Written for Reasonable Faith.

Post 1

On another thread, a Christian mentioned losing respect for a certain atheist because he demanded evidence from Christians to back up their claims for God.

My question is: Exactly why should Christians not provide proof for this elusive God if they insist the rest of us believe on him??? OR if they insist laws be made in favour of their beliefs in this God and that the rest of us "respect" their beliefs in this "God"???

I realize the poster is from Canada where Christians have not yet taken quite so ridiculous a stand as in the American South, but I think Canadian Christians should be held just as accountable as Americans for their beliefs. We atheists are always giving account of our beliefs when asked, and "turn about is fair play," as my mother used to say. So let's hear it.

In case you think all religions are like this, I have yet to see the believers in Thor make remotely similar requests. In fact, I have to beg them to talk about their beliefs--not because they are ashamed of their god because they are not ashamed, but because they refuse to be obnoxious and over-bearing like Christians.

So I repeat my question: Exactly why should Christians NOT provide evidence or support for their arguments for God's existence? They are pretty much the only group of Western people who consider themselves to be exempt from the obligation of providing evidence for their claims. Why is this? What makes them think they think they are so special?

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Post 49

I'd forgotten all about this baby. Seems I touched a nerve with my question, did I? Reading the Christian "answers" is rather--what shall I say--condescending. By that I mean that the Christian answers are seriously condescending. Only Harvey attempts at providing serious answers. All the others do nothing but ridicule atheists for not understanding their convoluted thinking. But they refuse any and all attempts at clarifying. GTBarron is an excellent case in point.

No point in me attempting to explain what I mean because he does nothing but ridicule atheists for not getting him. Seems he has never read Jesus' warning about not calling people fools (Matt. 5:22), or Peter's command to always have an answer for those who ask (1 Pet. 3:15). Yet for some reason he thinks he's in a position to ridicule atheists for not being as smart as he is. Very interesting.

As for my evidence for no supernatural realm--it doesn't even look at the natural sciences. The social sciences hold the key for anyone who cares to probe their depths. Not the problem of evil or any other single problem. And philosophy does not count as a social science because it isn't a science to begin with. The natural sciences support the evidence but certainly don't provide the key information.

No, maybe none of the sciences--social or natural--contain the key information. It is the total and absolute lack of information precisely where it should most necessarily be found that provides the key. That not a single theologian dares address the most important question of Christian theology, namely How can the dead body of Jesus benefit the spiritual souls of Christians on their trek to heaven (We are saved through the shed blood of Christ), proves to me that there are no answers. That the question on which all theist religions depend, i.e. What is the evidence for God's existence?, has never yet been answered by any theist of any religion is the other basis for not staking one's life and eternity on an afterlife.

There are natural explanations for the natural world and they have been proven in the laboratory by science, so it is stupid to use nature as evidence of the supernatural. Thus, to say the existence of the universe is evidence of a Creator requires a very high degree of dishonesty. We humans do not at this point in history know for sure how the universe was formed, but we have such logical hypotheses postulated by various scientists that the God hypothesis cannot be taken seriously by any honest seeker of truth.

[In Post 24 a Christian talked about "logical necessity" being "metaphysical." See the original for the full quote.

My response:]

I am dumbfounded at the idea that you imagine that logic is metaphysical. If by metaphysical you mean the supernatural, then you're simply wrong-headed. It seems you are arguing for a position that allows you to be atheist and a god-believing Christian at the same time without admitting it.

There may be a legitimate position for your convictions but it seems to me like you have not yet fully developed your conceptual system. You may want to read up on the works of liberal Christian thinkers such as Marcus Borg or John Shelby Spong. Here I post links to videos where they speak.

[This Christian has indicated that he does not want his quotes posted here. For this reason, I am replacing his quotes with brief summaries inside square brackets. Interested parties can look up the original posts for the full quotes.]

Post 51



As a group, Christians have throughout the past two thousand years used every conceivable means to convert all peoples and nations with whom they come into contact. Commonly, starting with the apostle Paul in the New Testament, they go out looking for people to convert. Jesus commanded it in the Great Commission passage so don't pretend not to know about this.

The sword and mass baptism was used across Europe and Russia. Similar means of military force were used in North and South America, Africa, and other lands colonized by Europeans in the last five centuries. Another means is to offer humanitarian help in poverty or disaster-stricken lands only if people accept Christian teachings. This is called "coming with bread in one hand and the Bible in the other."

Then there are the street preachers, and the door-knockers who do all within their power to convert strangers. There is also the innate hatred shown to any and everyone who does not submit to Christian beliefs. For example, people ask--nay beg--me to disclose my beliefs. But when I tell them, they turn cold on me. There is no clearer message that being Christian--or at least religious--is better than not believing in the supernatural.

If you do not accept that this is Christians insisting as a group that everyone believe in their God, then you are simply being thick-skulled and I do not take responsibility for your mental state.



Um, you are showing a distinct lack of social insight that I think is willful ignorance to some degree. So Christian leaders have major systematic telephone trees to tell their fellow believers HOW to vote in order to get their favourite guy into office. They will use under-handed means to get their man if they think they can get away with it. They are by no means above lying. This is well-documented.

And when they have voted their man or woman into office, they will do what needs to be done to get laws made to teach creationism/ID in the science classroom. You claim a high level of education, yet you pretend not to know about these things. Something does not ring true. That is probably because it isn't true.



It is a most ridiculous stand to strong-arm governments into allowing the teaching of ID as science in the public school classroom, as have done various school boards in states such as Kansas. ID is not science; it is a lie and cannot pass off for science. [For Atheist Apologist readers, see the thread in the Science section on the Dover Trial.


[Some of the exchange with gtbarron has been cut due to its personal nature. Interested parties can look up the original.]

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Post 67

Responding to gtbarron's Post 60




Sorry, sir, but you can't change the rules of dialogue just to suit your religion. You supplied the phrase "Christians as a group," and I worked with it. Across history, "Christians as a group" includes mostly people other than evangelical. In today's world, if you look at Christians as a group percentage wise, evangelicals are in the minority.

Theologically, only God is in a position to judge who is a true Christian. I am of horse and buggy Mennonite stock and they are the True Christians if ever there were any. People with TV and internet access--especially evangelicals--are supposedly the children of the devil. If you want to talk to me you're better off to leave out the "True Christian" card because you fail big time.

Of course, the Mennonite God is a God of grace and does not expect more of people than they have. Since you're such a misguided and uneducated evangelical of the world with only TV and a worldly education to draw from, I will condescend to speak to you so long as you don't pretend to be a True Christian. (Just because I'm an atheist now does not mean that I have lost my feeling of loyalty to my own people.)

But you don't get to change the meaning of common English words, such as Christian, at your will and wish. People who self-identify as Christian ARE Christian. You don't get to decide whether or not they qualify because you aren't God.

As for the word insist. You know full well what the word insist means. When military power and/or physical neediness are used to impose Christianity on nonChristians, that is a strong form of insistence. As I said in my first post to you:

If you do not accept that this is Christians insisting as a group that everyone believe in their God, then you are simply being thick-skulled and I do not take responsibility for your mental state.

You demonstrate a strong case of nonacceptance.

Post 68

The anonymous Christian above quoted my response to his quote about "logical necessity" thus:



He then asks me what I mean by supernatural and suggests that:

supernaturalism refers to those processes happening in nature that we have absolutely no physical explanation. It may conform to physical processes, or it may not, but it is supernatural because it appears to violate nature.

My response:

No, that is not what supernatural means in any literature or doctrine I have ever come across, Christian or atheist. I forget specifically who it was--an atheist if I'm not mistaken, but the definition agreed with what I learned from Christians of all stripes. Supernatural simply means above the natural world that all of us know about, i.e. above nature. That may not be the exact words but something to that effect. "Super" means above, better than, etc.--in this case "above/better than the natural."

Anyone who follows the work and discoveries of natural scientists knows full well that there are many things in the natural world that "appear to violate nature," or the known laws of nature. Theists like to stick God on there. That's where you get the "God of the gaps."

Anyone cognizant of the history of thought knows that this God of the gaps has kept moving from one gap to another these past several centuries.



Okay, now I looked up the word metaphysics in Answers.com and I see that you may have some grounds for what you're saying. Here is the first sentence of the article part-way down the page:

Branch of philosophy that studies the ultimate structure and constitution of reality — i.e., of that which is real, insofar as it is real.

God is also mentioned. I had thought any reference to metaphysics meant God or the supernatural. Logic, on the other hand, is not supernatural. Logic is simply that which makes sense, given the five senses humans possess, along with the human intellect and emotion, in the context of the universe as we experience and know it. Can't get much more down-to-earth than that and it's not supernatural in the least.

Now if you wish to make claims about the ancient Greek term Logos, you need to do more than simply use the present-day English term logic. The term Logos does not translate into any present-day English word, and it does not mean what we normally mean by logic. I understand that it refers to a supernatural understanding of "Word," as in "The Word became flesh and dwelt among humans" (John).

But you still have not provided evidence of this "something" that you claim exists "above and beyond the material realm." In keeping with the topic of this thread, why do you think that you should not provide evidence for this?

[He goes on to introduce concepts such as "Other class of objects," "metaphysical logic," and "dumb luck."]

So you are saying the world we live in is mathematical and that this is proof that there is an "Other class of objects that is supernatural"? And that if people do not accept this hypothesis, then the only alternative is "dumb luck"? But that is ridiculous.

Things in the natural world work the way they do because of the environment in which they evolved. That we have not yet, after five centuries of study and research, figured out exactly how everything in the universe works and where it all comes from, in no way proves that there is a Creator or supernatural Mind behind it. It only proves that we humans have not yet figured out all there is to know. And am I ever glad that something remains for our late generation to learn, discover, or invent. How very dull life would be if there weren't!

[He suggests that the mataphysical realm is mathematical, and that the material realm comes out of this. Atheists, he claims, are lost "between the ontic and empistemic."]

I don't know the definitions of your big words, nor do I know enough math to prove you wrong, but lost is one thing I am not. Lassie couldn't read a GPS, either--not to mention the thing wasn't invented yet, but she found her way home despite of this handicap (see Lassie Come Home).

Possibly my deep appreciation and respect for the beauties and power of the elements of our planet are what convinced me on the most basic level since earliest childhood that the natural world cannot be evidence of God. More than that, Christianity preaches that evidence for God must come from outside of anything with natural explanations. That's simply the way things work. I've always been convinced of this.

Like everyone else, you claim that such and such could not possibly have come to pass or exist were it not for the existence of God or Something beyond the natural. The only thing needed to prove/disprove such a statement is one experiment to prove that a natural explanation is possible. These have been provided for every single argument you present here.

So why don't you as a Christian have to provide hard evidence for your claims? All you provide is philosophical arguments, and philosophical arguments can neither heal the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the cold, or in any other way contribute practically to real life. For these we need science, math, etc. not to mention good old hard work.

Post 74

The Christian quoted me thus:



He explained that he think with this "conceptual framework," either a person will "see evidence" or "no evidence."

My response:

Once again we have the Christian dictating what the atheist believes or thinks or sees. And the Christian is simply wrong. You pretend to know that I "framed the world" in "my" "particular conceptual framework."

Well, you're wrong, whether or not you admit it.

No matter how often I tell Christians here, they refuse to believe me, and that makes all of you unbelievers and skeptics. I will tell you again: As a young child it made no sense to me that the world around me was evidence for God. From the first time I was told as a child about Jesus dying so we could get to heaven it made no sense.

Jesus said that UNLESS YE BECOME AS LITTLE CHILDREN YE SHALL IN NO WISE ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. These are the questions that came to me as a little child. They were never answered and I refused to let them go. Because if the questions were valid then, they are still valid. It would be so much easier to just go with the flow and accept what everyone else believes. But that is being intellectually lazy.

We all know that it is the dead fish that float on top of the flow of the stream; it takes a live fish to swim against the intellectual current. Likewise, it takes a living and active mind to ask the tough questions when most adults just "go with the flow" of mainstream Christian society.

And if you don't think that the bedrock of mainstream Western society is Christian, please explain to me:

1. How come the highest holiday season of our society is based on the birth of Christ.
2. And why the next highest holidays are based on his death and resurrection, and on thanking him for a bountiful year.
3. And why does American money bear the words "In God we trust"?
4. Also, why the strong Christian outrage when Michael Newdow won the case to remove the words "under God" from the American Pledge of Allegiance?

The over-arching mindset and culture of Western society is Christian alright. But--and this is extremely important--in order for a person to become a Christian, that person must first overcome those incredulous innocent questions of childhood: How do we know an invisible God exists? And how can we come alive again after we are dead?

So I have chosen not to "frame the world," but to retain the innocent and honest view children are born with. It is YOU who have "framed the world" with a "particular conceptual framework." And you had better come up with evidence that proves its validity or you're the laughing stock of the world for good reason. That includes all Christians. Because humans aren't born this way.

[He claims to see "tons and tons of physical evidence for God." He thinks a "conceptual framework" changes, which causes one to see no evidence.]

As shown, it was your conceptual framework that changed. Now let's see your "tons and tons of physical evidence." If there is no evidence, and if all you have is philosophy, then it's just so much hot air. Prove me wrong if you can. Remember, we're both on the same planet in the same universe and we both share the same human characteristics.

You probably have very little that I don't have so far as concerns insight and knowledge. We share a common language so you should be able to explain in a way that makes sense to me even though I'm an atheist. We both know that heavy objects fall down, not up. And that hot air rises up, not down. That is how the physical material world works. You claim to have physical evidence.

So you think "hard evidence is not an appropriate means [by which] to review whether God exists or not"? How, then, do you claim to know he exists? You said you had "tons and tons of physical evidence." You also talk about changing a conceptual framework. Do you rearrange concepts to invent a sphere of existence that is nowhere but in your mind? If so, then even you must admit that it really does not exist--am I correct?



So a person has to be a Christian before they can understand Christianity? Once again, you're just plain wrong. I took it on trust when I was seventeen and my trust was betrayed. Thus, becoming a Christian in order to understand Christianity doesn't work. Never again. Next time I'm going to read the fine print and insist on understanding all the details BEFORE I commit. So please explain. I'm listening.

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The Definition/Meaning of Christian[/align]

In Post 76, etiainen responded to my four points on what "Christian" means. Basically, he argued that only people who think like he does are true Christians (though he does not realize this--see Posts 79 & 80), and that my definition was just plain wrong. I responded with:

Post 77 Tradition, culture, zeitgeist, whatever--it is Christian and not Buddhist, Toa-Ching, or some other exotic label. You are no more--and no less--Christian than the other two billion people on our planet who self-identify as Christian.

In Post 78 he argues that "Christian" means "true discipleship," only he does not realize that this is what he is arguing. I reply with:

Post 84

That would be you deciding what Christian has to mean for two billion other people. Sorry but you don't get to do that. "True individual discipleship" is not necessarily what it means to be Christian. That is a very new idea coined sometime since 1900--most likely since 1950. In church history, that is an extremely new and strange doctrine. The NT warns against such in very strong language.

Post 83



That includes all evangelicals.
...................

I responded like this because I think I have evidence that God does not exist and I also think all evangelicals claim--against all the evidence--that God exists. Therefore, they are lying. I know a lot of people don't consider it to be lying when somebody believes that what they are saying is true. However, in my opinion it is time for Christians to come up with the evidence to support their claims, esp. in a thread asking them why they consider themselves to be exempt from doing so. Also, enough Christians express serious doubt re God's existence so that I don't think they are truly honest when they say they God exists. That makes them liars on some level.

In Post 81, my anonymous Christian seems to be saying that all humans and even animals have conceptual frameworks and that these were "encoded" via evolution. His explanation reminds me very strongly of Pascal Boyer's description in Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought on how religious thought may have originated.

This Christian talks about "neural architecture" that "structures the incoming data" and that this somehow impacts "how the perception of that data is structured." He further suggests that believers and unbelievers are born with different neural architecture. At least, that is what I understand him to be saying amid all his terminology and theory. I am still waiting for him to reply. Here is what I say to him:

Post 85

So are you saying that the way a person is born determines whether or not that person is a Christian? What, then, is the purpose of preaching? Or evangelizing?



So now you admit that life experience has some input, too. So which is it--nature or nurture?

Also, how dare you presume that a person with limited vision had a conceptual scheme that accepts only that which can be seen? I wrote about my limited vision in one of these posts. In addition, I have written much about the value of evolution. You know that I have not personally seen evolution. Yet you claim that I accept only things that I have seen. You make no sense.

....................

You say atheism asks me to believe that putting money in a slot machine makes me the richest woman in history??? I never heard the likes. Not until just now. What are you high on?

That is a strange thing for you to say. I thought an atheist was a person who did not believe in God. On my own I examined all the Christian literature I had access to and I failed to find evidence of God, so I in great misery and reluctance arrived at the awful conclusion that there is no God and that this makes me an atheist. I also talked to any Christian who was willing to talk to me but there were very, very few, and they had no answers.

*****************************
Just now I saw his answer.

He says I should cut my questions down to a few succinctly-worded replies if I want him to respond.

I am not going to do that. I never expect him to respond because he is totally unreliable to do so. For some unknowable reason, this time he did maintain a lengthy discussion with me. It was the first time in more than a year.

If he does not respond to my post, it seems that either I correctly understood his post or that he does not take his views very seriously and that I am allowed to apply any twist to his words that they seem to suggest. If he took his posts seriously, it seems that he would be willing to sort through my post to be sure that I correctly understood his message. He indicates an unwillingness to do this.

Post 88

Responding to Post 4



I will explain why these arguments cannot begin to "compel"--why they simply do not convince.

[Read the original for his full arguments. I will copy a few points from each and possibly summarize in my own words.]



Blind Processes: According to some of the other posts, I understand that by "blind processes" you mean evolutionary processes not guided by a divine mind. I consider this a serious misnomer. Natural Selection is not "blind" at all if I correctly understand it. It is the natural tendency of nature to choose that which best serves its own purposes. For example, light-loving plants grow toward the sunlight and darkness-loving plants will thrive in dim forests.

Intention & Possible Worlds: No intention is required for this. It is natural selection working naturally the way it naturally evolved in its environment. This being the case, the argument for "possible worlds" evaporates into so much nonsense. While it is possible that there is life elsewhere in the universe, this "possible worlds" argument has nothing to do with that theory and does not apply.

All of this being the case, this is definitely no compelling argument for the existence of God.



"The universe had a beginning." Thus spake William Lane Craig and the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Thus spake Genesis 1, and the Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Thus, also, spake most other humans ever to walk this earth. None of this makes it true. The truth is that none of us know.

It is a fact that the Bible tells us that life is eternal. It is also a fact that astrophysicists have come up with ideas that postulate eternalism for life. In other words, if their hypotheses turn out to be anywhere near correct, then life may not have had a beginning--at least, not in any way that humans can conceive of as a beginning. Thirteen-point-seven billion years is an awful long and incomprehensible time for human brains. If their ideas are on track, that is but a negotiable moment. And if life is eternal, then so is time because "eternal" is all about time. Thus, we don't know that the universe had a beginning. We simply don't know.

And there goes your basis for God.



Oh wow! This world is mathematical. How come I can find my way around, given that my brain does not get along with math? The world is more likely to be a poem than a math equation. But come to think of it, the world is a cosmic electrical charge run awry. That would explain the randomly scattered mountain ranges blocking off the shortest route to everywhere. It would also explain the extreme struggle of humans--and other species--simply to survive.

Since you are so seriously off-track on this one, what reason do I have to think you know anything about invisible, imperceptible, abstract things like God?

I have none!

Let me add for Atheist Apologist. It makes no sense to me that just because humans have been able to figure out mathematical equations to explain how celestial bodies correlate that this should somehow also serve as proof for God's existence. Exploring our world is what we do; we begin as infants and some of us continue so long as we are of sound mind. Though some scoff at space exploration, they use without hesitation the medicine, clothing, and technology we get as a spin-off from this research.



It is brute factly true that an asteroid probably struck the planet at some point in its past--my mathless brain does not have the date on the tip of its tongue. Brute factly, that would have caused a sudden change on every level of its evolution from that point on--without God....

I'm reading your statement again. I can't figure out if you're saying there was a change or there wasn't. There was a change in our planet because the dinosaurs disappeared and we--along with the other species on our planet today--eventually evolved. If you are talking about the larger universe surrounding our planet, I guess you are saying it all stayed the same throughout the millennia. The reason for that would be because universes don't change faster than that. There was some change during the life of our planet but it seems you are not acknowledging it. Again, all of this happened without God. And the explanations I came across did not include God so I don't know how your argument--whatever it is supposed to be--proves God's existence.



There probably is a reason but you provide nothing to convince me that God is that reason. I am sure I read about it somewhere but again, we are up against math. Not to mention that numbers can be set up any way you like but numbers alone prove nothing.



As I explained above--the processes are not "blind."




I think it is not so much that the atheist view fails miserabley as it is that you fail miserably to carefully examine the atheist's actual view. Please read some real science. On this topic of astrophysics I would recommend Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Stephen Weinberg. FYI, they do not agree.



Elsewhere you claim that philosophy is the best place to begin looking at the problem of God's existence. Here you accuse atheists for not providing evidence for their position. You are refusing to look at the evidence, Harvey. Philosophy may not be the best place to look. Science--all of the sciences--are the place to look. Why? Because the sciences are the study of the world, nature, and the cosmos as it exists. Philosophy is anything you make it but science operates along rigid rules of universally agree-upon scholarship.

Your claim that atheists are closed-minded re the idea that the universe contains intentional causes??? You dare say that in a thread on which an atheist pleads for Christians to provide evidence for their claims??? Please, just provide the evidence so I can see it. Prove your open-mindedness on the matter.



Good, because it is rather boring when all your premises work on one faulty principle, i.e. there has to be a Creator because blind processes could not have brought about [one of ten different items/issues of the natural world you chose to list]. I had hoped for something more intellectually challenging--something that has never been posted on these forums or preached about in church or written about in hymns. "God" is rather uncreative when it comes to answering deep and searching questions.

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Post 123



In the week or so since I wrote that there have been tornadoes in various heavily populated areas of Southern Ontario. One person, an eleven-year-old boy, was killed and many hundreds of people are homeless. In one town, six hundred homes are damaged (missing roofs, etc.), and two hundred are beyond repair. Power is/was out.

Thousands of trees are splintered and need to be cleaned up. The storms came without warning, lasted about two seconds, and left all this havoc in their path. Noise--loud like a freight train, swirling debris, people coming out after the storm was over and feeling overwhelmed at the viewing the destruction of the neighbourhood--those at the things people talk about when asked to describe the experience.

Here are a few links to pictures and articles of the destruction:

• Article: Article: Tornadoes tear through Ontario
• An aerial view of homes in Vaughan, Ont.
• Toronto CTV (2nd and 3rd links on the right show damage from ground and air.)

If this is your idea of fun...just thought to mention this after what you wrote.

Post 126

So we've gone NINE PAGES and Christians have neither:

• provided evidence for the existence of their god
• nor explained why they should not provide any

At the same time they insist, imply, and in every other way put out the message that not accepting their beliefs is insanely stupid. See posts and threads such as:

Post 114: That sounds like an argument from PETA!! (extremism)

Post 116: I hope you are happy in lala land. (implies total lack of accountability/responsibility)

How much do you have to hate someone? (implies that anyone who resists the idea of evangelism promotes hate)

I predict that the Christians--if they respond at all to this post--will not respond to either of the bulleted points I listed, but to one or more of the proofs that I linked for what they do instead of answering. It's what they are raised and trained to do: Distract from real answers.

In so doing, they would only prove my point.

In not responding at all, they would also prove my point. How so? Because a real god would leave real evidence perceptible to real human beings. Those are the rules of logic and life. WLC claims faith is reasonable, i.e. logical. So do his followers. Neither WLC nor his followers get to change the rules of logic to suit their religion. The changes they institute are false witness and their religion forbids them to bear false witness.

They claim God exists and that this is obvious. Let them provide the evidence, or explain why they are exempt from providing such evidence.

Post 130



So the reason you provide no evidence for God's existence is because you think there is none to provide? Fair enough. That being the case, why do you continue to promote your religion?



"Arrogant anthropomorphization"? I think you're getting lost in words too big for your mouth because anthropomorphization as a concept can hardly be arrogant. That aside, if God is not self-evident, then how come two billion humans say they know he exists? If they do not know he exists, then why do they arrange their lives as though he existed? For example, why do they perform special rites and rituals such as consume his (symbolic or real) flesh and blood and baptize people (of whatever age) in his name? The need to point out these things on a Christian forum seemed obviously superfluous but since you asked, here it is.

Other items include the great cathedrals, the images of the saints in some churches, the crucifix, the Crusades, the weekly (or more) worship services/masses, the parochial schools and publishing businesses to promote education, belief, and worship in God's name, the musical instruments and choirs, great classical works of art...the list goes on. All of these items require vast amounts of time and resources. One automatically arrives at the conclusion that Christians think God is self-evident. Not to mention that I have heard people say "I KNOW God exists. You just KNOW it!"

They always fail to explain HOW they know it--beyond pointing to nature and claiming life itself and the natural world proves it. The problem with that is that natural answers have been found for most of those things so that it is reasonable to think that answers will be found for the few remaining items. This being the case, yet religious people continue to cling to their beliefs despite all the odds, one is pushed to the conclusion that there must be evidence that Christians refuse to provide.

Where is it? Why don't you provide it?

Post 132



[He disagreed very strongly with my discussion of his ten arguments; I did not post that discussion. This post is a continuation of that disagreement. I think he takes it personally that I state here that no evidence has been provided, despite the fact that he posted his ten arguments.]

I realize that this is your position. I also realize that real teachers who have actual course content will take the time to clarify their material for students who have demonstrated a desire to understand. As you very well know, you have not shown in what way you think my argument is flawed; you have only stated your opinion of my reasoning capabilities. Since your opinion differs sharply with that of most people in my life, I feel at liberty to take it lightly.

When and if you are ready to discuss that post respectfully, you can post your response and see whether I am still interested. You will have to address what I consider to be the major flaw in your argument.

[Five hours later, in Post 137 he quotes me:

When and if you are ready to discuss that post respectfully, you can post your response and see whether I am still interested. You will have to address what I consider to be the major flaw in your argument.

and explains that I was "addressing natural selection" while he was "addressing the fundamental laws of the universe."]

I reply in Post 140:

Okay, I'll have look at it again sometime when I have a large block of time available. In the mean time, I am not sure what you mean by the "fundamental laws of the universe." I have not heard that any such thing is known to humans, i.e. based on what I have read and heard from lectures, I am of the impression that no unified theory has yet been found to tie together all the various theories of the various disciplines required to describe how the known universe works. I understand that it is very much a work in progress, and that scientists do not expect this work to be completed in this generation. But each generation contributes its own share and with time more can be known. Maybe when I read it again I'll get it figured out.

[That is the point of the conversation at the moment. Since it is rather late at night, it may be a while before he posts more.]

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Post 138



If you can talk about a "personal experience of God," obviously, God must exist. Otherwise, you could not have a personal experience of him. It seems to me that this would be your answer to my question re what is your evidence for God. However, one cannot just make a statement, "I experienced God." One must also define what this experience is like and how one knows that what one experienced was God and not something else.



You are to be commended for your honesty. No Christians I have known allow room for doubt; they condemn doubt as the devices of the devil. I think I've seen posts on these forums in which Christians said one either believes or does not believe--that there is no such thing as not knowing. I know they are wrong when it regards people leaving Christianity but that does not keep the Christians from making these presumptuous statements.

I've seen Christians on these forums express doubt, but always in the context of something that needs to be overcome, or as a weakness. Once I shared this with a group of atheists and agnostics and they were astonished that any Christians would admit to doubt. Note the word "admit." We can believe that doubt exists but Christians never admit of it.

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For the most part, I try to stay away from terms like "imaginary friend," or "wishful thinking." But you refer to Paul's "definition of faith," and quote his phrase "things hoped for." This phrase "things hoped for" directly appeals to such terminology, i.e. you hope for it--you are wishing it were true but you really have no way of actually knowing for sure. In the KJV, on which I was raised, that verse (Heb. 11:1) says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

So you've got the word "evidence" in there. If you've got evidence for something, you've got proof for it--solid, tangible proof. But Paul never gets around to taking it beyond that assertion. I've read the NT many times over and nowhere does Paul, or any other NT writer, explain faith beyond this. People in the Bible--Old and New Testaments--do all kinds of things because they trust God. The NT explains this. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son and Abraham prepares to do it. In the nick of time, God stops him and takes his willingness as the deed.

In another story a man promises God to sacrifice the first one to meet him on his return if God grants him victory in a certain battle. The man wins the battle and his daughter comes to meet him. He is obligated to sacrifice his daughter in human sacrifice. This story comes much later in the OT than the Abraham and Isaac story. The Abraham and Isaac story is repeated in the NT and in sermons today; the other is not.

We are told that the Abraham story is God's way of telling us that human sacrifice is wrong, so why did the other guy so much later have to kill his only daughter who was also his only child? To just say "God moves in mysterious ways" or "God's ways are past finding out," or some other such platitude, is not sufficient for this kind of monstrous inconsistency. The most logical conclusion would be that there is no god to dictate human morals and behaviour and that both these men--Abraham and this later guy (whose name I don't remember)--just followed their own inner convictions and intuitive hunches.

The writer of Hebrews explains in great detail how the rituals and figures of Solomon's Temple are fulfilled in Jesus. What that writer fails utterly to explain is why God needs a sacrifice to begin with--why a perfect and almighty God cannot just forgive us like you and I have to forgive each other WITHOUT a sacrifice to pacify him. Nor does any other NT writer, or later theologian, explain it. We humans consider it a mark of maturity if we can forgive and overlook the failings in each other. Why must God not meet the same criteria for maturity? This is why exChristians so often refer to the Christian God as a two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum.



This does not jibe with another argument I see a lot on here. Christians love to argue that the apostles would not have allowed themselves to be martyred if they had not known for sure that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. And for the bodily resurrection of Jesus to have occurred in history, we all know that the existence of God is presupposed. At least, I have yet to hear of an atheist NT scholar who believes that Jesus' resurrection is historical. I know of NT scholars who are professing Christians who do not believe the resurrection occurred in history but not of atheists who believe it did. That kind of argument is simply not made by people who readily admit of doubt regarding the reality of God's existence. This is so much the case that I suspect you of stretching the truth in making this statement.

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[Ibelcaniva believes that "due to the limits of human reasoning," humans may feel that they "cannot ever fully justify God's existence in a purely logical sense," and for this reason they "devote so much to God." If I remember correctly, ibelcaniva is Catholic, so he may be referring to items such as the cathedrals I mentioned. I have heard that there are some very large and richly ornate cathedrals in Europe built in medieval times by the Roman Catholic Church. I respond to his line about "human reasoning":]

Human reasoning is not the only means by which we know things. I know my computer exists because I can experience it via the senses. I'm not sure how I can justify belief in my computer's existence via logic. If no natural explanation could be found for things such as thunder and the light of day, it would make sense to think that thunder is God's voice and that light is his eye. But even primitive man could observe that clouds and thunder were related, and that light of day and the sun had a great deal in common. To conclude that a Being existed behind the clouds and sun required a large amount of abstract thinking.

According to cave paintings, Cave Man was quite capable of such abstract thinking ten thousand years ago. For the Egyptians and ancient Israelites to come up with deities five and three thousand years ago was but child's play. For some reason, educated humans still like to cling to the ancient deities. Gods die hard. Also, a batch of new deities and gods were introduced from about five to two thousand years ago. Biblegod and Jesus are among these.

And you emphasize that it is assurance that people seek, hope. Sounds like wishful thinking. Well, for me it's like Carl Sagan says: It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is... Somehow, I do better in dealing with reality than with conjuring up pretend entities and hoping/wishing they are for real at the end of the road.

If, at some point in time, you can provide evidence to prove these entities are for real, I'm open to investigating it. But you got to remember I have already investigated an awful lot so you need to provide something of which I have not already done an exhaustive investigation.

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[He promises in Post 141 to get back to me but not tonight.]