I don't understand your post, and especially this part of it. The point of the OP is that all religions use the same exact arguments for God's existence. Those arguments are for a deistic god! Then they go on to extrapolate the arguments for everything else with no rhyme or reason other than that's the way they want it to be. And the evidence supporting these extrapolations can only be found in their holy books. It has no basis and is completely circular.

Why is my point unreasonable?

I think that gif was clearly uncalled for FWIW.

However, stories of religious people living selflessly is not evidence of any sort of God, so I'm not really sure why you posted them in this thread.

Erf, so far you've said like 10 times (in different words) that in order to believe in (the Christian) God's existence you have to start off believing in God's existence. A very weird prerequisite indeed.

The mistake was made when you thought I assumed it.

"don't make the mistake of assuming other people need the same thing."

Seems pretty clear that you think others need God to "find the good."

Examples such as these serve as primary reinforcements to my Faith. Christ taught that God is Love, so much so that he willingly suffered death on a cross. This tremendous power of love enabled Kolbe, Kapaun, Judge, et al to transcend the ordinary limits of humanity to fully unite themselves with Christ and fearlessly walk with him on His path to Calvary.

Quite simply: The Gospel teaches that God is Love. This message of Love, first demonstrated by Christ, enabled his followers to accomplish extraordinary things.

I don't think it's unreasonable. I think you are being confused by the differences. Here's some posts I left a while back that might be worth the read again:

In clearer form:

I don't assume that you need God. I know that you need God.

[ ] stories of religious people living selflessly is evidence of any sort of God
[x] you think it is
[ ] your brain is logical

Okay, I'll state the obvious:

The fact that these people did selfless acts and were inspired to do so by their religion IN NO WAY proves their god actually exists.

And if you think there are no examples of atheists or believers of other religions doing something selfless you're delusional.

Tragically, there are people here who think becase a random person decided to go running into a building before it fell to recite book passages is proof of an invisible man in the sky doing magic.

Besides, I would argue that the examples of these "selfless" men are not all that selfless when you take into account their belief of an eternal life after they die. The know they will obtain God's Reward in Heaven....so really, how selfless are their acts?

If I give the shirt off my back to a homeless man, it's simply a nice deed - I have plenty of shirts back home in my closet. But if I only own one shirt and choose to give it to another, that is a truly selfless act.

Similarly, if an atheist chooses to lay down his life so another might live it is certainly more selfless than a religious person who believes in an afterlife doing the same thing.

How do you know that I need God? Because of your own personal experiences. Thus, you are making the mistake of assuming that your personal experiences translate to everyone else.

Also, do me a favor and look up assume in the dictionary so you can see that you do in fact assume I need God.

All religions are man-made. There is an abundance of evidence backing up this point. For me this clearly follows onto the point that all Gods described by those religions are man-made. This is the simple reason that all "evidence" for these Gods is found in the Holy Books written by the men at the source of the religions and compiled by the men controlling the religions over the course of time.

Man made Religions
Man made God.
God does not actually exist.

You had better start backing this up. If the abundance of evidence is there, it shouldn't be hard to do.

Why must it be that man is incapable of accurately describing *ANY* gods at all? How do you know man can't be "lucky" and accidentally get it right?

solid evidence imo, so god lead you to the answer but did he also lead you to the problem?

The reconciliation lies in what a believer considers to be evidence. If by "evidence" you mean empirical evidence (ie that there's no other kind) then there isnt very good evidence for any specific religion. Some are ruled out, others have mild evidence for them (imo) but not enough to justify belief on their own.

I think that non-empirical evidence is valid, just weaker (and always trumped by empirical evidence). For example, I consider that I have evidence that I am conscious even though nobody else can veryify that fact directly, you just have to take my word for it. (At the moment we dont have a theory able to determine what is conscious and what isnt - if someone thinks we can, change the example to "I know what it feels like for me to see red".) If there was some empirical evidence that contradicted that, I believe it would be rational for you to deny my consciousness (no matter how strenuously I objected).

Another point I would make is that, in asking for one specific conception of God, you appear to be requiring that the evidence completely specify a unique god - that there can be no speculation and that in order to believe in a specific god I have to be led there 100% by the evidence. This may be a misunderstanding on my part, so happy to retract that if I've missed the point. However, if I'm right, I think it is unreasonable since when forming views on other topics we are allowed to have a conception which is constrained by evidence, yet not uniquely specified by it.

I do the same with my beliefs about God - I think there is some (weak and subjective) evidence for his existence - I think a rational skeptic shouldnt pay any attention to my opinion on that, I think it is rational for me to maintain a belief given such scant evidence, providing I test it against empirically justified beliefs. If my spiritually-derived belief tells me something which contradicts a logically deduced or experimentally derived fact - I think it is irrational to keep holding onto the faith-based view. It should be modified to be consistent with what science and logic tells me about the world.

Another point (since I'm in a rambling mood) is that I dont think we choose beliefs - we discover that we hold them. Belief-forming is a complicated process, evaluation of evidence belongs more in the analysis and defence of a belief than in its formation (in my view, anyhow). Consequently, I discover I believe in God, I look at that and realise that the only reason I can possibly find is a personal, spiritual experience. I can think of a whole host of reasons which are "better" explanations - yet despite quite a bit of effort, I still believe it's caused by God. What am I supposed to do then? I think it's perfectly rational to accept the world the way it seems to me, analyse what evidence there is - see what it shows, look at the logical consequences of that and see if it contradicts what we learn about the world empirically.

Evidence that religions are man made in bullet point format for effect:

* There are a huge variety of religions which can all be sourced to different periods of human history, different geographical locations and different cultures around the world. This can be explained as the religions are a natural progression from beliefs which different human societies have evolved about life/death etc and which have then been written down and accepted as absolute truths.

* The Bible, an infamous holy text claiming to be directly inspired by (some claim authored by) God shows no consistency of message throughout and makes false claims concerning the origins of our species, the world we live in and much more(the world is round ldo). It also regurgitates the stories of prophets and holy men that have gone before it. These serious and widespread errors and inconsistencies are all what would be expected of understandably ignorant men authoring the books within it influenced by past man made myths.

* Although religions such as Christianity claim there is a personal God who watches over our every move and cares for us there is no evidence of his interference with our world. As time and science progress more and more apparent interventions by God as claimed in the bible and other holy texts such as floods, plagues, disease, disabilities, miraculous recoveries etc are explained leaving no evidence that a personal God exists at all. Studies testing out the power of prayer have shown no positive results.

I would continue with this post but it is v.late here, this is boring me and i must be up early. I'm afraid your point about the possibility of a religion guessing correctly is just too ****ing tilting to even bother responding to, I'm sure as I typed this someone who could be arsed took you up on it.

I'm sorry this post reads badly but I am too tired to look over it/ finish it. Please make a similar post outlining how religion is God inspired. I like to start my mornings off with a smile on my face, helps get me through my work outs.

I take exception to the bolded part. Christ was neither the first nor the last person to bring a message of love. To impart this message wholly to Christianity or followers of Christ is not just shortsighted and narrow-minded; it dismisses the efforts and goodwill of countless people and other great religious and/or humanitarian thinkers who have strived to give this same message throughout the ages.

-Zeno

Because without Him you are not complete Justin A.

I'm pretty sure drugs led me to the problem.

And God created you in his image. and god made you susceptible to drugs.

I concur Sir. Will amend from "first demonstrated by Christ" to "most perfectly demonstrated by Christ.

You just shifted your position by conveniently dropping the word I have put in bold. I don't think any of the statements you have below provide any evidence whatsoever of your original claim.

(1) Justify this claim. What do you think is the message of the Bible, and where do you think it is being inconsistent?

(2) The use of a text to make errant claims is not equivalent to the text making errant claims. The inerrancy of the Bible comes down to the following claim: The Bible is inerrant as a text insofar as the statements made by the author are true when interpreted as the writer intended for it to be understood. This is an assertion that is taken on faith because it cannot be verified. Further, the rejection of this truth claim undermines the entire religion because there would be no foundation.

And I'm perfectly fine with that. Just because I cannot *prove* that I'm interpreting something correctly, I can make strong arguments for and against interpretations and from these debates glean the interpretation(s) that are most likely to be correct. This type of debate is very similar to how others debate the writings of dead philosophers.

Edit: There are other things going on here, and if you happened to be interested, you would want to read about "Systematic Theology."

There's something here that I don't think many people appreciate. Suppose for a moment that God acted in a singularly consistent measurable manner. If this were so, man would describe it as a natural law and reject God as the solution. Consider gravity as an example. Does any experiment *prove* God is not pulling all the strings and making objects fall towards each other? Nope. All we get is a consistent phenomenon which people have decided to call "gravity." Therefore, empiricism is in fact completely unable to detect God if God is acting in a singularly consistently measurable manner.

Furthermore, of the studies that you are likely to cite, you will find that the empirical tests are not tests prayers in general, but tests of specific people's ability to pray under specific conditions. Therefore, the best that one can claim is that prayer is not an effective tool under the presented conditions. This is a common feature of any empirically-based study. Null results must be interpreted carefully and are often subject to over-generalizations.

Good night, and I hope you find yourself with a clear mind in the morning.

"Most perfectly" is obviously a matter of opinion. I am sure you have not studied all of the relevant prophets / wise men/ religious icons who have preached on the subject of love and compassion and so would it not be presumptuous of you to make such a claim?