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You guys get the proof you ask for
The Atheist have come out from behind their material hiding place and joined the Christian forum to tell us that our experience with God isn't real.... according to what could only be a non-material assessment, but they are exempt from telling us why or how they know this because their conclusions are supposedly strictly expressions of electrochemical phenomenon from soulless automatons.
If Atheist were right then one has nothing to loose "imagining" another existence other than that of a meaningless life.
The Atheist have come out from behind their material hiding place and joined the Christian forum to tell us that our experience with God isn't real.... according to what could only be a non-material assessment, but they are exempt from telling us why or how they know this because their conclusions are supposedly strictly expressions of electrochemical phenomenon from soulless automatons.
If Atheist were right then one has nothing to loose "imagining" another existence other than that of a meaningless life.
This strikes me as double standards. You want to hold atheists to the epistemic standards that you consider yourself exempt from. Given what you've said, why shouldn't an atheist merely assert that your experience isn't genuine? Why should he or she have to explain why or how they know this to be the case? You apparently think you don't have to, so why should they?
I don't have any miraculous signs or proofs that will satisfy you. Jesus demonstrated that such anomalies still aren't enough for the professional skeptic.
In the case of Jesus, when pressed for authority to teach as he did, he replied that no sign shall be given, but then he said "tear down this temple (pointing to his body) and in three days I will raise it up again." He did just that, but even for us disciples we still grapple with living the same faith life that Jesus lived.
This is the difference m8, you came to this forum of Christian believers to denigrate the subjective experience of faith when you just as well could enjoy the fellowship of like minded pessimists on the Atheist forums.
I don't need to prove to myself the faith based experience with God that I am having and I have already conceded that we cannot translate the spiritual experience into material proof. Considering that you often stand behind the rigid scientific method, as if you really do that in every aspect of your life, then it is appropriate to ask by what technique you claim to know that we do not know? [This question doesn't even address the fact that you are transcending the material universe to make the observation about the value of another's observations/experiences while presupposing that such a realm does not exist].
The Atheist have come out from behind their material hiding place and joined the Christian forum to tell us that our experience with God isn't real....
If Atheist were right then one has nothing to loose "imagining" another existence other than that of a meaningless life.
Well, God is living. Bible says it, so what do you want me to do about that?
As for definition, mine for living would be that God is a conscious, feeling, thinking entity. There may be other ways to say it, but that's my way at this time of the night.
This is the difference m8, you came to this forum of Christian believers to denigrate the subjective experience of faith when you just as well could enjoy the fellowship of like minded pessimists on the Atheist forums.
I don't need to prove to myself the faith based experience with God that I am having and I have already conceded that we cannot translate the spiritual experience into material proof.
Considering that you often stand behind the rigid scientific method, as if you really do that in every aspect of your life, then it is appropriate to ask by what technique you claim to know that we do not know? [This question doesn't even address the fact that you are transcending the material universe to make the observation about the value of another's observations/experiences while presupposing that such a realm does not exist].
I think you misunderstand. There are an infinite number of possibilities for what may lay beyond what we know. You are making assertions that your belief is correct, without any way to back it up. I just don't believe you. And why should I? There are billions of other people who would convince me that their contradictory belief is correct. Why shouldn't I believe them?
But I do not assume I am correct. In fact, I haven't made a claim yet. You may be right. But I doubt it. The problem is you claim this life is meaningless, and thus you want to escape it, and have dreamt up one where you're actions have some deeper meaning.
My life does have meaning. I don't feel the need to escape it with fantasy. Since my life has meaning, I know that you're wrong about this being a meaningless life. Why would I need to imagine another one?
I am quite fine with defining religious belief as a subjective and faith based belief.
What we disagree with is that there is objective evidence for the existence of God. We also disagree when some christians feel it necessary to tear down real objective evidence in order to produce a false equivalence between their subjective faith and real facts.
You are right. You have already convinced yourself. However, you are making the claim that atheists are without excuse for not being convinced by the evidence you have presented. That is an animal of a different color.
You don't stand behind the rigid scientific method? I really doubt that you reject the scientific method.
If you were a juror in a murder trial, would you ignore all of the forensic science because it was gathered and tested with that rigid scientific method? Would you instead find the defendant guilty based on the faith based claims of the prosecutor telling you that the defendant is guilty?
What we have done is ask for evidence demonstrating that it is real. That is not the same as claiming that it isn't real. This is a simple concept that you can't seem to understand.
When you claim that something exists it is incumbent on you to provide evidence for that claim.
An atheist doesn't need to worship a deity in order for find meaning and purpose in life.
In the same way that you cannot provide evidence that God does not exist using the scientific method we cant provide evidence that he does.
Any meaning and purpose you had will be extinguished by death.
Two different realms, I respect and even enjoy science in it's discipline. The realm of the spirit is no place for the scientific method and visa versa.
Colter said:I don't claim that life is meaningless, I observe that the philosophy of the Atheist is ultimately meaningless in that it terminates in eternal death from which there is no recollection, consciousness, future, present or past.
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."--Bertrand Russell
It is your burden of proof to show that God does exist.
The effects we have had on friends, family, and society will not be extinguished.
How silly to assume that humans a millions years from now won't be able to manipulate time and space to resurrect those who perished before.
After the earth is eaten by the Sun your friends, family and society won't exist.
This doesn't prove God or that meanings can grow into eternal realities, but an intellectually honest Atheist would have to concede an ultimate meaninglessness at some point in the future to anything in the earths history that was lofty, noble and good.
What realm of the spirit?
I would agree that science does not deal with fantasies.
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