The Topic of God Has Been Settled!....

[POI]

...According to a theist....

Otseng: Cumulatively, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of God existing than not existing.

POI Therefore, the agnostic/atheist/other is:

a) uninformed
b) inept
c) in denial
d) other

Meaning, the theists have won. At this point, it's as futile as debating the shape of the earth with a flat earther. In this scenario, the doubter is the 'flat earther.' Is this how settled the topic is regarding God's existence?

For debate:

1) If the skeptic/doubter does not agree with the title of this thread, they are one of the given options in <a) though d)> above, maybe like that of a "flat earther"? Please agree or disagree and explain your given response.

2) What piece of evidence would be the first and/or strongest, in this cumulative string of evidence(s), to support the conclusion that God exists?

*******************

As a side note, I may or may not engage myself with this topic. I'd rather see what everyone else has to say, since I personally feel all such arguments are nothing new. I guess this makes me the 'flat earther', since I remain unconvinced

[POI]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #19]

Does this mean you concede that the skeptic/doubter/atheist/other has a legitimate case to question the assertion of "God"? As the OP points out, this doubt would not be legitimate, when questioning the general shape of earth as being spherical.

That people doubt the truth or believe the lie doesn’t mean that position is legitimate.

Sounds like you ARE placing skeptics/doubters/atheists/other into the same category as a 'flat earther"? As the OP indicates, to not be convinced that God exists would mean one of the given options presented in (a thru d). Is this your position?

[Mae von H]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #19]

Does this mean you concede that the skeptic/doubter/atheist/other has a legitimate case to question the assertion of "God"? As the OP points out, this doubt would not be legitimate, when questioning the general shape of earth as being spherical.

That people doubt the truth or believe the lie doesn’t mean that position is legitimate.

Sounds like you ARE placing skeptics/doubters/atheists/other into the same category as a 'flat earther"?

Very much incorrect.

As the OP indicates, to not be convinced that God exists would mean one of the given options presented in (a thru d). Is this your position?

I will need to read the OP again.

a) uninformed
b) inept
c) in denial
d) other

The list is for one, too short. But my response
a) Some are, likely
b) I do NOT cast aspersions as a general response like your side does
c) again, a personal insulting aspersion
d) covers everything but might as well have said a) and d) and left it. It wouldn’t be saying anything worth saying but it would have been neutral.

[Mae von H]

Dear Benchwarmer, it is a pleasure to interact with you, despite having different views. You think about matters to some depth and I appreciate that, I would like you to know. I decided to answer in one block instead of piece by piece which does get tiresome.

Dear Mae, it is also a pleasure to interact with you. This is a debate environment, so we should all be expecting opposing views and not getting personal about it. If we didn't have any opposition, there would be no debate and this site wouldn't exist. So please don't think that because I'm disagreeing with you that I don't like you or anything of that sort. We are (or should be) debating ideas only.

Starting backwards, gravity is not a matter of believing. What alternative is there? We do not believe in gravity same as we do not merely believe we need to eat and sleep. That is not a matter one believes but instead knows. It requires no explanation (which is good because even Newton could not explain what gravity is.)

I disagree. Are you saying you know for a fact what gravity is because you personally did all the research to confirm it? Or have you perhaps simply learned about gravity in science class and done some simple experiments to prove to yourself that it seems to be real?

I work in science and we do not reinvent the wheel every generation but instead stand on the shoulders of those who did. No one publishes papers on the reality of gravity. Knowing it functions doesn’t require hours of research same as we don’t keep discovering penicillin. It is called the advancement of knowledge.

Now it’s an interesting challenge because I wager you didn’t yourself conduct any experiments establishing your position on evolution. You simply believed what others told you. Yet you ask me if I did.Do you see two different measures here?

My point here is that you believe in the God of the Bible. Perhaps this God is the one that pushes objects around in a way that appears to be gravity i.e. instead of matter having some intrinsic property that interacts with other matter, it's actually your God doing all this and perhaps there is some point where 'gravity' would break down because God decides He doesn't want to push something one day.

No, He made the natural world to function under laws. Your suggestion is the view that everyone but christians had which prevented everyone else from advancing. Only christians thought the was a LAW Giver and so the natural world functioned under law, not luck.

I realize I may appear to be splitting hairs here, but we have to be careful in debate so that we are clear what we mean.

I know I just saw a ball fall to the ground. I observed it. I believe it was the effect of gravity (attraction of large bodies of matter with other matter). I don't believe it was fairies, gods, invisible goblins, or anything else. I don't know this beyond all doubt, but I'm reasonably confident in my belief (99.99999% confident, but if we scientifically observed 'gravity fairies' then science would change and so would my beliefs).

But it won’t because there’s a law giver and that’s a law.

We are getting into the area of blind faith and beliefs based on evidence, but that's another discusssion.

Regarding God healing, if one asks God to heal and healing occurs, seems logical to assume He had a hand in it.

Ummm, no. How many children have asked Santa for a toy and then got that exact toy on Christmas morning?

Since they are taught to write Santa and Mom “delivers” those letters, it’s not even close.

People of all cultures and religions pray to their favorite dieties and witness what appear to be miraculous healings. Are you saying now that all these gods are real based on this?

You’re making that up. They don’t, How many obvious healings did your church see?

If a dead person rises and walks around, definately.

Definitely what? I will agree that something happened, but claiming this or that god did it is pure guess work unless you observe this or that god actually doing it.

You don’t work in science I take it. In science we don’t generate a hypothesis, test it, find out it is true and decide it’s not true because we didn’t see the atoms or cells actually do what was postulated, we just saw the outcome. In science you only need the outcome. If your Mom brought in a cake, you wouldn’t say she didn’t bake it (even though she says she did) because you weren’t in the kitchen. What you demand of God or other's reports of Him, you don’t demand in your own life.

Same as someone lame who suddenly walks. Is there any other logical conclusion?

Yes. The logical conclusion is that something happened to cause this 'miracle'. Jumping to your favorite deity is NOT logical given we have no observable evidence of any gods (if we did religion wouldn't be religion, it would be science).

Again, working in science has been a tremendous asset in understanding God. I don’t refuse the obvious. When God is asked and the asked for occurs, the logical conclusion is He had a hand in it. You allow yourself to consider something totally out of the initial step.

And I work in medicine, and even doctors do not always how how someone ill is no longer ill. Sometimes they know and often they guess and sometimes they do not know at all. Doesn't make them doubt the sick person is now well.

Agreed! People recover for unknown reasons all the time. Maybe it was Vishnu. If someone prayed to Vishnu right before it happened would you convert on the spot? Be honest.

He doesn’t do that and adherents don’t say he does. You need to limit your answers to the beliefs of those who know about Hinduism. They don’t say that.

You are still divorcing the process of coming to believe something is true from the conclusion although you do see that this process is a choice. Why then is the concluding process not a choice for you?

No, we are still not understanding each other clearly.

It is a choice to read this or that.

It is a choice to listen to this or that.

I believe something is true because I am currently convinced by x, y, z. i.e. I find x, y, and z convincing. I likely find these convincing based on all of my previous lived experience.

Now, I cannot just say to myself "You know what, even though I find this completely convincing, I'm going to simply choose to ignore all that and believe the opposite because Mae told me I could".

I think we both know this is not how it works. I already proved this in my first reply to you. You cannot simply choose to believe Santa is God. Therefore belief is not a simple choice. Belief is an accumulation of convincing (to the person in question) evidence.

I really feel like we are going in circles here, but it's important to understanding each other. I did not wake up one day and simply start not believing in Bible God. It was an accumulation of convincing (to me) evidence that slowly eroded the belief until one day (and I can't even remember the exact time/day) the last straw finally broke the camel's back and it all fell apart.

It was a much longer process, but the analogy is that one day I found my "presents from Santa" under Mom and Dad's bed a week before Christmas. The evidence against overrode any previous convincing evidence for. A belief was changed.

Yes I agree and, believe it it not, I find your thought processes interesting. Fascinating is a better word.

Now, WHAT you read and believed that spoke against the faith was your choice you admit.That is where the choosing occurs. That is where the responsibility lies. Yes, of course, once you go steadily down the path of reading what those who do not see the claims of Christ as valid, you become like them. That choice to continue was where you chose.

Now I was premed so took a great deal of biology etc courses. And I’ve read quite a bit on evolution and also the various arguments against the belief in God. We could discuss this on a different thread. But I’ve found that one needs to think and educate oneself deeper than the evolutionary theory to come to the truth. If one reads only the atheist one, of course one becomes an atheist and one is not innocent of that outcome.

Ten or more people can hear the exact same evidence and some believe and some do not. How is this possible if there is no choice?

Easy. Each of these 10 people have completely different lived experiences, education, etc. One piece of evidence may be convincing to person A because they understand what that evidence means, while person B is not convinced because they have no clue what the evidence really means.

That evaluation is way too narrow. You lay all the weight on knowing good evidence or not. People are more complex than that. And you assume no choice is involved. It absolutely choice to evaluate the evidence. That’s why they can be pursued ed to change their vote. If it were no choice and all dependent upon factors you name, no change would be possible.

We see this in the evolution debate. Person A has no clue about the science behind all of it and just reads apologetic materials from people they trust. Person B is a trained biologist and knows what the evidence says and what it doesn't. Person A is not going to choose to believe in evolution based on apologetic materials and person B is not going to choose to reject evolution based on DNA evidence (at least not supporting DNA evidence - if it was refuting they would be salivating at a possible Nobel).

And then there’s the untrained atheist who blindly believes all they read that agrees with their chosen position. They avoid the highly trained scientists who reject the tenets of evolution. This is very common among atheists. I know because when I challenge the science (easy), they just get mad and call me names. Some send a link. But They cannot defend their view. They swallowed the view and don’t or can’t think about the holes.

Some people choose to believe lies and some choose to believe the truth.

Completely disagree and I think this is unfair to people in general.

Your position is no one ever believes lies? How do scams work? And you think i on ever rejects truth? Really? How come people disagree?

Though you and I disagree, I don't think you are just purposely choosing to disagree with me because you choose to believe in lies.

And I don’t think you’re purposely disagreeing with me because you refuse to believe the truth.

I think everyone believes they are choosing the truth. It may not be the actual truth, but I like to think most people are not simply choosing to believe what they believe are lies just for giggles.

It’s but at all uncommon to hear people say that they just something wasn’t true but believed and acted on it anyway and now regret ignoring their gut feeling. So no, people sometimes suspect they’re believing a lie.

It is possible because some believe the obvious conclusion of the evidence and some do not choose to believe the logical conclusion of the evidence.

Same as above.

To me the obvious conclusion to the evidence is that the Bible was written by men. Just look at all the ridiculous laws that don't comport with a loving God.

Like do not steal, do not lie about others, do not betray your spouse? There are atheists who’ve read those laws and believed there is a God based on their justice. He saw justice.

On the other hand, the obvious conclusion to you is that the Bible is the inspired word of the one true God.

Neither of us are choosing to lie and just pick one or the other because we feel like it. What is obvious and logical to one person is clearly not to the other. That is why we are here debating right?

Correct

Or do you think so highly of yourself that you can never be wrong and will always choose the actual truth?

The as hominem attack. You are unworthy of this so common from atheists approach.

I certainly don't believe that of myself and am quite willing to admit when I'm wrong. I had to do it when I became an atheist after being a devout Christian.

The assumption that I believe as I do because of a character flaw is common from atheists although christians rarely accuse the atheist of such.

Can you see that your divorcing this choosing to believe the evidence from choosing does not work in real life? I think if someone you know decided to believe lies about you, you would not conclude that it was not their choice to believe lies about you. Do you see that your version does not work in real life?

See above.

Now pigs do not fly and pigs do not have wings.

What? Really???? C'mon, are you really going to die on this hill? My entire point was to come up with something you don't currently believe. It's called a thought experiment. Surely you've heard of those?

I am a scientist and do not consider the LAWS of nature malleable or able to be completely suspended. I love truth too much to entertain what I KNOW are lies. I derive no pleasure from considering lies. Truth is just too delightful.

I am trained in science and do not use my imagination to come to understand matters presented to me in life

If you are trained in science then surely you've heard of a hypothesis? If you saw 'something' (clearly flying pigs are really not working for you) you had never seen before, how do you process it? God did it? Maybe there is a natural explanation? Remember your science training. Does God show up in any science textbooks (reputable ones anyways)?

Science does not pursue known lies. You need to deal with this.

, but one thing that seems to be the case and that is, you did not walk with God.

Sigh.... We were doing so well, but I guess I can take this as the first sign of 'a win'. The good old ad hominem and one of the favorite things to lash out with at former Christians. The "You were never a true Christian!". If this makes you feel better then you go with that. It's so funny watching people toss this out and then see some of them on the other side years later.

That is NOT what I said. I know men and women who were as true a christian as anyone but left the faith. Not being a “true christian” was not the reason. Please don’t change what I wrote. I said you never knew Him. Do you deny this? You don’t even think He’s there.

I would love to keep it cordial if you can steer away from what just happened above. It's ok though, I forgive you. You believe 1 John 2:19 is true and that's where you are coming from. I can't fault you for sticking to your Bible while you are "a true Christian". Just realize that it may not be the actual truth at the end of the day. Please at least be that humble.

Please try not to change the things I write into something else. The humble and truthful answer from you would have been, “I guess you can say I never knew Him but frankly speaking I don’t think anyone is there to know.”

See the difference?

[1213]

...the point of evolution in the religion - debate is that it refutes the Bible, not so much a creator of Life. ..

Evolution theory is a belief, that refutes nothing.

That said, there is a hypothetical mechanism for abiogenesis, even if it hasn't actually been shown to make a replicating molecule from biochemicals....

If non-organic material would have the ability to form life spontaneously, why are we not seeing it happening everyday in nature?

[Mae von H]

[Replying to 1213 in post #34]

You’re treading into unpleasant territory. They don’t know and only have insults or someone else’s run around answer to give. It will not be cordial. Just so you know. The kindest answer you can expect is “some mechanism did it way back when.” Essentially, “we don’t know but we believe it anyway.”

[Mae von H]

@Benchwarmer

Dear B

I know there’s a prominent branch of Christianity that insists anyone who later changes their mind was never a believer. Oddly enough, it actually means NO ONE can know if they’re “saved” until the end of their lives because if they abandon the faith, they were never in it. The theology is to assure Heaven but really makes it the most unsure.

Anyway, I deviate, but I understand why you assumed I’m of this kind. I am not, I see in scripture and life that men and women change their minds. This means they were real christians same as they were really married or really working in their jobs. They changed their minds in the commitment.

[POI]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #19]

Does this mean you concede that the skeptic/doubter/atheist/other has a legitimate case to question the assertion of "God"? As the OP points out, this doubt would not be legitimate, when questioning the general shape of earth as being spherical.

That people doubt the truth or believe the lie doesn’t mean that position is legitimate.

Sounds like you ARE placing skeptics/doubters/atheists/other into the same category as a 'flat earther"?

Very much incorrect.

As the OP indicates, to not be convinced that God exists would mean one of the given options presented in (a thru d). Is this your position?

I will need to read the OP again.

a) uninformed
b) inept
c) in denial
d) other

The list is for one, too short. But my response
a) Some are, likely
b) I do NOT cast aspersions as a general response like your side does
c) again, a personal insulting aspersion
d) covers everything but might as well have said a) and d) and left it. It wouldn’t be saying anything worth saying but it would have been neutral.

You stated "That people doubt the truth or believe the lie". Being you are presumably a Christian; it reads as if you are saying the ones which do not take <your> position of Christianity doubt what they know is really true (or) believe the lie of 'atheism'? Your response merely indicates two possible options.

[TRANSPONDER]

...the point of evolution in the religion - debate is that it refutes the Bible, not so much a creator of Life. ..

Evolution theory is a belief, that refutes nothing.

That is simply kneejerk denial. I gave t you the evidence which ought to be good enough to satisfy any court of enquiry. You tried to refute it by ignoring and misrepresenting the ear bones that link all the vatious evolutions so they can't be claimed as Not evolutionary, and you tried to wave away the leg bones as just the best thing for paddles. I pointed out that sharks find have cartilage which is so good that sharks haven't had to speciate since the Silurian period.

And here you are ignoring the evidence and strawmanning evolution so as to brush it away.

I can only say again 'let the other Bible apologists look and say "Is that what I sound like?" Yes Bible buddies, it is.

That said, there is a hypothetical mechanism for abiogenesis, even if it hasn't actually been shown to make a replicating molecule from biochemicals....

If non-organic material would have the ability to form life spontaneously, why are we not seeing it happening everyday in nature?

This is a fair point. The mystery of life coming from non -life is not solved. It is why abiogenesis is still a gap for a god. I grant you that. but let's say that a god started life off. Made the first DNA and cell. From then on we can see in the fossil record, cells grouping together to form organisms (Pre cambrian) the explodion of sea -life in the Cambrian, dish through the Devonian and Silutian and crawling onto land in the Carboniferous and so on.

The evidence is that evolution happened even if a god DID start the first life, so your miserable goalpost -shifting of the abiogenesis gap for a god is irrelevant.

It evolved, says the evidence and there are transitional forms, says Tiktaalik just for one 'missing link' example, and the cetan sequence proves through evidence that speciation can and did happen and Genesis all ion one week is wrong.

You may ignore the evidence but it just shows that resorting to a 'belief that refuted nothing' is what evolution deniers do, not evolutionists.

[Replying to 1213 in post #34]

You’re treading into unpleasant territory. They don’t know and only have insults or someone else’s run around answer to give. It will not be cordial. Just so you know. The kindest answer you can expect is “some mechanism did it way back when.” Essentially, “we don’t know but we believe it anyway.”

"Looks like meat's back on the menu boys"

Lady, I don't need you to speak in front of me or predict what I'm going to say.

All I did was concede the point about Abiogenesis, but point out (correctly) that it is irrelevant to the fact that the evidence for evolution refuted Genesis and even if there is a god, the Bible, shown incorrect on the evidence, does not tell us which one that is.

Atheism (based on agnosticism) concedes without much interest the possibility of a creator, BUT the existence of a hypothesis (1)means that 'God' is not the default.

I suggest that you learn what you are talking about before you presume to speak for us. Or about us.

(1) interesting apparently grammarly no longer thinks 'an hypothesis' is correct.

[Difflugia]

Now it’s an interesting challenge because I wager you didn’t yourself conduct any experiments establishing your position on evolution. You simply believed what others told you. Yet you ask me if I did.Do you see two different measures here?

I have. Interestingly, this topic just came up again. Would you like to do some experiments establishing evolution?

In science you only need the outcome. If your Mom brought in a cake, you wouldn’t say she didn’t bake it (even though she says she did) because you weren’t in the kitchen. What you demand of God or other's reports of Him, you don’t demand in your own life.

If the only claims made for God involved baking cakes, I might be tempted to believe them. If my mom claimed that she brought somebody back from the dead, I'd ask for a little more evidence and, as long as we're projecting, I'd wager you would, too. I assert that you're affording stories about God more credibility than you would others.

Again, working in science has been a tremendous asset in understanding God.

I wholeheartedly agree.

I don’t refuse the obvious. When God is asked and the asked for occurs, the logical conclusion is He had a hand in it. You allow yourself to consider something totally out of the initial step.

If you ask and the asked for doesn't occur, is the logical conclusion that there's no god? Do you know what confirmation bias is?

I know because when I challenge the science (easy), they just get mad and call me names. Some send a link. But They cannot defend their view. They swallowed the view and don’t or can’t think about the holes.

I've never met someone that was a creationist, but also understood the science behind evolution. If what you're saying is true and you have a legitimate challenge to evolution, you'd be the first. The fact that you think that such a challenge would be "easy" suggests to me that you don't.

[TRANSPONDER]

@Benchwarmer

Dear B

I know there’s a prominent branch of Christianity that insists anyone who later changes their mind was never a believer. Oddly enough, it actually means NO ONE can know if they’re “saved” until the end of their lives because if they abandon the faith, they were never in it. The theology is to assure Heaven but really makes it the most unsure.

Anyway, I deviate, but I understand why you assumed I’m of this kind. I am not, I see in scripture and life that men and women change their minds. This means they were real christians same as they were really married or really working in their jobs. They changed their minds in the commitment.

It would help to put a link to the post you replky to, however I get the gist.

It is again a fair point. There is a sect that has a 'once saved always saved' dfogma which doesn't make sense as it means Jack the ripper will get to heaven if he was Saved when he was a kid, and you see this well enough.

Besides which, 'anyone who leaves was never a real Christian' os a notorious apologetic that has done the users no credit.

I guess they have to do it because they deny that no 'Real Christian' once convinced can ever give up God -belief. Even I suppose if they just become an irreligious theist.

I suppose (which is why I none is at all) this derives from the discussion about doubt and question. Which is ok so long as it served to firm up the Faith by setting doubts and explaining questions, but (in many an anecdote) it was far from ok if the pre digested and regurgitated apologetic tripe was not swallowed (1) (and to any who are revolted by the analogy, that's how it makes me feel to see the mealy - mouthed hogwash that is spewed out just to suppress all serious doubt). This is quite different from doubt and question that placed credible conviction ahead of bias confirmation and when convincing answers were not forthcoming, stepped away. This is not ok and doctrinally (if not in practical ways) is supposed to incur penaties.

(1) and since I'm overdoing mustwatch videos here is one (even if a bit long) showing how doubts and questions by a believer (despite attempts to squash them with feeble apologetics and aggression) could not stop this former believer deconverting as did his brother, independently.