Originally posted as Post 34 on Reasonable Faith.




Two things:

1. I know very well why I don't believe in God: I find no evidence for God so it is impossible for me to believe in him.
2. As you know, I've been asking ever since I've joined these forums for the basis of the Christians' belief. I have yet to find a Christian who can produce more than an emotional basis.

PROOF FOR NO-GOD

1. Christians go berserk when their god is challenged. Christians constantly ridicule atheists in their sermons and everyday conversation. But when their god is ridiculed, they go berserk--as though they had been personally stabbed in the heart or whacked over the head. If their god existed, they would calmly wait for God to avenge himself while they went about serving him unperturbed.

2. These forums are supposed to win the atheists over to Christ with the reason of faith, yet what has happened in the year and a quarter since I've been here? The atheist voice, which barely existed back in July 2008 when I arrived here, has gained a strong influence while some of our strongest Christian witnesses (such as forhisgrace and Lightfoot) have all but disappeared. If God existed, Christians would have brought forth convincing arguments to silence the atheist voice, as WLC advertises.

3. Before I ever came to these forums, I investigated everything humans (across time, geography, culture, and religion) have ever called "god" and there are natural explanations for all of these "gods." This includes the Judeo-Christian God or God of the Bible. Neither the natural sciences, nor the social sciences, have yet been able to produce any evidence whatsoever that would indicate the existence of a supernatural realm. Rather, all these sciences have produced vast libraries full of evidence that all that has ever been thought to be supernatural is, in fact, part of the natural universe.

Thus, if everything we as a species past and present have ever experienced, sensed, intuited, imagined, or in any other way perceived, is part of the natural universe, what is this thing/entity called God? NOTE: The above statement includes all things inside, outside, and of, the universe.

Possibly one more argument for the berserk Christians is Lightfoot's ever-recurring question as to why atheists keep bringing up the Santa Claus and fairy analogies. (See Post 4 in same thread.) As though no atheist had yet answered this question. I have answered it very well on a number of occasions (see here). Others have patiently walked him through the arguments time and time again. Yet he raises the question AGAIN--as though for the first time. One can only conclude a desperate man clutching at straws to prove to himself that his god actually exists.

Sorry, Lightfoot, but when you're in the middle of the ocean in a hurricane you need more than a bit of straw to save your life. You need much careful preparation that has nothing to do with praying to invisible deities above the roiling storm clouds, and you need to begin those preparations long before the storm strikes. Perhaps you should even postpone your trip until the storm has passed. The same kind of logic and critical problem-solving applies to the rest of life's difficulties.

FROM Post 58



According to the Bible and Christians, the supernatural overlaps directly with the natural in measurable ways. John 14:10 says "If you love me, keep my commandments." Christians therefore measure each other's "love for the Lord" by their behaviour in the natural body. There are a number of verses like this, esp. John 14:21, John 15:10. 1 John 2:3 & 4 uses the keeping of commandments (presumably in the natural body) as proof of knowing Jesus.


There are also verses promising peace to those who "keep these commandments," or "do those things." See for example Phil. 4:4,6-9, Isaiah 26:3: ?Thou wilt keep him in perfect?? peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life." Those who believe in these [beatitudes] are blessed--some translations say "happy," also a positive feeling.

Peace, incidentally, is a psychological function that can be measured with electronic technology and also via observation of behaviour, and with paper and pencil tests administered by psychologists.

The "keeping of commandments" manifests in everyday living behaviour, decisions, and in plans that impact life for future generations. It manifests in speech, in dress, in diet, in every facet of human life, depending on how an individual understands his or her God's commands. Every religion believes that keeping the commandments brings peace now, or in the hereafter. The "keeping of the commandments," however, always refers to this life on this planet.

For this reason, it logically follows that social scientists study people who "keep the commandments" of various religions. It also logically follows that individuals who keep the commandments of a specific religion expect peace to follow their obedience, and that if said peace does not follow a very long period of obedience that they begin to doubt the validity of the promise.

It further follows that if people of all religions and of no religion--including atheists--demonstrate the same level and quality of peace and inner well-being as do Christians, we conclude that the Christian message has nothing to offer in this life. Evaluate this over against the many promises in the Christian sacred text that "keeping the commandments" (which includes spiritual exercises such as prayer, worship, Bible reading, meditation, having faith, etc.) does indeed manifest in superior peace. I think you must admit that here in this interface there is a very broad overlap between the natural and the so-called supernatural.

That's just a quick over-view of the verses I could easily find. There's LOTS more in Christian theology, hymns, sermons, worship services, etc. that manifests in everyday natural life that can be and has been measured. An in depth study of other religions shows the same results. A study of the behaviours brought on by this "keeping of commandments" across religions forms a very distinct pattern. You don't want to know what that pattern is or what it implies.

That was the social sciences, not the so-called natural sciences, but they are based on the natural or physical world and life of humans.



You're stating this backwards. At least, this is backwards to how I stated my research question. I asked: Does the supernatural exist? If not, then God and hell cannot exist. If so, then and only then is there a possibility for the existence of God.

Stating it that way allowed me to observe nonChristian religions and to compare a larger number of people across a larger number of situations. In other words, my horizons opened up and my view was not so narrow. My study left me with much information but without answers at the time. Later, when I felt better informed, I drew on this information as evidence that there is a human inclination (strongly buttressed by overwhelming inner experience) to believe in the supernatural but that it all begins and ends in the human psyche.

There is MUCH I am leaving out in this post. You don't want to know it anyway. And if you do, you can visit your local secular comparative religions library.