I will eat my hat if you can do this...

Here's the problem, IMHO. You've got two entirely different topics running concurrently. #1 is - "Is there a God?" #2 is - "Is Christianity correct?"

It's an insurmountable task to commingle these two topics in this fashion and make any sense out of either of them, especially when the crux of the goal is to support either of those premises.

It's the equivalent of tasking someone to prove the theories of quantum physics with basic algebra to someone who disavows the existence of either.

As any Christian knows, spiritual things are discerned spiritually. If your first premise is that there is no God, of course Christianity, along with all theistic religions are bunk.

You have to have this basic understanding - no one can convince you of the existence of God. It cannot be proven to you by someone else. Ever. When your beginning platform is "I know I'm right unless you can prove me wrong", you're right where you'll always be on this topic. And if that's ok with you, and works for you, then go with that.

If you're serious, really serious about discovering the existence of God, you're going to have to get out of your intellectual comfort zone. Your exercise reminds me of the old chestnut about a guy looking for his wallet on a street corner under the street light one night. Another guy comes up and says "So are you sure you lost your wallet around here?" First man says, "No, I lost it over there in the bushes, but the light's better over here".

And for anyone who has already spent the time and effort searching and still didn't find, I have no explanation. Except to say, it is what it is, and I wish you the best. It's totally irrelevant to me what someone's beliefs are on religion. What matters to me is behavior. Of all the things I struggle with, "turn the other cheek" may be the biggest one for me. I'm much more of an escalated response guy. Somebody slaps me or mine, they can expect a broken nose. For starters.

Have fun with your exercise, though. I know you enjoy stirring the pot.

That is exactly what I meant...And emphasized later in my post when I said:

So you took my posting out of the very same context that you wrote about. Heh! At least your username here describes what happened.


Well, when the Bible says, "an eye for an eye," I sort of translate that to mean, "your freedom ends where my nose begins."

Toast!

Again, you are trying to tell us that Einstein believed in the divine, as you do.

He did not. In any way. Einstein used the word god because he was a product of his times. It does not mean he believed in god in any way, again I say it means he used it as a synonym for nature. You are talking about the divine, he clearly did not believe in the divine at all.

Twisting his words is not going to prove your stance.

well, you are all doing a fine job and i'm fairly preoccupied with final preperations for a 5500 mile move and some other things so i'm only going to respond to my point.

madnessinmysoul
it's taken from a line from a goo goo dolls song entitled "there you are"



i'm pretty sure i've mentioned this elsewhere...

anyway, i can use the word "soul" as a metaphor for my psyche in the same way einstein used the word "god" as a metaphor for natural laws.

edit to add one more thing:

einstein:


[edit on 6/23/07 by madnessinmysoul]

And you're twisting the meaning of "divine" in this context in exactly the same way that you describe Einstein's meaning of "god." He used the word "god" in the same context as I used "divine".

Nitpick all you want, but I'm no longer going to banter about anymore with "precise" definitions of specific words when used in a certain context because it detracts from the topic of the thread; and it's even against general policy to derail a thread. If you fail to see the synergy of the overall context, then that's your problem.

MIMS what an excellent post. You have forced all of us to reconsider and re-evaluate our own faiths and I salute you for it.

I may be unconventional but I thiink of it this way:

God is eternal, the Universe is finite.

Simultaneously with the creation of the Universe God created the physical Laws (speed of light, magnitude of gravity etc...). However, he also created metaphysical Laws, unseen and intangible which allows Man as a causative agent to affect his future and the future of others. In other words, there is an infinite field of realities which are arrayed like a number of roads. Each road has its own fate.

Prayer can effect a short-cut by tapping into the metaphysical Laws and may have a direct impact depending on the holiness or 'goodness' of the individual. Hypocrites cannot have successful prayers.

Due to the Laws of God, evolution produced an amazing plethora of living organisms including HIV, ebola etc... The cell evolved under the control of God to become resistant to mutagenesis but with the simultaneous appearance of 8 separate stochastic 'hits' or due to a large dose of one factor (e.g. pollutants) lead to tumorigenesis.

Disease is, therefore caused by the way that humanity lives and all diseases have a cure on the Earth. So if we live in a way that we will contract a disease, the Laws of God have provided a cure. All we have to do is to discover them all.

The evil that men do is due to their own personal choice. Nature was pretty impersonal, before humans arrived on the scene, but humans have a conscious choice to perform evil or good. Evil tends to have the best fun and the best publicity though.

Alot of the Christian faith is based upon pagan rituals. Correct. However, it became an attractive force for attracting pagans by becoming non-threatening. History cannot be changed now.

Why read the Bible as a literal book after the number of translations and the generous use of metaphor in the book. It should be read as a book of allegory, symbolism and metaphor, not literally!

MIMS thank you but I have not become atheist after reading those 50 so-called proofs. I hope that others can enter into reasonable debate with you because that is the whole point of this forum.

Um well number 50... thats an affirmative for me. Ooooh and I tell ya what, he's no little man... mmm mmmm Girls... woo hoo... just imagine a Noble Warrior that would suffer and fight for you... (nothing at all like Shrek) Cross between the leading guy from 300, King Whatever and Braveheart....

what now?

It amounts to spoof cos I can't prove it... I don't care Really don't care.... la la la la.... proof??? I got all the proof I need, "uh, thank you very much... "(Elvis accent)






[edit on 24-6-2007 by NJE777]

Well, somewhere in Douglas Adam's five-book trilogy (unraveling that phrase is a whole 'nother story ) of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he sums up exactly what a thread like this is attempting to do:
Basic background--
In the controversial book, "That About Wraps It Up For God," the lowly Babelfish was (partially) responsible for proving the non-existance of God. God says, "I refuse to prove I exist because proof denies faith & without faith, I am nothing."
Man says, "Then the Babelfish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? Since something so mind-bogglingly useful could not have evolved by chance, that proves you exist. So by your own statement, you don't exist. QED."
God says, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that" and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.


In essence, this whole argument about whether or not God exists seems to boil down to one point: If God represents an ideal to strive for, then why deny Him? Without some goal towards improvement, humanity as a whole, would stagnate & destroy itself...

With all of the denials of God (or at least the philosophies that He represents) taking place in the world today, is it that hard to see how the self-styled elite have been stagnating the social development of humanity throughout our history?


[edit on 25-6-2007 by MidnightDStroyer]

Do you mean like the way the Soviet Union suppressed religious freedom ?
There isnt exactly a shortage of examples of people being held because religions felt threatened or maybe even feared progress.

And that not even including the number of wars that have been fought and the number of people who have died for there own version of the divine non existent higher power word.

[edit on 25-6-2007 by xpert11]

I was just looking at the idea from a skeptic's point of view. My intent was to ask why, from an athiest point of view, do the majority of individuals feel the need for religion? If this were a weaker trait wouldn't it have died off? ;-)

In reality I don't believe in evolution as you do. Even if life started with one type of organism, it takes a supernatural designer to jump from one step to the next. A rough analogy would be a mechanic taking parts from the scrap yard to build a car. Of course in my story the mechanic also built the scap yard as well

Actually it does not.

One of the difficulties theists have with evolution is they think that one species "jumps" to another, when in actuality it is a slow progress of tiny changes over vast amounts of time. I think it has to do with the conditioning of being told through religion that things were created by god out of thin air, and this is wholly wrong from an evolutionary standpoint.

I'm sick today, so instead of going into it all again, I will quote what I said about this assumption -- the Argument from Improbability.

(the quote comes from the thread: www.belowtopsecret.com... -- and my apologies for reproducing it here, I really am not feeling well today and can't go into it all again, but I feel this is important enough to address without waiting until I feel better.)

Really? Is it time or the number of generations that mark the rate of change? Let's take two different animals with different life spans. Humans live from 75 to 122 years and the house-fly has a life span of 15 - 30 days. Which species is more likely to have a change over the course of 100 years?

In that time frame you could expect to see about 2 new generations of humans. Let's say that they couple had 8 kids, who after maturing 20 years each had 8 kids. (We'll leave out the kids' spouse to make things simpler. Just assume they come from a group outside the study.) Exhausting work, but now we have a total of 64 offspring.

The fly however lays about 300 eggs at a time which take about 15 days to mature. (No wonder we have so many flies) in the same time frame you would have about 24 generations which would yield 2.82429536481e+59 offspring flies. Files actually lay up to 8,000 eggs in their lifetime, but I'm being generous here.

Wouldn't you agree that the likely-hood of mutation and change would be greater in the fly? Or would you simply say that each had an equal amount of time so the odds are the same for both species to mutate? Of course not. It would take nearly 3,000 years for the humans to have the same amount of offspring as the flies achieved in a single year.

Realistically though, people throughout history have an average life-span of around 25 years. If we gave humans 50,000 years to multiply we would by some estimates only have about 100 billion people. I'm sure that flies exceed this number every year. Oddly enough we don't really see any mutation in flies. Nothing that's dramatic or helpful and flies have been around for millions of years in the same form that we see them today. Why haven't they changed or mutated and how can we say that one species changed over 100,000 years (humans) when flies have an equal number of offspring in a single year and yet never seem to change even when this cycle is stretched out over a million years?

The only solution is that it takes an extreme amount of time and generations for a species to mutate or change but humans haven't had that much time. There must have been an outside force that made a rapid, nearly instantaneous change.


Well get better soon.

That's exactly it! It's really difficult for us to conceive of the vast time frames needed for this sort of change -- evolution and the geological time scale were made for each other. There really is no need for an outside influence -- except for the influence of quantum particles which pass through us like we didn't exist daily. One "ping!" off the right chromosome in the right reproductive cell at the right time can cause a mutation that is carried over into future generations.

Humans have been evolving from the beginning over time from single celled animals (and things before that -- see abiogenesis.

Our common ancestor split from the chimpanzee line over 4 million years ago. That's 133,333 generations minimum, plenty of time for us to evolve.

It's not just about change for the sake of change, it's about environmental pressures to do so. Flies don't evolve before our eyes (that we know of) because they don't need to. Their place is secure right now.

I would hazard a guess that, since we are experiencing another mass die-off of species for whatever reason ( pollution, etc.) that the rate of evolution could increase again to fill the niches left by extincting species. But one thing is certain, evolution happens on such a slow scale we cannot see it happen before our very eyes.

In all seriousness, I can't understand how anyone can believe we were just made from mud. That makes far less sense to me than the alternative.


Thanks much! Summer colds are so brutal. Hopefully before long I'll be myself again and we can get into this in depth. For now I hope my short explanation suffices.

And, BTW, I just got a copy of Why Darwin Matters which is next on my reading list after a short detour into fiction (I like to intersperse fiction with non-fiction to give my brain a rest). I am only a lay person, I don't have formal scientific education other than K-12 levels (and college anthropology courses), so there are still gaps in my knowledge of how this stuff actually works. I have the nuts & bolts, but not all the detail. Give me time though, and I'll be able to explain this better than I can now.

So is that part of your detour into fiction? Just kidding. I couldn't resist the opportunity. Personally I was thinking of reading Michael Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution. We should have a book swap club here on ATS. We could exchange books when done and get an opposing viewpoint. I'll have to check into the legality of that. I don't know what would be wrong with this if no money is changing hands.

1. Try praying
Praying is a way to focus your thoughts of what you want. Everyone prays when they want something, just like they throw coins in a fountain and blow candles out on their birthday cake. I guarantee 100% of Americans have prayed even if they are athiest, even if it wasnt directed toward a specific avatar of the divine. Quantum Physics has proven beyond doubt that consciousness is required for creation. Some subatomic particles behave differently to American and British scientists because of the way they think that particle should behave. Therefore those scientist's "prayers" or concentrated thoughts create the reality they see.

2. Statistically analyze prayer
The D.C. crime study comes to mind here. A large group of people 'prayed' or meditated as they described their praying, for a drop in crime in the murder capitol of America. Violent crime dropped to an unprecedented 25% of what it was usually at for that time of the year. Everything was taken in account including temperature. Crime stayed low for months after the study. It was a proven effect of concentrated thought of what these people wanted; which is what prayer is.

3. Look at all historical gods
I don't see how looking at historical gods disprovs god, infact the long history of belief should make us wonder why so many unconnected people all believe in a higher power. So the stories about the gods were just stories, what a suprise. Just because people got caught up on a personal idea of god doesnt make god go away. We like to imagine old beared guys on thrones, we're human and fallable, whooptydoo.

4. Think about science
Science is currently confirming all the basic spiritual ideas. God is infinite, so is the universe. As above, so below. Everything in the universe is made of the same stuff from your toe nail to the sun. God is everywhere, and in the highest dimensions of our universe, every particle in the universe is talking to every other particle instantly and are all connected. We are all connected. You cannot on a subatomic level tell where you end and another person starts.

5. Read the Bible
Well, that might take a while. So there's alot of old rules or laws in there that seem funny in modern times. How does that prove god doesnt exist? People have been propping themselves up as the voice of god for much longer than the bible, and many older codes of living made it into the bible we're familiar with. All the bible proves is that people have misrepresented god as a tool to get poeple to act a certain way. If you had a spiritual experience, there's no way you could write about it in a way that would give someone else the exact same experience, no matter how many descriptive words you use.

6. Ponder God's plan
The tenth dimension includes every single possible outcome for this universe and every other possible universe. Your "plan" is actually pretty big and includes alot of possibilities. So if you think god decided when you will die, well, thats true in the sense that you will die, and can do so in many different ways along parallel realities. So if you die right... NOW, or in 10 years, it was already planned out from beginning to end. If you could move in the 10th dimension you could see and experience each one, although I dont know why you would want to.

7. Understand religious delusion
This "proof" begins with santa, a non religious icon, and ends on prayer again. I'm beginning to think the author of that page had too much free time and spent most of it repeating himself. Well, Santa isnt in the bible, or any other bible for that matter so isnt this already proven wrong? So people belive things that arnt true, so what? How does that disprove god? Maybe this website author is incorrect also and anyone who believes him is delusioned. Time will tell I guess.. ?

8. Think about Near Death Experiences
Quoting page "Is this a direct proof that God is imaginary? No." So if its not proof god is imaginary, why is it being used in a PROOF of why god is imaginary? Proof#8 to be exact. This guy is an idiot.

9. Understand ambiguity
Again he starts the proof talking about prayer, a subject covered, poorly, in proofs #1 and #2, among others. I've already covered the fact that observation and consciousness created reality, read a book and find out for yourself.

10. Watch the offering plate
Again more prayer stuff. "why dont the priests pray for the money they need" Well maybe they did, and it comes true when people give money in church? Omg, he just proved the power of prayer in his anti-prayer proof!

11. Notice that there is no scientific evidence
"God has never left any physical evidence of his existence on earth." Earth is proof enough. Considering god is all the energy in the universe, which cannot be created or destroyed, and in e=mc^2 we see that energy = matter, therefore the energy of god = all matter, including the earth.

12. See the magic
For some reason hes talking about magic here.. and santa again, and the flood. Boy this guy is all over the place. The "magical" flood can be seen in physical proof of floods all over the world. Barring a time machine we cant see if any such flood covered the whole earth, or just the "whole world" of the people who recorded it, which seems to be the case. There is a concensus from the Americas to Mesopotamian mythology that there was massive floods and the evidence exists in the geological record and has been studied. Infact I'm part way through a book packed with science, although not about the biblical flood it does mention many flood stories and the physical evidence found.

13. Take a look at slavery
In a world without machinery and industry, manual labor was used; and debtors and prisoners were utilized for this - suprise! How this disproves god is beyond me. Maybe the web author can mention prayer and santa one more time for me to get it?

14. Examine Jesus' miracles
"All of the stories in the Bible are just that -- stories." Fair enough, god can still exist without a book about him. Infact everyone who believes in god does believe he/she existed before the bible and will exist when the sun burns up and humanity is no more. "Everyone has seen all sorts of "faith healers" who can "heal" the sick. And we all know that this sort of "healing" is quackery." Well there are diseases that can only be healed through hypnosis, is this magical quackery? People have been healed, miraculously even, with out medicine. I saw pics of one guy who's entire pelvis was regenerated, a feat thats medically impossible. "Turning water into wine... Doesn't that sound like something that a B-grade David-Copperfield-wannabe magician would do in a nightclub act?" Fine, it was a solar myth. God can still exist whether his followers worship the suns power or not.

15. Examine Jesus' resurrection
Solar myth, doesnt disprove god or even prove god. Not much of a proof.

16. Contemplate the contradictions
Moses tells people to kill because they were still worshiping the bull despite there being a 'dont kill' commandment. Well, originally it was Thou shalt not murder. Killing is just fine and even necessary sometimes. Misquoting a commandment doesn't disprove god. People are killed everyday without the benefit of bible stories about them.

17. Think about Leprechauns
Boy this guy is a moron. After repeating himself to fill more space, he talks about x-rays being real althought they're invisible. They can be seen in scientific experiments, unlike god. Well, then maybe our scientific tools of investigtion have not yet reached the level of sophistication needed to detect god.

18. Imagine heaven
"After listening to a conversation like this, it should be obvious to all of us: Heaven is imaginary. It is all completely imaginary." Well, I agree. Heaven is no more real than the life you are livign now. Its all basically an imagined state of being. Heaven is probably what you experience when your consciousnes is allowed to travel into the rest of the dimensions of the universe. Where consciousness is creation still, but it can be seen more directly. Just because people dont know what heaven is, and have different ideas about it, doesnt mean that it doesnt exist, and certainly doesnt mean god doesnt exist.

19. Notice that you ignore Jesus
Ok this "proof" is about giving up your wealth, "Why don't you sell everything and follow Jesus, as he requests in the Bible? The reason is simple: Jesus and God are imaginary, and you know it. If Jesus were real, you would do what he says." Ok now does that sound like a proof against god?? Its so stupid! He says that people dont follow the literal word of the bible because god doesnt exist!? How the hell does that make any sense? That would depend on another passage in the bible saying that god is going to make all your decisions for you. This guy is proving himself wrong, which would make the possiblity of god existing more likely.

20. Notice your church
More bible quotes about wealth, and although none of them mention churches, the web author does. Once again he uses two unrelated things to confuse people into not believing in god. Actually, I doubt anyone has stopped believing in god after reading this pile of crapola. So churches are big and expensive, and god said.. oops the bible said, that people should give up personal wealth. And this disproves god how? People are not buildings.

21. Understand Jesus' core message
Belief in god is salvation from hell. And although hell didnt exist during the time of the old testiment, somehow this duality of praise and punishment negates a god of love. God never said that he would personally torture anyone for not worshipping him. So if he exists, he can still be a god of love. And by the way I can hurt people, does that mean I could never love them?

22. Count all the people God wants to murder
This sections has passages about who should be put to death, with "In other words, if we actually listened to what God says, we would need to kill at least half of the people in America tomorrow." So what? Once again hes quoting the bible and not god, but besdes that a few murderous rules doesnt mean god cant exist. "There are two things in this that show you that God is imaginary. First there is the utter stupidity of these verses." Wait, if utter stupidity = imaginary, then the web page author must be imaginary.. very imaginary.

23. Listen to the Doxology
Ok he uses a song to prove god doesnt exist. Well, he doesnt prove anything, except that maybe this guy is basically very stupid. There's no way a song written by a person or persons proves god does exist, and therefore cannot be used to disprove god dosnt exist.

24. Ask why religion causes so many problems
Ok religion, not god. God is not religion and religion is not god. So if he has a problem with religion he could still believe in god. You cant say "I hate strawberry ice cream, therefore god does not exist!!" and not look like an idiot. Oh religions are about god? Well so are books and movies, and they're all not scientific studies on the "realness" of god either.

25. Understand evolution and abiogenesis
If god is everything, as religions will tell you, then he is particles of matter, cells, organisms and even evolution. There's only one source for everything and we call it god. Some religions concentrate more on the "personal god" like the romans, and some more on the universal god like in India, but none say that evolution doesnt exist. The Christian bible does not say that evolution does not exist. It's people who say evolution does not exist. God may be the biggest fan of evolution, how would we know? Nowhere in Genisis does it say evolution is not real. I havent read that book in a while, but I'm pretty sure.

26. Notice that the Bible's author is not "all-knowing"
Uhh, duh? Is he serious? I dont really have to point out the fact that god wasn't invited to the councils that wrote the bible.

27. Think about life after death
"When the chemical reactions cease, you die. That is the end of it." Ok, what does that have to do with the continuation of life on the planet. Your energy cannot be destroyed it only changes shape into matter or into energy and does infact go on forever! Your consciousness can leave your body, and remote viewers have seen it go into new bodies in the past and future even. I dont have time to explain or cite the tremendous amount of evidence for the possible continuation of your consciousness. However, if you remember that the entire history of every possible universe has already happened in the 10th dimension. If you were in the 5th dimension lets say, you would be able to view any point in time (4-D) instantly. But to us here one dimension below time, we are like a peice of paper, 2D. And time is a pencil going through it. 3D We only see the single 2D cross section of the pencil thats right on our plane of existance, not the whole thing. But as a human pushing a pencil though the paper, we can see the entire pencil, thats what being in the 5th-10th dimension would be like. And then we could see all of our lives and our entire existance along the entire dimension of time (the pencil) which may include many lives or different modes of existance for our energy/matter and consciousness. Just because science isnt that advanced yet doesnt mean it isnt real.

28. Notice how many gods you reject
Omg! I dont dress my personal god in the same clothes as someone else? That must mean both of our gods are imaginary! Or wait... maybe that means we both have the wrong idea of a god which does exist?

29. Think about communion
"When you research it historically, you realize that Jesus was a human being like any other. The mythology of his birth, life and death are pagan stories that are all man-made because God is imaginary." Ok and once again the borrowed stories do not prove that god does or doesnt exist. Its just story!

30. Examine God's sexism
Wow a male dominated world created male dominate religions, lemme guess: the existance of sexism negates god? Wow, compelling argument! People do not make god real or not real, god makes people real or not real. So people's sexism can't make god real or not real as well. I think this guy should change his website to "Proof that imaginary stories are imaginary"

31. Understand that religion is superstition
Yes people and their invented religions are superstitious. Is this really news to anyone? And he ends talking about prayer for the millionth time. No wonder he's got 50 "proofs," about 40 of them are the same thing written in a slightly different way.

32. Talk to a theologian
A theologian is a person right? So theres no way this person could know the full totallity of god is he does infact exist, and also no way he could convey it to us. And this is proof that god doesnt exist? Its like saying movie critics prove that movies are bad. You can still enjoy it no matter what some person says.

33. Contemplate the crucifixion
"The reason why the crucifixion makes no sense is because God is imaginary." ??? He should be proving that god doesnt exist by proving that god doesnt exist, not by telling us how some stories are unrealistic. Its a solar myth embellished with some personal bits of info to fit the time when it was written. Doesnt mean god does or doesnt exist, just that the story could be inaccurate, more likely its just misunderstood.

34. Examine your health insurance policy
I dont have one. N/A "If God answers medical prayers, then why do you need health insurance?" Well, I do believe that mental focus, prayer being one form, can alter reality including health. Infact thats exactly how your body works. Sure most of the stuff going on is dealt with by your unconscious brain, but you could concievably tell yourself to stop breathing, if you could work on the unconscious level... How does having medical insurance make god not real? Another "proof" involving prayer.. sheesh get some new material guy.

35. Notice Jesus' myopia
"Jesus, if he actually were God, could have done so much. He could have prevented massive amounts of human suffering with his words and deeds. Instead, he did none of this. To any rational person, these problems make it painfully obvious that Jesus was a normal human being." Ok I could live with that. Of course if your definition of god involves everything in existance than each one of us is part of god. Of course having an uncorrect definition of god is human error and not proof that god does not exist.

36. Realize that God is impossible
"As soon as your think about the concept of a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient being, you realize the impossibility of the concept." Isnt that the definition of the universe? And that does exist right? While scientists can prove the omniscience and omnipotents of the universe, that doesnt mean its intelligent; although considering that observation is necessary for reality, it may infact prove a vast intelligence. Unless you can view the whole universe - you cant prove that god can or cant do it either.

37. Think about DNA
"Many religious belivers use the existence of DNA as a proof for God's existence." So the **** what? Who cares what people think? They dont determine the existance of god any more than the author of this ridiculous website.

38. Contemplate the divorce rate among Christians
Wow love-marriages which are incredibly new among humans isnt perfect? Christians divorce!? And I guess the existance of god depends on a few million people having stable relationships? I sure hope not! Until we decide that gods existance reliess entirely on marriages remaining intact (among christians only), we cant use its failings as proof against god.

39. Realize that Jesus was a jerk
After saying Jesus doesnt exist, how does saying hes a jerk disprove god? If Jesus doesnt exist (proofs #14,15,35), which has nothing to do with this anyways, then anything about Jesus should be thrown out. But 50 proofs are more impressive than 47 I guess... Oh and if we threw out all the proofs that rely on prayer we would be down to about 3 or 4 unique yet still ridiculous proofs.

40. Understand Christian motivations
Why are the Chrisitans the linchpin of gods existance? Christians dont prove god, and neither do their motivations; so christians and christian motivations cant be used to disprove god either.

41. Flip a coin
Hey heres a new one, this proof relys on the power of prayer! So if god ignores you then he must be imaginary! Or maybe you dont really know what god is? Maybe god just hates you? He can still exist and not listen to you.

42. Listen when "God talks"
Another prayer one... The web author assumes that no prayer is answered by god becase its really the persons own decision making process and not an answer to a prayer. Well, you would have to already assume that god does not exist for this proof to work, which isnt good science. God may or may not answer prayer through many methods such as intuition. You cannot prove that god gave you the idea, nor can you claim that god did not. And again this proof assumes that if god exists, he answers all prayers immidiatly and to the fullest extent of his presumed powers. Maybe god cant do anything at all? He may just be the global unconscious. The lack of prayer answers doesnt mean god's not there because it depends on a notion of god which may be wrong.

43. Realize that a "hidden God" is impossible
Lack of miracles means gods in hiding so to speak, which is strange due to the sheer amount of miracles in earlier history. While the lack of miracles can just mean god is asleep, and not dead, it can also mean those stories were - stories.

44. Think about a Christian housewife
Joy, another proof that thinly veils the same idea about unanswered prayers, nothing unique here as usual. Not only is this guy presuming to know that his idea of god is the only correct one, he is now presuming to know the life of millions of people fits into one specific mold of human fallability.

45. Consider Noah's Ark
Another myth that neither proves nor disproves god. I dont believe any story about the website author - he must not exist!!!

46. Ponder Pascal's Wager
"The problem with this line of reasoning is that there are thousands of gods that humans have imagined." Riiiight that humans have imagined. Just like you, a human, imagine god doesnt exist. But your right and they're all wrong? This wager just says that theres nothing to lose not believing in god. Obviously millions of people have died not believing in god or having a religion, along with billions of animals and plants. Still doesnt mean god doesnt exist just because people dont believe in him. This has no place in the proofs really, unless he was proving religion is a bad idea, but hes not.

47. Contemplate Creation
Complexity with or without intelligent creation. Some people believe that the world is too complex for randomness. Thats a nice idea, but its just an idea. And if one persons idea of god being wrong negates the entire existance of god, then we're in trouble. God does not rely on certain people having a correct view of him.

48. Compare prayer to a lucky horseshoe
Oooh another prayer proof! "Belief in prayer is pure superstition." So?? Does god rely on prayers being answered to be real? No. He doesnt. At least not as far as I know, but then as a human I cant know the true reality of god. Now if this persons personal view of god relys on prayers being answered, and his prayers arnt answered, then by his own made up definition - god doesnt exist. Well I could say if the sun rises, god is real. Tomarrow morning I'll prove my idea of god is real, and thus god himself is real.

49. Look at who speaks for God
Ok so child molesters and homeless people can claim to be giving us a message from god. Just because the radio is broken it doesnt mean the radio station is off the air. Get it?

50. Ask Jesus to appear
I asked him to appear to the thread author and not the web author, this way maddnessinmysoul can tell us if he appeared to him or not. Besides that - who here believes I command Jesus on what to do and where to manifest? I dont remember being given the ability to bring Jesus into existance, although its highly likely that Jesus never lived, and then one begs the question on what a mythical figure appearing has to do with god? Shouldn't we be commanding god to appear? In which case it would only show our ignorance of the true nature of god. This does not prove or disprove god, or jesus for that matter. Maybe Jesus doesnt want to appear? Especially to a complete idiot like the web page author. I sympathise with Jesus, I sure dont want to ever meet him!

Every imagined idea of god is wrong. For proof read the 50 proofs against god and see how they all depend on a specific and sometimes changing idea of god. Until you have an infallible idea of god, you cannot use it to disprove god. And any idea you have will be wrong anyways. Therefore all you can disprove is human ideas, and not the existance of god.

ViolatoR did you read what you wrote:-

11. Notice that there is no scientific evidence
"God has never left any physical evidence of his existence on earth." Earth is proof enough. Considering god is all the energy in the universe, which cannot be created or destroyed, and in e=mc^2 we see that energy = matter, therefore the energy of god = all matter, including the earth.
...
....Every imagined idea of god is wrong. For proof read the 50 proofs against god and see how they all depend on a specific and sometimes changing idea of god. Until you have an infallible idea of god, you cannot use it to disprove god. And any idea you have will be wrong anyways. Therefore all you can disprove is human ideas, and not the existance of god.

So what you saying is that your idea that god is everything is wrong?

I totally agree that you cannot disprove the existance of god(s) but neither can the existance of any imagined object or person. The problem is not disproving god but proving it, after all you can't disprove something If you dont believe in the first place.


G

how?



alright, you give an example... citation?



yes, corollation = causation....
someone has been watching "what the bleep do we know?" and taking it as fact...
the DC crime study didn't even touch on the policing factors...




incorrect, there are quite a few instances of tiny tribes not having ANY religion at all
example, the Piraha tribe of the amazon



since when is the universe infinite? it came from a finite source of matter and energy, the universe could be quite infinite. it is also not a basic spiritual idea that god is inifinite, it's a monotheistic idea.



yet you're only assuming that...




only a few months.



then i shall disregard everything you have said on god...




then what's in the 11th?



then what about casuality?



it shows that religion is just a belief in what isn't true. at least all but one religion would have to be wrong.



time will show that there is less and less reason to believe in a deity. just look at the science. only those that misunderstand science and twist it to fit their own beliefs can show that it supports spirituality.




he said that it is not DIRECT proof, therefore it is INDIRECT proof



when you point one finger you have another 3 pointing back at yourself.



the FACT? no, you've covered the assumption that conciousness created reality.

read a book and find out for myself? have you tried PROVING an argument?



that would override the concept of free will.

that's based on an assumption. can you prove that god is all energy?
actually, most of your counter argument are either ad hom attacks or based on your baseless assumptions

Not to mention that a scientifically-run double-blind study of prayer on people having coronary surgery proved that not only did prayer not work to help people recover from surgery faster, that the people that knew they were being prayed for actually had the worst recovery rates.

The people who were not prayed for, and the people who were prayed for but did not know it had no difference in recovery rates.

Prayer is wishful thinking only.

God is imaginary.

Scientists don't pray to quantum particles, and this does not prove that prayer works. "Concentrated thoughts" are not what is influencing the experiment's outcome, just a simple expectation. And this only applies to particles they're experimenting on, not anything complex in a non-laboratory setting.

Pray for a dollar to show up in your pocket out of thin air.

Didn't work, did it?

Did you watch the video on that site that has something to do with god being an optical illusion? Pray to a jug of milk for your dollar, and also pray to your god for the dollar, and see which one gives you the dollar first.

(hint: neither one)