There is a huge difference between rationally “knowing” God exist and rationally “believing” God exist.
Sure.
There's also a big difference between "believing on faith" and "tentative acceptance justified by rational evidence".
There is nothing irrational about believing in a Benevolent Creator while “believing” there is not a creator can appear to be irrational.
The claim being discussed is "there is a god". Not "there is no god".
I don't make such a claim, because I don't see the value of making claims you can not support.
I'ld say that I consider it "more likely" that there is no god as compared to there being a god. For the simple reason that I have no reasons whatsoever to believe that there is a god.
Believing in most things does not get you anything, while believing in a benevolent Creator can get you unbelievable wonderful real literal gifts. Some people just do not want the gift of unconditional Love, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the freedom from sinning, God’s presence, an unselfish objective, and a reason to Love their enemies.
Being humble is about attitude and your feelings. It takes humility to put your trust in a Benevolent Creator and away from self and it takes humility to accept pure charity from a sacrificial giver.
Sounds like you are saying that god-beliefs are "comforting". That might very well be the case, but that's not a good reason to consider the beliefs accurate.
The truth / reality doesn't owe you any comfort. Wheter or not a belief is "comforting" is rather irrelevant when it comes to what is actually true.
You are putting the cart before the horse. You can know and believe for certain the Christian God exists through the indwelling Holy Spirit, but that comes after you become a Christian. The New Testament is written to Christians for the most part, so it does talk a lot about their trust in God, but that is not where you are right now.
The first step is the willingness to accept God’s Love in the form of forgiveness as pure charity, which requires humility. If you are not willing to do that, there is no need to believe in God. If you have a need to trust God it will take you to trusting God.
You are telling me that I am putting the cart before the horse and in the next breath you are saying that one needs to believe in god before one can actually be justified or have sufficient reasons to believe in god.
That's textbook self-deception right there.
You seem to have “knowledge” about God along with some misinformation about God, more knowledge than most who come to believing, the difference seems to be: they had a need or desire to believe in God and wanted to believe because they may have seen in others a changed life with believing, they are burdened by sin and they cannot find relieve any other way, or they reasoned there has to be a God.
Again, "desires" have no relevance to what is actually true.
I might "desire" not having a cancer, but in the event that I do have cancer, my desires are not going to help me determine if I actually have cancer or not.
My desires are irrelevant to what is actually true.
A person can certainly take pride in what they know and put others down as just being gullible, but they are setting themselves apart from those who will be happy in heaven.
It's not about pride nore is it about putting people down.
It's about objectively evaluating claims and ideas.
I see zero reason to accept the claims of theism.
"faith" is not a pathway to truth, nore is it a proper justification for anything.
Without getting to philosophical: “Something has had to always exist since it is illogical to think something comes from nothing.
I'ld like to see you demonstrate this premise.
Now some atheists have tried to get around this by saying nothing is really “something” and there is no such thing as really “nothing”, but that is just a word game. The bottom line is there has always been something.
How do you know?
I don't even know what "nothing" (in the sense of absolute nothingness) even is. Not sure why you think you are justified in making such bold claims about such an alien concept.
Now did that something at least include intelligence or was it just mass/energy/time (change)/space?
Why would it include "intelligence"?
Also keep in mind that you are just asserting this "something" exists. Now you are asking about the attributes of a complete unknown and currently unknowable thing. This is getting bizar.
Anyhow... I know of 2 kinds of "intelligence":
- artificial intelligence, produced by computers
- natural intelligence, produce by physical biological brains
If we are talking about the origins of the universe and whatever "existed" back then... I don't think it included computers or physical biological brains.
So if you wish to talk about "intelligence" in that setting - I don't know what you are talking about.
The problem with “excluding” intelligence
I think the problem here is about
including intelligence in an environment where there are no things that can actually produce a trait like intelligence.
is there appears to be a huge amount of intelligence that went into the design of this universe and life that makes it virtually impossible to happen by random “luck”.
How so?
If there is one thing we have learned it is: “the more we know the more we realize we do not know”
Then why do you pretend to know anyway?
, so that means an ever increasing complex universe and the more complex it is the more random chances you need to make the right conditions. without intelligence and the more likely scenario is there was intelligence involved.
What "right" conditions? Seems like you are implying that there is an "intended goal" for the universe. I'ld like to know how you determined this.
Something than has always existed, we know since energy exists today it must have always existed, but intelligence also exists today so would it not have to have always existed?
Computers and brains didn't always exist.
To say the “something” was only energy, than energy would have to produce intelligence which does not seem logical or rational.
Both brains and computers are powered by energy. In fact, according to E=mc², they ARE energy. So intelligence is in fact indeed produced by energy.
It would take more “faith” to believe everything started with only energy than it would be to believe everything started with at least energy and intelligence.
And it takes no faith at all to say that we don't know when we don't know.
If you have to believe something had to always exist, how much harder is it to believe both energy and intelligence have always existed as compared to believing only energy existed since energy alone does not produce intelligence logically?
Very much harder. Since we actually
know that, in this univere, energy always existed, but brains and computers did not.
If there is this eternal intelligence
So now, the asserted mysterious "intelligence" of the kind nobody has ever observed... suddenly also gets asserted to being "eternal".
You're piling on assertion upon assertion upon assumption upon assertion.
Can you also support any of these?
it would be at the epitome of the best it could be and not in the process of improvement. It would be the ultimate bad or good but not somewhere in-between. Why be bad when He can be good just as easily? The ultimate “good” would be what is called Godly type Love (to be defined later) and is totally unselfish type Love. Since this God would be able to direct our thinking, why would He have us think of him as being totally bad, when He could make us think bad was good and thus He would be worthy of praise? If God were bad and we praise a “Good God” than we are not glorifying Him.
And there we have it. From ignorance based assertions, we've moved into religious preaching.
The reason you have free will is because it is required for you to complete your earthly objective.
Another assertion.
This messed up world is not here for your pleasure, but to help you become like God Himself in that you have the unique, unbelievable Godly type Love (God himself is Love).
God has created beings to shower them with the greatest gifts possible, the greatest being having a Love like His.
If there is this Creator of the universe out there, His “creations” could not really “do” anything for Him, so this Creator would have to be seen as a Giver (Unselfish Lover) and not trying to “get” something from His creation.
Preaching.
I think you could work with a: “pure "observable" philosophy” and conclude that the most likely alternative would be “There is most likely a god”. This is not to say you have solid “proof” beyond any skeptical doubt, but that it takes a lot less “faith” to believe there is a god than it takes to believe there is no god.
It does not.
And once more, it doesn't take ANY faith to just acknowledge ignorance where ignorance reigns. I don't see the point in just making stuff up.
The “evidence” for the existence of God is all around us and has always been around man, but you have to consider the evidence to make it support or deny the existence of God.
So far, your "evidence" consists of no more or less then baseless assertions, rooted in ignorance.
Which is exactly why you require "faith". If you had proper evidence, you would have no need for "faith".
Again...... faith is not a pathway to truth. Faith is the reason people give, when they don't have evidence.
You observe life all around you, so what is the most likely source for life to begin?
The most
likely source for life, is some kind of chemical process.
Life is, at bottom, chemistry. In the words of Neil deGrass Tyson: "
Life is, in the end, no more or less then an extreme expression of complex chemistry".
This is why people who work in the field of abiogenesis, direct their studies towards molecular biology and bio-chemistry.
But we have not yet solved that puzzle. So currently, the actual origins of life are unknown.
The universe surrounds you and got started some way and at some time, so how could that happen?
The time was likely at T = 0.
And I don't know how that happened. Nobody does.
Now if you say: “do not know and do not care” you are avoiding the evidence, so there is where you can begin your investigation.
I do care, because it's nice to know.
But I don't know. Nobody does.
Some like to pretend they know. But make no mistake: they don't actually know.
In talking about “faith and knowledge”, what would a god be like if he required some knowledge to determine who he fellowshipped with when he is providing the knowledge?
Reasonable?
Every mature adult has faith enough to trust in a benevolent creator, so we all start at the same level, yet only some with direct that faith toward God by their own choice.
I don't have "faith". I think using "faith" to believe something is a bad idea. Because "faith" is not a pathway to truth.
