the real issue

Originally posted by knightmeister
I have had no experience of pink unicorns and I know of no pink unicorn that has predicted he would be present amongst a room of pink unicorn believers.

The onus is not on me to prove God to anyone since I have not said that this is possible nor that this is what I am intending to do. What is it with you guys thinking we're always trying to prove G ...[text shortened]... u can do nothing else . You are committed to this position. It makes life really easy for you.

We are not the ones committed to our position.
You are the one committed to your position.
You believe in God, etc without ANY OBJECTIVE evidence and merely because of your own feelings, and those of similarly deluded associates.
Moreover, no evidence would ever dissuade you from believing in God because your 'feelings' are so over-powering.
In short you lack rationality and therefore are not capable of accepting reasoned arguments, thus will never change your blind-faith riddled belief.

Originally posted by knightmeister
I have had no experience of pink unicorns and I know of no pink unicorn that has predicted he would be present amongst a room of pink unicorn believers.

The onus is not on me to prove God to anyone since I have not said that this is possible nor that this is what I am intending to do. What is it with you guys thinking we're always trying to prove G ...[text shortened]... u can do nothing else . You are committed to this position. It makes life really easy for you.

And there they go people; Knightmeister's thrown his toys out of his pram.

Oh, please, cry now - I'd love to see that too.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
And there they go people; Knightmeister's thrown his toys out of his pram.

Oh, please, cry now - I'd love to see that too.

hur hur, I can just imagine it:

ShightMeister (sobbing); "The naughty men are saying that God doesn't exist, again" Waaargghhhhhhh!!!

Originally posted by scottishinnz
And there they go people; Knightmeister's thrown his toys out of his pram.

Oh, please, cry now - I'd love to see that too.

She finally popped!

Originally posted by howardgee
"many Christians who honestly hold their position for valid reasons"

A mere 'feeling' is not a valid reason.

A feeling can mean that I have emotion, i.e. "You hurt my feelings!" (You didn't, really, but it's a good example.), or it can mean to feel something, like, I'm touching you and I can feel you because of this. I feel God when he is there, but I feel him like I am touching him, or visa versa.

Originally posted by Acemaster
A feeling can mean that I have emotion, i.e. "You hurt my feelings!" (You didn't, really, but it's a good example.), or it can mean to feel something, like, I'm touching you and I can feel you because of this. I feel God when he is there, but I feel him like I am touching him, or visa versa.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere.

So, God exerts a physical pressure? We can measure that.

Or perhaps it's just another delusion that you are suffering.

Originally posted by howardgee
"many Christians who honestly hold their position for valid reasons"

A mere 'feeling' is not a valid reason.

What you mean is .. "Feeling" is not a valid reason FOR ME.", which is no great news flash.
When's the last time an Englishman showed any feelings?
Not in my memory.
Stiff upper lip and flacid pantyhose is more like it. Wouldn't say "poop" if they had a mouthfull.
Wouldn't be proper.
Without question the most anal retentive nation on Earth.
Mostly boring retards like howardgeek sitting around eating boiled potatoes with buckteeth.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Looking at the "Atheists!" thread got me thinking. Hearing how some Atheists had had religious parents caused me to speculate whether behind all this "rational" debate lies a lot of emotion and possible resentment.

You sound like the sort of psychologist who wants to blame everything on a persons childhood. I will not deny that I don't particularly like some Christians and in particular certain practices or beliefs of theirs, but to simply blame it on the religion of my parents would incorrect.
I first came to this forum at the time when ID was being hotly debated on the news and I thought it would be an interesting topic for the debates forum. But when I posted there I was told it was a matter for the spirituality forum.
I personally do not like the fact that many people are willing to go to the extent of trying to suppress science, and even lie about it or misrepresent it in order to make themselves feel better due to a perceived threat to their beliefs because of the discoveries of science.
When they take it a step further and insist children being taught these lies in school then I am even more unhappy.
The sad thing about it is I very much doubt that most of them actually believe many of the lies they tell. In other words they know that they are lying.

However, whether or not either side on a debate has "a lot of emotion and possible resentment" it should still possible to debate something rationally. I have however noticed that you have a tendency do dismiss another persons perfectly rational argument because you believe that they have a hidden motive and not because there is any actual flaw in their logic.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
And there they go people; Knightmeister's thrown his toys out of his pram.

Oh, please, cry now - I'd love to see that too.

I was chuckling to myself when I wrote this ...but project away if you want.

Originally posted by howardgee
hur hur, I can just imagine it:

ShightMeister (sobbing); "The naughty men are saying that God doesn't exist, again" Waaargghhhhhhh!!!

Are you so naive as to think that what you are saying is going to make me abandon my faith? I have asked myself a hundred more questions than you lot have ever asked.

What is much more interesting is how both you and scotty seem to want to turn this into a slanging match , which might distract from the issue at hand. Nice try.

Now please address the question of how you are able to talk with such authority about an experience which you have not had.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Are you so naive as to think that what you are saying is going to make me abandon my faith?

I rather doubt that anyone here thinks you are likely to abandon your faith any time soon.
However, there is a tiny possibility that you might realize that the reasons you give for having faith are almost certainly not the real reasons, and they are not as 'obvious' or 'logical' as you claim.
One of the biggest reasons why I personally would not take your testimony as evidence of the existence of God is that every person seems to experience something different and even those who experience what they describe as nearly identical experiences they often attribute it to different causes.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Ah, now we're getting somewhere.

So, God exerts a physical pressure? We can measure that.

Or perhaps it's just another delusion that you are suffering.

Sorry. I'm not an athiest, so I've never had a delusion before.

Originally posted by Acemaster
Sorry. I'm not an athiest, so I've never had a delusion before.

You sure you are not deluded?

OK then, give me a link to one instance where this physical pressure exerted by God which you have felt, has been documented and measured.

I think the main topic of this thread is interesting (as opposed to the last page or so of insults, which isn't).

I've never seen someone in one of these debates change their views as a result of the arguments pressented. Perhaps that is partly because they often degenerate into such pointless stuff as the above posts. But I think one of the main reasons is that people on both sides are heavily invested emotionally in their beliefs. No one wants to say "You're right; I'm wrong" and so people are willing to work hard to avoid saying that--even if it means trying to defend weak arguments or diverting the discussion into a flame war. Since there are a lot of weak arguments, and it is easy to start flame wars, in these threads we see--a lot of weak arguments and a lot of flame wars.

I say this stuff because its certainly true for me: I find it hard to imagine myself switching my views on this stuff not only because I don't buy the arguments of the other side but because it would probably deal a big blow to my pride, and I catch myself thinking much less critically about arguments that support my views than about arguments that oppose them.

So perhaps rebellion is part of the emotional attachment people have to atheism, but I think it is less important than the attachment we all have to whatever beliefs we call our own. Personally I was raised without religion (I assume my parents are atheists, but we hardly ever talk about religion), but I don't think you could say that makes me more accepting of it because I can't rebel against it. In fact, I think I was probably was rebelling against what I saw as a religion-dominated society, a way to elevate myself above people who I probably classed as brainwashed and misled (while I saw the truth). Now I'd like to think that my atheism is based more firmly on reason.

That said, here's some of that reason from Bertrand Russell:

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

Reductio ad absurdum arguments like this one are, I think, hard to refute. How is God more plausible that Russell's Teapot?

Originally posted by howardgee
You sure you are not deluded?

OK then, give me a link to one instance where this physical pressure exerted by God which you have felt, has been documented and measured.

What do you expect? Do you actually believe that someone, somewhere has documented my personal experiance on the internet? If you happen to believe that, then you, sir, are the deluded one.