Why Atheists don't believe

I'm sorry RjB. I don't get your point.You place myself, larni and your good self in the same table-containing room. We all look and we see a table. Then you place myself, larni and yourself in different rooms. We look and see what each of those different rooms contain - if anything.We cannot prove that the rooms contain that which they are claimed to contain unless we walk into them ourselves and have a look.All you have here is someone (me) who shouts over the wall from an adjoining room "God is in here - come have a look" You don't have to believe me to come and have a look. You don't have to come and have a look at all. For empiricism to work, one has to go have a look. You can bring me to a table but you can't make me open my eyes if I don't want to. Go look is how you tell.

You supping from the RBL bottle too SNC?

My existance pre-knowing God. Self-verification is the only way of knowing I exist. Or that empiricism says something sensible to me. Now God turns up. Another self. I can verify he exists and is separate from me as I can that you exist and are separate from me too.God must turn up in order for me to verify that he exists. And if he turns up I can verify he exists - simply using the same tool I a have had ample and automatic use of all my life. The one applied to me and you and others. Okay?Right. If God doesn't exist then the verification tool I used to verify him, you and myself is faulty. It is useless. If I can't verify myself, I can not verify anything at all. An unverified existance ceases to be one.

I entertain a modicum of doubt and it is this: I could be an aliens playstation game. When we were young, my mother used to bring us for walks down by the Dodder river in Dublin. Just as she had done as a kid, she began to teach us to fish for pinkines (tiny little fish). We arrived down with our glass jars and little bag-nets attached to bamboo poles."Look, Look!" she would cry excitedly "There they are - millions of them" We'd look and see nothing "Just THERE!! right in front of you yes right there!!" We could still see nothing.Mam was looking through the surface at the fish below. Us kids were looking at the reflection off the surface and couldn't see a thing but our own faces. Mam wasn't deluded. She pointed at something that was there alright. The problem was we didn't know how to look My mam looked for gods. She searched her whole life. Born a Catholic, she looked at TM, Occult, Darwin, New Ageism, Zen, Existentialism - the works. She drove herself to distractions looking. Eventually she looked through the surface and found what swam underneath all the time.And then she told me because I was looking and I came to see too..And so I tell you what she told me. Ask him to help you find him. Ask him to lead you. Let him know that its your heart that wants him and not just your desire to satisfy intellect. Tell him that you are prepared to accept whatever knowing him might mean for you. But do let him know.Right. no smokes left and a bloody raging headache. Thats me out for now, Later dude

Not really. I can simply place it on the stove of tentitiveness and wait for it to boil. Warm water has a myriad of uses. But if one is thirsty and desires that thirst quenchers-uber-thirst quenchers: a cup of tea - then boiling water is really the only one that will suffice.I'm not anti-science Schraf. I think its great. But lets not suppose it can answer what it cannot. Who am "I"? Why am "I" here? A tentitive answer which sits luke warm on the stove saying maybe this and maybe that and maybe the other doesn't really cut it with me

I don't see the double standard Schraf. I have evidence plain before my face (like this computer screen) which needs no theory uin order for it to be (theory didn't even make it work - theory describes how it works).. or I have what I consider inferred evidence, evidences which need a theory to string them together (a fossil says nothing to me by itself) Two classes of evidence. Not double standards An electron to me is a model based on inference. I don't know what it looks like or if the word 'electron' won't disappear from our parlance like 'blood-letting' has. Current and tentative. If useful (like warm water) then use it.

No probs on delay SL. Just dealing with the first section of your post (down to Exodus) - for I am on my way out the door too.The question is whether the proscribed 'reaction' is warranted given the 'action'? Eye for an eye it largely seems to be - or less than that I would argue. Are you arguing against the justice of eye for an eye?If so why? If one is to leaves aside grace for a moment (which has nothing to do with the application of justice) then Eye for an Eye seems like perfect justice to me. You rob 1 dollar from me then justice (not emotionalism "he did it first to me therefore he should pay MORE") says that I, when caught, should pay a dollar back to you. To bring it all back to equilibrium as it were.I won't go on for I know not if this is your tack?

But if a believer finds an answer to a particular question should he persist in looking for an answer to that question?Whats wrong with arriving at an end (your use of the word 'dead' has negative connotations - 'end' seems sufficient, unless there is good reason to suppose arriving at an end is a 'bad' thing)?

Which makes it a bit pointless to attempt to find answers. If your stance is you can never be sure you've got it right.It would be simpler not to botherAs Robin Williams once said. "I'm not looking for Miss Right - I'm looking for Miss Right Now. Perhaps this is what you meanEdited by iano, : No reason given.

Is fun the motivation? Attempting solve unsolvable riddles?Edited by iano, : add iano

It wouldn't do it for me - but wherever one gets ones jollies is fine I suppose{AbE}But if one part of the riddle includes the possibility of God then 'you' might not be the one who solves it. He can play too surely?Edited by iano, : No reason given.