MY favorite arguments for the existence of the Christian God:

Kenny'sID said:

May I ask why an Atheist would come to a Christian site and attempt to convince them there was no God?

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This is the thread where a person presented his "favourite argument for the existence of the Christian god" for discussion. The validity of this argument is what´s being discussed, not the existence of the Christian God.
In case this argument is being refuted and shown to be fallacious, this in no way precludes the Christian god from existing.
So relax.

I ask because the way some go on here, it seems extremely important they do that.

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Yeah, gotta admit that when someone puts up a particular argument up for discussion, I have a strong inclination of scrutinizing it.

Skreeper said:

I have noticed that the older people get the more stubborn and closed-minded some people become.

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Being a 60yo, I take issue with this statement. But maybe that´s because at my age we tend to be stubborn and close-minded.

quatona said:

Being a 60yo, I take issue with this statement. But maybe that´s because at my age we tend to be stubborn and close-minded.

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That's why I included the little word "some" in that sentence for exceptions like you

Kenny'sID said:

Since you seem to be the olu one left here not wasting time, I'll take a loof when I get the chance, but in the end, surely you know it's not going to do a thing for me.

May I ask why an Atheist would come to a Christian site and attempt to convince them there was no God? I ask because the way some go on here, it seems extremely important they do that.

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Oh, and another thing, even believing in the Big Bang and all other physics doesn’t preclude god from being involved. If you feel god in your life that’s not contradictory. God could have started the universe anyway he chose to.

In fact one could argue that god made it very hard to prove how the universe started because he wanted his creation to be the type of people who would dig and delve to find an answer.

I don’t, but anyone can follow science to the deepest level and still have room for their personal god. The only change you have to make is to acknowledge that the Old Testament is not intended to be taken literally, and billions of Christians already take that view.

Kenny'sID said:

Ah, another dose of child psychology. Man, you really have my attention now.

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Good. So you're going to admit you were wrong and learn?

I know the bible says you need to be childlike to get to heaven, but I don't think you understand what that means. It doesn't mean being petulant and stubborn

Speedwell said:

Creationism is not science.

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Boiled down, creationism is an opinion of where it all came from, as is science, because is no more than opinion of what people can see, even what they cannot see, or assumption.

Speedwell said:

Creationism is a sectarian religious doctrine which not even all Christians subscribe to--in fact, most do not.

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Interesting...prove it.

Speedwell said:

It's true. We do it for the children.

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I don't believe you.

Skreeper said:

I have noticed that the older people get the more stubborn and closed-minded some people become. I think Kenny pretty much proves that observation.

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I'll assume you are young and not yet capable of proper reasoning, something that comes sooner for some in life, and for some, not so much. So because of those short comings, and lack of reasonable argument you do as many and resort to comments meant to demean/discredit that mean nothing and waste the readers time. Some like yourself might actually see your comment as actual defense...others? They see it for just what it is.

Though no one will stand up and admit it, the poster you reply to is wrong, and simple logic says so. Logic so simple, there's no sense in repeating myself because those who don't, would never get it.

However, they make a point...it would not surprise me a bit if his view of how science should work, is exactly how some so-called scientists do things. IOW, change the conditions, hence the outcome of an experiment so we can get what we want to conclude, in this case...attempt to prove me wrong.

quatona said:

This is the thread where a person presented his "favourite argument for the existence of the Christian god" for discussion. The validity of this argument is what´s being discussed, not the existence of the Christian God.
In case this argument is being refuted and shown to be fallacious, this in no way precludes the Christian god from existing.
So relax.

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I don't understand the comment, I'm aware of the original post. Also, I could make a random "relax" comment to you as well but since it serves no purpose, not sure why I'd do that?

quatona said:

Yeah, gotta admit that when someone puts up a particular argument up for discussion, I have a strong inclination of scrutinizing it.

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Why not just answer the question you replied to?

Kenny'sID said:

Boiled down, creationism is an opinion of where it all came from, as is science, because is no more than opinion of what people can see, even what they cannot see, or assumption.

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You can boil it down if you want. I will stick with Traditional Christian theology and give a provisional nod to science.

Interesting...prove it.

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Easy. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the country. They are not, by their own public statements, biblical creationists. In the wider world, biblical creationists are hardly to be found, being mostly concentrated in the "Bible Belt" of the US.

I don't believe you.

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So you think we are only pretending to care that Christian children, and children of other faiths might be indoctrinated with right-wing fundamentalist Protestant dogma?

Speedwell said:

You can boil it down if you want.

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Thank you.

Speedwell said:

Easy. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the country. They are not, by their own public statements, biblical creationists. In the wider world, biblical creationists are hardly to be found, being mostly concentrated in the "Bible Belt" of the US.

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I'll let God decide who is Christian and who is not, meaning you can't even pretend to prove your comment is fact, not even close.

Speedwell said:

So you think we are only pretending to care that Christian children, and children of other faiths might be indoctrinated with right-wing fundamentalist Protestant dogma?

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No, I don't think many have any idea what they are doing.

Instead of caring enough for their children to give more thought to even a "what if"... they jump all over their own selfish ideas, the children be...well, lets just say I don't think people care enough to wake up to the biblical truth and stop deluding themselves. They take WAY to big a risk for themselves, so their children? Figure it out.

Teach God, all of God and nothing but God.

Kenny'sID said:

I'll let God decide who is Christian and who is not, meaning you can't even pretend to prove your comment is fact, not even close.


.

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Certainly it is God's decision in the end, but within the terms laid down by the rules of this discussion forum, a Christian is a person who subscribes honestly and sincerely to the tenets of the Nicene Creed. By that standard, "Bible-believing" creationists are outnumbered by at least a billion people.

Speedwell said:

Certainly it is God's decision in the end, but within the terms laid down by the rules of this discussion forum, a Christian is a person who subscribes honestly and sincerely to the tenets of the Nicene Creed. By that standard, "Bible-believing" creationists are outnumbered by at least a billion people.

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Yes, it is Gods decision, and yes, the site has dictated that, which in my view backs my reasoning tremendously, something I cannot comment further on due to site rules against speaking our mind on it.

Kenny'sID said:

I don't understand the comment,

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Ok.

Why not just answer the question you replied to?

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1. It´s off topic, and irrelevant for any of the issues being discussed.
2. I can´t read people´s minds - you would have to ask them.

If "YHWH" does not actually exist "in heaven", then how do humans on Earth know God's name? How did humans hear of the "Kingdom of heaven" if they didn't hear from it ?

Hundreds of people upon this planet have been claiming & alleging to receive meaningful, intelligible audio-visual messages (e.g. Voices, Visions) from "God in heaven" for thousands & thousands of years.

Isn't the simplest & most parsimonious explanation that "YHWH, the God of heaven" actually factually really truly Exists ??

comment from frustration -- somewhere some highly educated scientist will now start spewing viscious vituperative ad hominems to the effect that all of those many many people -- most of those we still know about having to have been, of course, just about the most learned, educated, literate & cogent humans thus far in human history -- were "crazy" etc. etc. (perhaps especially for actually listening to such audio-visual messages & instructions) and numerous other Accusations & Slanders...

possibly related comment -- I suggest against claiming that "Divine Powers" are incapable of a "terrestrial human sense of irony & humor"...

quatona said:

2. I can´t read people´s minds - you would have to ask them.

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So you answer a post not directed at you with something irrelevant and when you were asked to stick to an answer to what you replied to, then the post suddenly becomes answerable only by whom it was intended?

Or in short, I did ask them.

That fits this thread like a glove, and makes for a perfect ending to it's day. lol

Kenny'sID said:

So you answer a post not directed at you with something irrelevant and when you were asked to stick to an answer to what you replied to, then the post suddenly becomes answerable only by whom it was intended?

Or in short, I did ask them.

That fits this thread like a glove, and makes for a perfect ending to it's day. lol

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You asked an off-topic question. Now give it a rest.

Erik Nelson said:

If "YHWH" does not actually exist "in heaven", then how do humans on Earth know God's name? How did humans hear of the "Kingdom of heaven" if they didn't hear from it ?

Hundreds of people upon this planet have been claiming & alleging to receive meaningful, intelligible audio-visual messages (e.g. Voices, Visions) from "God in heaven" for thousands & thousands of years.

Isn't the simplest & most parsimonious explanation that "YHWH, the God of heaven" actually factually really truly Exists ??

comment from frustration -- somewhere some highly educated scientist will now start spewing viscious vituperative ad hominems to the effect that all of those many many people -- most of those we still know about having to have been, of course, just about the most learned, educated, literate & cogent humans thus far in human history -- were "crazy" etc. etc. (perhaps especially for actually listening to such audio-visual messages & instructions) and numerous other Accusations & Slanders...

possibly related comment -- I suggest against claiming that "Divine Powers" are incapable of a "terrestrial human sense of irony & humor"...

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If "Harry Potter" does not actually exist "in Hogwarts", then how do humans on Earth know Harry's name? How did humans hear of the "Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft" if they didn't hear from it ?

Kylie said:

If "Harry Potter" does not actually exist "in Hogwarts", then how do humans on Earth know Harry's name? How did humans hear of the "Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft" if they didn't hear from it ?

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How many miracles has J.K. Rowling worked? How many times has J.K. Rowling attributed her "creative inspiration" to Divine Voices & Visions ? And for how many thousands of years running have others been adding to that body of writings, in an (allegedly) supra-naturally complex, mathematically structured, and sophisticatedly self-referential way?

And, of course, how many times has anything in those pages actually been born out in (archaeologically attestable) physical reality, for all human eyes to plainly see?

Abrahamic Scripture is not just some single fire-side story. It is a (supposed) historical record of "God in heaven's" (alleged) miraculous wonder-working upon this planet over the past ~8000 years.

What about the (claimed) "Plagues" vs. Ramesses' Egypt that do coincide archaeologically, not only with the end of Ramesses the Great's reign, the onset of identifiably Israelite occupation of Canaan, as well as some sort of retaliatory raid against "ISRL" by Ramesses' successor Merneptah attested on an Egyptian stele... but also the "Bronze Age Collapse" which wiped out civilizations around the region and plunged the eastern Mediterranean into centuries of Dark Ages?

Something major happened. Troy fell. The Greeks collapsed. The Hittites failed. The Egyptian empire crumbled. Other than perhaps the Philistines (who themselves appear to have fled to Canaan from somewhere else), the only humans around to actually benefit was a group of refugees hiding out in the Arabian wilderness, claiming to receive Divine Guidance via Divine Voices & Visions from "God in heaven".

I guess if you actively desire to reject such claims, you could claim it "just happened" to be a one-in-a-zillion string of fortuitous random coincidences which "just happened" to turn a bunch of Egyptian slaves into the regional power of Israel...

I guess what I'm trying to say, though, is that I find no reason per se to reject the claims. If there actually factually was (and is) a "God in heaven" capable of communicating meaningful, intelligible audio-visual messages (Divine Voices & Visions) to humans on Earth, then such an "uplink" to Divine Guidance would be able to steer a group of humans through plagues, locust swarms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and/or whatever else happened to power & prominence in the (supposedly) "Promised" land.

I see no reason to dismiss such a scenario out of human hand. Are humans somehow doing anything to somehow "stop" or "prevent" or "shield against" such Divine Voices & Visions being communicated successfully to humans on Earth?

Why are you so incredulous? What might you know about "heaven" that the rest of us don't? Humans don't really know exactly how Quasars, Blazars, or Gamma ray Bursts work, but we think we detect them regularly all the same. It's a puzzle, hopefully humans will figure it out some day. Meanwhile, other humans think they perceive a "Divine Presence" from "God in heaven", communicating to their minds audio-visual Voices & Visions. Why is that impossible? And if it is possible, what is anybody around here doing about it, much less to (say) somehow stop it. I don't understand your dubiousness. Nothing I notice in any way "violates the fundamental fabric of space-time" or anything. "God in heaven" can affect our "pale blue dot"... insofar as we now know our "pale blue dot of a planet" isn't really much of a big Cosmic deal, then such a claim is not really much of one either.

quatona said:

You asked an off-topic question. Now give it a rest.

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Erik Nelson said:

How many miracles has J.K. Rowling worked? How many times has J.K. Rowling attributed her "creative inspiration" to Divine Voices & Visions ? And for how many thousands of years running have others been adding to that body of writings, in an (allegedly) supra-naturally complex, mathematically structured, and sophisticatedly self-referential way?

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So if these claims are evidence that the religion that the authors hold is correct, why is it that you don't consider Islam correct? It has EXACTLY THE SAME CLAIMS.

And, of course, how many times has anything in those pages actually been born out in (archaeologically attestable) physical reality, for all human eyes to plainly see?

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Yes, because the Bible is simply filled with stuff like that. We've found Noah's ark... oh wait, no we haven't. But we've got evidence of the exodus from Egypt... oh, no, not that either.

Abrahamic Scripture is not just some single fire-side story. It is a (supposed) historical record of "God in heaven's" (alleged) miraculous wonder-working upon this planet over the past ~8000 years.

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Yeah, so?

What about the (claimed) "Plagues" vs. Ramesses' Egypt that do coincide archaeologically, not only with the end of Ramesses the Great's reign, the onset of identifiably Israelite occupation of Canaan, as well as some sort of retaliatory raid against "ISRL" by Ramesses' successor Merneptah attested on an Egyptian stele... but also the "Bronze Age Collapse" which wiped out civilizations around the region and plunged the eastern Mediterranean into centuries of Dark Ages?

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I'm sorry, but when does the Bible state the name of the Pharaoh? What evidence in the Bible makes it clear that it is Rameses?

Something major happened. Troy fell. The Greeks collapsed. The Hittites failed. The Egyptian empire crumbled. Other than perhaps the Philistines (who themselves appear to have fled to Canaan from somewhere else), the only humans around to actually benefit was a group of refugees hiding out in the Arabian wilderness, claiming to receive Divine Guidance via Divine Voices & Visions from "God in heaven".

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Actually, I think you mean someTHINGS. These things did not occur at the same time. In any case, your reasoning here is pretty weak. Just because one group of people got through things relatively unscathed does not mean their religious beliefs are correct.

I guess if you actively desire to reject such claims, you could claim it "just happened" to be a one-in-a-zillion string of fortuitous random coincidences which "just happened" to turn a bunch of Egyptian slaves into the regional power of Israel...

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Source please that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt at the time you claim they were. Because I've got a source that the Biblical claims are incorrect. History of the Jews in Egypt - Wikipedia

I guess what I'm trying to say, though, is that I find no reason per se to reject the claims. If there actually factually was (and is) a "God in heaven" capable of communicating meaningful, intelligible audio-visual messages (Divine Voices & Visions) to humans on Earth, then such an "uplink" to Divine Guidance would be able to steer a group of humans through plagues, locust swarms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and/or whatever else happened to power & prominence in the (supposedly) "Promised" land.

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By this logic, Sarah Conner's story about time travelling robots from the future that are destroyed leaving no evidence behind of their existence is perfectly plausible as well. After all, like what you believe, it comes across as internally consistent with itself.

I see no reason to dismiss such a scenario out of human hand. Are humans somehow doing anything to somehow "stop" or "prevent" or "shield against" such Divine Voices & Visions being communicated successfully to humans on Earth?

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So? That in itself is not a good reason to assume something is true.

Why are you so incredulous? What might you know about "heaven" that the rest of us don't? Humans don't really know exactly how Quasars, Blazars, or Gamma ray Bursts work, but we think we detect them regularly all the same. It's a puzzle, hopefully humans will figure it out some day. Meanwhile, other humans think they perceive a "Divine Presence" from "God in heaven", communicating to their minds audio-visual Voices & Visions. Why is that impossible? And if it is possible, what is anybody around here doing about it, much less to (say) somehow stop it. I don't understand your dubiousness. Nothing I notice in any way "violates the fundamental fabric of space-time" or anything. "God in heaven" can affect our "pale blue dot"... insofar as we now know our "pale blue dot of a planet" isn't really much of a big Cosmic deal, then such a claim is not really much of one either.

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Why am I so incredulous?

I should ask you why you are so willing to believe something! Why do you not want independent evidence?