JCS

Wrong, but thanks for the nice guess. I want the question answered, not ignored or sidestepped. If the question cannot be answered then what is the point?

Hedwig

You're really making your personal lord and savior sound like a whiny little schoolyard brat who will take his ball and go home if he's not happy. Do you even see that?

Hedwig

Personally I'd trade a little free will for the certainty that god exists. Especially if the alternative is hell.

Theists seem to forget about that part.

DMB

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy
All hail, Boro Nut! He always sees what is important.

Mageth

Originally posted by Normal
And similarily it's not possible for your will alone to do anything.

Who said I was trying to "will" god into providing evidence? I asked nicely.

You could ask him for a million dollars too.

That has absolutely no relevance to this discussion.

What would entail "letting you know" if he exists, but not making you believe he exists,

Providing me with evidence is different than making me believe. Surely you can see the obvious distinciton. A tree doesn't make me believe it exists. And this seems to be a point that you previously made; remember the "you must decide" bit?

and how do you know he has not already done this?

I think I would know if god had let me know he exists, Normal.

I see you've answered this below, but what you are basically asking is for god to remove the denial from you.

Umm, no. I don't have any "denial" to remove.

I'm only saying it possible you are in denial, you shouldn't assume I'm actually asserting that you are.

I don't have to assume; statements like the one just above and some below indicate that you are indeed asserting that I'm in denial.

The point is you are free to accept and deny any evidence as you see fit.

You just answered your own qeustion from above: "What would entail "letting you know" if he exists, but not making you believe he exists".

For god to "let himself be known to you", you imply that god should remove the ambiguity, so it is no longer possible to be in denial.

I'm not in denial. Enough with that strawman already.

You want evidence beyond all doubt, for you admit yourself there could have been evidence that you denied, but you want more.

I most certainly did not admit there could have been evidence that I denied. And what was that about me assuming that you're asserting I'm guilty of denial?

And you sure claim to know a lot about my state of mind. Are you a mind reader, or is God feeding you hints?

People judge the ambiguity of the question based on different things. Some people see the question as unambiguous, some people see the question as ambiguous.

I thought we were talking about the answer, not the question. Don't muddy the waters.

You decide yourself whether it is ambiguous or not. That's all I'm saying.

But you said earlier in the thread that "The only way he could not interfere with your free will is to make the answer ambiguous and let you decide for yourself." That puts the ambiguity in God's lap, not mine, as it indicates that God decided to make the answer ambiguous so as to not interfere with our free will.

This all has to do with judging evidence, and what constitutes evidence for what. You are the only judge of what you know and what can be known to you. If you think god is withholding evidence, that is your judgement.

Umm, YOU said God withholds evidence, when you said "The only way he could not interfere with your free will is to make the answer ambiguous and let you decide for yourself."

It equates to holding yourself accountable for what you can reasonable expect to know yourself. You make judgements about the belief of things all the time. It's completely your choice.

No, it was, according to you, apparently God's choice to "make the answer ambiguous". I can't hold myself accountable for not knowing what God has not provided, can I?

Honestly, Normal, your line of argument here is quite confused and contradictory.

Zthinker07

Now, if we agree that there IS objective truth (those who don't agree are basically wasting their time)

Why would they be wasting their time?
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Why? If you don't believe in objective truth then there is no point to debate. It is all a matter of personal preference. To believe in God and to enjoy chocolate would basically have the same meaning. Would you waste your time convincing somebody that chocolate tastes better than vanilla?
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Division By Zero

Mageth already said the same thing I would have regarding the tree example, so no need to repeat it. I will repeat, though, that your argument isn't making sense, Normal - first you said that God purposely made the question of his existence ambiguous, because if he gave us conclusive evidence it would violate our free will; but then you seem to say that there IS evidence, but atheists just interpret it as ambigous while others do not. Huh?

Is God's existence demonstrated by evidence, or isn't it?

Mageth

Why? If you don't believe in objective truth then there is no point to debate. It is all a matter of personal preference.

Not believing in objective truth doesn't prevent one from arguing and trying to establish a preference for the way you see things, to try to win people over to your "personal preference". That's my take on it, anyway.

Further, those who think that there are absolutely no objective truths seem to me to be rare if not non-existent. I, for one, think there are many truths, but no Objective Truth with a capital O and T, if you get my drift.

To believe in God and to enjoy chocolate would basically have the same meaning.

Enjoying chocolate is far more meaningful.

Would you waste your time convincing somebody that chocolate tastes better than vanilla?

You're talking about taste there, not the truth or falsehood of a philosophical point. Categorically different. So, no I wouldn't waste my time arguing about flavors, but I may spend time arguing about, say, the death penalty, or the legalization of marijuana, or the existence or non-existence of God, even if I didn't believe in "Objective Truth."

Division By Zero

And chocolate won't send you to hell if you happen to like cheese cake better.

HRG

This frequent apologetic argument ignores the essential difference between choice (a volitional activity) and belief (a cognitional activity), and thus comes to the fallacious conclusion that there is a "free will" to believe.

I did not choose to believe the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra, I was convinced by its proof; and the book which contained the proof did not violate my free will because it "made me believe" the theorem, and took away my choice not to believe it.

In the same way, if your God exists and presented to me compelling evidence of his existence, I would not be bereft of free will; I'd just be better informed.

Regards,
HRG.