Wyz_sub10

'Begging the question' means that you are using circular reasoning - asserting the very thing you are trying to prove.

In this case, your comment "He IS the objective Truth by which anything can be determined."

Yes. The evidence exists and the connection can be established. It is the *validity* of the evidence Holocaust denies deny. But validity can be supported with evidence.

If you use the bible as proof, I would question the validity, and you could not support that validty with evidence. On the contrary, the evidence refutes most of the OT and lends little support to anything in the NT.

If you use nature as proof, I would question the connection.

I see my face (for better or worse), and in that face I see traces of my mother and father.

So do claims of UFO abductions. Claims are not proof.

It didn't seem to come to your mind earlier on when you wondered what was meant by your "begging the question."

What do you mean?

According to Chrisitian teachings, he does.

Ummm....because it's reality as we experience it. How many "realities" do you experience?

If not for reality as you experience it, how would you come to know or believe anything?

Frankly, I'm puzzled at that last comment. It is this "reality" in which you believe god has spoken to us, etc., isn't it?

yguy

An understandable POV with which I must disagree. Such questions take a person away from realizing God's existence, not towards it. Of course, if such is your aim, go for it.

And an example of something which CAN be proven to exist would be...?

Such as...?

As a matter of fact, if God didn't exist, nothing else would either.

yguy

Swell. Another Christian mole spamming a board with posts meant to cast a perception shell of comical shallowness about the atheist POV.

Not quite cricket, TR.

yguy

You think I intend to prove that? On the contrary, it can't be proven. I know it to be true nonetheless.

Yes, evidence whose validity can be questioned, demanding more evidence whose validity can be questioned...

So they created you?

Don't see why it should.

If you've ever had your ego attached to an idea, even a relatively insignificant one, and that idea was shown to be ridiculous, you got very angry, overtly or not. The idea that God exists is hardly insignificant to a rabidly dogmatic atheist. Confronted with the unmistakable refutation of such a rigidly held belief would kill that person - even if his heart kept beating. There would be nothing more to him than hatred of God.

Nonsense. If that were true, Adam would have been prevented from sinning.

So if we don't see it, it ain't there?

Here is the question I was responding to:

"Frankly, the idea of the Xian God is preposterous at it's root - as it clearly contradicts reality as we experience it."

Reality as I experience it doesn't contradict the existence of God in the least.

If by this you mean do I see visions and talk to God and all that stuff, no. What I see is that I know things without knowing how I know them, and that I am a created being, as I sure as heck didn't create myself.

Wyz_sub10

I'm not saying *you* intend to prove that. I'm just saying that this was what SanDiegoAtheist meant by begging the question - this is part of what is trying to be determined.

You can reach a point where a conclusion becomes so supported that it would be unreasonable to believe otherwise. For instance, the validity of your exisitence can be questionable to me. You could supply proof, and I could question that proof, etc., as you suggest.

But at some point the evidence for your existence would be such that any doubts I had would be unreasonable, or any counter-scenarios I proposed to discredit your arguments would be ridiculous.

Of course they did...or my mom has some serious explaining to do to my dad.

Speak for yourself. I don't enjoy being mistaken any more than the next person, but I do not get angry everytime I err (especially when it is something insignificant).

That's an absolutely ridiculous statement.

If god revealed himself and said: "You are mistaken. I exist. I can give you eternal paradise, where you may see your deceased relatives once more, will always be with your families and friends, where every tragedy you have ever suffered will be whiped clear."

You think that would ignite within me a hatred for god? No. It would raise many, many questions to which I would want answers, but the idea of my parents dying, but not being gone forever is something I would trade for my ego.

What you neglect to consider is that any of us (myself included) have been "rabidly dogmatic Christians" in the past. I did not hate those involved, in whatever form, with my re-consideration of my beliefs.

When one is faced with a choice such as ours, according to Christian teachings, one is offered no meaningful choice at all.

According to Christianity, god ultimately controls our fate. He does force his will on humans. Unless you are saying that I am not obligated to believe in him or follow his teachers without interventive consequences?

I don't see music, yet I experience it. I don't see perfume, yet I experience it. I don't see love, yet I experience it.

All of these are part of my reality as I experience it.

No, I didn't mean visions. I meant his teachings and morals and directions for you. You have "come to know god" in some sense, have you not? If you have, it has been through your experiences.

I would question things you "know" to be true that you cannot source, and while I too agree that you did not create yourself, I'm guessing your parents had something to do with that.

Clutch

The Holy Levitating Newts of My Bathroom control the affairs of this world.
JFK was killed by Chileans in support of the anti-Q-Tip lobby.Between any two points on a line, there is another point; but there are not infinitely many points between any two points.A purple weasal rode my buddy's bicycle to a gold medal in the 2000 Olympics.Christians will continue to take the lamest non-sequiturs and offer them as arguments, rather than particularly bad jokes.

Tabula_rasa

Oh, please. Sockpuppet to a creationist? I may sometimes act like I've had a lobotomy, but I can assure you that I have not. When you work up the strength and/or wherewithal to peel yourself away from your sanctimony, try again. Until then, good day.

Tabula_rasa

Hawkingfan

Such questions are honest about seeking the truth about whether god exists or not, instead of claiming to be honest.
An example would be a rock.
How would you know?

Hawkingfan

Such as the Fundamental Qualities of Science (physics term). Such as math, logic, observation, controlled experiments...

yguy

Great. I don't believe in rocks. Prove they exist.

The same way you know rocks exist.

What gives you the idea that any of that is sufficient to determine the existence (or not) of a Creator? Why should He sit still while you measure Him?