Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I was simply referring to the physical impossibility of anything coming into existence without God, who is the ultimate source of everything that exists.

Without bothering to tell us:

1. Why you think it's  "physically impossible";

2. What you mean by "God"; or

3. How this "God" would have created itself.

In other words, just yet more assertions of blind faith.

[torridon]

But if the only evidence you accept as admissible is that derived from human scientific investigation, you will never discover the truth behind our existence.  God's existence does not contradict what science has discovered - it complements it by allowing us see the spiritual nature of ourselves, which is a reflection of God's spiritual nature.  And it allows us to see far beyond the limits of human scientific investigation.

Science extends our ability to investigate; it does not limit it.  If there is something there that we cannot detect using science, then it probably isn't there.  This is why we do science.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

How can you possibly compare arguments for leprechauns with arguments for the source of all creation?

Very easily when they're exactly the same arguments.

Try reading what I actually said to you a few posts ago to see why.

Seriously, just try.

[torridon]

I was simply referring to the physical impossibility of anything coming into existence without God, who is the ultimate source of everything that exists.

So, including, Malaria, the Zika virus, Ebola, rabies, smallpox, influenza, E-Coli etc etc not to mention hosts of nasty creepy crawly things then.

[Alan Burns]

If there is something there that we cannot detect using science, then it probably isn't there.

I think you vastly overestimate what can be discovered through our physical senses and man made contraptions.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I think you vastly overestimate what can be discovered through our physical senses and man made contraptions.

No, the real problem is your "vastly overestimating what can be discovered" by personal faith. 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Very easily when they're exactly the same arguments.

Try reading what I actually said to you a few posts ago to see why.

Seriously, just try.

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

[BeRational]

I was simply referring to the physical impossibility of anything coming into existence without God, who is the ultimate source of everything that exists.

How do you know?

That is a big claim.

Where is the evidence to support that claim?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

No, the real problem is your "vastly overestimating what can be discovered" by personal faith.

But it is not just personal faith - it is also based on a lifetime of experiences and seeing how God works through other people.

[BeRational]

How can you possibly compare arguments for leprechauns with arguments for the source of all creation?

Because the arguments for them both are THE SAME.

[BeRational]

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

Then present this evidence for god.

I for example see no evidence for god, but I do often read claims by theists that cannot back up the claim.

You do it all the time.

You make baseless unevidenced assertions, as if it was evidence.

It is not.

[BeRational]

But it is not just personal faith - it is also based on a lifetime of experiences and seeing how God works through other people.

All anecdotal, and worthless.

You have no evidence, just blind faith which you accept, and you are completely closed minded.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Deep breath...

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

Yes you can WHEN THEY'RE THE SAME ARGUMENTS!

A bad argument doesn't suddenly become a good one becasue you happen to like the outcome, and vice versa. The argument stands of falls on its merits - if you want to use an argument for "God" you cannot deny the IDENTICAL argument for a different outcome, leprechauns included. Either the argument is valid for both, or it's valid for neither - anything else is just special pleading.

You really struggle with this don't you.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But it is not just personal faith - it is also based on a lifetime of experiences and seeing how God works through other people.

No it isn't. It's based on a lifetime of experience of applying the narrative "God" to the phenomena you've observed. Amazonian tribespeople do the same with their gods, Australasian aborigines do the same with their god etc. There's no reason for anyone not to think that all you've actually seen is confirmation bias, and nor will there be until and unless you can finally make an argument for "God" that isn't hopeless.     

[SusanDoris]

I think AB's blind faith is even worse than the Flat Earthers' completely bonkers ideas.

(I checked back to see if I have already mentioned this here, but appear not to have done! I am following a thread on another forum...)

[Rhiannon]

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

What about the evidence that people believe in gods other than yours? I’ve seen people whose experience shows the pagan deities working through them.

How do you explain this?

[floo]

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

There is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of god, anymore than there is for leprechauns. Surely if a god exists it wouldn't have the human faults and failings presented by the Biblical character?

[torridon]

I think you vastly overestimate what can be discovered through our physical senses and man made contraptions.

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

So within the space of a couple of posts you are making contradictory claims.  On the one hand, we cannot detect any evidence for god because of the limitations of our native senses, even when extended by 'man made contraptions'.

And then bang, all of a sudden, very next post, there is 'overwhelming evidence' for god.

You need to make you mind up and stop playing word games with people.  If there is overwhelming evidence, then it would already be in the scientific literature, and theology would be subsumed as another branch of science, a subdivision of cosmology perhaps.

As it is, it is not a branch of science because there isn't any evidence in support of it.

[Stranger]

...overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

WHERE IS IT?

[torridon]

But it is not just personal faith - it is also based on a lifetime of experiences and seeing how God works through other people.

Well that could just be an habitual attribution on your part.

Have you considered how you could set about testing that hypothesis, that certain classes of behaviour are manifestations of some supernatural power operating through them ?

Apart from which, if it is God's behaviours that are being manifested through people that rather kills off your notions of free will.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is job done, unless you can remove the fallacies from your argument. If you cannot, then job done.

This isn't about inserting or removing of fallacies in an argument. This is about your sagamore calling ''fallacy'' and the pavlovian response that ensues from the antitheists.

[bluehillside Retd.]

This isn't about inserting or removing of fallacies in an argument.

It's precisely about that. A fallacious argument is always a wrong argument. QED

This is about your sagamore calling ''fallacy'' and the pavlovian response that ensues from the antitheists.

Alphabet soup time.

[Stranger]

This isn't about inserting or removing of fallacies in an argument. This is about your sagamore calling ''fallacy'' and the pavlovian response that ensues from the antitheists.

You really do live in a little fantasy world, all of your own...

[Enki]

But I can find no arguments to support the existence of leprechauns, but overwhelming evidence for the existence of God.

Then perhaps it might be an idea to share this 'overwhelming evidence' so that it can be critically analysed. I'm all for your idea of 'overwhelming evidence' or even some evidence, as long as it can be produced and stands the test of inter-subjective analysis. So far, you haven't produced any evidence, except evidence of a subjective nature, such as that which is based upon 'a lifetime of experiences'. This can be immediately counteracted by the equally valid subjective nature of my experiences which suggest no evidence of any god whatever.

[SteveH]

Bluehillside wrote earlier, quoting Alan Burns,

"AB,

Having found the truth, I cannot possibly close the door on that truth.

Unless you have access to every possible bit of data in the universe, you have no basis to claim absolute certainty about anything. How otherwise would you know for sure that there isn’t some piece of information that would turn your beliefs on their head?

And if you insist nonetheless that your beliefs are absolutely, certainly true then by definition your mind is closed to the possibility that they might not be."

I think BHS is being far too literal-minded here. AB's statement is not a cool philosophical proposition, but a personal, emotional statement of faith.