Here’s a very interesting question that just came to my mind. It’s 95% aimed at religious people (I have a pretty good idea what the answer will be with atheists and agnostics!) - there are a few reasons I ask which I will detail later, but I think it best not to go into more reasoning until later on in the thread.
The question is this - suppose in some court that resembles a US/UK/Canadian/Indian/Pakistani/Australian/etc etc common law type one as you see on TV, God (Allah, G-d, Vishnu etc - as you understand him) is on trial. Specifically, he is accused of existing. Obviously the hypothetical requires him to exist, but ignore that for the moment! Or perhaps he’s being tried in abstentia…
You are on the jury. Do you convict or not?
Do you think your decision has any implications for your faith or lack of it?
This is not just a poll on whether you think God exists - please try to imagine yourself in the court room
I’m not sure I understand the premise; “convicted of existing”? How is existing a crime? Or do you mean something like a finding of fact where a court explicitly declares that yes, God exists?
It’s a roundabout way of asking “do you think a god exists beyond a reasonable doubt?” In other words he’s asking (primarily) theists whether or not they’re “almost certain” god exists or if they’re the type of theists who go “eh, maybe maybe not, but I believe anyway.”
The question is phrased a little oddly, but I think it generally boils down to asking whether you would state that god definitely exists, and there is no reasonable doubt against his existence.
In my case I’d say no, but would be a foregone conclusion since I don’t believe in a god anyway. I do find it an interesting query for those who have personal faith in a god, though. Personal faith and lack of reasonable doubt should be two very different things, I would think, so even those with strong personal faith should be able to answer no.
Seems to me that if I have to have faith in something, then I am acknowledging that there’s a perfectly good argument for that thing not to be real or true.
I don’t have to believe in cats. I don’t have to have faith that they exist. I have tons of visual, olfactory, auditory, and tactile evidence right in front of me. I don’t believe; I know.
I have faith that I will be around tomorrow, though. I can’t know because I have no evidence or proof. There’s no one I can go to who can provide me with evidence or proof either. The only thing I can do is make certain assumptions from the facts that I do know (e.g., I am not sick, I am a pretty risk-averse person, etc.) and trust that these assumptions are meaningful predictors.
Saying I have faith that I will survive another day comes from a more humbled position than saying I know it.
If I understand the question, no. There’s no evidence that god(s) are even possible; much less evidence that one or more exists. And the standard tri-omni Christian god is flat out impossible due to logical contradictions and outright contradiction f obvious facts about the world.
Not worth the effort. His lawyer will file a habeus corpus christi. We can nail the Trinity on a conspiracy charge, but the Son will only come back after three days, the Holy Ghost is a flight risk, and the Father can post any bond including the entire universe and still destroy it. And even if we get a conviction, since Son of Sam laws have been ruled unconstitutional, the Gideons will still be putting bibles everywhere.
I find the question needlessly complicated and would ask that the case be dismissed. Why not simply ask, “Is there evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that God exists?” You can modify that for any religion.
the case was dismissed, for lack of evidence, …However, God/Jesus/ Holy Ghost were deemed to be tripolar, and ordered confined to an institution in the cosmos, that we likewise have no evidence of.
Mormons like Romney think they know where that is, - its a planet called Kolob…google it.
Simple Lictus, while there is no board rule requiring that all the truly stupid polls come from me, it’s certainly board custom. Please respect that in the future.
The question is **not **the same as asking if you believe God exists beyond reasonable doubt.
The question is if you think a court case were held where there was a “prosecution”, making the best possible argument for his existence, and a “defence”, making the best possible argument for his non-existence (I don’t think they would make him take the stand) then imagining their likely arguments, and making your judgement purely on what they were rather than your own opinion, would you find him to exist beyond reasonable doubt?
Then present the “arguments,” as I am limited by my opinions and imagination. And no, I cannot imagine a case (based on teh world as we observe it) that could be presented that would establish the existence of a Supreme Being beyond a reasonable doubt.
I’m going to repeat my previous no. There’s absolutely no evidence of an omnimax deity whose motives are comprehensible to humans and thus worthy of worship for reasons other than fear. There’s virtually no evidence of an omnimax deity whose motives are incomprehensible to humans and thus worthy of worship for reasons other than fear. There’s very little evidence for the existence of a lesser sort of deity (that is, lacking in either absolute power, absolute knowledge, or absolute benevolence), and what little evidence there is (the testimony of persons who claim to have a personal relationship with that deity) is contradictory. The physical laws of the universe seem not to require the existence of a creator or a maintainer of the universe; as things stand, there’s no reason to believe in any god, and many reasons to disbelieve.
I’m not sure how to vote on your poll as is seems confusing, so I will respond on to how I would vote and you can let me know if that is a yes or no.
1 - I know God and I met Him, He exists, end of (that) discussion.
2 - God has allowed evil to rule this world, which makes God impossible to find unless a person has tried every avenue that Evil offers and find them all unsatisfactory and belief in the God of Love the only option. Even if one is wrong it is the only option, to the point that one is willing to risk everything on the off chance that such a God exists, only after that does God reveal Himself to that person.
3 - So with that said, I would have to vote that God does not exist beyond a reasonable doubt, yet he 100% exists. Doesn’t say much for our legal system.