@secondson said
It is illogical to assume something doesn't exist simply because one doesn't believe it exists, just as being ignorant of the law doesn't make one immune from prosecution for breaking it.

@secondson said
In the Bible.

"Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"
Genesis 3:1

But that isn't a question. It's an insinuation.

The first question is; "Where art thou?"
Genesis 3:9

Are you hiding from God, naked and afraid, covering yourself with fig leaves of excuses?

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all ...[text shortened]... thy might.
Deuteronomy 6:5

What's your excuse for not obeying the commandment of your maker?

@proper-knob said
@SecondSon

You don't have Odin.

@secondson said
They don't have Jesus.

@fmf said
I'm not talking about whether or not someone is prosecuted for breaking a law they are ignorant of. I am talking about whether someone can be accused of wilfully and consciously disobeying a law they don't believe exists. No, of course they can't. Look you believe what you believe, that's fine. I don't believe it, and that's fine. But the way you're trying to make your case here is just plain sophistry.

@secondson said
Not believing Jesus rose from the dead is disobedience in the extreme since it's so obviously true.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Come sir, I started my reply to you with 'I accept you believe that.'

Can you not extend the same sentiment to Hindus, and accept 'they believe' that creation is evidence for the existence of Vishnu?

@proper-knob said
This forum is like the gift that keeps giving. Are you trying to save the forum with comedy gold like this?

Evidence please for this gem, you’re drastically in short supply so far in this thread.

@secondson said
You keep supplying the unbelief and I'll keep supplying the truth.

How do you like that one?

Here's another. What's comedic is your begging for evidence for the obvious.

@proper-knob said
Begging? What are you wittering on about?

I’m asking you to substantiate your claims in this thread with some evidence or at least a coherent argument. Surely that’s not too much to ask in a debate forum.

@secondson said
Why do you ask sir such a question to which the answer is so obvious?

Of course I accept that others believe differently. Why wouldn't I? I am bewildered by the insinuation that I don't. It's unjustified. I promote the gospel of Jesus Christ, and would be most disingenuous if I didn't!

Yet still, I have the resurrected Lord Jesus as my saviour, and the assurance of et ...[text shortened]... ternal life through faith in the shed blood of Christ.

The hope of the Christian is incomparable.

@secondson said
Why do you ask sir such a question to which the answer is so obvious?

Of course I accept that others believe differently. Why wouldn't I? I am bewildered by the insinuation that I don't. It's unjustified. I promote the gospel of Jesus Christ, and would be most disingenuous if I didn't!

Yet still, I have the resurrected Lord Jesus as my saviour, and the assurance of et ...[text shortened]... ternal life through faith in the shed blood of Christ.

The hope of the Christian is incomparable.

John 8
34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
31...If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;
51“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.”

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

My point was simply sir that 'creation' is not evidence for the existence of the Christian God, as the same 'evidence' is used by other religions to support the existence of their particular deities.

The Universe: Past and Present Reflections
Engineering and Science, 11/81, p8-12.
"Would you not say to yourself, 'Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.'"

@sonship said
@Ghost-of-a-Duke

My point was simply sir that 'creation' is not evidence for the existence of the Christian God, as the same 'evidence' is used by other religions to support the existence of their particular deities.

It is much more evidence of the God of the Christian faith then it is for your atheism.

Christ, revealed as God manifest in the flesh, ...[text shortened]... beyond question.'" [/quote]

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Nave-html/Faithpathh/Hoyle.html

For those of you who haven't read it, here is some of the 'Hymn of Creation' (from the Rigveda) which I personally find beautifully poetic and also humble in its uncertainty:

Then even nothingness was not, nor existence,
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

Then there was neither death nor immortality
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.

At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined cosmic water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.
...

But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence it all came, and how creation happened?
the devas (gods) themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?

Whence all creation had its origin,
the creator, whether she/he fashioned it or whether she/he did not,
the creator, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
she/he knows - or maybe even she/he does not know.