems as nonsense.

In fact one such thing already exists, The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Im sure you have heard of him. Now how would you feel if people were seriously taking you aside, and telling you that you are wrong about God, and that the reality is there is a flying spaghetti monster responsible for all existence. You wouldnt like that too much would you? You would think they are ******ed for even suggesting such a thing. Welcome to our perception of Christianity.

From my side it seems like you are continuing to argue against something that you either want me to have said, or that you think that I said. So there is no point in my commenting on yours points when I feel they have nothing to do with my points.

the fact that you assume God and Christianity/The Bible are one and the same is what makes us facepalm at your comments.

Saying Christianity is ludicrous or the Bible is just a fairy tale has no bearing on whether or not there might be an all-powerful Creator.

Jib, I have dismissed all gods because I simply believe what I believe after examining all the evidence presented before me in my life. The universe renders us specks of dust, and in perspective, we as humans know basically nothing. To fill that gap with a simple answer such as an omnipotent and ubiquitous creator screams bull**** to me. If anything, life has taught me that nothing is perfect, nor are any of the answers to it. Even if such an omnipotent and ubiquitous being did exist, it already knew that I don't believe in its existence, whether I make such an effort or not. I'm merely being honest. Of course I hunger for truth, and the truth to me at this point in life is that there's nothing there, and whatever is there is likely unfathomable because we're just mere insignificant humans only capable of so much thought.

Pletho, please get to the point of your OP already. 12 pages in, and all I see is arrogant trolling about your inflated self-confidence that you know the truth and everyone else doesn't.

could someone just pm me when the empirical proof is posted in this thread?

thanks.

Honestly... I'm starting to feel like this guy

Sounds reasonable to me. So, we need some sort of working definition from you of "God," and then a few ideas about what would constitute "proof." Or at least evidence supporting the God Hypothesis.

Wait. Did you just say that so many people react negatively to someone posting about the Bible in the Religion God and Theology forum?

Why are you here?

You realize that when you quote someone, people can read what they actually said and compare it to what you just accused them of saying, right?

Well, I'm not sure it works that way, since I'm not the one putting forth a positive assertion. Frankly, I haven't the foggiest idea how to prove God's existence if God in fact exists. My point is not that I have the answer (as I strongly suspect God doesn't exist) but that if there is such a deity that that deity fits into the system somehow. It is clear that we currently don't have the means of detecting it. But if God is interacting with the world then that is happening on a physical level (I may not be using the proper scientific term here: there is interaction, there is something that is interacting with another something)

What would convince me of God's existence? I don't know. I just know what won't convince me, and that is a 2000 year old book. I also know that the gut feelings of believers is not enough for me as well.

I am also open to the fact that circumstantial evidence may be enough to while not prove in God's existence absolutely, then at least strongly lead to the conclusion that it is extremely likely that God exists. Again, I have not seen any such circumstantial evidence that convinces me.

I know whatever evidence I was presented with I would examine skeptically and come to a conclusion.

Where have all the Christians gone?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/...mericans-gone/

I nominate Pletho for a tempban for trolling topics and failing to deliver. 12 pages now and we havent heard so much as a peep about this proof of his. Someone sure likes attention.