converted

I think I clearly stated that I have faith because I have had personal answers to prayers that are evidence to me that God exists and my faith is correct.

I like most of the people posting on this board have had personal doubts and questions for 20 years during which time I did not attend church. I had the following questions during that 20 year period:

1) The first paragraph of the Bible is wrong because the universe was not actually created in 7 days. The universe is 20 billion years old. The earth is about 4 billion years old. Dinasours existed. Etc...
2) There is no evidence of a global flood that wiped out all of humanity except for Noah
3) If there is a God, why would he not appear to us? If there is a God, why isn't the world a better place? Why to bad things happen to good people?
4) What makes Christianity the correct religion? Why would God send Jesus to only the Middle East 2000 years ago and not do something visible to all people?
5) Is faith in Jesus alone the only thing required for redemption? Could Hitler have converted just before he pulled the trigger and gone to heaven?
6) How can any religion be correct, when 95% of the people in teh world adopt the religion of their parents?
7) Etc... The questions that can be asked are endless (Who created God?, Do other universes exist?, How can God know everything about everything if we have free will?, How did Noah get Polar Bears and Jaguars to come to Israel?...)

I have been a doubting Thomas. I had questions just like all of the people that post on this site and I still have many questions. However, my belief / faith has skyrocketed because of my personal experiences (answers to prayer, God Events, etc...) and I do not need all of the answers to have faith. I personally do not take every passage in the Bible literally end to end and I interpret many passages as parables. Genesis to me is a parable. Many athiests will scoff at that as absurd (i.e. the Bible has to be all true literally end to end or none of it is true), but that is the approach I have taken and I am living with because I have an incomplete set of answers to my questions. Personal expereinces suffice for me to build upon my faith. Whether Noah literally lead animals on the Ark 2 by 2 to me is irrelevant. The important part for me which I believe is literally true is the life of Jesus defined in the New Testament.

I know my personal experiences do not provide proof of God to a non-believer, but I also know that an athiest cannot prove that there is no God. It is actaully not possible to prove one way or the other with physical evidence.

converted

I find it very interesting to see athiests get upset and act like little children when someone mentions God.

I would like to see an athiest prove there is no God instead of having Christians try to prove there is a God.

Asha'man

But what about the millions of other people who have personal experiences to confirm their faith, but a faith that says your faith cannot be correct? They know, just as certainly as you do, that you are wrong, because God has told them so.

I think humans have a very difficult time with faith, because faith is essentially bullshit. Trying to believe something without supporting evidence is difficult, especially to someone capable of rational and logical thinking. To resolve that difficulty, the human mind invents supporting evidence when none exists.

If your experiences were actually convincing, then they would be convincing to everybody. However, since they are merely a psychological trick to bolster an irrational belief, they convince nobody but yourself.

This appears to be another psychological evasion. Critical analysis is a threat to your belief structure, it makes you uncomfortable. There is clear evidence that your faith is misplaced, but you refuse to address it. Like many theists I’ve talked to, they know their beliefs are on shaky ground, they are afraid to look because they know their faith will fail.

Asha'man

We really need to start an EoG FAQ, since this nonsensical statement comes up so often.

First, proof doesn’t exist outside of mathematics and alcohol. In the real world, you can only have a most likely conclusion given the evidence.

Second, the burden of proof is clearly on the theist. They are the ones who asserting the existence of something, so they are obligated to provide a clear definition of that something as well as evidence to support it.

It’s logically impossible to prove that an undefined something does not exist somewhere in the universe, so asking the atheist to provide such proof is simply an evasion. For example, I’d like for you to prove that snarfalumps don’t exist.

Third, atheists have proven that a vast multitude of gods don’t exist. Many times a specific enough definition of god is provided, we can demonstrate that the definition is inconsistent with reality and/or itself. However, most theists then claim that their definition is simply incomplete, and move the goalposts.

Alternately, the theist will provide a definition that makes their god irrelevant, since it is apparently incapable of affecting the universe in a detectable manner.

To draw this back to the thread topic, the point of Biblical criticism is that the Bible provides a specific definition of God. We can then look for evidence that supports this definition, or evidence that refutes it. So far, all the evidence I have ever seen refutes it. That essentially proves this specific God, as described by the Bible, does not exist. (Any other religions will require a separate body of evidence.)

blt to go

This is a very important point that should not be overlooked.

1)It is one thing to have faith there are creatures such as leprechauns.

2)It is another to have faith that the leprechauns are responsible for moving all of my furniture at night and then putting it back in place before I can catch them at it.

Statement one has no evidence (on a broad sense) either for or against the proposition.

Statement two, however, shows my faith is displaced, as there is no evidence my furniture is moving, no sounds being made, I can't photograph the occurence, etc.

Having faith in a God is fine. Having faith in the god of the bible, which substantial evidence points against becomes misplaced faith.

Oh, I forgot. You, converted, do not "care" about a critical analysis.

Why not? Don't you hold the ultimate truth? Shouldn't your "truth" withstand all attacks, critical, logical, biological, historical, theological, etc.?

Kosh

Actually, that "la la la" bit was to point out what you are doing, based on your "I don't care about" comment.

It's the same as standing there with your fingers in your ears shouting "la la la la I'm not listening!".

MachineGod

My OP opinion...


1 John 4:8 …God is love.

1 Corinthians 13:4 …love is not jealous…

Exodus 20:5 …I the LORD your God am a jealous God,…


Go ahead...just try answering that one.

Of course this is for the literalist, not a liberal.


But from this, it could be said that the Christian literalist's God is not the same God as in the OT.

Ape31

No you wouldn't.

I am an atheist and I can prove there is no god.

But I am not going to show you the proof.

Now prove that I don't have this proof.

Consider this a lesson in why the burden of proof is with those making a positive claim.

Ape31

Sven

I'm not sure if you are serious here, or if you just exaggerated...
I, for my part, don't laugh at Newton - I think he was a genius. And every serious scientist should share this opinion. He built his theory almost from scratch, invented new mathematics, and created something which is still (after several hundreds of years) almost (>99.999%) correct in the majority of cases, reasonably correct in the majority of the rest of the cases, and only wrong in a tiny minority of cases (QM and Relativity).

Only a fool would laugh at Newton (or Einstein in 100 years).

Magus55

The word commonly used is envy, which according to strong's, isn't the same usage as the Hebrew word for Jealous (which only applies to God).

Strong's describes envy in Cor 13:4 as burning with hate or anger; zealous; covetous.

In Exodus, why is God jealous? Is He envious? No, what could God envy? He has everything He needs - He's self sustaining. God is Jealous for our sake. He knows the destructiveness that worshipping idols and false gods can do. Its in our best interest to focus solely on Him, and in that He is jealous to keep us from distancing ourselves. It has nothing to do with God desiring something of someone else; its for our sake.