What makes you unbelieve Crash ?

I'm gonna get Mike's back here because he's being swarmed, and that's pretty messed up.Crash, I couldn't help but notice you throw some hard stabs at God ("God is a shitty parent", "Creationism is religious lies" etc.) whenever He gets brought up."Because if it can't be falsified, there's no way to know if it's true or not."So basically you're saying the glass is always half empty. If it's stuck somewhere in between with no way to know true or false, why just conclude false? You keep saying that God would do this or that if He really existed. That's pretty arrogant to think you would know what God would or wouldn't do(I do not claim to know either)in some given situation. It seems from what I've seen from you that you have this idea of what this God would say or do at given moments, and because it doesn't play out that way you just decide He doesn't exist.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

I'm not speaking for Crash, ( lord knows (small "l", ) he can sure talk enough for himself) but I there is a serious disconnect in the parts of the above paragraph.You talk of Crash's "hard stabs at God". You then give a reasonable example with the "parent" comment of Crash's. However, you then add "Creationism is religious lies". In what way is that a "stab at God"?Creationism isn't anything to do with God, per se. It is all about a worship of a very particular (and peculiar) interpretation of a small part of the Bible. It has been demonstrated to be wrong. It is publically defended with lies. When we try to discuss those lies here on this forum those who claim to be adherents to "creationism" (of one sort or another) and supposed supporters of it run back to the faith and belief forum. Crash, and others including myself, makes a personal choice to conclude false. This is done without specific evidence (unless the particular God is described in a way amenable to evidential analysis). It is a personal choice. Others are free to choose diferently.The point is it is purely a personal choice. Like any one of a huge number of different ideas people have it is not decidable at all. Ghosts, gods, Yeti and on and on are all believed or not by individuals without evidence. Some of us see all of them as the same waste of time.If you're happy to take things on faith we are (mostly) all happy to leave you to it. But there is one condition. You have to leave others to their own personal choices. You have to recognize that you have no objective, non-personal way of saying anything at all about these things. That is, you have to stay out of the science classroom.If you want in then you have to come in with evidence and a way of separating some form of reality from all the other, conflicting ideas that have been and still are believed by many different people. If your beliefs are undecidable in an objective way then they must remain subjective and your beliefs. Nothing more than beliefs and nothing less than beliefs.I agree with you that Crash may be overstepping if he thinks he knows what God would or wouldn't do. He doesn't. And you don't either.

That's generally because the rest of the rhetoric is something along the lines of "God is infinitely awesome," or "God can do anything," or "we should all be as thankful as we can be that God loves us so much," etc.In otherwords the rhetoric about God is universally and superlatively positive. Consider my comments an attempt to balance that out. I say provocative things about God to draw response, and to put into perspective the fact that believers accept (and are even thankful for) treatment from their God that would be characterized as abusive neglect and abandonment from any human. I don't, of course, believe that God actually is an abusive parent. I don't believe anything about God other than that he doesn't exist. Because the alternative mandates the belief in everything that can't be falsified, which includes the gods of all religions, every kind of mythical creature, all invisible, intangible entities, and a host of other ludicrous suggestions.If you go around believing that an unfalsifiable thing is true, then you have to do that for all unfalsifiable things. No. It's like this: Mike (or whoever) says "God has such-and-such nature." (I notice that you don't consider it arrogant to make statements about God that you agree with, like "God is good" or "God is infallible." Very inconsistent of you.) I respond with "if you were right about God, then such-and-such would be the case. Since it's not, I can conclude that the God that exists, if any, does not have the nature you say he does."I've never made the claim that I know that no kind of god exists. But given specific claims about what someone thinks God is like, I can determine if those claims are supported because there should be evidence that would exist if God actually had that quality.

"However, you then add "Creationism is religious lies". In what way is that a "stab at God"? "Good point."I agree with you that Crash may be overstepping if he thinks he knows what God would or wouldn't do. He doesn't. And you don't either. "Hope I didn't seem like I thought did, but thanks for keepin' everyone in check.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

"...about God is universally and superlatively positive. Consider my comments an attempt to balance that out. "I dunno, there's a lot more people than you who are more than happy to balance those positive comments out. I'm friends with some of them."...the fact that believers accept (and are even thankful for) treatment from their God that would be characterized as abusive neglect and abandonment from any human."First off, a minor correction. I know people who believe in God that hate Him, so not everyone's thankful. But really, I had a dark time myself for quite some time but that 'neglect' sure helped. Gotta shed the skin before you can get bigger, huh? I (and many others)personally don't mind hard times as long as I make it out at the end to reap the rewards of personal growth. And according to the belief in heaven which generally comes with the belief in the Judeo-Christian God, that's exactly what the final outcome is.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

Would you accept payment for your job on the same terms? "Well, Mr. Preach, you'll do this lame, labor-intensive job with no guarantee of payment. I mean, we tell people that we pay them, but only after they move to an undiscovered country so there's no chance they can come back and actually confirm payment. There's obviously no way for you to contact them to corroborate our guarantee.""Hrm, a life of suffering and only your word that the reward will actually happen. Sure, sign me up!"Look, it's fine for you to believe whatever you want to believe. I just don't find it reasonable to believe what you believe. There is of course no law that says your beliefs have to be reasonable.

"...Mr. Preach..." That made me laugh, thanks. I think I'll use that name when I become the first Christian fundamentalist pro wrestler."I mean, we tell people that we pay them, but only after they move to an undiscovered country so there's no chance they can come back and actually confirm payment."You get payments of personal growth after every hardship you manage to overcome. In a typical job you work and get your paycheck maybe every week/month or so. After working hard and well for many years, you can pick up your retirement fund. It's sorta like that, except this retirement fund is FOREVER. Beats any earthly retirement plan I've ever heard of."Look, it's fine for you to believe whatever you want to believe. I just don't find it reasonable to believe what you believe."That's fine, and I have no problem with your point of view either. But hopefully this clarified my reasoning some.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

Sounds a lot like the retirement fund the employees of Enron got - they worked hard for years and in the end, got nothing. What's your guarantee that the reward is there? I guess what it's done is present further confirmation of my thoughts on believers - they're more than happy to praise behavior in their God that in a human would constitute exploitation and abuse.

Ooh! I love that analogy, Frog. I think I'll be using it....

When it comes to prayer as proof of a diety I've seen first hand how believers will turn a result to sound like the prayer caused the end result. For example my girlfriend was trying to get a job, 8 months of interviews and rejections later she was feeling pretty low. She then prayed for the next job to come through, and sure enough it did. She claimed God had helped her when she asked, I thought she'd finally found the job that best suited her and no supernatural being had anything to do with it. Would she have got the job regardless? Quite likely. The trick of the story is that she is hindu...
Its the one thing that makes me disbelieve in prayer as any kind of proof when people from every religion and every cult all claim to have results from their prayers (or scarifices for that matter). The basic idea is that you pray for something that is possible (very rare that any claims of miracles prayed for coming true) in which case there was always a chance that it would happen regardless of what you do. Common subjects like health, wealth, good grades or love, all of which happen equally to atheists, christians, hindus and any other human.
All humans regardless of religion have the same life expectancy, the same chances of illness and accidents, the same amounts of good and bad luck (barring environmental problems). If any religion is correct then its followers are not showing the benefits.

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Lol, not exactly. But if one prayer comes true it's kind of easy to remember.

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Well, that's just it, Mike.Nobody can just "remember" events such as this in the kind of detail it requires to determine if there is a real effect happening or if you are just letting your wishful thinking bias your memory.It is also easy to remember an answered prayer because that is an "event". It is much more difficult to "remember" that a prayer wasn't answered, because nothing has happened; it's a non-event. That's called confimation bias.

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Also, the last prayers in which I have asked for things are easy to remember.

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The only way to be sure is to keep detailed and consistent records like the examples I gave.Personal biases are very, very pervasive and influence everyday thinking enormously.That's the whole point with scientific methodology; it strips away what you want or suspect is true and leaves you with what is true about phenomena.

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It is not often I would ask for something, however a recent example was a woman who asked for believers to pray for her family. Her son was being bullied because he was a believer and so we prayed, and indeed we believed - I myself, with great belief and fervor, and those bullies became Christians the next day. That's one prayer I can remember.

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Wait. Did you pray for the bullies to become Christians, or did you just pray for the bullying to stop?Also, did those bullies also get spoken to by anybody, or threatened with suspension from school, or punished by their parents, or did the kid's older brother or friend go and rough them up?

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Though what I remember mostly is the belief I had at the time. So get back Schrafinator -- get back to the truth. Stop seeking Godless journeys -- get back. - and get off that horse!

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OK, but first you have to show that your prayers are really being answered consistently at a rate better than chance would predict, and you'd better get going on your experimental protocol; there's HUGE holes in it!

Yup, that's confirmation bias.I imagine that if she hadn't gotten any job, she would have taken that as an answer to her prayer, too.

"Sounds a lot like the retirement fund the employees of Enron got - they worked hard for years and in the end, got nothing. What's your guarantee that the reward is there?"So far I've got confirmation from things that have happened recently in my life not to mention the 'paychecks' of personal growth etc. Keep in mind though that God and the conspirators of Enron are different beings altogether. (If you want to make comments about the morality of God you're also involved in a thread about that so argue your case there.)"guess what it's done is present further confirmation of my thoughts on believers - they're more than happy to praise behavior in their God that in a human would constitute exploitation and abuse. "We've kept going back and forth on that for some time across more than one thread now. If you're going to pull that out again, fine, just do so in full. But argueing in cicles is kind of tedious.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

Yeah, but I get those things too, and I'm not in your retirement plan. If everybody gets them, why do you conclude that when they happen specifically to you, it's not just coincidence like for everybody else, but evidence of some divine agency? Sounds like a double standard.

Not sure of which of the following 2 ways you meant that so I'll answer both:'Everbody else' sees it as coincidence, huh? I guess so if that excludes anybody of any religious faith. You don't seem like the kind of person who decides personal beliefs by what lots of other people believe, so I don't think you meant that.If you mean that I think it's coincidence when it happens to everyone else then you're also incorrect about what I believe, please don't assume things like that. Lots of Christians would say they've grown a lot from dark times, and everyone I know who converted to Christianity agrees bad things have a way of happening more often once you convert. But even if people of other religions say the same thing, that just adds to my point even more.... Since I have a feeling you're going to bring up atheists I'll address that now.And as for atheists, just because they don't notice bad things happening in just the right time to make them grow as some extra help from above doesn't mean that it isn't.I realize that can go both ways, but since it appears you like statistics the VAST majority of the world (was it 93% or some?) would say there is divine intervention going on when bad things happen.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.