Stormy

So if God were a mere chocolate bar you would believe.

Albert Cipriani

Welcome Aboard Stormy,
Yep. You got it right. Hinduwoman would believe in God if He were a chocolate bar. At least she's more clear about it than most of the others. They obfuscate their atheism more, shall we say, discreetly than her. And for her indiscretion, she is to be commended.

In brief, what we have on these boards is atheists looking for God in all the wrong places. Or to be more honest about it, pretending to look for God and not finding Him in all the wrong places. -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Butters

\

Of course, my problem is I'm sure I could find God.
People looked for Zeus and found him.
People looked for Ra and found him.
People looked for Krishna and found him.
People looked for a thousand other Gods and found them.
Christians, Jews, and Muslims looked for the same God, found him, and found a different God from the others.
Catholics, Protestents, and hundreds of other sects looked for the same God, found him, and all found him to be a different God than what the others found.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Albert Cipriani :

Apparently, you know what it takes to be searching for God effectively. So I have three questions for you.

1. How do I know when I'm actually looking for God, instead of just "pretending" to look for God?

2. Where should I look? I don't have the medical equipment with which to look inside my heart, so if you can inform me of a place to look that's easily accessible, that would be preferred.

3. If nothing I find is empirical evidence only explainable by God, why should I assume from whatever I find, that it's likely that God exists?

hinduwoman

Yes Stormy, if God was as concrete as a chocolate bar then I would not have any option but to believe, wouldnot I?

Albert, where exactly am I supposed to look for God? In the Bible --- but that is a book written by men. In my heart --- that is just a physical organ which inspite of scanning shows nothing of that sort.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Tom and Hind,
You ask: This is a subjective question that obviously only you yourself can answer. How do I know when I’m fooling myself? When I detune my focus. When I selectively focus on just those jig saw pieces that happen to be my favorite color. How does anyone know that they are only pretending to look for God? When they do some version of what W.C. Fields famously said he was doing when asked, towards the end of his life, why he was reading the bible: “Looking for loopholes, my boy… looking for loopholes.”

No. That’s the last place I would suggest. The Bible only gives testimony of a certain God, the Catholic God. It assumes a belief in God and therefore does not provide evidence for God. The only thing the Bible has to say that’s relevant to an atheist is: “The fool says in his heart there is no God.”

This conforms to Catholic dogma that insists that man, without revelation, through natural reasoning processes should conclude that God exists. But if the reasoning processes are squandered on empirical evidence, of course your reasoning will get you nowhere.

To get anywhere in these murky waters, you must start with the least murky entity in this world, yourself.

If birds could have the same question as you have, I’d give them the same answer. I’d ask them to start with themselves. What do they notice about themselves? Why, that they have wings that can go flap flap. I’d suggest then that they used their wings to go flap flap and thereby arrive at an answer.

What do you notice about yourselves? Why, that you have an insatiable hunger for meaning in a world that has no meaning. I suggest then that you reason your way outside of this world into the arms of God for that meaning.

Whatever we find that’s unexplainable is, well, unexplainable, not evidence for God’s existence. A lack of something cannot be evidence for anything.

But every lack, like the impression of a shell left in a rock, speaks eloquently of what is non-existent. The part of the rock that conforms to the non-existent shell is the part of us that conforms to the non-existence of God in our lives. Just the notion of this world’s meaninglessness speaks eloquently of meaning that is not of this world. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

diana

The only ad hominem I see here is "bigot." This is probably because I view "religious" and "superstitious" as essentially synonymous (i.e., Catholics are religious; All non-Catholics are superstitious). "Superstitious" is a word that is employed by religious people to denigrate other religious people with views that differ from their own. For that reason, I let that comment stand.

However, the "bigot" comment, keyser_soze, is out of line.

Even when your opponent begins with the dripping condescension that was exhibited by Mr. Cipriani at that outset of this thread, please refrain from stooping to his level.

Now. Albert.

Please familiarize yourself with the "Report this post to a moderator" link at the bottom right of each post.

How it works, FYI, is that the mods read the threads as they find time. We don't catch everything. If we did, I'd have been all over you like white on rice and I don't mean maybe for your outright rudeness in your very first post on this thread.

If you feel that justice has not been done, report the post. To whine that we're being unfair, etc, because we aren't hanging on your every typewritten word only feeds your martyr complex. Not only is it unbecoming, but it's empty calories, at best.

Both of you clean it up and play nice. You both clearly have intelligence and are capable of being gracious debaters. I've seen evidence. Please don't make me treat you like children.

Thank you.

d

Stormy

You can look in the Bible to find how God related to people of the past.

In the Bible, you can also get a glimpse of what the future holds for mankind.

But God is not made of paper and ink.

Many people claim to have found God, his love, and his powers... in many different religions. Are they all wrong? Or are they all right? I do not know. I will leave that up to God.

But I do know that there is but one true God... so maybe the difference is not in him... but in how we as humans perceive him.

I am a Christian. My experiences with God have been real.

And through the Christian faith... God has given us a path to SALVATION.

Not only in the future but here and now. Christ has saved me from a life wasted in anger and disappointment... he has taught me that love is the key to open all doors.

If you desire to find God start with love in your heart... open yourself to receive the possibility that there is so much that we do not know. Maybe you too, will find the reality, that is God.

Jobar

Hello, Stormy.

I think I will post my 'warning to believers' here. We have heard many, many others give their personal testimony; it is invalid to anyone who applies a single grain of skepticism to the question of religious belief.

I have told this to other Christians who have come here- I want to give you fair and plain warning. Your faith is at risk here. Oh, I am sure you will scoff at me when I say this, maybe even get very angry and self-righteous. But if you remain here, and actually listen to us instead of simply trying to preach to us, you may, suddenly or slowly, find your faith, which you think to be solid rock, shattering beneath your feet like rotten ice.

We are worshipers of truth here. Note I do not capitalize it and call it Truth; that would imply that I consider it to be something established and absolute, unchangeable and unquestionable. No. The truth we seek is always open to new questions! We worship an admittedly approximate, but constantly improving, vision. We welcome new questions fully as much as we revere new answers.

We consider the Bible- the Truth you consider so unquestionable- to be, at the very best, a version of truth grown stale, and petrified, and proven untruthful long long ago. We can demonstrate it- with vast numbers of things undreamt of in your theology. Bones. Telescopes. Photographs. Medicines. Computers! Philosophies and ideas so far beyond the tiny tinkertoy universe described by your precious holy book that even the wisest on the Earth at that time could not understand, which even elementary school students of today can explain!

If you would keep your faith, and continue to believe your world is flat, and less than ten thousand years old- flee. Now. We will not pursue you.

But if you come here and ask, we will try to teach you of these truths we are sure of, and we will also tell you of the things we are *not* sure of. We will try to correct your ignorance, as gently as we (in our individual, harried, and humanly fallible ways) are able.

We will try to tell you the truth.

Perhaps your ears and mind are closed, and nothing we say can get through to the part of you where curiousity and questions are born. But here, we regularly break what I think of as the 'Zeroeth' Commandment- Thou Shalt Not Question.

Wayne Delia

I've posted this in a discussion a few weeks ago over in Bible Criticism. It's not techincally a "FAQ", but rather a list of at least seven different logical fallacies from one verse (the one you picked):

MINI-FAQ: Psalms 14:1

"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good."" (Psalms 14:1)

AD HOMINEM FALLACY: An argument is discounted based on attacking the character of the person making the argument. ("He is wrong when he says there is no God, because he is a fool.")

STRAWMAN FALLACY: Arguing against a position by creating a different, weaker, or irrelevant position and refuting that position instead of the original. ("There is no God" misrepresents "There isn't sufficient evidence that God exists.")

CIRCULAR REASONING: The truth of the conclusion is assumed in order to justify the premises. ("The fool says there is no God, because anyone who says there is no God is a fool.")

BEGGING THE QUESTION: The argument creates a secondary proposition that is related to the primary proposition, which requires a similar argument that is missing. (The existence of God is assumed, while addressing propositions of whether God exists.)

FALLACY OF INCONSISTENCY: The argument is inconsistent with other arguments within the same context. (In the Christian context, Jesus commands against the invective in Psalms 14:1, warning that "whoever says 'You fool!' shall be liable to the hell of fire" in Matthew 5:22.)

SPECIAL PLEADING: The inappropriate attribution of emotive functions to objects that do not have that capability. (Hearts are not capable of "knowing" or of feeling emotions.)

REDUNDANCY: Psalm 53 is identical to Psalm 14.

QUESTIONABLE PREMISE: It is obviously not the case that all atheists do nothing but bad deeds. This premise is invalidated by a single example of an atheist doing a single charitable act.

WMD