Posted on 05/13/2007 6:15:45 PM PDT by Clemenza
Edited on 05/13/2007 6:29:30 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Wednesday night on ABC-TV, two televangelists took on nonbelievers from the Rational Response Squad in a bid to prove the existence of God (see "Nightline Face Off" on ABCNews.com).
The TV polemics come in the wake of a rash of bestselling books by atheists challenging religion.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
No such thing as an agnostic. If you believe in God, you are a theist. If you don’t, you are an atheist. If you want to waffle you claim to be an agnostic, but it won’t work. If you aren’t sure, then you don’t have a belief and you are therefore an atheist.
I have suspicions that a deity exists, but have no concrete proof to verify it mentally.
I will continue to question and explore questions divinity, albeit not my own.
OK, so God created the fundamental particles. What created God? Don’t give me the line about he just always existed. If God can just always exist without a creator, then fundamental particles can just always exist without a creator. Same with all the rest of the universe. I believe that God exists on faith, because there is no proof that will stand up to even basic logic.
I know all that...we are talking about ecclesiology, not soteriology. As a pastor of almost 30 years, I am simply describing the Scriptural design of the church.
That’s a good rational place to be, but as long as you are exploring you are an atheist. When and if you acquire believe you will become a theist. I think this is consistant with the definitions of the two words.
I don’t see any difference between thinking that God does not exist and suspecting that he does. Neither person believes that he does.
You’re telling me that you know what the initial terms of creation were? I’m having trouble accepting that.
I do not. That would be ridiculous.
I do know that atheism is the pinnacle of arrogance.
I didn’t think you intended to claim that you did, and I certainly don’t. I agree that a person who believes that God does not exist believes so on faith. Obviously it can never be proven that God does not exist. Just as obviously, it can be proven that he does, all you got to do is find him. I haven’t. I don’t need to to believe in his existance. My point is simply that nothing in the physical universe proves the existance of God. I don’t care how complex it is, or how much it seems to be designed. To claim that God did it is just trying to explain a great mystery by positing an even greater mystery.
agnosticism makes the most logical sense. the inability to prove God doesn’t exist isn’t proof that God does exist, and vice-versa. we can neither prove that God exists or that he does not exist.
one can never say one is ‘certain of God’s existence’, but it can always be said one is ‘certain of their faith in God’s existence’.
one can have faith and believe, but this is not in-and-of-itself rational. if there was proof God existed, what would be the need for faith or belief? the existence of faith and belief imply that there is reasonable doubt.
a great error is made by theists in claiming certainty because it belittles the devotion that faith requires.
but, one can make a rational decision that faith or belief is a necessary component of the human condition and that therefore one should have some kind of faith in the unknown and unprovable.
What is logical about believing that all of creation is an accident? Think outside the box. The complexity of things are much too vast for modern science to bottle in a jar of simple equations and observations. To put things into perspective, I suggest you consider the vastness of unexplored space. To put it bluntly..I believe modern science is elementary.
That is an interesting point. I guess the obvious angle of this discourse would be how one defines God. To claim that ‘God did it’ is less than medieval in terms of reality many times. To claim that everything came from nothing is far more ridiculous however.
Excellent analysis. My only disagreement would be to amend the statement about the error of the atheist. He would have to be irrational to claim certainty because the non-existance of anything can not be proven.
By the same token in many years of study, I’ve never seen a logical “proof” of God’s existance that an intelligent high school senior could not dismantle immediately. I think that the need to somehow prove God’s existance is somewhat the mark of an immature faith.
The nearly universal human belief in a deity also argues that maybe we are hardwired that way.
Weak agnostic.
The chaos underneath the order should affirm the observer’s lack of knowledge.
My garden is well patterned and maintained to grow certain plant species at certain times of the year but it does not explain the original germination of plant life. There is no explanation for that.
Not trying to be contentious, but this point has always bothered me. It is ridiculous to claim that everything came from nothing, but the universe is a ridiculous place.
Either God always existed (what does that mean?), or he came from nothing. Or there are other possibilities outside the scope of the human mind. (Likely, I think.)
If God can always exist or come from nothing, why can’t the entire physical universe always exist or come from nothing?
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