Evidence for God - SPLIT STOPIC

[TruthisLife7]

Hi,
Just read a bit of this forum...and have to ask...why not just use the same evidence to test for God as we do for anything else of significance, such as scientific evidence (direct, inferential and explanatory), historical evidence, logic, credible witnesses (and in this case you might add credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge)? All these and more are used to determine what is true throughout our civilization. Why suddenly ignore them when we come to We're talking about living forever here with adventure unlimited abilities to explore the universe. I mean think about it. Why be biased against life and opportunities like this?

If it was something that meant torture and suffering...well that might be more understandable...but both science and religion have produced progress of astounding value that ALL benefit from today..(both have been misused as well.). I just don't see the logic in using double standards and being so biased against something that has been so incredibly beneficial and an opportunity to live and explore things that will make all that scientists do now look like kindergarden child's play. It's like being biased against the scientific method or being biased and rejecting Bill Gates when he puts a $1000 dollar bill in your hand and says,
"If you take this $1000 and do an hour of work for me, I'll give you a million".

What do you have to lose?
Bryan

 

[nasher168]

why not just use the same evidence to test for God as we do for anything else of significance, such as scientific evidence (direct, inferential and explanatory), historical evidence, logic,

We do. There is no positive evidence in favour of the existence of God. Only baseless assertions and anecdotal claims. And religious logic does not hold any water. Every single claim that God exists based on "logic" has been shot down in flames multiple times. Using logic in most cases, as it happens.

credible witnesses (and in this case you might add credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge)?

I wouldn't care if Stephen Hawking himself claimed God exists. Unless he can back it up with sound reasoning, his claim is worth no more than a drug addict's.
And to my knowledge, there are no credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge.

What do you have to lose?

Nothing (well, unless the One True God is actually a dick and hates Christianity, then I'd be fucked if I converted). But belief is not a choice, and this is an important thing to understand. I am simply incapable of believing something without positive evidence. Proper evidence must be shown or the most I would be able to do is pretend to believe. And I don't think I would be fooling anyone.

 

[Laurens]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Hi,
Just read a bit of this forum...and have to ask...why not just use the same evidence to test for God as we do for anything else of significance, such as scientific evidence (direct, inferential and explanatory), historical evidence, logic, credible witnesses (and in this case you might add credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge)? All these and more are used to determine what is true throughout our civilization. Why suddenly ignore them when we come to We're talking about living forever here with adventure unlimited abilities to explore the universe. I mean think about it. Why be biased against life and opportunities like this?

If it was something that meant torture and suffering...well that might be more understandable...but both science and religion have produced progress of astounding value that ALL benefit from today..(both have been misused as well.). I just don't see the logic in using double standards and being so biased against something that has been so incredibly beneficial and an opportunity to live and explore things that will make all that scientists do now look like kindergarden child's play. It's like being biased against the scientific method or being biased and rejecting Bill Gates when he puts a $1000 dollar bill in your hand and says,
"If you take this $1000 and do an hour of work for me, I'll give you a million".

What do you have to lose?
Bryan

No one is looking at God with a different standard of evidence. We'd look at the evidence in the same way that we would the evidence for anything else.

We've just not had any to look at yet.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Hi,
Just read a bit of this forum...and have to ask...why not just use the same evidence to test for God as we do for anything else of significance, such as scientific evidence (direct, inferential and explanatory), historical evidence, logic, credible witnesses (and in this case you might add credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge)? All these and more are used to determine what is true throughout our civilization. Why suddenly ignore them when we come to We're talking about living forever here with adventure unlimited abilities to explore the universe. I mean think about it. Why be biased against life and opportunities like this?

If it was something that meant torture and suffering...well that might be more understandable...but both science and religion have produced progress of astounding value that ALL benefit from today..(both have been misused as well.). I just don't see the logic in using double standards and being so biased against something that has been so incredibly beneficial and an opportunity to live and explore things that will make all that scientists do now look like kindergarden child's play. It's like being biased against the scientific method or being biased and rejecting Bill Gates when he puts a $1000 dollar bill in your hand and says,
"If you take this $1000 and do an hour of work for me, I'll give you a million".

What do you have to lose?
Bryan

There's no double standard. You're the one presenting a double standard, if you think that religious claims have come remotely close to meeting their burden of proof. I wouldn't believe someone if they told me they had been abducted by aliens yesterday. Why should I believe a similarly ridiculous claim from a book that is a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy, written 1900 years ago, by people who weren't even there when the described events happened?

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

The only problem is if, in this case you were to look at Bill and say "no thank you, I payed more in taxes last year than you did in your last 2 years. I don't feel comfortable about accepting your money - besides, I really don;t like working in the Windows OS environment more than I do a Linux one" I would be tortured for eternity.

And, pause for a moment - if Steve Jobs offered you the same deal, and you accepted it over Bill Gates?

Or is Linux the one TRUE Operating System?

:lol:

 

[Mauricio Duque]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

I have a experiment that could show that "something" exist, english is not my mother language, so give me a break if i make any big mistake here.

Its very simple, you just need 2 rooms, with no ways of communication between the 2 rooms, in the first room, you put 5 cards on top of the desk, could be any kind of image on this cards.

On the second room, you put the "believer" whos gona be tested; and a person to take note of the results, making sure that this person its not the same that put the card on the other room.

All that the "believer" needs to do is, pray/ask for his god/spirit/alien-from-another-dimension , to tell him what are the cards on the table of the other room, of course, making sure that this person has no eletronics that would allow they to cheat.

Repeat that 2 or 3 times, and if the person has a score above pure chance, than we can talk,about what could be that "something".

I know its not near perfect, but thats a very simple idea that any person can do, but for some reason i cant grasp, theist never done this kind of tests to get evidence that could suport theyr assertions.

If someone could show a test like this, and with 100% of right answers (i can ask 100% if we are talking about a god), than i could believe that something is passing that information to that person, it dosent prove that is a god, but at least, would be a improvement.

 

[WarK]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

The only problem is if, in this case you were to look at Bill and say "no thank you, I payed more in taxes last year than you did in your last 2 years. I don't feel comfortable about accepting your money - besides, I really don;t like working in the Windows OS environment more than I do a Linux one" I would be tortured for eternity.

And, pause for a moment - if Steve Jobs offered you the same deal, and you accepted it over Bill Gates?

Or is Linux the one TRUE Operating System?

:lol:

Say what you will about Jesus, but leave "Rings" Linux out of this.

 

[Squawk]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Mauricio Duque

Nobody will ever agree to a test of this nature precisely because they know it won't work. They will use such reasons as "you should not test your god", or, "that would eliminate faith".

It's a perfect test situation, with the flaw that the believer will refuse to be tested as they know, deep down, that what they believe is flawed.

 

[Mauricio Duque]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

It's a perfect test situation, with the flaw that the believer will refuse to be tested as they know, deep down, that what they believe is flawed.

Its not my problem any more, theists ask all the time (at least for me) what evidence i would accept, and i give them a test that anyone can do it, you dont need anything more than 2 rooms, and some cards. If the person cant present that evidence, i accept that as evidence against theyr god, because you cant say at the same time, that something exist, and refuse to present the evidence that would show that thing.

But i admit, that dosent prove theres no god, because it can be that this god, just dosent give a crap about the human kind, maybe he just create the universe and dont tamper with our world, but that would be equal as having no gods at all.

So, now i rest my case, and i would like to see an answer to that...even if i almost can guess what will be the answer...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

@Mauricio Duque:

That's the second, sometimes hidden problem with most religious claims, isn't it? It isn't just that there's no evidence for any god or gods, there's also no proof of any of the sort of events that would require the existence of a god or gods in the first place. There's no there there, at all!

They say "what about the miracles?"... what miracles? The ones in their fairy tales? Or the anecdotes from preachers? Or the ones performed by known frauds like Peter Popoff?

 

[Aught3]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

why not just use the same evidence to test for God as we do for anything else of significance, such as scientific evidence (direct, inferential and explanatory), historical evidence, logic, credible witnesses (and in this case you might add credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge)? All these and more are used to determine what is true throughout our civilization. Why suddenly ignore them when we come to We're talking about living forever here with adventure unlimited abilities to explore the universe. I mean think about it. Why be biased against life and opportunities like this?

Well you should ask yourself that question. Why would we be biased against "living forever ... with adventure [and] unlimited abilities to explore the universe"? And the answer is we are not biased against it we just don't see any reason to suppose that it is true. On the other hand is there any reason you might be biased in favour of that proposition? Obviously there is.

On the scientific evidence gods do not hold up and only by lowering the standard to documentary evidence can we find support for the claims of Christianity, but also for the claims of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology, etc. Why would God make us rely on such flimsy documentary evidence? Surely as an omnipotent creator he could provide much stronger evidence, it can't be that hard.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Hi,
Just read a bit of this forum...and have to ask...why not just use the same evidence to test for God as we do for anything else of significance, such as scientific evidence (direct, inferential and explanatory), historical evidence, logic, credible witnesses (and in this case you might add credible cases of supernatural power or knowledge)? All these and more are used to determine what is true throughout our civilization. Why suddenly ignore them when we come to We're talking about living forever here with adventure unlimited abilities to explore the universe. I mean think about it. Why be biased against life and opportunities like this?

If it was something that meant torture and suffering...well that might be more understandable...but both science and religion have produced progress of astounding value that ALL benefit from today..(both have been misused as well.). I just don't see the logic in using double standards and being so biased against something that has been so incredibly beneficial and an opportunity to live and explore things that will make all that scientists do now look like kindergarden child's play. It's like being biased against the scientific method or being biased and rejecting Bill Gates when he puts a $1000 dollar bill in your hand and says,
"If you take this $1000 and do an hour of work for me, I'll give you a million".

What do you have to lose?
Bryan

Bryan, the example is not even close to be even close to compare the 2 things, but let me comment on it anyway, it sure depends on what Bill wants me to do for the 1000 bucks, if he wants me to close my eyes to reality and accept his pseudo morality and start living my life based on what i read in some of his old .txt files, to kill his competition and hate people who use firefox instead of IE and bug them to "convert" etc etc, i would be an idiot to accept it even if he gives me the million right away.
We talked about that on youtube, there is no evidence for the existence of God and therefore none for a specific god, aka Yahweh in your case.
At least i don't see any plausible evidence (just like all people who aren't biased enough to simply buy it with no buts).
Such an extraordinary claim demands extraordinary and very convincing facts and unless you are already "under the religious spell", an old book won't do the job, and irrational claims even less, threats that so many people use and force, actually do the opposite for people who try to use their brains properly, appeal to consequences or even argumentum ad baculum specifically is not showing any truth value.

When i asked you for a signature of Yahweh you named Laminin :roll:

I guess i can take the sickled red blood cell as a signature from Allah then?

You said the evidence is overwhelming, there is so much of it and then I told you that it is not the quantity of evidence that counts but quality.
I asked you if you would accept it as evidence against Christianity if 4 billion people would write on a paper that Yahweh doesn't exist and Jesus was simple some guy who died on a cross if he ever existed at all, and thousands of books supporting that claim and exposing the Bible for what it is, an ancient book loaded with errors and pseudo morality and ridiculous stories.
You didn't directly answer me but you said that hearsay from religious people and your old book count as evidence while others don't "meet your criteria", (freely interpreted).
You even said that the Qur'an is halfway plausible but Christianity has "more evidence" so it would be unreasonable to stick with Islam? But you didn't read many other books and take thousands of other Gods and religions into consideration, which existed long before Christianity, some of them bullied out of existence by Christians and their books burned and idols destroyed for a huge part.

Such things show me your bias towards Christianity and your double standard.
Your argumentation that people reject eternal life and happiness or whatever you might pull out of the sleeve (like that living according to the bible would extend our lives by 10 years...while science added ~45 and there are methods which are sure better but depend on your own body and modern science more than on some ancient teachings) is irrelevant and simply not true, like somebody said, we do not choose to not believe in god and the bible, we simply can't believe it because it is ridiculous. Ancient superstition, people thinking the Earth is a flat unmovable disk and the sky is a firm ceiling supported by pillars.. and so many more idiotic beliefs from people who didn't know it better but threatened mistreated and even murdered people who said things which would contradict your/their teachings.
The authorities used the verses to force people into blind submission, they used them for their war games and to extort them, which is obvious when you throw a small look at the book. Later they even made people "pay for their sins", to get more money and goods from them. The book told them to not love the world and anything in it, only God and their alleged afterlife. I know the book says different things on different places, which is even more confusing, the unchanging word of God changes too often, so many contradictions that you simply have to cherry pick your way through the book and make a patchwork for your own belief.
Which is also the reason why we had and HAVE so much religious terror and idiocy.. You say that has nothing to do with the religion itself but it sure does, many people believe simply because their ancestors were forced into the religion using verses from the bible to justify what they do. Humanity went through the dark ages only because of that book. People who use the teachings and defend the book with all they have pretty much share the responsibility. The Qur'an is just a mutated version of the Bible, making Christianity responsible for even more pain and suffering.

So how can i take that very same book and look for God in there? How can i take a book as my moral guide, where people say it is right to kill their children if they curse their parents, to burn witches and kill homosexuals etc? You also said that homosexuality is an abomination although you didn't seem to take the aggresive stance against it like so many others. Science showed us that in reality the sexual preference is not something we choose, nature showed us that animals too can be born like bisexuals or homosexuals, it is ignored because people don't want to be compared to animals, they don't want us to be evolved animals but something special, they ignore evolution which is obvious... because their old book says something else and they are too arrogant to accept FACTS while they have the proof in their own bodies. I would simply call it rejecting reality.

If we are honest, the unreasonable ones who flee from reality are not the people who don't blindly believe and do what the book(s) say(s). Of course religions do good things too, it would be terrible if they wouldn't, after all most people are decent humans but the problem is, they would most likely have been better in the past and some would be better today if they would use their logic and their own moral compass to coexist with nature and their own species. Instead they are being taught that they are so special and the Universe is their playground etc, and whoever doesn't share their childish belief is doomed to burn in hell or even deserves it (i know you don't share their exact belief in hell but your opinion about that is quite rare)

And there is sure some valuable knowledge in the books.. and parts of true history.. but we would do good if we extract them and bury the rest as deep as possible or put it in museums (although you don't even need the book to know those things and they were known to humans long before the Bible was written) because on the other side we have an enormous amount of atrocities and idiotic stories about giants, towers built to reach god in the sky ( :lol: ), God walking around the encampments bringing enemies to the Israelites as a reason to bury excrements so he wouldn't step in them, people calling bears to slaughter dozens of kids in the name of some imaginary friend, because kids were kids and were teasing him for being bald or whatever. Or how about Onan? (Genesis 38:8-10) True story? Moral lesson from God? Probably the reason why contraception and abortion is being fought even nowadays.
And what is the moral lesson in Judges 19:22-30? If somebody comes to rape you in a hotel, hope that the owner will give his virgin daughter instead and if that is not enough throw in one of your hookers and later when she bleeds to death after being raped brutally cut her into pieces and send them around the world?
Or 1 Kings 18:25-27? If somebody asks you to bring them 100 foreskins, better kill 200 guys and bring him twice as many. Moral lesson, for love, everything is allowed and better be circumcised in order to prevent somebody from killing you and chopping of a part of your love-stick? None less than David teaches us that one.
Or how about the one where Jesus curses a fig tree because he didn't get a fig from it? Mark 21 somewhere i think. (and the plagiator Mathew as well) Moral lesson, if you want an apple and there are none on the tree, burn it down and boast around that you did it? I will just leave it at that and say that the Bible is loaded with such crap and most Christians never even read all the stories and the laws that they think are divine.
You guys interpret the verses the way you want them to sound, you ignore what you don't like, how is that in any way a scientific method and analysis of the given data? How can you blindly believe in a zombie savior and his alleged words to be the eternal truth and so on?
All you need to dismiss the claims is there, even in the Bible itself, you just need to stop ignoring and desperately interpreting the questionable parts.
How about you analyze this page about the central figure of Christianity?
Or this one about Jesus the liar
Or watch some you tube vids from TruthSurge about the empty tomb and Mark's gospel?




He only made 4 so far but they show enough already.

[edit]added vid #4[/edit]

 

[Laurens]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Here's William Lane Craig on what evidence he would accept to prove his views wrong:

Mark Smith (of www.jcnot4me.com) set up the following scenario for Craig: "Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let's pretend that a time machine gets built. You travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, still nothing happens. There is no resurrection-Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb"

Smith asked Craig, given this scenario, if he would then give up Christianity, having seen with his own two eyes that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Smith wrote "His answer was shocking, and quite unexpected. He told me face to face that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the 'holy spirit' within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me." If anyone doubts what Craig said in response, Mark challenges him or her to ask him the same question.

Loftus, John W., Why I Became An Atheist page 214

Apparently nothing...

This is the guy who runs a site called 'reasonable faith' :lol:

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Reasonable faith, really? :shock:
Well i am surprised that he admitted it.. although i find it quite obvious that a great share of believers reject reality and science in favor of their belief.. In 2006 a poll made by Times in USA showed that 64% of the religious people would reject any science if it would disprove some part of their belief.. pretty sad if you ask me, i mean they enjoy the clean water and their cars and PCs and whatnot but as soon as it scratches on their belief science is to be demonised or ridiculed and rejected :roll:

 

[Mauricio Duque]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

...pretty sad if you ask me, i mean they enjoy the clean water and their cars and PCs and whatnot but as soon as it scratches on their belief science is to be demonised or ridiculed and rejected :roll:

But even that assertion is false too, because they never reject cience, since they still use theyr cars, theyr PCs, they still go to the doctor when they are sick, etc.

Its very desonest, because they say cience is just shit, but keep using it because they can get something out of it, something they cant get from theyr religion.

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Well as soon as it comes to their belief, a great share of people do reject science.. even medicine.
You sure heard about people who rely on prayer only and reject medical treatment of even terminal diseases?
Why would somebody throw away the chance to get healed by medicine? Why would somebody believe that clapping their hands together, dropping on your knees and talking to some imaginary friend works better than medicine? Why would one believe it works at all?

Credo quia absurdum est

 

[Mauricio Duque]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

You sure heard about people who rely on prayer only and reject medical treatment of even terminal diseases?

Yes i heard of them, but to be fair, they are the minority of religious people, most people say that god heals, but still go to the doctor, the excuse they give is: "god is healing me trough the doctor"...

I dont want to religious people stop going to the doctor, what i would like, is that they give the credit to who is doing the healing, because one of the things that i most hate, is when someone go trough a cirurgy (even a safe one), and after they say: "Thank god it went all right" ...

Credo quia absurdum est

WTH?

 

[Thomas Doubting]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

"Credo quia absurdum est" is a latin phrase saying, "i believe because it is absurd". Doesn't make much sense when you really think about it, but then again religion doesn't make much sense either when you really think about it.

"Christianity is at the forefront of suppressing stem cell research and other medical studies and teaching of evolution. But chaplains roam around the hospitals stealing credit for God for what should be properly credited to the hard work of science and medical research."

Too damn true.. and yes it would be horrible if all those people would stop using medicine but just like you said, it would be great if they would stop giving credit to god for things that people did for them. If their god exists and leans back to watch them suffer or even worse, makes them sick and puts them in grave danger, then he deserves the opposite of gratitude..

"The sole survivor of a plane crash in Bolivia stayed alive for nearly three days by eating insects, drinking his own urine and painting an arrow on the ground with his blood to show rescuers his location."

This story in the Guardian tells how Minor Vidal survived using skills he had learned as a boy scout. The other eight people on the plane died, and Vidal himself suffered serious head and rib injuries. He was eventually rescued by a military unit led by Naval Captain David Bustos, after they spotted the arrow Vidal had painted using his own blood.

And when he was eventually found, did he thank Captain Bustos and the rescue team? Did he thank the boy scout teachers who had taught him vital survival skills? We aren't told. But what we are told is that he knelt down and thanked God. God who, he presumably must have believed, allowed the plane crash to happen in the first place and allowed his eight fellow passengers to die. He knelt down and thanked God. And billions of people, all around the world, will think that was a perfectly natural thing to do. They would have done the same.

Such things make me sick. 8 people died, one survived half broken and humiliated. People were looking for him for days, putting their lives on the line, trying to find and save the survivors and finally they find one who instead of feeling bad for the others who died, instead of thanking the ones who risk their lives while looking for him and working hard to save him, he drops on his knees and thanks his imaginary friend!! The only thing he could think of is to thank his god.. instead of asking himself why his god lets that happen in the first place.. screws up a plane, probably killing few animals and destroying tons of plants by doing so, killing 8 people, hurting him and tormenting him for 3 days.
That way of thinking is even worse than a prayer before eating.. what i experience as a really cruel and idiotic tradition, you sit down, thank "God" for the food that other people had to provide for you, thank him for watching over you instead of thanking the people who risk their lives shielding you from crime and terror, thank him for the wealth that "He" gave you, instead of thanking yourself and especially the people in poor countries who work their butts off to make it easier for you to enjoy.. thank "God" for your health, who you believe is killing even little children with disease and violence, who made everything around you hostile to life ...instead of thanking modern medicine and people who spend their whole life looking for ways to prolong your life and make it more comfortable.. but later when you turn on your TV you demonise the people working hard to find new medicine to be able to save you if needed, people who work for years to learn about the universe we live in just because what they find out doesn't match your ancient superstitious belief.. and demonise people in poor countries who work for few cents per hour to make the things that you use every day cheaper and available to you, merely for having some other belief.

And then they say people who don't do the same are unreasonable and deserve eternal punishment :roll:

 

[Mauricio Duque]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

"The sole survivor of a plane crash in Bolivia stayed alive for nearly three days by eating insects, drinking his own urine and painting an arrow on the ground with his blood to show rescuers his location."

This story in the Guardian tells how Minor Vidal survived using skills he had learned as a boy scout. The other eight people on the plane died, and Vidal himself suffered serious head and rib injuries. He was eventually rescued by a military unit led by Naval Captain David Bustos, after they spotted the arrow Vidal had painted using his own blood.

And when he was eventually found, did he thank Captain Bustos and the rescue team? Did he thank the boy scout teachers who had taught him vital survival skills? We aren't told. But what we are told is that he knelt down and thanked God. God who, he presumably must have believed, allowed the plane crash to happen in the first place and allowed his eight fellow passengers to die. He knelt down and thanked God. And billions of people, all around the world, will think that was a perfectly natural thing to do. They would have done the same.

Just...wow...

And then they say people who don't do the same are unreasonable and deserve eternal punishment :roll:

Thats the main reason for me saing, that even if this god exist, i would not follow him. If theres a god, and he punishes who dont follow or belive in him, than his no diferente from a tyrant.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

Re: What evidence would you accept?

Thomas, that's another example of a bigger problem that religion has created.

The thing is, if something good has happened, it doesn't matter who did it. It doesn't matter who cooked your food, who bought it, who made your meal possible... it doesn't matter which driver avoided the crash. It doesn't matter which fireman saved the lady. It doesn't matter who designed security systems that save people every day. No one gives a shit. If all ends well, they say "Thank God." and they don't give a crap about who really saved their asses.

And the worst thing? It's often THEM who save themselves. And instead of realizing that they did the right thing, acted exactly like they had to, followed the rules, worked their asses off, for everything to go well, and accepting the idea that it's OKAY to feel good about what you've done... all they do is attribute it to 'God'.

Seriously, screw God. If you've worked your ass off to get into college, don't thank God. If you've worked your ass off to be able to pursue your dream career and fulfill your dreams... don't thank God. Thank your-fucking-self.

Be cocky.

I know it's a bit off-topic...