Stephen T-B

Instructive?

I'm learning from it..

But I think we've hit another sticking point. "We were

created "

Were we? I think complex life forms have evolved from a very, very simple life-form, and that we are a rather a complex one which has specialised in brain power. And one consequence of this brain power is the ability to reflect upon our situation, and our ability to reflect upon our situation has led us to invent gods.

Normal

If that's what you mean, then definitely. I find most of my exchanges here to be helpful to my own understanding, especially with the level of politeness you have held.

But there was a starting point, you can't deny that right? So if you don't feel the question of being created applies to you directly, just apply it to the starting point. The starting point was created such that we evolved to this current state. Maybe that speaks something about the creator himself?

Stephen T-B

Yes, there was a starting point.
Neither of us knows what it was, so we speculate. And the direction my speculations take me in are consistent with the need I have to relate the phenomena I encounter to natural causes, but your needs being different from mine, the direction yours take you in are also different from mine.

My hope is, nevertheless, that the explanation to which you adhere does not blunt your curiosity.
The fall-back position of "We don't need to look for answers there because Scripture provides it:" does not contribute usefully (I think) to our pursuit of knowledge. for which our considerable intelligence as a species suits us.

Normal

If god was proven, I take it you wouldn't call it god, but you'd call it a natural process like thunder? That is, nothing will convince you of the creation as being anything other then a natural process?

I think both worldviews have a limiting factor in their explanatory power. One side always saying god did it, and one side always saying nature did it. Perhaps they are not really that different of answers.

I agree 100%.

Stephen T-B

If god were proven, I would indeed place him / it in the natural order of things.

Some people - you among them, I'm pretty sure - see indications of the supernatural all around them all the time, and every indication of it reinforces their certainty that the supernatural is “normal.”

It does, however, remain distinct from what I take to be “natural” because it defies precise description and its effects might or might not be ambiguous and are anyway too inconsistent to allow meaningful assessment.
Further, iI I knew that the Supernatural were real, it would cease to be the supernatural because, as we both know, I cannot conceive of anything outside the natural order whose reality is independent of the human mind.. The existence of the Supernatural is therefore not something I can entertain.

Normal

Exactly, that was my point. My supernatural and your natural are indeed the same thing.

Division By Zero

I don't think belief is a matter of free will. Either you're convinced, or you're not; you can't arbitrarily choose what to believe in, and then change it the next day. Therefore I don't think it makes sense that God wants people to have "free will to believe," because I don't see how there's any such thing, and so I don't see how providing convincing evidence would violate my free will, simply because there's no free will to violate.

You said God knows how much evidence it would take to convince me he exists, and providing it would force me to believe. This is true, but he also forces me to believe a lot of things. I can't choose my standard of evidence for believing there are five apples on the table instead of two, and I can't convince myself that there are only two of them there, no matter how burning my desire for there to be only two apples. You said that we all freely choose whether to accept or reject evidence for the number of apples on the table, but I don't agree.

I don't see belief as being a matter of my free will, and God letting me know he exists wouldn't violate it- it would just put me in a better position to freely decide whether I should worship him, raise an army against him, or just plain ignore him. I would think the decision to follow God or not follow him is important enough that he would let me make an informed choice. As it is, I don't think he even exists- does he expect me to worship him anyway on pain of hell?

God has obviously provided evidence that is enough to satisfy some people's standards, so I don't see why he can't satisfy everyone's.

Normal

But you just admited him providing sufficient evidence would be forcing you to believe, so it would be impacting on your free will. I'm not denying that the things you observe are not entirely based on free will. For example, you do not choose to see 5 apples on the table, you either see five apples or you don't. But what you choose to be sufficient evidence to convince you of what is completely up to you. If your vision is blurry, you wouldn't be so sure there are five apples on the table, and might believe there are only two.

I truly, truly despise Pascal's wager for god. It is the most selfish reasons to believe and anyone who bases their "faith" on that is a coward, in my opinion.

Stephen T-B

I’m repeating Normal’s statement: “My supernatural and your natural are indeed the same thing” because it goes such a long way towards explaining why theists and atheists have such difficulty making sense to one another. I think it to be one of the most significant things I’ve read at Infidels.

It doesn’t though, explain our different perceptions of Free Will and the part in plays in belief. When
Division by Zero wrote: “I don't think belief is a matter of free will. Either you're convinced, or you're not; you can't arbitrarily choose what to believe in, and then change it the next day,” he exactly expressed my own - and I expect that of most atheist’s - opinion.
We think we can test it by issuing the challenge to the theists: “Can you make yourself believe in Zeus?”
It looks, to us, like a simple way of clinching our argument; the fact it doesn’t shows we are dealing with something more complex.

I may not understand completely what’s going on, but this is my theory:

Atheists say they don’t believe in god because they see no reason to, just as they see no reason to believe they sleep in a room with a 90ft-long serpent coiled within it which cannot be detected by any means known to Man.
To a theist, “seeing no reason to believe,” disguises a state of denial. Theists know there is a god; they are surrounded by evidence for its existence and it logically follows from this that atheists are wilfully - perversely, even - refusing to acknowledge that same abundant evidence. This refusal is, without doubt, a free-will choice, for how else can their stance be accounted for?

Normal

I don't really consider it "a denial", since that has negative connotations. It's more of a "a rejection" of possible evidence.

I think the movie signs said it best: Some think there are no coincidences; some see it all as a game of chance.