I know Homer proved it when he removed that crayon from his brain, but I'd like to see you guys take a shot at it. I went to a private Christian high school (as opposed to a public Christian high school ), and our senior year class focused on "The case for Christ". I might do a little debating later, but I'd like to see you evolutionists, atheists, and even you Mongolians take a crack at proving to me that once I die, it's OVER. And please don't start a thread called "Prove to me God does exist", because then all of us Christians will just say "Because we believe!". This should be fun.
I am a man of faith, but not religion. I feel that someday religion will die out as a past cultural item. Churches will become museums (some already are) and people will talk about our Catholicism and such the same way we talk about Native Americans and their nature Gods, or Greek mythology.
Homer Simpson saying it on TV is enough for me. Now if Jerry Springer were to collaborate..case closed, next topic.
Hahaha...that class should have been called "Brainwashing 101, the Christian way". I sure heard a lot about the "secular world", light on defintion, heavy on persuasion. Easy on the mongolians, they were out to break down the "walls" of society, not put them up.
"Because we believe" as arguments go, is pretty weak. It's the kind of thing a Chelsea fan says to back up his boasts about the title coming to West London the following May. It's pretty much impossible to prove that ANYTHING doesn't exist. People believe that the dodo no longer exists. They could be right, but there also could be a few in some remote part of the world. An atheist saying "he doesn't exist because I don't believe he exists" is no more or less valid in his reasoning that a believer saying "he exists because I believe he does". Unless people can accept that just because you 100% believe something to be true it doesn't automatically mean that it is, then any debate is pointless. I suppose though if they found an extra page from the dead sea scrolls that was meant to go at the front of the bible and it said "for my Darling Susie. All characters in this book are ficticious and any resemblence to persons living or dead is merely coincidence" then that would put that cat amongst the pigeons.
Because we have no reason to believe. You are the one trying to prove something not us. So why do we have to convince you that your wrong? Shouldn't you be trying to covert us? Okay, okay, ummm.... I vote for poverty as an example of how there is no god.
Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist God gave man free will to do as he wishes. The fact that people are starving in the world while others are spending $50 for a filet in a restaurant that they will only half eat is not God's doing. Man has the ability to fix all of the world's problems. It just comes down to a matter of will.
Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist Not really trying to convert anyone, I just know there has to be some people here who have some decent "proof". For example, if God doesn't exist, when was the beginning of time? If I remember right, evolutionists believe that a tiny miniscule piece of matter expanded and then imploded. Then, trillions upon trillions of advantageous mutations later, there was a living cell. <--- Extremely rough version. But who or what put that tiny piece of matter there? Let me stress I don't intend on this being a C vs E debate, just a place for the scientifically inclined to state their case. Oh, just in case you were wondering, BrianJames and I were in that same senior class together.
Re: Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist When someone argues for the existance of something, it is their responsibility to provide the evidence of it. You're beginning of time argument doesn't prove the existance of God. the Existance of God is a hypothesis of why/how that material originated. There are others. and, while I'm not a physicist, it wasn't a tiny bit of matter, but rather, all the material of the universe compacted into a tiny space. this is also a theory, just like god. by the way, i'm agnostic, so i can't provide definitive evidence either way.
Re: Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist So you're saying that those starving are doing so of their own free will?
You didnt specify which God... Are you talking about the God of the Jews, Christians and Moslems? Or are you talking about one of the many other Gods such as Vishnu , Odin , Lugh , Zeus.. and so on? There are Hundreds if not Thousands of Spirits which people haved proclaimed to be Gods.So saying "God" can mean any of them. Or are you simply asking a generic question, using the term God for a spiritual presence? If you are stating simply that there is only one God and that is the God of the Jews, and are asking people to prove that he doesnt exist.. I have a Question for you, Prove to me that Odin doesnt exist...
Based on observed probability, when things die, they stay dead. But we don't know enough about "consciousness" or, if you will, "soul," to say what happens to it after death, except to assume that contact with the world of the living is also highly, highly, highly improbable. But that doesn't rule out that it exists somewhere, in some form, after death. Likewise, there is no way to disprove the existence of a God, except to point out that the Almighty shares many, many characteristics of non-existence. A deity, after all, that chooses to manifest itself in the most deviously subtle of ways cannot be told from one that doesn't exist at all. I have no doubt that at some point during your studies of debating you were told the difficulty of proving a negative. I'm sure you found "The Case for Christ" dazzlingly definitive, but, with all due respect, I've seen similar proofs chewed up and spat out like chicken bones. Why you want to take on the "evolutionists," though, is beyond me. Not only does evolutionary biology have nothing to do with metaphysics, and not only does the fact of evolution not prove or disprove the existence of God one way or the other, but evolution is about as safely proven as anything in science. You might as well call out those who believe in the theory of gravity.
Re: Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist well put. if you're going to declare faith, and live according to a code, there's plenty you can accomplish with regard to your actual surroundings, as opposed to looking to the heavens, and letting some dude in a funny robe, who's never spent a day in the real world, tell you how you should live your life. i personally don't believe in god, because i never felt i needed to believe. if someone needs god, or the tooth fairy, or whatever, to help them make sense of their existence-great, all the power to them. i think having supreme respect for humanity is a higher calling.
> But we don't know enough about "consciousness" > or, if you will, "soul," to say what happens to it > after death, except to assume that contact with > the world of the living is also highly, highly, highly > improbable. There are some things we know about consciousness. For example, a persons personality can be changed through injury to the brain. If personality is from an intangible, immutable soul, then this should not be the case. We can also manipulate the brain and do things like bring about memories, or use drugs to modify emotion. Everything we see indicates that our "soul" is nothing more than the organization of our neurons, and "consciousness" nothing more than a trick the brain plays on itself. Also, to Stogey23, it isn't fair to ask someone to prove a negative. If you think it is, then please prove that you did not promise to pay me $10,000.
Re: Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist If I can remember the arguement made in Inherit the Wind from high school, creationism and evolution can both be correct. I think the bible says something about God creating life from the scum of the earth. So, perhaps the bible is simply picking up the story from that point, then God creates life and then it mutates into the lifeforms we see today. I'm sure I butchered the specific's of Darrow's arguement but I think I have the basics correct. Murf
Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist I guess "evolutionists" is one of the only terms I know! I do realize that evolution is a different subject than the beginning of the world, but evolution had to start somewhere right? I was asking the "evolutionists" to keep thinking back, back, back, back....because I know for sure they don't believe in creationism. However, I do remember that some people believe in creationist-evolution. I haven't dug into this subject in quite some time, and I just wanted a little refresher from the "other" side. Thanks for chiming in Dan. And for those who said "Prove to me God does exist", I reply, "I asked you first.". See you later alligator.
Aren't negative theories labeled as negative because someone scientifically proved they are indeed negative? I have to believe there is some pompous professor somewhere that would LOVE to explain to me, scientifically, why there is no God. Just wondering if he was lurking here...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Prove to me God doesn't exist i'm not saying that i'm necessarily supremely devoted to humanity. i'm saing IF you decide to live according to a set of high principles, i THINK your efforts would be better off dedicated to something that could bear actual, tangible results. on the other hand if your faith is simply a tool to help you cope with a cruel reality, believe in what you want.