The Existence of God

The belief in God is a rational decision. A rational decision does not imply that it is the ONLY decision or BEST decision possible. There is no rational evidence proving or disproving God's existence. However, there is rational evidence that a belief in God is certainly guided by reason.

Humanity have always sought to explain what cannot be explained. It is the merit of our success. Science and religion are neither different nor mutually exclusive; the progressive movement of logical reasoning will always back both eventually. Where the world was once flat, it is no longer.

Technology has advanced to the point where all the "answers" remaining are abstract. Humans believe what they can see, hear, feel... yet science cannot properly explain fundamental purpose and death. Religion is a pursuit of happiness and fufillment, it can explain all the answers. Atheists seek happiness by believing they are somehow "better" or more rational by accepting that not everything has an answer. Who is to say that the "blissful ignorance " of heaven is any worse than the "logical" mundanity of oblivion?

Ultimately, there will be advocates of Occum's razor fighting the advocates of mental fufillment. Yet that is the most irrational part is the argument itself - how can one create an argument about something that has no evidence? This paradox brings the argument to who has the burden of proof. Better off just flipping a coin.

 

Answer my question. You're being selective in your evidence, now.

 

No we "Atheists" do not think we are better. I just chose to believe in ideas that make sense and are not pulled out of thin air. The bible to me is a book of made up story's, nothing more. Heaven is a fictional place that people want to believe in because it's a "peaceful" place.

 

As stated before, intelligence is something granted to the living, and between me and you, it appears you have been deprived of it.

Also you state you believe it simply because St. Thomas Aquinas stated it so, now did he back this up with any evidence other than the notion, that these great objects in the sky seem to move in a pattern?

Gravity is the force every object asserts on another. In most cases the greater the mass of the object the greater the gravitational pull is. Gravity can be compared to a more basic form of magnetism, without the polar effect

Science can only explain what has been tested. True for the most part science is largely abstract, but these larger theories are based on tested fact.

If I went outside and pointed to the grass and told you that is was green, it would be the truth, because I did what you said we do, we used science. We can see it is green therefore it is.

Science is absolute, but our applications of it aren't. Humans aren't perfect, simply because we are ignorant doesn't mean we aren't working toward a more complete understanding of science.

If science fails once then it isn't science that has failed, it is the application of it. When a carpenter uses the wrong screw driver to try to put a screw in wood and strips it, you can't blame the tool, you have to blame the user.

If you say that once something has failed once it becomes weaker, then by now how weak is your god? According to millions, they have asked and never received.

Good day.

 

Science and religion, certainly are mutually exclusive - science is empirical, and seeks to discover what is actually there, whereas religion (at least as you're describing it) justifies itself by how comforting it is.

"X is comforting" does not imply "X is true".

 

We still have the cloak and it has not deteriorated in any way. It appeared in 1531.

And to juicy juice, read this article as well and then ill answer your question.

From wikipedia:
Some might consider it miraculous if it's true that the tilma actually maintains its structural integrity after nearly 500 years, since replicas made with the same type of materials lasted only about 15 years before disintegrating.[27] In addition to withstanding the elements, the tilma is said to have resisted a 1791 ammonia spill that made a considerable hole, which was reportedly repaired in two weeks with no external help. In 1921, an anarchist placed an offering of flowers next to the image. A bomb hidden within the flowers exploded and destroyed the shrine. However, the image allegedly suffered no damage.
Photographers and ophthalmologists have reported images reflected in the eyes of the Virgin.[29][30] In 1929 and 1951 photographers found a figure reflected in the Virgin's eyes; upon inspection they said that the reflection was tripled in what is called the Purkinje effect. This effect is commonly found in human eyes.[27] The ophthalmologist Dr. Jose Aste Tonsmann later enlarged the image of the Virgin's eyes by 2500x magnification and said he saw not only the aforementioned single figure, but rather images of all the witnesses present when the tilma was shown to the Bishop in 1531. Tonsmann also reported seeing a small family—mother, father, and a group of children—in the center of the Virgin's eyes.[27] In response to the eye miracles, Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer wrote in Skeptical Inquirer that images seen in the Virgin's eyes are the result of the human tendency to form familiar shapes from random patterns, much like a psychologist's inkblots—a phenomenon known as religious pareidolia.[31]
Richard Kuhn, who received the 1938 Nobel Chemistry prize, is said to have analyzed a sample of the fabric in 1936 and said the tint on the fabric was not from a known mineral, vegetable, or animal source.[27] In 1979 Philip Serna Callahan studied the icon with infrared light and stated that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle appeared to have been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no apparent brush strokes.[32]

Here is the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe

 

Once again, you keep going on about this cloak, and you refuse to talk about the piece of fruit with Allah's name written on it. Address the issue. Is that not the exact same thing as your cloak, but for another religion? And yet you are not Muslim?

 

The only witness was Juan Diego. How do we know that he was not lying?

The image was not perfect - the hands were shortened, and it had to be painted over to hide cracks.

 

You guys can keep arguing about this topic all you want. There is no proof on both sides, just let people be and don't try change anyone's beliefs.

 

This is the debate forum. It's what we do here. You don't have to participate.

 

shredder is a god hater?

 

I seriously doubt he hates God. He just doesn't believe in him, apparently.

I don't believe in God either, but I don't hate "him".

 

I find it hard to hate what isn't there.

 

You are comparing a fruit with the name Allah to "my cloak"? How many other fruits have names on them, probably quite a few, I believe this to be a coincidence. Read that article on Our Lady of Guadalupe, and you will see that this is much more then a word on a fruit.

 

No, I don't. Absolutely not.

Until I am proven otherwise, I will be an Atheist.

 

And now turn for my argument. God created the world. Surely something natural, like the word "Allah" on a fruit--something that came of this earth--is more proof than a cloak which man made and could have easily altered.

My point is that your cloak is about as much circumstantial evidence as the muslim's fruit. You believe the cloak and reject the fruit. They believe the fruit and reject the cloak.

You're not going to get anywhere.

 

Arabic speakers of all faiths from Abraham use the word Allah to mean God. The Arabic-descended Maltese language, whose population is almost all Roman Catholic, only use Allah for God.

The fruit with the name Allah could refer to Arabic-speaking Catholics.
Or, it could be a coincidence.

 

So you're willing to believe other possibilities when it comes to this fruit, but when it comes to your cloak, it's automatically God?

Do you not see your hypocrisy?

 

I'm Agnostic, which means that we believe there can be a God, but until sufficient evidence is put forth, I just don't give a shit.

 

The word Allah simply means God. There is more then one language in this world.

Ok, a man made this cloak in one stroke of paint and painted pictures in the eyes. This was then investigated and studied over and over, when in 1936, it was examined by a future Nobel Prize winner who said the paint was not from a known mineral, vegetable, or animal source. In 1979 it was examined and said to have been painted in one stroke without sketches or corrections. It holds its structural integrity after nearly 500 years.
How do you think this cloak came about?