http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#9
/end first 10
There are lots of questions about the details of Jefferson’s religious thinking, but no doubt at all that he believed in an afterlife, and expected to see people he loved after death. I’d say that is belief in an immaterial world.
As to lack of proof, I suppose I do tend to accept Pascal’s wager, perhaps tempered a little with James’s “will to believe.” There are some things about which there will never be proof or disproof, and we can then choose (or maybe our genes choose for us) to believe or not, and live with the consequences. To me, the consequences of believing in God are mostly good–I know I’m a little better person for it, less likely to dismiss other people’s needs and more likely to try to improve my own behavior. It gives me hope for the future personally and for humankind. And if I’m wrong, what have I lost?
But I do often think that this is a constitutional thing to some extent. I don’t mean that one is born to be a believer or a skeptic, but that different people have different tolerances for illogic, mystery and ambiguity.
Sorry if I’m not debating strenuously enough. I think it’s more interesting to discuss than debate, but will withdraw if I’m breaking the rules here.
Huck
For me - and it is sometimes very obvious in posts on this board - the more you believe in “GOD” or a particular religious interpretation - the worse of a person you tend to become - we have several posters on this board that exemplify that. This is also demonstrated quite often in the media.
I know back when I was a ‘true believer’ - I was a nasty little snot pushing all my ‘knowledge’ and ’ you need saving!’ crap onto others - once the wool was pulled off my eyes - its much easier to be ‘good for goods sake’ then in the ‘good because GOD will punish me if I don’t sake’.
Believing in a GOD is not required to do ‘good’ things - nor is being an ‘athiest’ required to do EVIL things.
I’m willing to bet if you threw off the shackles of ‘GOD’ - you would still be a good person overall*.
*I don’t know you - you could be a crazed serial killer for all I know -
Well specifically he thought the soul and whatnot were forms of matter.
I think that sort of materialist world view would be the sort of thing that latches well into evolution and cosmology.
It depends on what that belief makes you do. If you’re gay and deny it all your life you’ve lost quite a bit.
I don’t doubt for an instant that belief is comforting. I wish I could see the dead that I’ve loved again. But wishes aren’t what make reality.
I would say that the most common thing about Pascal’s wager that is missed, is the idea that it is just as likely that God wants you to be rational and not believe in him without evidence.
That is very true.
If anyone is breaking the rules, it’s April R copying that entire website. 
Please don’t inaccurately describe my actions.
What happened is I asked for rational arguments for God’s existence.
You then posted something you hadn’t bothered to read. One of 20 arguments.
The argument was nonsense. And I told you as much.
Then you said, I should read the rest of the list, because that might contain a rational argument for God’s existence.
So you literally picked a list at random, didn’t bother to read it, and are demanding that I read it and prove to you that it doesn’t contain a rational argument for God’s existence.
That isn’t what reasonable persons do.
Read your list and tell me what you want refuted. I’m not going to spend hours refuting something you’re not engaged enough to read for yourself. Especially when the sample you initially provided was stupid.
I certainly don’t think that believers are good and atheists are evil. And I know I wouldn’t be a crazed serial killer if I didn’t believe.
But while I’ve known lots of folks who say they believe in Christ, yet not only fail to follow His teachings but actually use them to justify evil, I’ve known more who really do try to do everything charitably. Obviously we don’t always or even usually succeed, but striving to think and behave generously is not a shackle, it’s a way to become a better person and maybe even improve things a little for a few others.
<bolding mine> -
No - that’s not the shackle - thinking/believing you **need ** religion to achieve that is.
When Christ was on the earth - was he creating ‘Christianity’ or freeing the locals from the ‘religious oppression’* of the pharisees? Was his parables about needing to go to ‘church’ or simply doing the ‘right thing’'?
It was after Christ ‘left’ that all the rules and requirements for being a ‘Christian’ started to creep back in.
Where does ‘Jesus’ say that going to ‘church’ is required ?
If it helps you - thats great - been there, done that, know lots of people still doing that - It isn’t for me.
*probably not the right term for it - more so that they had become so invested in proving that they were ‘rightous’ before god to other men - that they had forgotten basic principles, and treated everyone accordingly.
I suspect you’d be wrong, since atheists are well aware that religion is happy to change many of its supposedly divinely inspired beliefs when they run into reality. Some do, some don’t but I’m sure that whatever we find the Catholic Church (and others) will be claiming that this supports their religion all along.
I suspect not - that is before science demonstrated the evolution happened, of course. Do you think that if they found Christ’s bones Christianity would vanish? I don’t. They’d say it was spiritual. Hell, they found the hieroglyphics that Joseph Smith supposedly translated it, translated them, found that it was nothing like what he said, and it didn’t even slow the Mormons down. He was clever enough to say the silver plates vanished, so no chance of finding that they were an ancient grocery list.
Could have happened does not equal rationally believe it did happen - unless you believe your kids when they say a strange man snuck in and broke the lamp. That intelligence can direct evolution is not at issue - Darwin used animal husbandry as an example in the Origin. That intelligence did is another matter entirely, given the lack of evidence for it.
Actually theists tend to prattle on about proving this and proving that. Very few atheists, around here at least, make that mistake.
And you actually probably meant “The Age of Reason,”, Paine’s attack on Christianity.
In that book Paine says that he is not an atheist (but rather a deist) because he does not see how the order of the Solar System could happen without a designer. We now know exactly how this happens. I suspect he’d be an atheist today, but there is no way of knowing for sure, of course.
You have at various times talked about atheists claiming to prove there is no god. I’d like to see an example. I’ve been discussing this online for almost 40 years, and I’ve seen exactly one atheist make this claim - and he was an idiot. Given the diversity of possible gods, I’d love to see someone prove none exist. Of course it is possible to prove certain varieties of gods don’t exist, but that is a different matter.
Second, I was posting in alt.atheism when the IPU was introduced. It was invented for one reason - to show the absurdity of special pleading when defending the existence of God. I wouldn’t include Nessie in this - there is a picture of it. (Maybe faked, but still evidence, right?)
Third, it is rather snotty and arrogant to say that a bunch of intelligent atheists don’t know what atheism means because you, who aren’t one, disagrees on the concept. Agnosticism is about knowledge, atheism is about belief.
And finally, Aristotle and many early Greeks and Romans logically “proved” all sorts of stuff. At the time it was rational. Today, would you consider someone accepting Aristotle’s conclusions in the face of contradictory evidence rational? Belief in the Prime Mover might have been rational - up to Heisenberg, that is.
Poor Jack Chick, His Idea of Christianity seems to be, is not love your Neighbor( as the Bible quotes Jesus as saying, but he seem to translate it as hate anyone who doesn’t believe as he does!
Yet one has to realize that Scripture was decided by other humans several centuries before him, and his beliefs were based on humans not any God, and that is a proven fact, so Luther’s faith was not based on the word of a God but humans! He apparently didn’t think of that (as many people do today).
If God is a being, there would first have to be a place for God (or anything) to exist. Any thing not in existence doesn’t exist.
Then your participation in this thread appears to be inappropriate.
Personal insults are not permitted in Great Debates and this text, particularly the bolded portions, violates that rule.
If you do not care for the discussion, stay out of it, but if you are going to participate, then follow the rules of the forum.
[ /Moderating ]
April R, your copy-and-paste of lengthy sections of another person’s work is inappropriate on two counts:
[ul]
[li]First, you are relying on the words of another person to substitute for your own ideas and logic, so you really have no business tossing it into this thread[/li][li]Second, you have “borrowed” a very lengthy section of copyrighted material, which is not permitted under the SDMB guidelines for Fair Use.[/li][/ul]
Do not do this again.
[ /Moderating ]
I’m sorry I missed this post!
For most people the question has been resolved. It’s been resolved because most people have examined the evidence and the world around us and laid down their 2 bucks; they’ve made their wager. They’re living their life in accordance with what they believe. For most, the question is resolved.
And because I cannot offer you proof of God’s existence, or non-existence, anything I offer you would be *subjective. * Either I can prove either position, or I can’t. And if I can’t, I can only witness to you for my beliefs.
And that’s simply my point. Either I can prove it or I can’t. If I can’t, it’s subjective. I am not taking any position either way, and have zero interest in witnessing.
See now, I can see your point, and appreciate this comment. I can see how someone could come to a reasoned, rational conclusion that the evidence for God is no more compelling than Nessie.
I don’t have to agree (and I don’t) to see that you may have a reasoned argument. (which would only become evident to me by examining the “merits” together; essentially witnessing to each other.)
In any event, it’s perfectly reasonable to say Christianity is much less then compelling, or even silly. When a persons says, however, that someone can’t come to Christianity using reason (rationally), they’re being ignorant or displaying the greatest of subjective certainty.
First, I wasn’t offended, and didn’t perceive you were trying to offend me. And, I apologize if I offended you.
And, I’m sensitive that using “faith” is occasionally infuriating. (which hasn’t been compelling enough to stop me from using it…;))
My use of it, however, is a response to the constant misuse of science, and what atheism really means, by directly, or indirectly stating that there is an objective, proven component to the question (actually, answer) of God’s non-existence.
Maybe one day science will objectively answer the question, but in the meantime we’re all essentially witnessing to each other; we’re making a case for what we believe.
So when you say—and I quote—“I believe that God doesn’t exist because there is no compelling reason to believe that he she or it does.”, I not only find that an infinitely reasonable statement, I’m aware that you might be able to make a powerful argument for the merits of atheism, and the lunacy of Christianity.
But if you make one of the many, many downright silly statements that seem to roll of the keyboards of the more radical parts of this board, or we get into the circular silly Abbott & Costello routine that is so popular, I gotta tell you, it looks really ignorant.
What evidence can you provide?
NOT PROOF-EVIDENCE.
One again, for clarity: what evidence do you have? It need not be enough to prove it, it must simply be evidence.
Show Us The Evidence.
Clear enough?
Czarcasm
Why in the world did you quote one part of my post and omit the last sentence? I mean, I usually put in “…snip…”
But here is the sentence you omitted:
Sheeeeshhhhh dude! You have an extraordinary focus on giving your one answer to everything at all religious. This one trick, rabid, “Let me witness to you about my atheism” is tiring, man.
The question was, “Is there rationality in a subjective belief in God.” For the purpose of this conversation of this thread, I would gladly post as an atheist. For the exact reasons Pascal could see how reason could produce an atheistic belief, I can see how reason can produce a theist belief.
(and can you see how Pascal could see how a person could use reason in their atheism and how Pascal could still find it less than compelling? Do you see that rational and compelling are not synonyms?)
If you’ve lived this long, and find the arguments for God to be so much less than compelling that they’re irrational, then either you spend too much time on internet MBs or you have the greatest of faiths.
But I have zero interest in you attacking my faith with your faith.
Now, is *that *clear enough?
You don’t understand what faith is.
And your mistake is driving you to post nonsense like that.
Again, there is no evidence of any substance for the existence of God, and no rational arguments for believing in Him. You may pretend there are, but your complete inability to present some suggests that you have none.
Raindog, It is clear you have absolutely nothing but bluster and diversionary tactics that Joe McCarthy would be proud of. Your response is such a non-sequitur that it looks like it belongs in another entirely unrelated thread.