Normal

That certainly is the topic for another thread.

Mageth

Originally posted by Normal
Sufficient evidence to the believers, which is why they believe.

Not sufficient to the unbelieves, which is why they don't believe.

Sufficient evidence forces anyone to believe who believes that evidence is sufficent.

But look at your statement:

My argument is that every belief of yours is an excercise of your free will.

God would provide the sufficient evidence, and it would still be up to me to exercise my free will to believe, by your own argument.

Under your argument, all believers are "forced" to believe by God providing them sufficient evidence, and did not exercise their free will to do so. Is that what you believe?

Do you see the contradictory nature of the following sentence:

"I believe it is raining, when it is not!"

No. I don't think you got the wording right.

Normal

Not when it was an exercise of their free will to determine what is and what is not sufficient evidence.

The wording is right, and it is a paradox.

Mageth

Not when it was an exercise of their free will to determine what is and what is not sufficient evidence.

Well, there you go. Then how would God be "forcing" me to believe by providing sufficient evidence?

The wording is right, and it is a paradox.

Hmm:

"I believe it is raining, when it is not!"

Umm, nope, no paradox there. I've believed it was raining when it was not before. Turned out to be leaves falling on the tent, or someone left the sprinkler running.

Mageth

If you want to see a "paradox", look at your statement:

Sufficient evidence forces anyone to believe who believes that evidence is sufficent.

Normal

You are using your free will right now to determine god has not provided sufficient evidence.

The statement is not "I believed it was raining, but it is not".

Normal

I'm going to have to ask you in what way at all the above is a paradox.

Mageth

Originally posted by Normal
You are using your free will right now to determine god has not provided sufficient evidence.

Well, no. I lack belief in god, remember? So I don't think god has provided any evidence of its existence.

In any case, if you claim there is sufficient evidence to believe, your implication that god providing that sufficient evidence forces me to believe falls flat on its face, as I don't believe.

The statement is not "I believed it was raining, but it is not".

And I fail to see the distinction between "when it is not" and "but it is not."

There's no paradox in your original statement.

Stephen T-B

“But ‘providing sufficient evidence’ would be forcing you to believe.”

There’s a misunderstanding here about “belief.”

Belief exists in the absence of evidence.

Where evidence is provided, belief is extinguished by knowledge. And to avoid confusion between these two, it can be stated that Belief is characterised by disputes; knowledge is characterised by consensus.

What Normal’s saying, I take it, is that if his god were to provide evidence of its existence, we would be denied the opportunity of choosing to believe or not to believe. We would KNOW.

••••

What I and many others are waiting for is his explanation of how one can choose to believe the unbelievable.

Why he doesn’t answer is because for him, his god is not unbelievable. (If it were, would he believe in it? Of course not.)
The fact that we don’t share his belief is not, therefore, an indication that it might not actually exist – if he were to admit that, he could no longer be a Believer - it’s because we wilfully refuse to acknowledge an indisputable reality.

Which brings me to the crux of the matter: his god cannot be an indisputable reality or Internet Infidels wouldn’t exist. The reality of the one rules out the reality of the other.

Mageth

Note that I put "paradox" in quotes. In fact, it's more of a nonsensical, self-referential, meaningless statement. Just read and think about it, why don't you?

"Sufficient evidence forces anyone to believe who believes that evidence is sufficent."