Buffman

ManM

Do you believe that there is any significant differentiation bewtween "imagination" and "fancy" or "fantasy?" If you do, upon what verifiable evidence do you base your belief that there is? If you don't, upon what verifiable evidence do you base your belief that there isn't?

My point? We don't even know what consciousness or self-awareness really are let alone what the human Mind really is or why it functions in the manner that it does. The likelihood that we will find the answers in our lifetime is rather slim. However, some folks continue to seek accurate, verifiable, answers to those questions. Why? Perhaps W-H-Y is the supreme God of the universe...not Yah-WHY!

Devnet

Until we have a more accurate and verifiable understanding of how and why humans come to believe the things they do, arguments from Nature and Scripture would seem to be destined for ultimate futility and frustration...if not war and death. There is nothing simple, at this point, about the human mind.

NOGO

Right, and that is exactly what believers claim. ie Their interpretation also explains the evidence.

To me Matthew 24 says that the end of the world should have come right after the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 CE. It did not.

Should I conclude from your statement that you agree that Matthew 24 wrongly predicted the end of the world in 70 CE?

Radcliffe Emerson

There's more evidence (albeit manufactured by humans) to support the existence of Santa Clause than god.

You're right, you can produce all of the evidence, scientific, archaelogical, historical, you want that goes against a god belief, and you won't get anywhere.

Theists need big daddy in the sky to hold their hand and promise them something good when they die.

emotional

Therefore, argue by presupposition: "we reason by the impossibility of the contrary" (Cornelius Van Til). The evidence of the non-existence of God is clear and present before everyone; so those who deny the non-existence of God are simply self-deceiving and without excuse.

Theism is a world of confusion, illogic and chaos, where nothing is clear at all. That's why I'm an atheist: because it makes sense. Nothing makes sense except in the light of naturalism. Theism is a world of chaos, of illogic, where fair can easily be foul, and foul be fair, only because God wills so or not. The poorest basis for morality I've ever seen.

emotional

And now... the next salvo in my series of Presuppositional Argumentation for Naturalism:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/selfdeception.htm" target="_blank">The Element of Self-Deception in Theism</a>

where I take <a href="http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/PA207.htm" target="_blank">a page out of Greg Bahnsen's book</a> and argue for theistic self-deception. Yee hah!