What makes you unbelieve Crash ?

If it's ok Mike I'll jump in too.I'm a bit different than Crash and some others. I've never been a believer.I know that the whole thing is central to your life so you might find it a bit hard to get but until I was into my 20's the religious issue just wasn't there. I didn't think about it any more than you might think about the structure of bucky balls now.And still, the only time it comes into my head now is when I'm discussing it with someone who thinks it is an issue or if I'm asked something.It is just a non-issue. I think more about where the moon is in the sky, whether it is waxing or waning and the current position of Voyager probes (things you might not think about more than once every few months if at all) than I think about God. Do you worry about those other things? Do they impinge on your consciousness?Probably not unless someone brings them up. That is about where God fits in for me.I am interested in religious issues (and discuss them with friends) as part of a general interest in history, sociology and psychology. From where I sit Christianity only happens to be the most in-my-face of the major religions. Like my daughter, my interest in Islam increased with all the kurfluffle that is going on now. I see them all as being very much equivalent.At one level they say about the same things. They all have good aspects and they all seem to have a way-out fringe element that is not good news. They all believe just as fervantly. The reasons given for each of the religions sounds exactly the same to me. I see no difference.If the religious folk don't bother me I don't bother with them.I have developed some hard feelings toward some cults only as I've been exposed to the bad side. The literalist fringe is a dangerous, irrational trend and need to be countered. I've been exposed to the ugliness of the Jehovah's Witnesses through someone shunned by her family. Those two groups do Christianity no favours.Others are obviously doing more good than harm. I would not attempt to stiffle or fight them even if I could.It isn't God that I am against in any way. That is just a word to me. It is the actions of groups that use God as an excuse for behaviour that varies from annoying to dangerous and even to cruel. All I see of God is the actions of individuals, some good, some bad.

Got to go to bed, is late in England, will reply tomorrow to all posts.

Not really. I mean, if I think God does exist and you don't, it doesn't mean I reach my conclusion through faulty reasoning. It just means it is obvious to me that he exists. I have only mentioned prayer because of what you mentioned about coincidences. I do not believe in God because of answered prayer. I believed before answered prayer, and how should my reasoning be faulty? Could it be that you simply disagree? Well, I don't mean this in a bad way but why are you so special? If people can believe without seeing, why would God go to lengths to satisfy those who don't believe? "Blessed are those who believe when they have not seen" (similar words).Furthermore, I don't think my prayers can be shown as similar to the lottery. People don't win the lottery every week, they win it once. But I recieve answers every time. It is not chance that I recieve answers. Since I am the only witness, I would be irrational to say it was chance as it is simply too obvious when it happens. The "hits" have gone beyond chance as there are simply too many. You say nobody else recieves these "hits" - well, surely there are others. Buzsaw has also said he has "hits".

But with other religions, do you visit empty tombs on pilgrimage?You see, I see a big difference between my so called "religion" and others. the difference to me is Christ. If you could point me to a similar event in history then that might change my mind (unlikely). But the fact is Christ was very different in what he said and done. Has there been anyone else who claims to have taken responsibility for the mistakes of others in this fashion? You see, to me it's very obvious. but then, my religiosity is something that doesn't exist with you, so I can understand your position. If you don't think of God often then I can see that you are pretty uninterested. However, I prefer your position slightly more as you don't seem to make rash statements like, "God doesn't exist". I am glad you are not against God yet Therein is the difference. If God is just a word then he is an irrelevance to your life, or a occasional thought. This is a similar mindset with my close relatives - and one I have never understood or can understand. I am not against them, but the difference between us will remain vast. I guess I am born with some kind of strange and terribly important religiosity towards God. However, if he is just a word to you then you will find it very hard to understand me maybe, we might be talking about a different thing even. Most secular people - (and all my family are) are foreign objects to me - they are a bizarre biological robot who cares for meaningless worldly things, that's one example of what I am discussing. Religious is not what I am. For example - church would be a bore to me and I would never partake in such things, yet I have a religiosity towards God that involves no rituals. That is why it doesn't sit well when people say "your religion". If a relationship is more of an accurate description then why should I call it religion?BTW, I do occasionally think of voyager and how far out it will be.

Of course you do Mike. Everyone does. That ones faith is the correct one is obvious to each of the believers in all the faiths. They each have some good, to them, reason for it. However, they all have a problen when it comes to substantiating their beliefs with something a non-believer can accept.As they say in the Highlander "There can be only one." But some of us discard the one as well as all the others since we can't see any reason for accepting any of them.

Ofcourse, I have recently said to Schrafinator, that for me, - yes, there can be only one God but there is definately a few religions to me, that can still hold some truth.The Jews worship the same God as I do. That means nearly 50% of the world worship the same God.
Also, I do not necessarily think it a bad thing if you believe in God but have no religion, like Percy. Even if you believe in a none-personal God, that is not a necessarily bad thing to me.Muslims, - I do not necessarily see it as a bad thing that they believe in God. (Unless their god is not our God) But again if their God is our God we again come back to the God of the bible!! Yes. We have different faiths, but the fact is I can only accept my faith for many reasons, including that of sin. And just look at what humans do. There is no justifying the violence that has taken place on this planet and there seems to me, to be only one way back to God. I can only see it as an act of the God to do something so un-selfish as to suffer for the sins of mankind. That's one reason..and one crucial difference.[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 04-13-2004]

Actually, mike, if you look at other forms of life, you can find mirror of our own tendacies, both good and bad. For example, war is not that uncommon a feature in nature. Ant colonies are notorius for it, and not just between seperate species either. Several primates species have also been known to engage in war. Usually its about territory, females, resources, ect, very similar to human reasons for war. Religion and ideals as reasons for war may be a new twist, but more often then naught, it is simply the rational humans use to engange in war. Other forms of violence can again be traced back to other species that engage in similar behaviors. For example, may mammilian species have examples of infanticide. Males will often kill offspring that are not their own in order to force the female to go back into breeding again. Additionally, it guarentees that those offspring won't be competing with the males future offspring either. Sadly, infantcide is common throughout the history of human wars. There are numerous examples in the old testament, where god commands the execution of entire populations (men, women, children).
(see Deuturonomy 20:16 and 20:17, see also 1 Samuel 15:2 and 15:3.) These were the two quick examples, I am sure I could find more if I took more time.

If God doesn't exist, but you reach the conclusion that he does, then you've done so through faulty reasoning.Obviously this isn't something I expect you just accept. I realize that this is a claim that I have to support and I do, every time I'm involved in a discussion of the existence of God. It's not so much that as it is the fact that any time someone has tried to substantiate the existence of their God, their proof has relied on one or more logical fallacies.I guess I'm waiting for the argument that substantiates God without being fallacious. What, I'm just supposed to fall in line just because everybody else is dumb enough to? You'll pardon me if maybe my standards for belief are a little higher than other peoples'. Is the answer ever "no"? If you'll accept that as an answer, how could a prayer ever be not answered?In other words your outcomes are exactly what I would expect if answered prayer was random.

This isn't the place for you to tout ant-bible things at me. Similarities in nature will not justify violent acts, and I don't really care for excuses for them. As far as I am concerned, Christ said "Love your enemy, bless those that hate you" (similar words). Yawn. God hasn't killed, humans have. God has lived his example of how to live - he has shown us and taught us, and Christ lived a life with no sin. "Thou shalt not kill" remains a teaching aswell as to love one another aswell as your enemies. If you are arguing that because of nature we kill, that is not an excuse. You are not an animal with no sense, you know what you do if you kill. Events in the Old Testament are irrelevant to this topic.How is it that as soon as I defend Christ your side tries to use events in the OT against me. In your two examples, I am confident I will find no teachings aimed towards us. Do not do this again as I am sick of none-believers using the Jewish bible against me. God isn't the bible but he is Christ. He lived more in Christ and he is more alive than a book is, therefore you cannot defeat his living example with events in the OT. If you can show me how a book is more alive than the living Word then you win, but you can't ofcourse.I know how sin was dealt with in times past, it was an eye for an eye in times past but not now. Bring hither these life forms so they can read or write the Commandment to not kill.

Actually, I can agree that the OT is a poor representation of christianity. Also, I put the post up to demonstrate that violence isn't so much a function of sin as it is biology. Violence is one those traits that is common throughout nature.
Additionally, by point of quoting the bible was to demonstrate how religion can be used as an excuse for violence. I am not saying that if their is a god, he would command others to violence. However, the OT does have such examples of men claiming that god ordered them to do great violence on others. As an example. As I said, man has no problem using the name of god, even to the point of saying its a command from god, as a reason to santify murder. Of course, Saul goes and attack and ALMOST utterly wipes out teh amelekites. What happens? According to the bible, god becomes angry that Saul didn't kill everything. (seems that Saul spared some cattle and the kind of the Amelekites, Agag.) Essentially, because Saul didn't kill Agag, he was striped of his kinghood over Isreal.Now, again, I hardly doubt it was god actually ordering the massacre (given that I am an athiest.). In fact, I prefer to believe that Samuel was just a cruel person who had a taste for wee bit of the ultrs-violence (he did kill Agag after berating Saul for not doing so, and striping him of his kinghood.). If you take the bible to be literally true, you have a bloodthirsty god who has no problem ordering the destruction of entire tribes.As for the bible, I seriously don't understand why christianity even holds to the OT. I understand that the teaching of jesus are contained in the NT, and therefore have little to do with OT. However, considering that the whole reason there are any christian creationists is the OT, it seems that the OT is fair play.Again, my point was to show violence in a context of biology. I brought up religiius and ethical reasons for was an example of how we try to justify to ourselves some of the violence. Frankly, I think it at least demonstrates that most people are uneasy about violence and murder and need some form of reason. Since my personaly experience and knowledge of religions is manily related to christianity, I picked an example from the bible.Of course, this is all off topic from the discussion between you and crash and has little to nothing to do with any of our beliefs, except in the most tangental way, which was to demonstrate that "sin" is not neccesary to explain violence and misery, when biology does that quite well on its own. I consider our repugenence of such violence, and our awknoledgment that our lives are better without it as a sign that our consciousness and humanity do have value and can help us deal with biology of violence, and hopefully limit its effects.

But evidence cannot conclude God or no God. Science does not have a conclusion because God cannot be deduced using Methodological Naturalism. If you think you have evidence that says God doesn't exist - I can now say science is flawed and anti-God. Do you really want to invite the creos in? I have just gave you one. My prayers are all "hits" with no none-hits and no answers "no". The answer is hardly ever "no" and to be honest, I cannot even remember an answer that was simply "no" or (no = nothing happened).But ofcourse, we will have to over-simplify the prayer to understand it in that context. Lol, I guess I am a dumby who falls in line then. However, there never was a "line" to be honest. It was a discovery of my own.

Mike,Let's clarify something here. Scientific methodology makes no statements about God's existence because there's no way to conclude scientifically about something that can't be defined. "Supernatural" entities aren't excluded from MN just because they share some attribute of supernatural-ness, but because there's no reason to assume they're even there at all.Methodological Naturalism could in fact conclude that there's a God if there were any objective evidence of His existence. The absence of such evidence leads most of us to assume that God is either nonexistent or just irrelevant to scientific inquiry, but believers are adamant that this pretend (excuse me, supernatural) entity must be considered as part of empirical evidential inquiry. However, the terms empirical and evidential pretty much mean that science ignores any claim that can't be supported with empirical evidence. If scientific methodology were to introduce invisible, undetectable entities, where would the list end?This is why creationism at its basis is anti-scientific. If I have to assume the existence of a creator, and assume that there is an objective way to verify this creator's existence, and assume that belief in this creator expands our understanding of natural phenomena, and assume that everything is the way it is because that's the way the creator wanted, and assume that scientific data which don't support any objective notion of purposeful design should be ignored, and assume that natural law can be nullified at any time through the intervention of the creator, and assume that nothing in Nature is the product of mindless processes even if it appears to be, then I might as well give up any hope of meaningful scientific endeavor.regards,
Esteban Hambre

MikeIf all your prayers are hits, will you kindly pray that all HIV and AIDS sufferers in Zimbabwe are cured on 20th April.I have chosen just a small country in Africa, so that the task is not too onerous.I will keep an eye on the news to see if your prayers come true. If they do, then I will become a believer.

I'll take that bet...Zimbabwe only has about 11.3 million people, and let's say 25% have aids/hiv.... That's only 2.8 million that would have to be cured....

I hope it's ok for me to say something here.If an seemingly powerful entity ever appear to me, there are many possibilities to consider besides God.1. Could be an alien pretending to be the creator. You should see Stargate SG-1.2. Could be a magician playing a trick on me.3. Could be my own imagination or hallucination.4. Could be a dream.5. Could be a million other possibilities that I can't think of.Whatever the situation is, I will immediately try to test the validity of this entity and, if necessary, take a trip to a mental institution.I am not arrogant enough to assume that my senses are always 100% accurate. I always have doubt in everything that I see, hear, or do, including my emotional responses.With that said, I am very very skeptical of claims that say something like "God only wants me to see him... I'm the chosen one and noone else...." If God is there and it absolutely wants us all to worship him and be its slaves, then please tell him to give the rest of us some kind of hint that can't be explained by any conventional method. No faith, please.Regarding the conclusion of non-existence, until there is some kind of evidence that remotely suggest there is a God, we can't simply conclude that it exists. It's like saying somewhere out there, there is a planet that is made of cheese. Since we haven't been to many places in space, I suppose it's possible to have a planet made of cheese... not probable though. Just because it's remotely possible doesn't mean it exists!