Hawkingfan

In many past threads here at II, a certain question will sometimes be presented by an atheist to a Christian that is a bit of a tangent from the OP. The question is difficult to answer and is usually ignored completely or blown off with a phrase like "doesn't apply. No comment". So I decided to start a thread that deals with the question specifically. The question is this:

What evidence (or logical reason) do you have to prove that your specific god, the god of Judaism and Christianity exists?

Which also leads me to these follow-up questions:

What evidence do you have to prove that the god of Islam, Allah, does not exist? In other words, why do you believe in the J/C god, but do not believe in Allah, when we as atheists are presented with the same "evidence", attributes, and reasons for believing in both from Christians and Muslims?

If no evidence exists, on what basis do you believe that your god is the one true god, and Allah is not?

If you grew up in a country as say, the Sudan, do you believe that you would still be a Christian?

Citrusponge

I'm an atheist, but the answer I would expect from Christians is that the Bible is sufficient evidence, as it's the word of God etc.

The_Unknown_Banana

Yeah, I'm an atheist too, but the reason I think christianity is more valid than islam is due to the fact that the koran (sp) is just a reworked bible, done in like 600ad by mohummad. So I'd think that the christian bible, being the original (and much older) source, would be a better choice. (If you were going to use the written word as your evidence anyway)

(I got some of my info about islam from http://www.howstuffworks.com/islam.htm)

Calzaer

The ONE question? There are hundreds.

njhartsh

Oh, phooey. "The New Testament is just a reworked Old Testament." "The Old Testament is just a reworked version of the Code of Hammurabi." "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is just a reworked version of the tonal system Palestrina invented."

C'mon. "Older source" doesn't necessarily mean "more valid source." Further, there are plenty of differences between Islam and Christianity; it's not a very meaningful criticism of the former to say that it borrowed some concepts from the latter. Is humanism just a "reworked version of Christianity"? One hopes not.

- Nathan

fides

From any theologicaly minded Christian or Muslim, I think the answer would be this:

- There are two kinds of Truth: Truth known through the light of reason known as Rational Truth, and Truth known through the light of revelation known as Revealed Truth. Revealed Truth is beyond reason. These two can never be in conflict, as all Truth comes from God, who is Truth itself. Aquinas and others argue this for Christianity, Ibn Rusdh and others argue this for Islam.

- the existence of God can be proved through reason, so we all agree on this, no appeal to any faith or religion or holy book required.

- the only thing that Christianity and Islam really differ on is the subject of Revealed Truth. These are truths held by faith, usually by the argument of authority only. This covers things like the Trinitarian Monotheistic God or the Quran as the literal co-eternal word of God.

So I think you could get a fairly large agreement about many of the basics of Monotheism from Christians and Muslims (see Christian-Islamic Preambles of Faith for a great example).

The distinct differences for both I would say are only justified through faith or authority.

stretch

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the existence of God can be proved by reason.

The existence of God can't be disproved by reason.

Anyway, Allah is just the Arabic word for God. Arabic-speaking Christians call God Allah. Monotheists argue over the characteristics of God, they don't believe in different Gods.

ex-xian

Why, exactly, do you say this? Do you have an argument to back up this assertion?

stretch

Partially, I have a largely Kantian view .... there are just some things that (pure) reason is incapable of knowing.

And heck, I can't disprove that little invisible fairies are transporting this message to the server.

The_Unknown_Banana

Well, to me an older source does mean a more valid source. Since they are supposedly telling us stories about our past, why work from something only 1400 years old when you can work from stories much closer to the actual date they occured? Sure, they aren't exactly the same religion, but what's that got to do with authenticity?

Meh. They're all a load of rubbish anyway, even though still an interesting look at writings from our distant ancestors. The existance of a book that tells stories of the impossible is not proof that the impossible happened though. It's obvious to me that if you buy into religion, then the religion you go for will be the one you are most influenced by in your society. (generally) Once a person has had the web of deception we call 'religion' sewn around them, then no matter which religion it is, they will defend it with their lives.

My conclusion being: religion has nothing to do with proof.