As I said back towards the top of the second page, if this is true, if the motivation of the deity is beyond our understanding, then there is no reasonable way to base our actions on anything we may or may not believe about the deity. We might as well act as if there isn’t one for all the practical difference it makes.
I did read your post, but I don’t discuss what other people believe. I discuss what I believe.
Flonks, Run while you still can.
The point of this thread was to come up with the most convincing argument for NO GOD.
My argument (can a believer play too?):
“If he doesn’t exist in your intellect and you have no emotional awareness of his existence and you see no evidence in your world, then he doesn’t exist for you. You are your only point of reference. That is non-negotiable without further non-anecdotal input of some kind.”
And I even managed to overcome the urge to sneak off topic. 
IWLN
Well, that is where I don’t agree. Things you can’t feel, can’t measure and can’t see, can still exist.
I don’t believe in the cartesian philophy that only things we can experience with our senses can exist.
Btw, I am not my only point of reference - I know people with the same “reference” and I read books written by people with the same reference.
Thing is, you can believe things exist which cannot be discerned by our mortal senses/faculties but we STILL have no reason to believe such things exist since we have no other means but our senses to know such things.
What you said above Flonks is every bit as sensible as “I believe there are things which stink but cannot be smelled.”
No, not really. The comparison is more like: I believe that there are things which stink but most don’t have nose which is developed enough to be able smell it.
Then it is upon YOU to provide us with someone who CAN smell this alleged stink. Otherwise it is just another unwarannted inference and I apologise for any spelling errors above as my blood sugar is low and I am going to take care of it now.
I found the smell for myself. The way how my life and other lives around me are evolving is far from coincidence.
I don’t provide anything for anybody. You are skeptic, if you want stay skeptic, I don’t care. I don’t have a “mission”, and I don’t want to convince anybody. You don’t believe, fine with me.
However, I discard the so-called “proofs” for the non-existance of God. I didn’t find a single one yet.
flonks, we all know that proving the non-existence of god is logically impossible. Of course you haven’t found one.
However, you yourself made the point earlier that the *existence * of god cannot be proven, and this is wrong. The big guy could always part the clouds above us an announce his presence. In fact, in almost every conceivable scenario I can think of in which god really exists, his existence would be plain to see for all. It’s a strange way that god is now defined, where he made himself known a couple of thousand years ago by stopping the sun, parting seas, etc., but just when our BS detectors have evolved enough, god slinks back into the background, hiding from us, occasionally appearing in a taco shell or somesuch.
This thread isn’t about *proof * of its nonexistence, but *arguments * for nonexistence. Even I, a devout atheist, have been struck by the quality of these arguments, all condensed down into one place. I’ve considered saving this thread on my computer to give to people who are sitting on the fence.
I am pleased to hear that you ‘…discard the so-called proofs for the non-existence of God.’ I do too. You will find that at least on this point most people here will agree with you. It is generally considered impossible to prove the non-existence of something. The existence or non-existence of an entity that is undetectable other than through personal, subjective evidence is a matter of belief not of proof. Those people, regardless of their olfactory skills, that develop and refine their beliefs through rational thought and the application of their intellect consider the evidence and arguments on both sides of the issue and draw a conclusion based on those that they find most convincing. Hence the title of this thread.
Feel free to start a thread entitled ‘And the award for “Most Convincing Argument for the existence of God” goes to…’ But of course you won’t because you have no desire to convince anybody of the validity of your beliefs (although this does beg the question of why you are participating in a debate on the matter). Personally, I would be genuinely interested in reading such a discussion. I do not rule out the possibility that one day I will wake up to god’s delicate aroma permeating the very fabric of my existence. However, I feel that the probability of this happening to be rather small because so far I find the evidence and arguments for the existence of a god decidedly unconvincing. This is mainly because said arguments are riddled with logical inconsistencies and partly because they often include statements of opinion represented as fact (e.g. ‘The way how my life and other lives around me are evolving is far from coincidence.’).
First of all, concerning the bible, I have never been a big fan of the literal interpretation approach - which does not mean that I do not believe in “the miracles”. However, I do not believe in them blindly either. The bible has been written by humans, and we don’t know them very well.
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If God performed what is comonly called “miracles”, then he did not bend the laws of nature. If somebody lifts a book with a string which you can’t see (for whatever reason, imagine that it’s 1nanometer large if you lack fantasy), then no law of nature has been bent.
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What is comonly called “miracles” still happens, it actually never stopped. It’s just that people don’t believe in it. People are still materialising stuff, and indian yogis perform things which are extraordinary.
In any way, even in these cases, I am convinced that the laws of nature are not violated. The mind has a tremendous power of the body and over physics. The laws of nature are followed, they are just not yet known to us.
About God not revealing to us more clearly, I already addressed that in an earlier posting.
And David Copperfield does that thing where he gets cut in two, don’t forget that!
Perfect, I already wrote this posting once, but my brower crashed 
I participated because the title was “Proof of the non-existance of God” and because some posters gave arguments about it’s non-existance.
There is big difference between the quest for truth in science, e.g. in peer-reviewed papers, and the spiritual quest:
Most scientists trust the information they read in articles, and whenever they don’t they can always repeat the experiment and check the results. As we know, that doesn’t prove anything, but the results may allow us to decide whether we corroborate or refute a theory.
In spiritual quests, unlike physics, at least classical physics, an experiment is not independent of the observer. Just because somebody had an experience that doesn’t mean that this experience may be shared or repeated by other people. The outcome of spiritual “experiments” depends on your personal state of mind and soul, your history, etc.
What I find interesting is that this concept of an “involved observer” is re-discovered in modern physics:
“The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism”
by Fritjof Capra
Again, I have to ask whether you actually read the OP. As has been pointed out by others, the title was not asking for “proof” of the non-existence of God, but merely for the “most convincing arguments” for his/her/its non-existence.
Barry
So if a pedophile says that when sleeping with children he feels the presence of God.... who are we to say he is wrong ? In fact he might be right... we are judging a religious experience as a crime ?! (throw him in jail I say...)
That is why the criteria “personal experience or personal state” just doesn’t cut it. At best it means “God” manifests himself only to you… and not to an atheist for example. Which kind of makes him into something else… not God or a diety.
God created the universe... his rules and his presence should be something so overwhelming and obvious... don't you think so ? That is why most of us debate "lack of evidence" versus the "impossibility of proof". How can a universal order and justice seem so intangible.I read the OP. I discard the arguments as non-convincing. Most arguments were “God doesn’t show itself”. God shows himself in his way.
God hasn’t shown himself to the people who don’t believe in him. It’s yet to decide which one of the two is the cause and which one the effect, but that’s another story.
It’s unconvincing to say that God doesn’t exist because he doesn’t show himself to a group of people.
When did I ever say that “commiting a crime while feeling the presence of God” (if that is possible) is not despisable and punishable?
Flonks, the thing you seem to be having difficulty understanding is that, in order for any evidence to be considered evidence [bg]for God’s existence**, then said evidence must not be dependent on subjective interpretation in order to be what YOU make it out to be. For example: humans acting charitably or overcoming obstacles is only evidence of God to a certain type of theist who wishes to posit such. To others these things are only evidence of what humans are capable of.
I also agree that the non-existence of something cannot be proven but I also agree with GodzillaTemple that there are convincing arguments for the non-existence of God. The most convincing to me is the simple fact that when one critically examines the case for God, the human hand and psyche behind it is as obvious as it is for Superman, ghosts, UFOs and similar alleged phenomenae.
Also the lack of evidence…that is independent, objective evidence which DIRECTLY infers God in the same way that falling objexts infer gravity, is telling. If a star goes nova in our universe you can bet your ass we will have plenty of evidence tellingt us all about it. Hell, we have plenty of obvious evidence that stars EXIST period! But the theist will hold irrationally to a conviction that something infanitely more powerful adn omnipresent exists without leaving even the tiniest bit of objective evidence to infer it’s existence!
BTW, those “mystic yogis” and their “extraordinary feats” are nothing extraordinary. Go see Jim Rose’s Circus Sideshow sometime or certain stage magicians. These feats are performed regularly and there is nothing mystical about them.
I understand that this is the common quality criteria we use in science. But that is also a reason why science has it’s limitations.
There is no repeatable evidence for God, i.e. there is no proof for God in a scientific sense. There is a proof for God in a non-scientific sense - each person needs get the proof itself and the proof is only valid for the person who did the experiment.
It’s difficult to understand because we are used to repeatable experiments, but there is no reason that the universe is detached from us - we are part of it. Therefore, experiments are not repeatable.
Flonks: I think the point is that while there certainly is is “evidence” for God’s existence (including the testimony of the prophets of old, mundane events that seem “miraculous” due to their timing, the warm fuzzy feeling numerous people have reported feeling when thinking about God, etc.), none of that evidence is particularly convincing. And the reason it isn’t particularly convincing stems, in large part, from the fact that all this so-called “evidence” can be easily explained without reference to God.
I note, BTW, that you seem to be focusing exclusively on one particular argument that has been proposed here, to wit, that “God doesn’t show itself.” How about some of the other arguments I mentioned in my OP or which have been proposed by others in this thread?
Barry