Hey, L.T., thanks for the replies.

I'm not sure what difference it would make in my life now because I'm getting old and have made decisions that can't be changed so I might have to just live with it, though certainly my thought life would be different.

But had it been proved that God didn't exist or Christianity is false when I was much younger I would have taken a different direction at a major crossroad in my life and I guarantee my life would have been much different - and I would have been a very different person. I've struggled all my life since I became a Christian with pride, bitterness, hatred, revenge,depression, lust and anger, with varying degrees of success. Had I not become a Christian the only struggle would have been to not reveal what I was to society for purposes of self-aggrandizement.

its a hypothetical situation. doesnt matter if it will ever happen or not. now answer the question.

I'll entertain this and say that nothing would change.

I think I know what OP is trying to do here: You're probably trying to spot the hypocrites who would say they would rape, kill and steal, because there's no God to be fearful of punishing them for all eternity.

If so, don't press your luck. You won't find those hypocrites so easily.

Actually, I suspect he's looking to spot the opposite: that nothing much will change (ceremonial stuff aside) and that people will continue being as moral/immoral as they ever were.

suppose you could teleport anywhere just by thinking about it. where would you go first?

...it's impossible to answer that question.

suppose you had a week off and some extra cash, where would you go?

rio.

ding ding ding

Ironically, Christians are more likely to get divorced than atheists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newton

One story of millions.

If you go by what a lot Christians say in the argument for their Gods superior morals. Without his absolute moral guidance then we will all be doomed to a hell on earth of moral relativism. I other words let the pillaging, raping and killing begin.

That's very problematical. Here:

http://brewright.blogspot.com/2006/1...rce-rates.html

is a contradiction to Barna. Probably one of those areas that can't be made into statistics because the real issue involves subjective criteria that can't be measured.

Of course it can be measured. Do self-described religious persons get divorced more or less than those who do not describe themselves as religious? If yes then it doesn't mean religion is the cause here (obviously). Studies also show higher educated persons are less likely to get divorce. I can't remember the finding wrt wealth.

Anyways, upon googling a bit it seems the Barna study is the source of my original statement. Your link seems to suggest another study suggests otherwise. So, I don't know. I assume this is well studied...

The issue involves the "no true scotsman" idea. Logically, if someone is committed to the truths of the Bible he would be far less likely to get a divorce. This is true of other religions as well. I think that beyond the statistics you need to make a case for why being committed to the idea that divorce is not good would lead to more divorce.

There can be other factors, similar to the idea that more theists are in prison than atheists. For instance, perhaps most of the divorced theists became theistic after their marriage, and their partner did not, so that the divorce is actually at the instance of the atheist. Or, perhaps most of the divorced theists are only nominal theists - they don't practice the tenets of the religion in any serious aspect, so it would be valid to question their profession of faith.

This is just to show that the bare counting of heads is unrealistic as a guide or explanation of anything. Anecdotally, my parents got divorced after their children were all adults. My mother was a Christian and my father was not. I think my mother may have been a Christian when they married but was not a strong or consistent believer - I don't think my father ever even made a profession of faith. They were both young and my mother might have married for reasons against those taught by the church. At any rate, the divorce was obtained by my father and though my mother agreed, she really had no choice under our state's law - they were separate the legally necessary time period. So they would probably have been included in a statistic as a theistic, Christian divorce, which would be a serious error.

FWIW, I think this is a terribly dangerous position to take. Of course everyone (well, most people I suppose) gets married thinking it'll be for life, and that's a good thing.

However, I know theists by the boatload that have a long list of "I would never do X" of which divorce is high on that list, then, when it happens, they lose not only their marriage but their faith as well.

Also from a religious standpoint, having an "oh, I'd never let that happen to me attitude is going to be extremely off-putting to those that have been through the experience, even if it's not meant in a snide or condescending way.

I can't. Or I did. You aren't understanding so maybe I'm not being clear. To prove to me God does not exist, you'd have to prove I do not exist.

I think the implications of my non-existence are obvious.

No it's not. I'd go visit my blind step-mother and program her tivo so she can always "watch" her shows.

Prax is God! Yaaaay.

lol, such fail.

It's called a thought experiment: I don't think God will mind if you posit a hypothetical for a minutes presuming he doesn't exist. Nor do I think you will pop out of existence should you do so. Just run with it!

[QUOTE=dknightx;14021885] Dk... I'm not sure how to proceed if we are going to play this game.

Is not the second word in post #39 "only"?


To answer your question, are there areas that I do things I wouldn't necessarily do on my own because I have a belief in God? Absolutely, unapologetically yes. But isn't that the point? Do not others sometimes drive you to push yourself further than you would yourself? Don't coaches often point out mistakes you would otherwise miss and push you in directions you would not normally not go? Doesn't this explain why even Tiger Woods has a golf coach, etc.?

I'm not saying that the ONLY reason I'd do good deed X is because of God, I'm saying that there's a limit to what I'd do (as is true with all of us) and sometimes God pushes me to do more than I would on my own.

That's one of the crazy things about marriage. It will blow up your whole idea of what you think about yourself, what you are willing to do, etc. This is going to happen regardless of whether one believes in God or not.

I totally agree.

I was sharing my personal experience and how God works in my marriage. That's not the same as making a truth claim that everyone has to do it like me or that you must have God in your life to do X.

TBH, this always confuses me. Why does someone's personal testimony somehow become offensive when it has nothing to do with others?

Huh? Early in this thread, you said that if it's proven that God does not exist, you would imagine that your marriage would end in divorce. Then you made the post I responded to, that said you made a serious commitment to your wife - that did not refer to God in any way. I suspect that a change in your belief about God would not change the commitment to your wife as much as you imagine - but regardless, I appreciate your sharing your thoughts here, and don't find them in any way offensive. Which shouldn't be surprising on this point, since we are pretty much in agreement. Except, of course, for the God part.

I can't, I'm trying to think of an analogy and all I can come up with is what everyone would say if I asked: "How would this forum be different if it were PROVEN the internet didn't exist?" Would anyone even bother to respond?

That's easy, we would have to discuss these issues somewhere else. On a smaller scale, and most likey in person.

See? Thought experiment.

Are you saying you could not even write a fictional story about a world exactly like ours, but where there was no God?

Then how would we have asked the question in the first place? You can't ask the question in a forum - you can't ask what the forum would be like if it were proven there was no internet while you use the internet to ask the question.

No, but I can point you to a totalitarian society where belief in God was pretty much completely suppressed and you can see how that worked.

Tell you what - if it wasn't for God, we wouldn't be here at all and then we would have no need of conversation because we'd just be a mass of undifferentiated energy.

How about this. I end up with amnesia, am taken in by an atheist family that are subsistence livers and have no TV or outside access and no one ever mentions God. Ever. So I have effectively lost my own knowledge of and belief in God. I am motivated by basic biological needs and know nothing but what I am told. I do what I'm taught.

Maybe I'll get really lucky and cut my foot off with the ax and bleed to death.