Help with existence of God question

Great Debates
21

MikeG,

Sorry I’m late!

You posted ‘My coworker has made a statement that I know is unsound but I can’t think of the right way to respond.
" If you were truly sincere in your search for God, He(Jesus Christ) would reveal Himself to you".’

Perhaps you could ask her which branch of the Christian religion is the correct one.

Further ‘Also she says there is unequivocal proof in the existence of Jesus. Is there? Non-faith based of course. She offered the fact that matter exists-therefore Someone had to create it.’

And (as has been said many times before), who created Someone?

MKM,

you posted ‘I do believe He shows Himself to us in many ways, it’s just not in the ways that we are looking for, so we don’t acknowledge it.’

Ok, my parents took me to church for 14 years and I listened to my Sunday School teacher carefully. I won the Religion prize at School, and passed the National Religion exam. I follow the ‘non-religious’ commandments (respect your parents, do not bear false witness etc.), I pay my taxes (render under to Caesar…) and try to be a good citizen (do unto others etc.).
However God has not revealed himself to me. What am I doing wrong?

Further ‘There is what most would consider unequivocable proof that a man named Jesus lived on this earth, did many things considered to be miracles, was crucified, and later his tomb was empty. I’ll let the details up to someone like Navigator.’

Jesus is recorded in historical texts. He was crucified. However the only evidence that I know of for the miracles and the empty tomb is 4 books written approximately 30 - 100 years afterwards. This is NOT proof.
I could ask you how, faced with the most important event in History (God came to Earth), that you don’t know the details.

I should finish by saying that although I’m an agnostic, I thoroughly respect the teachings of Jesus (non-violence, love for fellow human beings etc.)
I am happy that other people have had a personal experience that leads them to believe in God.
But I don’t know how to judge whether other people’s personal experiences are correct or not, so I go by their deeds.
A few ‘Christians’ have told me that if I lead a blameless life here on Earth, but refuse to believe in God, then I will burn in the pits of Hell forever. They add that a lifelong criminal who repents on his deathbed will go to Heaven. This is not a God I care for.

22

Um, emjaycue, you haven’t spent any time around atheists, have you? 'Cause you’re going right down the list of Top Ten Naive Religionist Arguments That Atheists Are Really Sick of Shooting Down.

I don’t think that I asserted any such thing. I said one cannot decide to believe based on Pascal’s Wager. Did I not say that I could be persuaded to believe with proper evidence?

Now that we have Pascal’s Wager (Argument #1) out of the way. . .

Argument #2:

This is only true of hard atheism, and even then, some hard atheists would happily argue this point with you. I highly recommend that you investigate the Atheist/Agnostic thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41574

Argument #3:

Incorrect, my friend. To borrow a page from Carl Sagan (from The Demon-Haunted World): I assert that there is a dragon who lives in my garage. You wish to see my dragon? I’m sorry, he’s invisible. You wish to see his footprints? Oh, he’s very light on his feet; he leaves no footprints. You want to see fewmets? Oh, sorry, he neither eats, nor excretes. Yet, I say you should believe my dragon exists, despite the fact that I have provided no evidence of his existence.

You see, it is up to those making a positive claim (that God exists) to provide evidence. Indeed, one can never prove that something does not exist; I can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, nor can you prove that the invisible dragon in my garage doesn’t exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, I’m sure you agree that you’d be a fool to believe in my dragon. If I want you to believe in my dragon, I must show you some evidence. It is unreasonable of me to expect you to simply have faith in my dragon.

Absolutely correct. However, “There is no proof of God’s existence”->“You should worship the God that I happen to believe in anyway” is REALLY crummy logic.

Here’s a point I’ve made before: If there’s no evidence that God exists, what evidence to we have of what He wants from us? How do we know His nature? How do we know about Heaven and Hell, or whether we’ll be reincarnated after we die?

Keep in mind, people DO claim that they believe in God because they have evidence of His nature–warm tingly feelings, miracles, the Bible, divine revelation, whatever–but that evidence isn’t up to my standards of proof. This leads me to believe that they way they think of God is probably incorrect (no offense intended; this is just the conclusion I’ve come to).

Since thusfar I have absolutely zero good evidence to base my decision on, I can:
A) Blindly chose a god and worship him.
B) Try to hedge Pascal’s bet by worshipping all of them.
C) Make up my own god, based on how I think that the universe should work, and start my own religion.
D) Figure that God probably doesn’t exist, keep my eyes open for new evidence and (alluding to your next question) try to basically be a good person, not out of fear of hellfire, but because that’s the most sensible way for me to live.

I think this is better suited to its own thread–you should start one!

(I’m not trying to dodge the question–I just think this is straying too far from the OP, and more people would see and enjoy the discussion if you started a new topic.)

23

This should require a simple answer , no need for complex answers.

The existence is there; but the people don’t see it.

24

Previous threads on atheist morality:

Morality, slavery, murder, etc.
Atheist Morality
Morality
Question to Atheists
If we chuck religion, how to stay moral?
Situation Ethics, God’s Law, and Pluralism

If you still have unanswered questions after reading those, I would be happy to answer them. However, having gone over atheist morality, oh, five billion times, I, too, am a little tired.

25

Thanks, Gaudere.