I Know That God Does Not Exist

Sounds like the argument against an intelligent cause for life when such a belief is compared to believing in Santa Claus for example.

I guess I was a bit obtuse. The point was simply that you had accused me with using an argument from incredulity. Fair enough, but the argument that I hear against the belief in an intelligent agent responsible for life, is also an argument from incredulity. I used as an example the use of Santa Claus to make the point. Obviously an adult belief in Santa Claus in an incredulous belief and so the inference is that belief in a deity is also incredulous.Hope that helps.

My claim the I know God exists is simply a way of saying that I "know" that God exists using the same definition and understanding of what it means to know something that Stile used. Neither of us actually "knpw" that our positions are correct.The NASA quote was simply to make the point of the contrast of the early universe to the arrival of conscious sentient life. My only point is that there are subjective beliefs within science as well. I'm inclined to think that if someone spends their working life trying to prove a hypothesis then they subjectively believe in it. Are you saying that because we can show that heat is necessary to boil water by a natural process that all natural processes are the result of mindless origins? How did this "network" bring about an evolutionary process out of the initial materials of the universe? But we have scientific evidence that at one time within our universe which is subject to time and entropy there was no cellular life and in fact no planets at all.

I pay taxes as well. Obviously what we are talking about is what we do with what we have left after taxes. We are also talking about what we do with or time. It isn't about the amount but the comparison between those who as Christians are active in their churches and those with no religious affiliation. You made the claim that there was no difference. I've simply shown you that what you claimed was well off the mark using secular sources.

Our universe as we experience it is restricted in time by only having one time dimension. Certain scientific theories, as I with something below minimal understanding of, propose having more than one dimension of time.Science also tells us that we are only able to perceive 4.5% of all that is. I subjectively believe that we are an emergent property of a greater reality and that God is not restricted to one dimension of time, and as a result God is not restricted in time as we are.

And just how do you know that? I have actually spent considerable time figuring out just what it is I do believe. I have read Dawkins, listened to Dawkins and Hitchens, read the posts of atheists on this forum and questioned what it is I believe.I have also spent considerable time reading various positions in Christian theology and have actually had my positions revised considerably bit by bit over the years.I don't accept that I wouldn't be able to accept the atheistic position. I am frankly, while acknowledging that I could be wrong, saying that to me the atheistic position makes no sense. I remember one of the outspoken atheists stating that he simply didn't like the idea of God. (Dawkins I think.)I suggest that maybe you are unable to overcome your emotional make up and hold your position because you can't accept the other possibility. I have given what evidence I have to show that the universe gives the appearance of design. As someone said, "it looks the world was prepared for our arrival". ...which also holds true for atheistic beliefs.

I guess that's easier than actually having to support your position.

There are 2 positions that we are talking about. 1/ Life as we know it today is the result of pre-existing intelligence. 2/ Life as we know it today is the result of random processes with no intelligent root cause.It is true that we only have objective knowledge of natural processes but that tells us nothing about the root cause of natural processes regardless of how many stages we want to back. Regardless of which option we choose we can be accused of making a positive claim on lack of evidence. Of course we do. What is the evidence for the why these natural processes exist? Where is the evidence for that statement? You claim that you have evidence that we got from there to here through mindless random processes without any intelligent involvement.

We all pay taxes to the same degree depending on income. The net difference is what we do with our after tax income. The secular studies I showed you confirmed that people who are regularly involved in religious activities in Canada and the US give considerably more to charities than do others. I have no idea how you got that out of what I said. I'm quite happy to agree with the idea of anyone who call themselves a Christian are a Christian. The surveys I linked to specified people who were to some degree or another actively involved in their churches.

I've already responded to that more than once in this thread. For that matter, even if that was true then so what?

Two things then. Firstly, It is my subjective belief that God is not restricted to linear time as we are. Science feels free to speculate about other dimensions of time.Secondly even if the intelligence that created us did require an intelligent origin then it doesn't negate the idea of us being created by that intelligence. However, I don't believe that to be the case, and I realize it brings up the turtles all the way down argument, I still maintain that it raises the same issue for there being nothing but natural processes. What process was responsible for evolution and what process was responsible for that process and again it's turtles all the way down.

That is simply part of the evolutionary process. How did the evolutionary process start: what was the process for the first cell; how about consciousness etc.

..just as you don't know the root process and what could have initiated it. Existence is evidence. What is the fundamental reason that it exists? you don't have an answer for the basis of existence so I fully understand you wanting to label the question and ignore it. ...and that evidence is?Also you say that it could have happened that way, which argues against Stile's original assertion.

That isn't the point. The point is that far more voluntary charity is done by those who regularly attend a church than those who don't as shown by secular studies.

Agreed, but the same thing can be said for the belief that there is nothing beyond natural processes. As far as the evolution of life is concerned we haven't been able to go back to the process that kicked off evolution. The answer is always we haven't discovered it yet. I notice that someone brought up "God of the Gaps' in a later post. What we have in your post is "science of the gaps".