The Existence of God

I'm not sure I understand. Let me pose the following to you, to help clarify: Does God exist as an objective, external reality to our own minds?

 

Faith is based on the preponderance of the evidence given to you in the Bible.

A good example I can give you is a chair. Let's say you walk into a room with a line of chairs, some look sturdy, some look old and unsturdy. Which chair are you going to pick? of course the one that looks sturdy, but that is only how it appears, for all you know the chair could be hollow. So what did you do when you picked that chair, you believed and had faith that it would be able to support you. You used logic, which is exactly what I'm doing.

You can't, because which book came first? the Bible, and every other book is based on the Bible just altered beliefs.

The Old Testament talks about the beginnings, and predicted the coming of Christ in the New Testament.

And tell me this who wrote Genesis chapters 1 - 2? Mosus did. It's not like Adam could have written it because how would he know, and how would Mosus know? That just goes to show that there must of been something, I mean how do you think we even began in the first place? evolution.. I doubt it

And in Job 38:4 it says, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?" Nobody knows how the Earth was created, even scientists are only throwing educated guesses at the world.

 

Faith is belief without evidence, or belief that flies in the face of contrary evidence. The scenario you described is not faith, it is a rational belief.

Also, what "preponderance of evidence" is there?

The Bible came before any other religious/mythological text, ever?

I would very much like to know how the Vedas (Hindu Sanskrit texts), written somewhere between 1500-500 BCE, and based upon an earlier oral tradition, were altered versions of the Bible.

What verses predicted the coming of Christ, specifically?

The working assumption is that Genesis is not a literal account of human creation, and was written as a story for the people of the time.

There are actually some pretty well-supported theories out there. Also, I'd be careful about attempting to overthrow the mainstream scientific view, unless, of course, you have a detailed understanding of their arguments and their specific shortcomings.

 

It may be rational in your head because you believe it is rational, but really you sitting in that good looking chair is belief without evidence which means you had faith in the chair. You can't see through the chair with X-ray vision so you don't know that it's hollow or not.

As for the rest of your comments good as they are I've decided there is no point in debating this with you because clearly you're taking the atheist side, which is the easy way out because it requires no faith.

It's not like I can force you to believe in what I am saying, no one can. It's whatever you want to think is true.

 

Again, faith is belief without evidence or in the face of contrary evidence. I have had a lifetime of experience with chairs, and thus far, none have collapsed upon me. That is pretty decent evidence that chairs are probably safe to sit upon. It is a rational belief.

Reality is objective, not subjective.

If Christianity is a rational religion, argue for it. You have mentioned the "preponderance of evidence" in the Bible, no?

 

It is not rational because no matter what you still can't be sure that a chair is sturdy just by looking at it. (So you are having faith in something you are unsure of, even if you don't know it.)

Of course...

No religion is a rational religion, even being atheist isn't rational. So if it's not a rational religion why should I argue for it? As you can see I've given up trying to prove a point because clearly it will be impossible because you have no "evidence" to believe in anything I'm saying. Nor does anybody have evidence to believe in what you are saying.

 

A rational belief is one that is supported by logic or reasonable evidence. In this case, my belief that the chair will not collapse is a rational one because it is supported by a very large amount of evidence.

So you admit that your beliefs are not rational?

Atheism is a lack of a belief in a deity which presents no evidence for its own existence. It is an extremely rational belief.

You follow the Christian religion. You must have a reason, or more likely, reasons. These reasons can be presented, and analyzed. A logical debate is possible.

Get out of the intelligent debate forum if you're not willing to do this.

Also, it is impossible for a non-existent being to have evidence of its own non-existence - note that pink unicorns do not present evidence that they do not exist, merely a lack of evidence that they do.

From what I can gather, your beliefs are based upon incorrect little "facts" you may have picked up in church or school (the Bible was the first religious book!). Please do some research on this topic before returning.

If it's so obvious, why did you say "It's whatever you want to think is true."?

 

Yep, unfortunately. However a man who doesn't fear death is a man to be reckoned with. A God fearing man will do what he believes will please his own god. A man with no deific belief will do the most rational.

An example... If my life is being threatened, and my only option out is to kill, or seriously injure the agressor, there are some unique points different people will take.

1)A "true" Christian will let himself die because he has comfort that his god will save him. While this is comforting, it is not rational.

2)An untrue or partially corrupt Christian will attempt to kill the other, however he will fear the consequence. While his attempt is rational, as he feels he must live and this is the only option. However he cannot consider himself a true Christian because his God tells him that thou shall not commit murder.

3)An atheist or non-believer will do the most rational, as the man in situation 2 would do. However, he has no fear of a god, he did it as it was the rationally correct stance to take, as per the non-aggression principle (where, unless provoked, you do not agress).

Also, Shredder would you please correct me if I am wrong with any of these situations.

 

It's perfectly rational to avoid harming the other person under many circumstances, many of them not relating to religion...What if you no longer value your life? What if you can't deal with the guilt knowing you killed another man? What if you feel the other man would go on to lead a greater life?

 

So, you're saying that the rational thing to do when a person is threatening your life (for ease of argument, lets say he's a blackbelt, and you have a similar training), you would let him kill you?

If he's gonna go live such an awesome life by making a great discovery or something of great importance, why is he killing people?

As for the guilt factor, I can't say it from experience, however I can from a rational standpoint, say that it was the best that could spring from the situation. Most people who kill (again from logicality, not experience) have extreme anger (in general, you're in the wrong place/wrong time situation), extreme jealousy (you worked hard to get something, or maybe inherited it, and he's jealous he doesn't have it, which will lead to anger), or some may do it for sport.

So based on that, why should I be guilty that I killed someone who was threatening my life, and unable to express or entertain his thoughts through something other than ultimate punishment.

If, however, in my given example, I ended up kicking his ass as the greater blackbelt (maybe that was his jealousy /irrelevant) he was willing to resort to other means, I wouldn't rationally kill him. This is because he has lost his aggression, so why should I remain aggression against him?

Wow... that got off-topic, however I believe this is a half decent argument to help that other guy... until it gets destroyed. However this is a debate, and I'm trying to learn to defend and discuss my opinion better for schooling... and am doing so in topics I like so I can apply better.

 

I may have slightly misunderstood your argument. I itnerpreted it as to mean like, there is some EXTERNAL reason that is threatening the lives of two people. The only plausible way for one of the two people to survive is to kill the other, and then use him, let's just say, as a bridge from point A to point B (ridiculous example, I know, but that's kinda what I interpreted it to imply). Therefore, your only options are to either fight back and try to kill the other person, or peacefully let the other person kill you without resistance.

I'm just saying that there are a few rational circumstances that could potentially let you to allow the other person to use you. Here are a few that you didn't address to well;
1) Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome. You are known to be hyper-reactive to violence; being exposed to it is enough to make you recall past experiences - you don't want to live with a more severe form for the rest of your life, so you just allow yourself to be killed in order to save somebody.
2) Risk of both people dying. The two people could be equal in all respects, and therefore the two would end up killing, or at least severely injuring, each other simultaneously to a degree where neither gets rescued. There are many more examples I could name.



HOWEVER, if you are talking only about the issue of, let's just say, as you're walking home, you see a man who wants to kill you for no apparent reason - I can not see a single rational reason you would not retalliate. In fact, I'm sure that even a devout Christian would defend themselves by any means possible; they would not resort to killing the man given the opportunity, but the Christian would not hesitate hindering the attacker from causing damage to the Christian. Except for maybe, just *maybe,* and this is a stretch by all means, you are SO repulsed by blood that you would rather just sacrifice any exposure to it and let yourself be killed rather than be forced to witness severe bleeding. But this is quite a stretch.

 

Alright, thanks for your input, and understanding. Perhaps I should be more thorough next time, however I didn't expect anyone to rebut that argument lol. Hopefully more arguments show up in here.

 

http://www.yikers.com/video_mr_garrison_describes_evolution.html

lol ^^

and personally TBH i am not sure, and will quite frankly never know

 

If there were a God, then haven't you ever considered the fact that when the bible said that he gave everyone free will, he really meant free will? Have you not considered that if there were a God, this universe isn't the only thing it had to be concerned about?

Your argument, while understandable, is irrational.

Though it may have been over 1400 years ago, doesn't the fact still remain? Hasn't Muhammad done what he said was never done?

 

i understand that i had previously posted the above context, but it was a lot of pages ago and i'd like to bring this to the attention of some of the "Christians" that have lately joined in on the discussion of this thread, above is what i had posted before, please take this into consideration before trying to say you believe in god or are a christian or a follower of the holy gospel and prophecy (the word of the bible)

 

It was a nice little side-debate we had. I'd say it was quite even You had the better topic to work with, but I think I defended it quite nicely. We need some other side-debates to go on; this has kinda come to a standstill once again.

Oh, of course it still remains. All I'm saying is, he was asking for a "prophet" in the past 200 years, and the only well-known one is Joseph Smith. But tons of people feel they can communicate with God through meditation/prayer/whatever, just not in the way the early prophets say they could.

 

Well, I beleive in god because i feel as much as you can argue that there is no evidence of god you could also argue scientific theories like the big bang etc. Oh and You dont have to see something to beleive its there.

'I beleive in God, like a blind man beleives in the sun'

And Yeh I am Muslim.

 

A blind man believes in the sun because he can directly test its existence via empirical methods and because of the universal testimony of the entire human population.

 

i believe that there is something greater then us out there. One time i was in a time of need and too many things worked out. It was too many to just be coincidence. I do believe that there is a greater force out there if it's God i don't know but that's what i am going to call that greater force.

 

Almost anything has a chance of occurring. The chance of a lightning bolt striking you isn't very likely, but it has been known to happen to people.