Okay, Let's Cut To The Chase!

[POI]

Dear Christians of all flavor(s),

I trust it is no surprise there exists a populous here, which lay claim to 'atheism', 'deism', or maybe other... In a nutshell, for me, this ultimately means I do not believe any such claimed Christian God exists - trying though as I might.... Which-is-to-mean, I was raised in a Christian house hold. However, after much study, I cannot get myself to belief such a claimed agent actually exists. Chalk it up, ultimately, to the topic of 'divine hiddenness' I guess...?

It is also evident there exists devout 'Christians' in this arena, of all flavors, who may feel they are 'fighting the good fight'; by defending their belief(s)/faith/rationale in the assertion of the existence to the "Christian God".

That being said, I am laying down the gauntlet, so-to-speak... Some here, as well as outside of here, are as sure as anything, that not only does God exist, but the Christian God! Well, I politely disagree. Meaning, I don't believe the "Christian based" assertion/claim.

I can't imagine this request will be anything new. Nor, can I imagine that I will encounter any new sort of enlightenment. But, being this is a rather large and important topic; I will continue to search, optimistically, that there exists some sort of 'concrete evidence(s)' to demonstrate that not only a God exists ---> but also the Christian God.

For Debate:

Please demonstrate the mere existence of the Christian God?

[DaveD49]

Faith is based on facts that you or science knows absolutely nothing about.

<bolding mine>

Incorrect. Faith is belief in something without evidence.

Sorry, but that one is TOTTALY false. I already showed one tidbit of evidence on question I asked ("Evidence of God #1") as well as shared a few in one of my answers to another question. I intend there to be a number more. You may not agree with it, but it is evidence to anyone who approaches it with an open mind. The simple truth that those who say such things as "Faith is belief in something without evidence", as well as many other trite statements only have indicated that their mind is closed and will not accept anything as evidence. Is it actually possible for someone in this world could have had an experience that you have not? Or found something that you have not? At best you should have rephrased your answer as "In my experience I have not found evidence for faith." But to slam the door on evidence which someone else may have had is considered just being close-minded.

[Diagoras]

What you describe as faith would be better termed ‘personal conviction’ in my view.

I use the word in the sense of the second definition below:

faith
/feɪθ/

noun
1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

2.
strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.

I’ve no issue with people believing they’ve had some religious experience, but it doesn’t qualify as evidence any more than supposed alien abductions do.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #540]

T: "Sorry, wrong,and wrong for all the uusual reasons - putting a faithclaim as the default. And of course misrepresenting the Other side to make it stick.

Science, skepticism and atheism does NOT deny or ignore the unknowns beyond. They are the places we want to explore. Theists don't because they reckon they know already on Faith."

I disagree. I am certain that you know that your claims are based on your own faith in science and nature. The old saying that "Science will eventually tell us the truth" is entirely a faith-based claim.Nor did I say that Science or atheism denies or ignores the beyond. Science definitely acknowledges it when they speak of 11 dimensions (which could have life completely unlike ours or alternate universes which can be seen as an acknowledgement of the supernatural). My point was is that they can speculate what might be there but because we are confined to just OUR universe so there is nothing that they can definitively prove.

I also disagree that "theists reckon they know already on faith". Certainly there are some who are close-minded just as a number of atheists are. But I think most people want to discover more about the unknown. I certainly do not look on that with any fear. Because the scope of science is limited to just this universe certainly it will tell us more and more about it. But I recognize that science can only show us HOW God did what He did. Is that my bias? YES!, just as your bias is that there is no God.

T: "I needn't labour the point but this is the claim I have always made writ large in your post: that Theists of a kind ,anyway, believe that God is downloading True "Facts" into their heads, and if science disagrees, well science is either wrong, or the God is in a gap beyond. Or both. Do you see it?I t is a belief in the unvalidated and often demonstrably wrong, and that's why it should not be taught in a society where science has made its' case. It is actually dubious that parents should teach their children the unverified as though it was fact, but we can't do anything about that. We can only put the other side in education, which is why the struggle for control of education is a big one."

Another disagreement for me. I most certainly do not believe that God is down-loading anything into our heads at all. I believe that He has given us a conscience and basically said "Use this to learn how to love." And I believe the opposite in regards to science. Science can teach us the truth of what God actually did in His creative act. Do I believe that the universe was created in 6 days? Absolutely not! Do I believe that every word of the Bible is literally true? No, of course not! Why do I not believe those things? Because science has shown us that those things could not possibly be true. It sounds like your disagreements about religion have been largely based on what fundamentalists believe. While I realize that fundamentalists represent a large portion of American Christians (the last percentage I saw was 51%), but according to a PEW study, fundamentalism represents only 10-12% of all Christians world wide. By far the largest single Christian faith in the U.S. and the world is Roman Catholic, and while you can still find fundamentalist thinking in some of them, the vast majority do not think that way. And even though I feel that the fundamentalist thinking is incorrect I still wouldn't dream of thinking that a parent could not instruct their children in what they saw as a vital truth. Again, if you haven't already read George Orwell's book "1984" It was written in 1949 but still remains a classic. The real scary part is that you can see some parts of it coming true in the U.S. today with one political party essentially saying that the State has all the control, and parents should have no say over what is taught in public schools. I certainly could do without the open ended cage with a hungry rat in it strapped to my face. Trust me... I love Big Brother!

[brunumb]

I most certainly do not believe that God is down-loading anything into our heads at all. I believe that He has given us a conscience and basically said "Use this to learn how to love."

What is your basis for that belief?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #540]

T: "Sorry, wrong,and wrong for all the uusual reasons - putting a faithclaim as the default. And of course misrepresenting the Other side to make it stick.

Science, skepticism and atheism does NOT deny or ignore the unknowns beyond. They are the places we want to explore. Theists don't because they reckon they know already on Faith."

I disagree. I am certain that you know that your claims are based on your own faith in science and nature. The old saying that "Science will eventually tell us the truth" is entirely a faith-based claim.Nor did I say that Science or atheism denies or ignores the beyond. Science definitely acknowledges it when they speak of 11 dimensions (which could have life completely unlike ours or alternate universes which can be seen as an acknowledgement of the supernatural). My point was is that they can speculate what might be there but because we are confined to just OUR universe so there is nothing that they can definitively prove.

I also disagree that "theists reckon they know already on faith". Certainly there are some who are close-minded just as a number of atheists are. But I think most people want to discover more about the unknown. I certainly do not look on that with any fear. Because the scope of science is limited to just this universe certainly it will tell us more and more about it. But I recognize that science can only show us HOW God did what He did. Is that my bias? YES!, just as your bias is that there is no God.

T: "I needn't labour the point but this is the claim I have always made writ large in your post: that Theists of a kind ,anyway, believe that God is downloading True "Facts" into their heads, and if science disagrees, well science is either wrong, or the God is in a gap beyond. Or both. Do you see it?I t is a belief in the unvalidated and often demonstrably wrong, and that's why it should not be taught in a society where science has made its' case. It is actually dubious that parents should teach their children the unverified as though it was fact, but we can't do anything about that. We can only put the other side in education, which is why the struggle for control of education is a big one."

Another disagreement for me. I most certainly do not believe that God is down-loading anything into our heads at all. I believe that He has given us a conscience and basically said "Use this to learn how to love." And I believe the opposite in regards to science. Science can teach us the truth of what God actually did in His creative act. Do I believe that the universe was created in 6 days? Absolutely not! Do I believe that every word of the Bible is literally true? No, of course not! Why do I not believe those things? Because science has shown us that those things could not possibly be true. It sounds like your disagreements about religion have been largely based on what fundamentalists believe. While I realize that fundamentalists represent a large portion of American Christians (the last percentage I saw was 51%), but according to a PEW study, fundamentalism represents only 10-12% of all Christians world wide. By far the largest single Christian faith in the U.S. and the world is Roman Catholic, and while you can still find fundamentalist thinking in some of them, the vast majority do not think that way. And even though I feel that the fundamentalist thinking is incorrect I still wouldn't dream of thinking that a parent could not instruct their children in what they saw as a vital truth. Again, if you haven't already read George Orwell's book "1984" It was written in 1949 but still remains a classic. The real scary part is that you can see some parts of it coming true in the U.S. today with one political party essentially saying that the State has all the control, and parents should have no say over what is taught in public schools. I certainly could do without the open ended cage with a hungry rat in it strapped to my face. Trust me... I love Big Brother!

I am sure that you are trying to be honest and even reasonable, but this is total confusion.

You dismiss the 6 days creation. Why, if not that science says it was more like a couple of billion years? And yet you wave science away where inconvenient. Classic failure of reason on the part of the theists. I have as much faith in science as you so, when it comes down to it, because it has validated much while religious claims have lost ground. You reject fundamentalists, I reject one more irrational faithclaim than you do.

I think that you are wrong that theists don't believe that God is downloading the Truth into their heads. The evidence shouts it loud and clear. It's why they place complete confidence in their right interpretation of the Bible, Dogma, science and reality. I go further; the god they believe is feeding them the truth is just their own beliefs, preferences and ego, inflated to cosmic level.

i could be wrong but it certainly explains why if the facts are inconvenient for them, then the facts must be wrong. Such staggering self belief - can only be because they believe they have a hotline to truth, and never mind what scientifically validated evidence says.

[DaveD49]

I most certainly do not believe that God is down-loading anything into our heads at all. I believe that He has given us a conscience and basically said "Use this to learn how to love."

What is your basis for that belief?

My personal experience of Him and my education. I firmly believe that God IS pure love. I believe that our task in this physical world is to learn to love selflessly so that we can be one with Him in a perfect love. We learn to love through our conscience which tells us to choose good over evil, and from our experiences with pain, suffering, toil and death. Our experiences with these teach us compassion and sympathy for others who are experiencing the same thing. This usually starts with our social circle but compassion and sympathy over time teach us to care about the wider population as well. It that caring about the needs of a stranger that teaches us selfless love. I believe that it is only when we truly learn to selflessly love others that we are ready to encounter God whom I see as perfect love. Therefore anyone or anything that speaks of love in any, way, shape or form which is speaking about their present concept of God. Even romantic songs that speak about caring and concern for a partner is speaking about the author's present concept of the love which is God. To a lesser degree even songs only about sex are still showing a small degree of understanding what the true meaning of love is. People have told me that they do not believe in God but they do believe in love. In my mind if they believe in love they already believe in God. I certainly do not believe that a God of love would program us in any way. He gave us our freedom of choice with our conscience. You know what is right and what is wrong. And, no-one but ourselves can stop us from doing any and all evil. Love by its very nature cannot be forced and remain love. It must be freely given.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #545]

Transponder: "I am sure that you are trying to be honest and even reasonable, but this is total confusion.

You dismiss the 6 days creation. Why, if not that science says it was more like a couple of billion years? And yet you wave science away where inconvenient. Classic failure of reason on the part of the theists. I have as much faith in science as you so, when it comes down to it, because it has validated much while religious claims have lost ground. You reject fundamentalists, I reject one more irrational faithclaim than you do."

I disagree. Is what I am saying completely different from a fundamentalist point of view? Absolutely. Do I wave science away when it is inconvenient? Absolutely not. But I recognize the limits to science. It cannot speak about anything outside of our universe with any authority. In fact though the scientific advances of the 20th and 21st Centuries are full of additional things that can be seen as evidence of God.
Some of them I will be talking about in the "Evidence for God #x" thread. And please tell me what in anything I have said do you find "irrational". Isn't because what I am saying is in conflict with YOUR current bias.
I was in the exact same place as you in my late teens.

T: "I think that you are wrong that theists don't believe that God is downloading the Truth into their heads. The evidence shouts it loud and clear. It's why they place complete confidence in their right interpretation of the Bible, Dogma, science and reality. I go further; the god they believe is feeding them the truth is just their own beliefs, preferences and ego, inflated to cosmic level.

i could be wrong but it certainly explains why if the facts are inconvenient for them, then the facts must be wrong. Such staggering self belief - can only be because they believe they have a hotline to truth, and never mind what scientifically validated evidence says."

When you say "theists" you are speaking about a much larger circle than just Christians. And while I can see that some fundamentalists might believe that, even most of them are more open-minded than that. I certainly do not know of what "evidence" you speak of that "shouts it loud and clear". But I would agree with you that "the God they believe is feeding them the truth is just their own beliefs, preferences and ego, inflated to cosmic level." That is absolutely true. ALL of us, you, me, them have our own bias of what they think is true and are doing the exact same thing. And YES, when ANY of us encounters resistance to our bias we instantly go into defensive mode.

I want to point out that your last sentence underlines you own bias. You said "Such staggering self belief - can only be because they believe they have a hotline to truth, and never mind what scientifically validated evidence says." Your bias stems from your believe that science has the ultimate truth. As I said that certainly may be true about proven science concerning the universe itself, but science is limited to just this universe. It can say nothing about the beyond with any reliability because there is no way to discover the truth. The first step to overcoming any sort of prejudice, whether that is concerning a particular group of people or what people think, is to recognize that we are also prejudiced.

[brunumb]

I most certainly do not believe that God is down-loading anything into our heads at all. I believe that He has given us a conscience and basically said "Use this to learn how to love."

What is your basis for that belief?

My personal experience of Him and my education. I firmly believe that God IS pure love. <snip?

I snipped the part that tells me what you believe, but there is little more than that first sentence that says why you believe it is true. My education and experiences led me to the opposite conclusion and I largely ditched my religious believes before I reached my teens. To me "God is pure love" is just rhetoric that is not borne out by reality.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to brunumb in post #548]

Brunumb: "I snipped the part that tells me what you believe, but there is little more than that first sentence that says why you believe it is true. My education and experiences led me to the opposite conclusion and I largely ditched my religious believes before I reached my teens. To me "God is pure love" is just rhetoric that is not borne out by reality."

If you ditched your beliefs about God before your teens I would suggest in all likelihood what you ditched was your childhood concept of God. Most likely the concept of God as "the giant invisible man in the sky". I ditched that one age 12, and the rest of them at 17. That is a natural process which everyone goes through and is an important step in faith development. It is a form of rebellion against what you have been taught and your first real attempts to think for yourself. It is unfortunate that a number of people never think beyond that. They form a bias and think that they know all that there is to know on the subject in question even though they never do any serious investigation of the subject again. This is true for both theists and atheists alike. I have pointed this out this bias to a number of people on this board. But let me ask you this.. Do you think you learned all you need to know about ANY subject in your preteens? If you are closed to new thinking on every subject you would never go beyond what you knew at age 12. In education it is designed at different steps but it took me 21 years years to get my Masters Degree, and I recognize that that achievement pales when compared to how much more I could have learned. Certainly with some they arrive at a point where they do not WANT to know more on a particular subject.

So I would totally disagree with what you call "rhetoric that is not borne out by reality." My experiences have taught me God most certainly is, that He IS love, and that the purpose of our existence is to learn that love.

[Shem Yoshi]

Dear Christians of all flavor(s),

I trust it is no surprise there exists a populous here, which lay claim to 'atheism', 'deism', or maybe other... In a nutshell, for me, this ultimately means I do not believe any such claimed Christian God exists - trying though as I might.... Which-is-to-mean, I was raised in a Christian house hold. However, after much study, I cannot get myself to belief such a claimed agent actually exists. Chalk it up, ultimately, to the topic of 'divine hiddenness' I guess...?

It is also evident there exists devout 'Christians' in this arena, of all flavors, who may feel they are 'fighting the good fight'; by defending their belief(s)/faith/rationale in the assertion of the existence to the "Christian God".

That being said, I am laying down the gauntlet, so-to-speak... Some here, as well as outside of here, are as sure as anything, that not only does God exist, but the Christian God! Well, I politely disagree. Meaning, I don't believe the "Christian based" assertion/claim.

I can't imagine this request will be anything new. Nor, can I imagine that I will encounter any new sort of enlightenment. But, being this is a rather large and important topic; I will continue to search, optimistically, that there exists some sort of 'concrete evidence(s)' to demonstrate that not only a God exists ---> but also the Christian God.

For Debate:

Please demonstrate the mere existence of the Christian God?

2 Thessalonians 2:10-11 suggest it is impossible to demonstrate the existence of the Christian God... it says that some will never believe...