Seriously, I am quite bored on my God lately.

I have not seen a single argument for religion, that can stand for more than a few posts, in ages.

Is there one out there?

Maybe you just don't have the mental capacity to understand theists posts on the level that they try to communicate.
Either way, it always seemed to me that you were too resistant to alternative thinking, so I personally don't care enough to provide one.
Like many people in "my God", you just want something to fight against.
That's the impression I get anyway.

Imo, a decent argument never could exist for something that is supposedly unable to be experienced through the 5 senses. Most will regress to something such as 'I experience it personally' so again, I wouldn't expect them to actually have any argument or information that is intersubjectively agreed upon...it is just something "they feel", like how I feel that a magical green monkey wants me to throw my feces in public.

Maybe you just don't have the mental capacity to understand theists posts on the level that they try to communicate.

Starting off with ad hominem, I see. Do what you CAN I suppose.

I was not aware that someone had to have a higher mental capacity to understand arguments for a super simplistic, highly comforting, completely unprovable, ideal.

Rather lofty opinion of yourself and a gross overgeneralization of theists everywhere (take a trip to the deep south (AKA the Bible Belt) to get a better understanding of high mental capacity)

Either way, it always seemed to me that you were too resistant to alternative thinking, so I personally don't care enough to provide one.

Nothing wrong with alternative thinking, but to pass it off as truth or superior to simple organized, logical, rational, intelligent thinking SHOULD be resisted, and has been (see your technological scientific marvels for more on this phenomenon).

As to you hinting that you have an intelligent valid argument, but do not care enough to provide it.....

I remember a kid on the playground who would make claims to the awesome shit he could do "I can do a back flip from the top of the monkey bars" and when asked to perform this feat would unfailingly respond with "I dont feel like it".

I will tell you the same thing I told him "You are full of shit".

Imo, a decent argument never could exist for something that is supposedly unable to be experienced through the 5 senses.

I think your right.

Well, I'm going to talk with God and it'll tell me how to prove its existence to you. Although, I know God pretty and well and I'm guessing it'll say:

Kurdt318: God how can I prove to a non believer that you exist?

God: Oh kurdt318, you only want to prove my existence so your ego will not be offended. And I know you desire to transcend your ego, so stop with this nonsense.

Kurdt318: Thanks for helping me get back on track.

God: Besides you know I don't give a rat's ass if people believe in me or not.

Kurdt318: Well, you do say, "Effectiveness is the measure of truth."

God: Exactly, I only desire for human beings to be happy, whatever works for them works for me.

Imo, a decent argument never could exist for something that is supposedly unable to be experienced through the 5 senses. Most will regress to something such as 'I experience it personally' so again, I wouldn't expect them to actually have any argument or information that is intersubjectively agreed upon...it is just something "they feel", like how I feel that a magical green monkey wants me to throw my feces in public.

You see this is the problem here:

1. Your reductionist and empirical thinkers and you seem to be compelled to either feel or think that everything is a problem. Because, everything is a problem everything needs a solution. Hell, Richard Dawkins see's it that way: "God: The Failed Hypothesis" automatically wrong, hypothesis are designed to give an educated guess concerning a problem. Approaching God as a problem (I personally find) is an insult to God. Now you can all say what you want to rationalize God and diss God but it God is unaffected. So whatever you have to say go and run with it, you don't understand.

2. God is a mystery. Mysteries are meant to involve those in... the mystery. So you need your whole being wanting if not needing God. I cant seem to make people happy and accept what I say, that's fine. I don't care if you cant understand because, the one who could possibly help you understand is yourself. In order to do that you need to come out of the empirical and reductionist mindset.

3. Because of these two premises. I can only conclude that you will not understand because you stuck yourself in one way of thinking and perceiving the world. The perception you have is based only upon scientific materialism and you exalt it to the point that you think you are absolute concerning the correct view of reality. From that I conclude, you would be just as bad as a fundamentalist thinking your right and everyone who does not follow you is wrong, crazy, heretical, etc... So from this anyone who feels offended by what I have said I would say that you have become exactly what you ran away from: A Dogmatic but this time Anti-Religious fanatic.

-----------

Oh and by the way, you popularized idea of atheists are really hypocritical in the field of reason. How so? Let this discussion I had concerning the religion topic from the flick on Zeitgeist on YouTube be Your Guide:

http://youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=MclmOo39yKY[/url] Do A Find on Page for Godfather89"]GF89: "I know how you feel, their are two kinds of atheists those who keep it to themselves and those who try and spread it. Essentially they became what they hated Christian Evangelists, instead their Atheist Evangelists and their Gospel is Humanism."

JorgeMaca (JM): "sounds a lot of improvement to me"

GF89: "Completely subjective..."

JM: "results aren't"

GF89: "no but spreading one way of thinking and bashing another way of thinking is."

JM: "yeah, so the fact about atheism we can't take as subjective is that nobody has been killed for the sake of atheists, while god is one of the primary causes of assassination."

GF89: "Oh really, Mao and The Cultural Revolution he instituted kill innocent christians and now they turn their sites on innocent tibetians, the buddhist monks suffer under their oppression. But yeah, atheism isnt fought for its own sake. Bullshit, their is a difference between popular atheism and atheism... The later being one I am not talking about the former is a religion. I am spiritual Christian, I am not going to kill in God's name because, God doesnt want killing."

GF89: "But that's the good ol' hypocrite Popular atheist at work yet again. Claiming to use reason and logic but meanwhile falls to one lesser known logical Fallacy of Composition (e.g. assuming that because some people kill in God's name means all theists kill in God's name) as well The Fallacy of Hasty Generalizations (e.g. same as above). Now how do you like your precious reason being turned against you? Your hatred and intolerance of theists is just as bad as religious fundamentalism. Hypocrite!"

JM: "yeah, so mao is a prick, but he can never kill as much people as the witchhunts back in the middle ages, the inquisition, the evangelization and genocide of native american people, the holocaust, the crusades, a lot of wars were fought to worship god, and not only your god.
and don't tell me it makes sense to believe in a 2k year old book instead of verifiable experiments held by hard working scientists"

JM: "and you use that logical fallacy veeery often too, because mao and the cultural revolution he instituted kills innocent people, all athiest do.
give me a break!!!"

GF89: "LoL, I am just trying to make you realize that the accusations you make can be inflicted on you. I know that not all atheists are bad, my closest friend is an atheist, yet i am able to be his friend despite the fact I am a theist. So you see I am just trying to make you realize how flawed the popular atheist is an asshole for exalting his position upon everyone around them. So how about you give me a break and all theists that have not hated or done evil in God's name!"

JM: "hahahaha
ok, you got me
i kinda like to argue about that because i don't like the fact that people believe in lies during all their lives, ok, in my perspective.
though i have never reached such a good reply as yours, i liked to read it, shows you're awake"

GF89: "I heeded the warning both from the Zeitgeist film maker and from atheists on YouTube. I decided to learn reason and the proper use of Logic and know the illogical fallacies. It is sad that most Christians if not most theists do not use reason but faith first. If I put forth my logic first than I know that we can be on if not closer to the same place. I also saw the part when Peter says that "Christ was made by the Gnostic's" and that's what I am. Spiritual Christian's need to go back to the source."

Now because your traits are similar to fundamentalists I find it disappointing to reminder you that just because, someone doesn't see your way this doesn't mean they are wrong. How childish this behavior is... I really thought that these so-called "rational" thinkers would be a little bit more grown up, but they act just like little spoiled children, exalting their new powers and using it like children. Yet, you attack theists as little irrational children... As far as thee I could see most people here seem really immature... Theists and Atheists... *sigh*

Oh and for anyone questioning my non-answering of his fourth reply... If you look on the newer topics on this board that is my answer to his comments.

Starting off with ad hominem
Nothing wrong with an ad hominem :D

I remember a kid on the playground who would make claims to the awesome shit he could do "I can do a back flip from the top of the monkey bars" and when asked to perform this feat would unfailingly respond with "I dont feel like it".


He probably thought you weren't worth the effort aswell.

Why is that Beany being "civilized" and "evolved" over there (http://www.totse.com/community/showpost.php?p=10119018&postcount=21)?

Proper etiquette oozing from his every pore.... What magnificent sight!


------

Pointing out Beany's blatantly double-standard aside, the best argument I have seen is Godel's. This is reworking of the argument he gave:

"Definition 1: x is God-like iff x has as essential properties those and only those properties which are positive Definition 2: A is an essence of x iff for every property B, x has B necessarily iff A entails B
Definition 3: x necessarily exists iff every essence of x is necessarily exemplified
Axiom 1: If a property is positive, then its negation is not positive.
Axiom 2: Any property entailed by — i.e., strictly implied by — a positive property is positive
Axiom 3: The property of being God-like is positive
Axiom 4: If a property is positive, then it is necessarily positive
Axiom 5: Necessary existence is positive
Axiom 6: For any property P, if P is positive, then being necessarily P is positive.
Theorem 1: If a property is positive, then it is consistent, i.e., possibly exemplified.
Corollary 1: The property of being God-like is consistent.
Theorem 2: If something is God-like, then the property of being God-like is an essence of that thing.
Theorem 3: Necessarily, the property of being God-like is exemplified."


But that's probably not what you're looking for, and you probably aren't familiar with modal logic (no offense, I'm guessing most people here aren't - my familiarity is pitifully amateur at best).

God: Besides you know I don't give a rat's ass if people believe in me or not.

I know you are not speaking of the Gods of Abraham, so what God are you speaking of?


......

You have to admit, God and everything in religion COULD HAVE been completely made up. It is entirely possible.

You also have to admit that believers in God vote on things based on this possibly made up religion, forcing others to obey the laws of a possibly made up religion and destroying liberty in the process.

You have to admit this is a problem.

The scientific view may not be the correct view of reality. As a scientific minded person I feel good saying and acknowledging that. Science could be wrong. Observation and empiricism could be fundamentally flawed or entirely wrong.

Until we think of something better this is what we have and has worked wonderfully. It is medical science, not magic, that saves lives today. We know more about the mysteries you were speaking of, B/C of science, not God. In fact God hindered our pursuit of knowledge as much as he could.

I think God must have known that in our pursuit of knowledge, he would no longer be needed to explain the unknown. He would vanish like a fart in the wind. He is vanishing as we speak.

But what do I know, I speak from an arrogant ignorance that is unfit for human minds. I should sit here, open my mind way up, smoke a joint, sit around the bongo drums and dream up an imagine all sorts of nonsense, so I feel like I know a great and very comforting secret in the universe and then preach that, like it has any real or valid meaning or use whatsoever beyond basic ego stroking.

It is much more difficult to accept the reality of a given situation, than it is to ignore the reality and consume yourself with comforting delusion.

The reality is........we are alone, there is no benevolent force out there. We will rot in the ground when we die.

This is the reality, it could be untrue, but it is the reality as best we KNOW it.

The fantasy, well I don't have to tell you the fantasy......it could be true. Any one of them could be true. Any one of the myraid of belief systems out there could be true. These paradigms are as numerous as people, and highly subjective.

Our (and I mean ALL humans) shared paradigm has one thing in common......the apparent validity of science as a way of understanding the REALITY of our situation.

You call me ignorant for embracing that FACT. Ignorant of what exactly?

I have not seen a single argument for religion, that can stand for more than a few posts, in ages.

Is there one out there?

Just wait - on July 5th 1998 the pleasure saucers of the sex-goddesses will lift all paid-up subgenii from earth to be safe from the coming of the X-ist overmen. I'll be on the saucers, where will you be?

I know you are not speaking of the Gods of Abraham, so what God are you speaking of?

The God that is you and I and all that surrounds us. The God that is the infanite power of the universe. The God that is explained through science. The God that does not judge, only loves and accepts.

And would you consider Pasqual's Wager an argument for believing in the Abrahamic God?

And would you consider Pasqual's Wager an argument for believing in the Abrahamic God?

Not at fucking all.

First off, the wager was meant only as the conclusion to Pascal's arguments against certainty.

Secondly, the interest I have to believe something is NOT proof that the something exists.

And finally, factoring in all gods and religions throughout human history, the probability of choosing the wrong one (assuming there is one) becomes very great.

------

As to this all loving ephemeral abstract God so many like to speak of................did you just make that shit up yourself?

Seriously, at the very least, most major religions have the luxury of having it's beginnings lost to antiquity. This makes it more possible that the beginning WAS the creation. More possible when compared to the God..........

YOU JUST MADE UP JUST NOW.

You see this is the problem here:

1. Your reductionist and empirical thinkers and you seem to be compelled to either feel or think that everything is a problem. Because, everything is a problem everything needs a solution. Hell, Richard Dawkins see's it that way: "God: The Failed Hypothesis" automatically wrong, hypothesis are designed to give an educated guess concerning a problem. Approaching God as a problem (I personally find) is an insult to God. Now you can all say what you want to rationalize God and diss God but it God is unaffected. So whatever you have to say go and run with it, you don't understand.


?? I do see people speaking of something they cannot see or intersubjectively verifiably communicate with as quite puzzling to say the least. If someone told me they were speaking to their dead cat...yes I would be quite befuddled and want an explanation, otherwise I won't believe them for a second. These parameters don't guarantee 100% that they are indeed talking to their dead cat's soul...but I have absolutely no reason to believe that is true.




2. God is a mystery. Mysteries are meant to involve those in... the mystery. So you need your whole being wanting if not needing God. I cant seem to make people happy and accept what I say, that's fine. I don't care if you cant understand because, the one who could possibly help you understand is yourself. In order to do that you need to come out of the empirical and reductionist mindset.


If it is such a mystery, I can only imagine why soo many people think they understand bits and parts of it and why they seem to differ greatly. Not to mention, making something a 'mystery' by definition is a wonderful way to cover up one's own lack of knowledge or verifiable support for their belief. What if I said there was a lucky coin at the center of the moon and you asked me about it and how I could know of it. I said "it's a mystery, don't ask questions!!" Yeah, that would fly....but when it comes to god...the more mysterious the better it seems.



3. Because of these two premises. I can only conclude that you will not understand because you stuck yourself in one way of thinking and perceiving the world. The perception you have is based only upon scientific materialism and you exalt it to the point that you think you are absolute concerning the correct view of reality. From that I conclude, you would be just as bad as a fundamentalist thinking your right and everyone who does not follow you is wrong, crazy, heretical, etc... So from this anyone who feels offended by what I have said I would say that you have become exactly what you ran away from: A Dogmatic but this time Anti-Religious fanatic.


Basing my views on science or materialism doesn't make me anti-religious. Being dogmatic is to believe something is true and to be taken without question. Just because I am a strong believer in something, does not mean I assume it should be taken without question....but I don't have any reason to believe otherwise at this moment, so onward ho. Trust me, I grew up as a Christian in the south, I tried 'feeling' god and believing in spirits, souls, demons, etc, but in the end it all seemed like self-deception and silliness.

-----------

Oh and by the way, you popularized idea of atheists are really hypocritical in the field of reason. How so? Let this discussion I had concerning the religion topic from the flick on Zeitgeist on YouTube be Your Guide:


What did that have to do with anything? Most atheists aren't militant, nor do most believe that all people murdered by christians were killed in the name of god. This is just silly, assuming most atheists fall victim to these fallacies.


Now because your traits are similar to fundamentalists I find it disappointing to reminder you that just because, someone doesn't see your way this doesn't mean they are wrong. How childish this behavior is... I really thought that these so-called "rational" thinkers would be a little bit more grown up, but they act just like little spoiled children, exalting their new powers and using it like children. Yet, you attack theists as little irrational children... As far as thee I could see most people here seem really immature... Theists and Atheists... *sigh*


They may not be wrong, but obviously I do and should believe they are wrong...otherwise why would I believe the contrary?

Seriously, I am quite bored on my God lately.

Well, you could always post your response in our discussion thread.

I have not seen a single argument for religion, that can stand for more than a few posts, in ages.

This upsets you?

Is there one out there?

Well really, how are we defining God? Is God some mystical father-figure pie in the sky?

Is God something separate, within reality?

Is God reality itself?

What exactly is "out there"? What is "in here"?

Well, you could always post your response in our discussion thread.



This upsets you?



Well really, how are we defining God? Is God some mystical father-figure pie in the sky?

Is God something separate, within reality?

Is God reality itself?

What exactly is "out there"? What is "in here"?

Obbe, he said "religion" not "God."

Obbe, he said "religion" not "God."

Then he is just spewing the same crap he always does, masturbating his ego as he attempts to draw someone into discussion, just so he can bask in the pleasure he finds in shitting down their throat. Because he believes he has asked for the impossible.

But in any case, a religion usually has something to do with a God.

I suppose a good theistic argument would have to debunk the argument on this page:

http://www.truthmapping.com/viewtopic.php?id=623


It refers to the Abrahamic God, but the logic could apply to any concept of God.

Just this weekend, I rented "The Case for Christ", a documentary by Lee Strobel, former atheist and news journalist. It was 1 hour and 30 minutes of apologetic testimony, interviews with scholars and more scriptural interpretation than you can shake a stick at. Not convincing from my perspective, but the historical account of Jesus as told by the scholars was pretty damned interesting.

What made it less-than-convincing was it seemed that the bulk of his investigative journalism was centered around his conversion. His wife (a Christian) was a huge influence on his discoveries, and it appeared as though he was somewhat whipped. The bulk of her testimony was "He didn't want to believe, but God made it impossible for him not to" - while pointing out all the good character changes in him since his conversion.

I give it one star.

I believe that the only definitive way of looking at religion / belief in a higher power is: "have faith." Either you have it and you believe, or you have none and you don't.