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IronWing said:
That’s just like your opinion, man. I don’t understand the need for external validation for assigning worth or value to what I hold to have worth or value. A tree/rock/person is sacred to me because I choose to hold it as sacred.
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I think it's about standards. You can indeed declare someone or something sacred but, it is based on your perception. "Thou art god."
I believe to be meaningful , our standards and perception must come from something outside beyond ourselves.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Without God, we and all the other things in this world are irrelevant.
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From what frame of reference?

Why would, say, my wife's existence be irrelevant (or indeed affected at all) to me by the existence or not of god?

And your statement doesn't say anything about the existence of god at all, I could say it about anything and it would have the same weight of evidence behind it.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
... our standards and perception must come from something outside beyond ourselves.
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How? To make an effect on your thinking something must exert its presence on you, if something exerts its presence on you it would be measurable and quantifiable. So far nothing that resembles any definition of god has been observed doing that.
 
WelshBloke said:
How? To make an effect on your thinking something must exert its presence on you, if something exerts its presence on you it would be measurable and quantifiable. So far nothing that resembles any definition of god has been observed doing that.
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I have felt God's presence and trust in those good men who have felt it as well. You want to believe the world is black and white. That only those things that can be touched or measured count. Ideas, faith, honor, love and all the rest are what is important in the world yet extremely difficult or impossible to measure. Yet, they do exist.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Ideas, faith, honor, love and all the rest are what is important in the world yet extremely difficult or impossible to measure. Yet, they do exist.
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They exist as ideas in the minds of man, which is what I'd say god is. It's an idea imagined by men. Thats why theres no evidence of it and why everyones idea is a bit different.
 
WelshBloke said:
They exist as ideas in the minds of man, which is what I'd say god is. It's an idea imagined by men. Thats why theres no evidence of it and why everyones idea is a bit different.
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You miss the point. Those immeasurable thoughts and feelings are more real and, more important than all the things that can be pointed at and measured. I believe God is real.
 
Sigh. Thoughts and Feelings are Real, yes, but they are only evidence of Thoughts and Feelings. That someone may be motivated by a Thought or Feeling is evidence that people are motivated by Thoughts and Feelings. The Thought being a thought about a God is no more evidence of "God" than a Thought of Leprechauns is evidence of Leprechauns. God, Thought, and Feeling are not interchangeable, they are all distinctly different things.
 
sandorski said:
Sigh. Thoughts and Feelings are Real, yes, but they are only evidence of Thoughts and Feelings. That someone may be motivated by a Thought or Feeling is evidence that people are motivated by Thoughts and Feelings. The Thought being a thought about a God is no more evidence of "God" than a Thought of Leprechauns is evidence of Leprechauns. God, Thought, and Feeling are not interchangeable, they are all distinctly different things.
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Again you miss the point. The point is to demonstrate that there are many things besides God that can not be pointed to or measured yet are of importance to people. Yes, yes I know but, that still doesn't prove anything. What else you got?
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
You miss the point. Those immeasurable thoughts and feelings are more real and, more important than all the things that can be pointed at and measured. I believe God is real.
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Thoughts and feelings exist in the mind of a man. When that mind goes away those thoughts disappear, they dont continue on. They have no existence of their own, they are part of that mans existence not apart from it.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Again you miss the point. The point is to demonstrate that there are many things besides God that can not be pointed to or measured yet are of importance to people. Yes, yes I know but, that still doesn't prove anything. What else you got?
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I don't think you even know what you are trying to say. You try to conflate different things in order to justify your belief that "God" is real. So, here you seem dismissive of the Reality aspect of God, instead trying to file God under "Things that have Importance to People". The existence of God is entirely Subjective in this argument, meaning that God exists only because People Believe it exists, not because an Objective God brought all things into existence. SO I ask you, do you think God Exists or do you Prefer that God Exists?
 
sandorski said:
I don't think you even know what you are trying to say. You try to conflate different things in order to justify your belief that "God" is real. So, here you seem dismissive of the Reality aspect of God, instead trying to file God under "Things that have Importance to People". The existence of God is entirely Subjective in this argument, meaning that God exists only because People Believe it exists, not because an Objective God brought all things into existence. SO I ask you, do you think God Exists or do you Prefer that God Exists?
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Can we try to not make this personal? I'm quite enjoying the debate right now and I feel that if it does it's going to get I'll tempered very quickly!
 
JEDIYoda said:
How are they feelings of inadequacy? You said it please explain yourself. Thx
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I don't need any outside validation.
"I believe to be meaningful , our standards and perception must come from something outside beyond ourselves."
I don't feel that way at all.
 
sandorski said:
I don't think you even know what you are trying to say. You try to conflate different things in order to justify your belief that "God" is real. So, here you seem dismissive of the Reality aspect of God, instead trying to file God under "Things that have Importance to People". The existence of God is entirely Subjective in this argument, meaning that God exists only because People Believe it exists, not because an Objective God brought all things into existence. SO I ask you, do you think God Exists or do you Prefer that God Exists?
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carm.org

Lack of belief in God is too subjective

An analysis of one of the problems inherent in the subjective expression "I lack belief" that atheists often retreat into when discussing God's existence
carm.org carm.org
Most atheists that I have encountered in the past few years have abandoned the definition of of "atheism" as being the belief that there is no God. That assertion is impossible for them to defend. So, they have gone to a definition which says "atheism is a lack of belief in God". I've written several articles on this and here is another. Lack of belief is a subjective issue. Therefore, I present this series of points I hope demonstrates it another problem with that definition.


  1. Belief is an experience, just as thinking and love are experiences.
  2. Belief is the subjective experience of an individual.
  3. Lack of belief is a lack of this subjective experience.
  4. An atheist who challenges the Christian to convince him that God exists is asking the Christian to induce belief by overcoming the atheist's personal lack of subjective experience.
  5. But, the Christian cannot grant the atheist this subjective experience, since it is, after all, purely subjective to the individual.
  6. In addition, being convinced of something based on information is also a subjective experience since what convinces one person might not convince another.
  7. Therefore, the atheist must provide the criteria by which his personal subjectivity can be affected and belief be the result.
  8. If the atheist, for whatever reason, does not provide this criteria, then he should not ask the Christian to demonstrate that God exists, and induce belief, since he is asking the Christian to overcome his personal subjectivity without providing the subjective criteria by which this might be accomplished.

So, when atheists who "lack belief in God" ask Christians to prove that God exists, they're asking them to overcome the atheists subjectivity. This is, of course, problematic.
 
It goes far beyond that. Why the Christian God and not the Hindu god? Or any one of the other thousands of gods that man has worshipped?
Why do they all hide?
 
skyking said:
I don't need any outside validation.
"I believe to be meaningful , our standards and perception must come from something outside beyond ourselves."
I don't feel that way at all.
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Nice try! Obviously you can`t explain how they are feelings of inadequacy...
 
skyking said:
It goes far beyond that. Why the Christian God and not the Hindu god? Or any one of the other thousands of gods that man has worshipped?
Why do they all hide?
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Not really !1 Now you are throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.......carry on...
 
JEDIYoda said:
carm.org

Lack of belief in God is too subjective

An analysis of one of the problems inherent in the subjective expression "I lack belief" that atheists often retreat into when discussing God's existence
carm.org carm.org
Most atheists that I have encountered in the past few years have abandoned the definition of of "atheism" as being the belief that there is no God. That assertion is impossible for them to defend. So, they have gone to a definition which says "atheism is a lack of belief in God". I've written several articles on this and here is another. Lack of belief is a subjective issue. Therefore, I present this series of points I hope demonstrates it another problem with that definition.


  1. Belief is an experience, just as thinking and love are experiences.
  2. Belief is the subjective experience of an individual.
  3. Lack of belief is a lack of this subjective experience.
  4. An atheist who challenges the Christian to convince him that God exists is asking the Christian to induce belief by overcoming the atheist's personal lack of subjective experience.
  5. But, the Christian cannot grant the atheist this subjective experience, since it is, after all, purely subjective to the individual.
  6. In addition, being convinced of something based on information is also a subjective experience since what convinces one person might not convince another.
  7. Therefore, the atheist must provide the criteria by which his personal subjectivity can be affected and belief be the result.
  8. If the atheist, for whatever reason, does not provide this criteria, then he should not ask the Christian to demonstrate that God exists, and induce belief, since he is asking the Christian to overcome his personal subjectivity without providing the subjective criteria by which this might be accomplished.

So, when atheists who "lack belief in God" ask Christians to prove that God exists, they're asking them to overcome the atheists subjectivity. This is, of course, problematic.
Click to expand...

Does "God" objectively exist?
 
JEDIYoda said:
carm.org

Lack of belief in God is too subjective

An analysis of one of the problems inherent in the subjective expression "I lack belief" that atheists often retreat into when discussing God's existence
carm.org carm.org
Most atheists that I have encountered in the past few years have abandoned the definition of of "atheism" as being the belief that there is no God. That assertion is impossible for them to defend. So, they have gone to a definition which says "atheism is a lack of belief in God". I've written several articles on this and here is another. Lack of belief is a subjective issue. Therefore, I present this series of points I hope demonstrates it another problem with that definition.


  1. Belief is an experience, just as thinking and love are experiences.
  2. Belief is the subjective experience of an individual.
  3. Lack of belief is a lack of this subjective experience.
  4. An atheist who challenges the Christian to convince him that God exists is asking the Christian to induce belief by overcoming the atheist's personal lack of subjective experience.
  5. But, the Christian cannot grant the atheist this subjective experience, since it is, after all, purely subjective to the individual.
  6. In addition, being convinced of something based on information is also a subjective experience since what convinces one person might not convince another.
  7. Therefore, the atheist must provide the criteria by which his personal subjectivity can be affected and belief be the result.
  8. If the atheist, for whatever reason, does not provide this criteria, then he should not ask the Christian to demonstrate that God exists, and induce belief, since he is asking the Christian to overcome his personal subjectivity without providing the subjective criteria by which this might be accomplished.

So, when atheists who "lack belief in God" ask Christians to prove that God exists, they're asking them to overcome the atheists subjectivity. This is, of course, problematic.
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^ This is actually very good. Keep it mind if you ever get the urge to proselytize.
 
IronWing said:
^ This is actually very good. Keep it mind if you ever get the urge to proselytize.
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My friend and I say that honestly -- In all my years I have never proselytized anybody!
I do not believe in beating people over the head with the Bible. I find it hard enough just trying to live a good life!

Peace!!
 
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