The silence of God

[MarsCydonia]

1 you are still granting (at least tacitly) 1, 2 , 3, 4 A and B

2 even if you where accurately exposing my hypocrisy, that would still be a red hearing, any comment (true or false) that is irrelevant is by definition a red hearing

3 even if I also made CF statements, that doesn't change the fact that the argument presented by grumpy is based on a CF, why don't you read the sources that you yourself provide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional

Leroy could:
1. Address the correct form of the argument.
2. Address how his objections to his flawed form of the argument were shown to be invalid.
3. Address how his flawed form of the argument brings glaring issues for a christian standpoint.

Leroy has opted to run away from all 3 for pages of comments now.

It speaks volumes that Leroy refuses to discuss the correct form of the argument, his objections or the implications of his incorrect argument.

 

[Bango Skank]

true, only a insignificant minority of the worlds population that has ever lived, thinks that the existence of "A God" is not obvious

Yeah, but it is based on common thinking, which is not reliable. Lot of things that were held obvious back then, aren't now. People stopped thinking certain things as god / actions of god when their understanding got better.

So if you look history of gods AKA the big picture in timeline, its a headless blundering.

 

[MarsCydonia]

true, only a insignificant minority of the worlds population that has ever lived, thinks that the existence of "A God" is not obvious

Yeah, but it is based on common thinking, which is not reliable. Lot of things that were held obvious back then, aren't now. People stopped thinking certain things as god / actions of god when their understanding got better.

So if you look history of gods AKA the big picture in timeline, its a headless blundering.

I would dare venture that "only a minority of the world's population that has ever lived" thought the sun being a god wasn't obvious.

 

[Bango Skank]

I would dare venture that "only a minority of the world's population that has ever lived" thought the sun being a god wasn't obvious.

Well, at least sun is visible for most of the people (excluding blind etc.), unlike many other so called gods.

Sun apologetics could be made. Next time someone tries to convert me to religion X i just point at the sun and say; "There is my god and you see it too, so you have no excuse.". If they try to explain sun scientifically, i then just dismiss it as naturalistic explanation made by desperate atheists and ask "Where you there?" :lol:

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

That is a grate point,

If God knows that there is nothing that would personally convince you to become a follower, he might not do anything to convince you.

That simply isn't the case - a deity would know what would convince me that it existed.

No matter what that is - there's always something that would convince someone to believe.

If a deity created me, it would have created me to believe in it, else how could I have a "loving relationship" with it?

I'd have been created with an in-built capacity to believe in my creator - otherwise, what's the point in creating me?

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Grumpy Santa]

Suppose you want a loving relationship with another person. What is the absolutely minimal requirement for that to happen? The other person has to be aware that you exists.

An awareness of God has been affirmed by virtually every civilization since the beginning of recorded human history. Some even affirmed the existence of multiple Gods.

"Affirmed", no. "Claimed some god or gods exists", yes. As people spread across the planet they took "god" ideas with them which changed over time.

 

[Rumraket]

Suppose you want a loving relationship with another person. What is the absolutely minimal requirement for that to happen? The other person has to be aware that you exists.
What is the easiest way to make them aware of this? To meet them in person, face to face.

So if a guy comes, knocks your door, does something that cant you cant explained naturally (like turning water in to wine)......and this guy claims to be God

1) would you become a theist?

On that alone, no.

He has to do something a lot more exhaustive to prove to my satisfaction that he is in fact a God. I know what you said was just a short suggestion for an extraordinary act. I just want to make clear that some guy doing something tricky to explain in front of my eyes isn't enough. I'm just not that gullible. I've seen my fair share of stage magic and the like.

That doesn't mean there isn't some way to convince me, there is. Technically he'd have to demonstrate to me, and to a large group of people who's judgement I trust, that he has God-like powers. The reason for this is that I'm just a guy, I can be fooled and tricked, and my experiences tell me that things like replication of results and peer review are extremely important aspects for substantiating extraordinary claims.

In other words, my signature on this forum isn't just there because it sounds good. I really stand by it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I take nobody's word for it.

2) would you willingly decide con have a relationship with hm ?

It is entirely possible that, even if this person didn't convince me he is God, that I'd like this person and we could develop a close personal relationship. I don't dismiss people out of hand if I don't know them.

Being a God isn't a prerequisite to come to know me personally, gain my respect, trust or love. Notice how we're still at the level where God's existence is extremely doubtful to me. Which makes it all the more perplexing that an entity with limitless powers, a complete and flawless knowledge of human psychology in general, and even mine in particular, isn't able to make it's existence apparent to me.

Yet there are people in my life, who are just humans made of flesh, with rather mundane human abilities, that I literally love more than I love myself. If God wants such a relationship with me, he doesn't even have to prove to me He is a God. But I can't have a relationship with a person that does not appear to exist.

3) can you proof that by knocking doors, God would gain more followers?

Yes. Jehova's Witnesses and Mormons knock on doors and they do in fact gain followers that way. And they don't even perform miracles.

can you prove that knocking doors is more efficient that doing what God is currently doing now to gain followers?...........apparat form your own personal opinion and feels, do you have any evidence for it?

Yes I do. See above.

Also, all of human experience is evidence for the fact that if you turn up in person and talk to and relate to people directly, it works better than if you hide away and have some people claim that a book that exists constitutes an attempt by God to send hard to interpret messages.

What you're doing right now, as a response, is basically what I predicted here in this post. You are making up excuses to explain away the obvious fact that God isn't actually doing anything to contact anyone. Those additional excuses you make up now require evidence of their own. They are extremely implausible.

So besides the belief you have that God wants a loving relationship with everyone, you also now have to do a lot of strange intellectual gymnastics and absurd denial of basic real-world facts, to maintain this belief in the face of contradictory evidence.

Every option you take that is different from meeting them face to face, makes it LESS likely that they become aware of your existence, and less likely that they want a relationship with you.

not necessarily, if I knock your door every single day to offer my friendship I might become the annoying person that nobody likes and you would be less likely to become my friend

That much is true, but you have to at least turn up once to really make sure that I have become aware that you exist. There's a difference between letting people know you exist, and pestering them day in and day out.

I would certainly agree that it is possible that people can get annoyed by others. Happens to me too. I'd think a God has enough social and emotional awareness that he'd not be pestering people. Call me crazy, but I just see this idea of God as not that stupid and unaware of what He's doing. I hear he can see into the future and knows all that is going to happen also.

, perhaps the best way to gain your friendship is to organice a party in my house and invite you, you are free to decide if you what to assist to the party or not, perhaps by doing that I would have a better chance of becoming your friend.

Sure, you can turn up in person and give me an invitation. Will there be any girls there?

it is at least possible that if God makes his existence too obvious he would be perceived as the guy that nobody likes

I'm not interested in whether it is merely possible. I want to know whether it is plausible and supported by evidence. In other words, should we believe it to be the case (in other words, is it the most rationally defensible possibility), that if God makes his existence "too obvious"*, he would be percieved as "the guy that nobody likes"?

So far, that is just an excuse you've made up. A mere suggestion of a possibility you came up with, in order to try to prevent falsification of the traditional abrahamic monotheist position that God wants a loving relationship with everyone.

* An idea I actually entirely reject. Your existence can't be "too obvious". It can only be obvious or not-obvious. And there might be a spectrum between those two extremes. But when it comes to existence alone, no, it can't be "too obvious". Your behavior, once it has been demonstrated that you exist, can become annoying. But you don't generally become an annoyance merely for obviously existing.

in the bible God made his existence very obvious multiple times and often it caused rejection and hate

Which is one of the reasons I don't believe the bible. It contains these amazingly implausible accounts of people rejecting God even when he's purported to obviously exist.

 

[Rumraket]

Greetings,

Not to mention, an all-knowing deity should know what it needs to do to get each and every human to believe in it.

Kindest regards,
James

That is a grate point,

If God knows that there is nothing that would personally convince you to become a follower, he might not do anything to convince you.

Sure, but that's not an excuse you can give yourself for why God doesn't make His existence obvious to unbelievers that you could believe with rational justification. Because you don't actually know it to be the case that there is in fact nothing that would personally convince us to become a follower. In fact I know that about myself, that there IS something that would make me follow them.

As it stands, that is just an excuse you made up by rationalization, not something you actually know to be true. You have to have some sort of evidence that makes this excuse more plausible than it's denial before you actually start believing in the excuse you make up.

Again, you can't just merely suggest ways out and then pretend you have defeated the argument. You have to demonstrate those excuses to actually be the case, with evidence, before belief in them becomes rationally defensible.

Again, all you do is make up new beliefs to try to save your God-belief from falsification by the arguments from silence and argument from divine hiddenness. You're essentially believing more and more unsupported things in an effort to stay a theist. You should be able to see through what you are doing here. Think about it when you consider God's existence and arguments for and against. Learn to recognize when you do it, when you make up rationalizations to save previous beliefs you have.

 

[Rumraket]

3) can you proof that by knocking doors, God would gain more followers?

Yes. Jehova's Witnesses and Mormons knock on doors and they do in fact gain followers that way. And they don't even perform miracles.

I want to expand on this one a bit. Let's think about this for a moment.

God could technically, if He wanted to, personally show up and knock on every door in the entire world, at the same time. At any particular moment, God would then probably come into contact with as many as three billion individuals. Suppose God did that, are we now supposed to believe that God would not succeed in gaining even one single addional follower?

After having knocked on the door to literally every home in the world? And he'd even be able to know when people are home, and not particularly busy. He'd even know when some people are perhaps sitting at home feeling lonely. The perfect opportunity to both enter into their lives and end their loneliness.

Your question to me indicates that you really believe that if God did that, turned up at literally every home in the world and knocked, he'd not gain even one more follower. Is that belief even remotely rational? Isn't it obvious this is just an excuse you made up, and that it fails to rebut the argument from silence? I think you can see that not only did you make up an excuse to try to push the argument from silence away, the particular excuse you came up with is unbelievably implausible.

You have to come to terms with the argument from silence, and you need to learn to recognize when you start engaging in motivated reasoning to preserve your beliefs, rather than let totally reasonable real-world evidence guide you.

 

[thenexttodie]

Your question to me indicates that you really believe that if God did that, turned up at literally every home in the world and knocked, he'd not gain even one more follower. Is that belief even remotely rational?

According to the history we have of God's interactions with us in the Bible, this is the only rational belief. People are not good. And the more miracles God performs for people, the more (most) people will rebel against him. In fact I think Jesus even said evil people seek a miracles. Does this mean blind people were evil for wanting to see again. No. But it does serve as a reference point to the state of mind of people in general when Jesus did walk around on the earth and went to peoples houses and walked and talked to people and was eventually beaten and crucified.

You think that God should meet each of us face to face at our front doors? Why? He already expects us to know He is real. And he says the people who say He does not exist are foolish and evil. I think God is correct.

Do you seriously expect any of us to believe that if God came to your house, in person and told you homosexuality is sick and evil, you would then tell others the same. Would you then tell all of your friends on this board that they are foolish and evil, if this is what God expected you to do?

No, you wouldn't. If the Christian God is real then we know you would still be evil.

The only way for your salvation is to humble yourself and to thank Christ for dying for your sins.

 

[Bango Skank]

According to the history we have of God's interactions with us in the Bible, this is the only rational belief.

How so?

People are not good. And the more miracles God performs for people, the more (most) people will rebel against him. In fact I think Jesus even said evil people seek a miracles.

So in other words, evil people seek evidence. Got it.

You think that God should meet each of us face to face at our front doors? Why? He already expects us to know He is real. And he says the people who say He does not exist are foolish and evil. I think God is correct.

And for what reason you think God is correct?

Do you seriously expect any of us to believe that if God came to your house, in person and told you homosexuality is sick and evil, you would then tell others the same. Would you then tell all of your friends on this board that they are foolish and evil, if this is what God expected you to do?

That would not be effective way, God would have to do it himself in order to be effective.

No, you wouldn't. If the Christian God is real then we know you would still be evil.

By God's own moral standard, he is evil himself.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

1 you are still granting (at least tacitly) 1, 2 , 3, 4 A and B

:facepalm:

You really need to get a refund on those mind reading classes.

2 even if you where accurately exposing my hypocrisy, that would still be a red hearing, any comment (true or false) that is irrelevant is by definition a red hearing

It is not irrelevant, especially when you will use the Bible to justify your claims when talking to others, but refuse to do so with me. An honest person would admit to this.

3 even if I also made CF statements, that doesn't change the fact that the argument presented by grumpy is based on a CF, why don't you read the sources that you yourself provide? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional

:facepalm:

he_who_is_nobody[/url]"]Actually, your argument is the counterfactual, that was hackenslash's point and he is correct. However, one can engage with counterfactuals to expose deeper flaws in a person's understanding, as I have done above. Now we know, as I have long suspected, that you pick and choose from your Bible when it suits you. One would have not had evidence that you do that unless I pressed you on this argument. Beyond that, now we know that when you use the Bible to justify an argument you are using, you will also hypocritically reject the Bible when it does not suit you. Amazing how that works, right?

[Emphasis added]

This is just getting sad. You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

 

[Steelmage99]

Do you seriously expect any of us to believe that if God came to your house, in person and told you homosexuality is sick and evil, you would then tell others the same. Would you then tell all of your friends on this board that they are foolish and evil, if this is what God expected you to do?

No, you wouldn't. If the Christian God is real then we know you would still be evil.

You are conflating several facets of this discussion.

1. Accepting that God exists
2. Following the commandments of God
3. Worshipping God

If God came to my house in person and told me that he was of the opinion that homosexuality was evil, I would tell him that I disagree with him.
If I was feeling really magnanimous I might ask him what had lead him to believe that homosexuality was evil.
Depending on his answer I might even change my mind and agree with him.

I would have to accept his existence. How could I not? He is right there.
But I am still under no obligation to follow his commandments (some of which I might think of as being harmful) or worship him.


In addition, you present the idea that me not accepting the proposition that homosexiality is evil now makes me evil as well.

This of course happens before we have even established that homosexuality is in fact evil

That is a preposterous idea that I am willing to bet you wouldn't accept as reasonable if the roles were reversed.


Things like; "Love the sinner. Hate the sin" or "I don't want you to go to Hell. It is God's law" springs to mind.

 

[Rumraket]

Your question to me indicates that you really believe that if God did that, turned up at literally every home in the world and knocked, he'd not gain even one more follower. Is that belief even remotely rational?

According to the history we have of God's interactions with us in the Bible, this is the only rational belief.

No, it isn't. It's preposterous for exactly the reasons mentioned. Religions gain followers right now, by door knocking.

You're simply asserting what is contrary to demonstrable fact.

People are not good. And the more miracles God performs for people, the more (most) people will rebel against him.

This makes literally no sense. Again you assert something that completely defies both our personal experiences, concrete real-world events, history, and intuitions of human nature.

Isn't it odd that you're forced to make up this completely counterintuitive and absurd excuse, that God working miracles will somehow make fewer followers?

The world has many people who will testify that witnessing miraculous events was what convinced them to become followers of Christ (and many other religions). And that they serve to further their devotion and the depth of their faith and trust in God.

Your ad-hoc rationalization defies what we actually know from history and even recent events. Famous (now dead) Hindu holy man Sathya Sai Baba gained an enormous (literally millions if not a hundred million people) following in india and asia for his purported ability to work miracles. People became convinced that he was a divinely blessed prophet because of his seemingly amazing abilities. As in, it inspired people to follow him who otherwise did not. Western educated academics, who you might otherwise think were skeptical about movements like this, are reported to be among the people who traveled to India and started following him after witnessing his miracle works. He is purported to have done all the same miracles attributed to Jesus (even be born by a virgin).

Now, you might say that because he is apparently working miracles, this will inspire skeptics to be more public in their doubts. But the people who are skeptics didn't already follow him and then stop being followers. It's not like him apparently working miracles somehow makes LESS people follow him. To begin with he has no followers, and through working miracles and his deeds and actions, he makes followers of people who otherwise would not be (and would never even have heard of him).

And all of this is of course totally as expected, and entirely reasonable. And fits with everything we know of human nature. If you are very skilled and charismatic, you will inspire fans and admirers. We recognize this in every aspect of society, from politics and arts, to sports. Even people who are good at nothing more than kicking a ball around on a plane of grass will gain fans and admirers who try to emulate and mimic them, some of whom will literally die for their idol.

A person who showed up and worked miracles would gain followers. There is and can be no rational doubt about this. YOU are a follower of a person who is purported to have worked miracles. You are a follower among other things, because you believe this person really did work those miracles and through working those miracles, proved that he was who he said he was.

You are not being rational if you deny that humans really do work like this. The excuse you have made up here is also absurdly implausible. In addition to what you believe about the christian doctrine, that God wants to enter into a loving relationship with every one, you now also have to believe this absurd ad-hoc excuse for why this doesn't seem to take place for hundreds of millions of people in the world.

You think that God should meet each of us face to face at our front doors? Why?

Because the story goes that he wants to enter into a loving relationship with everyone. And if he showed up at everyone's door and performed miracles, he would gain millions of followers. Sathya Sai Baba did. And that fits perfectly well with what we know about human nature. People with exceptional abilities gain fans, followers and admirers.

And he says the people who say He does not exist are foolish and evil. I think God is correct.

Thank you. But that isn't a particularly convincing argument to me. I don't think you find it particularly convincing the other way when some atheists tell you you are evil for believing what you do about homosexuals. So you should not expect that of me.

Do you seriously expect any of us to believe that if God came to your house, in person and told you homosexuality is sick and evil, you would then tell others the same.

No of course not. He'd have to first explain why homosexuality is sick and evil. He can't just assert that. That would require that God convinced me about His views on morality, what it is that makes something right and something wrong. If God said "because I say so", then no, that would not convince me.

If God could show me that homosexuality leads objectively and inexorably to catastrophic, agonizing suffering for millions of people in the future, then that would certainly make me reevaluate my stance on it. But as it stands, I seriously doubt that. Even if I disagreed with God about homosexuality, God could still inspire me to follow him in other endeavours. Or take some of his other commandments more seriously. If I believed there was a God who would judge me when I died, I probably wouldn't "blaspheme" so much, for example.

But if he showed up and managed to convince me He is God, I would in fact then belive that God exists. That doesn't mean I will automatically start "following" him in all his endeavours. I'm guessing you don't really do that either. Do you eat shellfish? Wear mixed fabrics? Work on the sabbath? Do you stone your daughter to death at the city gates if she is not a virgin on her wedding night? Have you donated all your earthly material possessions to the poor and do you walk the Earth doing nothing but preach the word of God and believe He will provide for you what you need? I'm guessing you don't do that.

Remember, the argument from the silence of God/divine hiddenness, is about the apparent absense of evidence for God's existence in places where we very much expect to see it. Not so much about whether God can make everyone follow him in everything he does and says. (But let's be clear, God could and would make lots more people follow him if he did show up and perform miracles).

I have to say that this whole line of arguing about whether God turning up in person would make people become followers and worshippers of him in all of his thoughts, declarations and deeds is sort of a red herring.

Would you then tell all of your friends on this board that they are foolish and evil, if this is what God expected you to do? No, you wouldn't.

That's right, I wouldn't do that. But if God did in fact reveal his existence to me, I would in fact believe in his existence. And it's entirely possible that I could find God inspiring and admire Him even were I to disagree with some of His declarations on human nature.

If the Christian God is real then we know you would still be evil.
The only way for your salvation is to humble yourself and to thank Christ for dying for your sins.

I don't find this kind of mere preaching a persuasive reason for belief in God I regret to inform you. It also fails as an answer to the argument form silence/divine hiddenness.

 

[MarsCydonia]

When it comes to this:

God could technically, if He wanted to, personally show up and knock on every door in the entire world, at the same time. At any particular moment, God would then probably come into contact with as many as three billion individuals. Suppose God did that, are we now supposed to believe that God would not succeed in gaining even one single addional follower?

After having knocked on the door to literally every home in the world? And he'd even be able to know when people are home, and not particularly busy. He'd even know when some people are perhaps sitting at home feeling lonely. The perfect opportunity to both enter into their lives and end their loneliness.

Your question to me indicates that you really believe that if God did that, turned up at literally every home in the world and knocked, he'd not gain even one more follower. Is that belief even remotely rational? Isn't it obvious this is just an excuse you made up, and that it fails to rebut the argument from silence? I think you can see that not only did you make up an excuse to try to push the argument from silence away, the particular excuse you came up with is unbelievably implausible.

Consider the following:

Leroy's objection is that god wants a certain number of christians, "more followers", which means that after establishing his existence, the net number of christians must remains what it currently is or increase. His objection is that god wouldn't reveal himself if the number of christian dropped/equaled less followers. So that means that either:
A) 0 of the current unbelievers would become christians. This is the scenario Leroy thinks is more probable than at least 1 of the unbelievers would become a christian. There are former christian believers that ceased to believe because they lacked evidence. Leroy is basically saying that none of them would go back to being christians despite having the evidence they sought. Of course, we should not expect any support for this from Leroy.
or
B) Some of the current unbelievers would become christians but more of the current christians would cease to follow god. This is the other scenario that Leroy thinks is more probable than improbable. Of course, deconversion happens mostly because of the lack of evidence. So Leroy is saying that more people would cease to be christian despite the reason for why it mostly happens today becoming a non-issue! This is even more ridiculous than scenario A so I wouldn't expect any support for this from Leroy either.

I made this comment at the top of page 4. We're now at the bottom of page 9. Leroy has yet to address my comment so I doubt he will address yours. It would be surprising if Leroy finally decides to address 2 out ot these 3 things Leroy could and should do:
1. Address the correct form of the argument.
2. Address how his objection to his flawed form of the argument was shown to be invalid.
3. Address how his flawed form of the argument brings glaring issues for a christian standpoint.

Leroy has opted to run away from all for 9 pages of comments now.

It speaks volumes that Leroy refuses to discuss the correct form of the argument or the objections and the implications of his incorrect argument.

 

[leroy]

Greetings,

That is a grate point,

If God knows that there is nothing that would personally convince you to become a follower, he might not do anything to convince you.

That simply isn't the case - a deity would know what would convince me that it existed.

1 No matter what that is - there's always something that would convince someone to believe.

2 If a deity created me, it would have created me to believe in it, else how could I have a "loving relationship" with it?

3 I'd have been created with an in-built capacity to believe in my creator - otherwise, what's the point in creating me?

Kindest regards,

James

1, disagree it is possible that nothing would convince an individual that God exist, many atheists openly admit it, (not sure if this includes you) but also irrelevant, given that God is not interested in having believers, he is interested in having followers, so the relevant question is, is there something that would personally convince you to willingly become a follower?

2, yes God created you with the ability to believe in him, we are all born with a "religious instinct"

3 you where born with in-built capacity to believe in my creator, this is proven by the fact that at least you are wondering about the existence of God.

a good but irrelevant question would be if atheism is ture, why do humans have this in-built capacity, why would "nature" create beings that wonder about the exístanse of God? this question is irrelevant for the discussion, so feel free to ignore it,

 

[Bango Skank]

1, disagree it is possible that nothing would convince an individual that God exist, many atheists openly admit it, (not sure if this includes you) but also irrelevant, given that God is not interested in having believers, he is interested in having followers, so the relevant question is, is there something that would personally convince you to willingly become a follower?

2, yes God created you with the ability to believe in him, we are all born with a "religious instinct"

3 you where born with in-built capacity to believe in my creator, this is proven by the fact that at least you are wondering about the existence of God.

a good but irrelevant question would be if atheism is ture, why do humans have this in-built capacity, why would "nature" create beings that wonder about the exístanse of God? this question is irrelevant for the discussion, so feel free to ignore it,

What makes you think its your God? I mean if we go with earliest religions, they were polytheistic. They are earliest so they have more recent memory of they creators, yet you deny it and go with more recent version of just a single God. For what reasons?

 

[MarsCydonia]

According to the history we have of God's interactions with us in the Bible, this is the only rational belief. People are not good. And the more miracles God performs for people, the more (most) people will rebel against him.

So what you are saying is, god done fucked up... Again.
The all-knowledgeable and all-powerful creator created "(most)" people as rebels against... What? His "authority" or his "morality"? And when he realized his creation was not what wanted (despite the all-knowingness and all-powerfulness), he drowned all but 8 people in order to accomplish... Apparently nothing because "(most)" people still apparently rebel. So he punishes people that are neither all-knowledgeable and all-powerful for acting as the result of his failure of a plan.

Which still does not change the issue at all. If "most" people convinced of god's existence would rebel against him, he would still gain more followers and still save more people from his punishment for acting as the result of his failed plan (plus "most would rebel" sounds totally implausible: the majority of people convinced of god's existence aren't rebels: they're christians).

You think that God should meet each of us face to face at our front doors? Why? He already expects us to know He is real.

So not only god's plan failed to create unrebellious people despite the all-knowingness and all-powerfulness, he lacks the awareness to realize that his expectations do not match reality, again despite the all-knowingness. If he expects people to know he is real, he's doing a terrible job of it since more than half the planet does not know so.

And he says the people who say He does not exist are foolish and evil. I think God is correct.

I think christians are foolish and a lot of them are evil. Show me why I ought agree that I am correct and that god is. Because a lot christians have different ideas of what is foolishness and what is evil than non-christians do.

Do you seriously expect any of us to believe that if God came to your house, in person and told you homosexuality is sick and evil, you would then tell others the same. Would you then tell all of your friends on this board that they are foolish and evil, if this is what God expected you to do?

Case in point. Your obsession with sexuality and gender may have you believe that homosexuality is sick and evil and ask no question why but why ought I agree with god like you do?

The bible condems homosexuality and condones slavery. You do too. I consider that evil. If god wants me to consider humans as property and homosexuals as sick and evil, he better bring something better than "because I said so".

No, you wouldn't. If the Christian God is real then we know you would still be evil.

The only way for your salvation is to humble yourself and to thank Christ for dying for your sins.

And based on what you think "good" is, I'd be proud to be "evil".



So is that all you offer in objection to the argument? I just remembered know that you try to argue that the bible has passages that show god is not all-knowledgeable (despite the multiple bible passages to the contrary).

Well, that's a novel objection but not without its issues such as why we should trust and agree with the "morality" of an incompetent god.

 

[Rumraket]

1, disagree it is possible that nothing would convince an individual that God exist

Yes, that is possible. As in, we can imagine that could be true. But you can't just assume that it is.

You need to have some sort of evidence that justifies the belief that literally nothing could ever convince some particular atheist that God exists. You don't have such evidence.

, many atheists openly admit it, (not sure if this includes you)

Actually that is not true. Some atheists say that they don't know themselves what would convince them because they used to believe for bad reasons that they learned to see through. This is quite different from saying that there is nothing that would convince them to start believing in God again.

but also irrelevant, given that God is not interested in having believers, he is interested in having followers, so the relevant question is, is there something that would personally convince you to willingly become a follower?

The first step to gaining followers is that you believe God exists. There aren't many people who follow entities, ideas or objects they don't believe actually exists.

2, yes God created you with the ability to believe in him, we are all born with a "religious instinct"

I was also born with the ability to believe in unicorns, dragons and space-robots. But as with anything, the mere fact that I can potentially believe in it doesn't mean that belief is a rational one to have. For that, evidence is required.

3 you where born with in-built capacity to believe in my creator, this is proven by the fact that at least you are wondering about the existence of God.

I wonder about the existence of all sorts of things. It's just that only few of them have the same huge societal and cultural impacts as people who,f or example, fly into buildings or blow themselves up in crowded places. It is natural to be more concerned with beliefs that inspire people to tell other people how to live their lives. Or that inspire them to tell others they are wicked evil fools. Like you did with atheists and homosexuals. No wonder we are more preoccupied with discussing this with you, rather than discussing the purported trajectories of distant comets, say.

You probably think the fact that we argue with you about religion and God means we somehow agree "there's something to it". Please don't make this mistake. At an intellectual level, the whole thing is as completely ridiculous, so obviously false, childish and without merit, to me as Santa Clause is. But exactly because I recognize that religious people want to change society and make everyone be and believe what they do, and because we know from history and countries in the world here and now, what such societies are like, I do my part to resist it. That means I have to do my part to explain to you why I don't think your religion has any rational merit. If you just believed it the quiet comfort of your own head and your own home, I wouldn't care in the least.

Nobody denies they have the capacity for belief. Well except you. You say here above that there are atheists who would not be convinced by anything. How do you square that with your new claim here that capacity for belief is built in?

Regardless, what they deny is that this mere capacity, the fact that they could potentially believe, at least in principle, is a good enough reason in itself to start believing.

Let's pick an analogy to make the principle obvious. We also all have the capacity to believe there are 1039 planets in our solar system. That doesn't mean we should or that it is rational to do so.

Nobody comes hard wired with a belief in God. God-belief is almost always the result of childhood upbringing and then later on the human instinct to ponder things like purpose, morality and origins are then tied together with the childhood indoctrination.

If you talk to people who grew up in atheist homes, they will often times tell you they actually never even thought about the whole God thing and found the whole thing ridiculous when they hear about it from their theist friends and surrounding culture.

a good but irrelevant question would be if atheism is ture, why do humans have this in-built capacity, why would "nature" create beings that wonder about the exístanse of God?

I don't believe we come hard-wired to wonder about the existence of God per se, rather we come hard-wired to wonder about things like our own and the world's origins and purpose. God-belief is an expression of that capacity having developed culturally over millenia. It is one of our first attempts to answer these questions. That doesn't make it the right answer.

 

[MarsCydonia]

1, disagree it is possible that nothing would convince an individual that God exist, many atheists openly admit it, (not sure if this includes you) but also irrelevant, given that God is not interested in having believers, he is interested in having followers, so the relevant question is, is there something that would personally convince you to willingly become a follower?

2, yes God created you with the ability to believe in him, we are all born with a "religious instinct"

3 you where born with in-built capacity to believe in my creator, this is proven by the fact that at least you are wondering about the existence of God.

a good but irrelevant question would be if atheism is ture, why do humans have this in-built capacity, why would "nature" create beings that wonder about the exístanse of God? this question is irrelevant for the discussion, so feel free to ignore it,

So... 1) Leroy disagrees: it is possible nothing would convince an individual of god's existence.
2) God created individuals with the ability to be convinced of god's existence (despite the fact its possible we cannot be convinced, see point 1).
3) Individuals are born with the built-in the capacity to be convinced of god's existence, "proven" by the fact we wondered about the existence of god (despite the fact its possible we cannot be convinced, see point 1). Similarly, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Big Foot, etc.

Is there is a contradiction between "1-It is possible that nothing would be convincing to an individual" and "2/3-Individuals were created and are born with the ability to be convinced"? I will let you, the readers, decide.

However, if 1 is accurate, then this brings glaring issues for a christian standpoint. That was 3 of the three things Leroy has ran away from. Leroy could instead:
1. Address the correct form of the argument.
2. Address how his objection to his flawed form of the argument was shown to be invalid.
3. Address how his flawed form of the argument brings glaring issues for a christian standpoint.

Leroy has opted to run away from all three for 9 pages of comments now.

It speaks volumes that Leroy refuses to discuss the correct form of the argument or the objections and the implications of his incorrect argument.