To Catherineanne,
God is not sitting on his fluffy cloud waiting for you to make up your mind. Rather it is he who is actively prompting this need in you to find out, and to find the truth. None of us finds God. He finds us.
If He finds us, then what about free will? You mean our decision to follow God is not about free will, but about us being found by God instead? What about those who are never found by God? Why don't God just 'find' everyone.
To JohnDB
So, The question above does have me curious though.
What are you going to do with what you have learned here?
With an answer, I will come up with a decision I feel right, and having the decision being 'right' to me, I will want to help the people around me to choose what I believe to be right, like what you are doing now.
To soul_biscuit
You assumed that just because I didn't immediately acknowledge your arguments, I was being closedminded and doggedly dogmatic. You couldn't have known how offensive would find that, and that's not really your problem anyway, but the fact is your assumption was unfounded. You failed to consider that I simply don't agree with your arguments, or that I read them but didn't understand them, whether my fault or yours.
That's why they say "ASSUME makes a donkey out of U and ME."
I will like to address this issue FIRST, because I will like to end this needless arguement.
First, I didn't say anything about you not acknowleding any of my arguments and thus you being dogmatic and close-minded. I said, "You have stubbornly and repititively brought up similar arguements, which have been answered before."
I just do not want people to get too naggy and repeat the same points all over and over again, and therefore, you must open yourself to new ideas instead of being stuck to the few you have always mentioned. Did I say anything about you not acknowledging any of my arguments? No. You are definitely welcomed to dispute my points and convince me what you feel is right.
You may have found my words to be insulting or offensive, but I have emphasised time and again that my words do not reflect my tone of voice in this situation. I feel I had directed no harm nor personal attacks, but advice. Whether if you accept this explanation of mine or not is up to you, but I'll tell you that this is the case. You are still frequent in answering posts in this thread, and I do not want to spoil any harmony among us.
By the way, to assume is to make an ASS out of U and ME, not donkeys.
Ok, now let's move on.
I ask, then, what do you regard as a good reason for believing in God? You've intimated that the Bible may be such a reason, and I have responded that from the standpoint of reason and science, that simply isn't so. Is there another standpoint from which teh Bible can be regarded a good reason? Are there other good reasons?
It is good that you mentioned this. If no external verifications can prove God's existence effectively, probably we should try it through reasoning: to guess the thoughts of God, and to see in His point of view. First, we have to assume that God exist. To assume is not to accept, but to assume is to create a possible scenario for us to work our reasonings on, and from the level of reasoning we can acquire from the scenario, we can determine it's level of possibility, with a higher level proving that our assumption is the truth, or with a lower level proving that our assumption is flase.
Note that to assume is not to make claims that He exists, but to create a variable for out thought experiment in which we work on the possiblity of His existent.
An example of a topic of reasoning will be on the question of 'God's biasness' (refer to post 36) First, we have to decide if He is being biased, and if so, what is the purpose behind such biasness? And finally, is there a possible conclusion by God to solve this problem? If this question could be answered, we have made logical sense out of His actions, and this might prove that the assumption of His existence is true, otherwise it's false.
External verifications do not solve argue the question on God effectively. Physical evidence either disproves His existence or non-existence on the face-value, but if we probe further into the purpose of the existence of these 'physical evidences', we are into 'logical reasonings'. Again, this is to assume that He exists, and to assume is not to make claims that He exists, but to create a variable for out thought experiment in which we work on the possiblity of His existence.
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And to quote two of your sentences.
If your only point about external verification is that it can never show that God does not exist, then I am completely in agreement.
and
Something that has not been shown to exist is the same as something whch does not exist, until evidence is presented.
Are these two sentences contradicting each other? Have I misintepreted the meanings of 'evidence' and 'external verifications wrongly (as in 'are they the same things, or different')?
Since when? It is absolutely not invalid. You've acknowledged it yourself. There is no empirical evidence for God's existence. This is a problem, is it not?
Since you said, "If your only point about external verification is that it can never show that God does not exist, then I am completely in agreement," then external verifications cannot effectively prove God's existence, and therefore should not be used, rendering any use of it to be invalid. Makes sense?
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Even if someone is presented with evidence that free will exists, they are still free to accept or deny that evidence as well.
We are able to do thus, because a paradox exists. With the existence of a paradox, we are given 2 options to choose from. This ability to choose an option, in itself, is free will.
If someone is given evidences of free will, how do you deny that evidence? Unless it is not concrete evidence, like the external verifications to God's existence, one cannot deny truths that are the equivalent of '2 plus 2 = 4'.
I hope my words will reach God's ears... 
