Which brings up another interesting question: Why would a supposedly all-powerful deity allow the Titanic to crash? The “God acts in mysterious ways” line is getting old. Either he is not all powerful or he is negligent – or he is simply callous and uncaring. You cannot argue is caring, all-powerful and responsible.
What most atheists don’t understand is that most religious people have had personal experiences that support their belief in God. Most religious people do not simply read the religous text and then believe in God. So if a religious person has religious experiences how can the atheist possibly come along and tell them that whatever they saw, heard, or felt did not occur. The atheist to be correct means that every religious story or supernatural experience as witnessed by someone is by definition not possible.
With regard to your point about not understanding why certain things happen that are unfortunate assumes that death is the worst thing that can happen to you. Most religious people believe that physical death is not the worst possible outcome so perhaps in that context things are not quite as tragic as they appear to you.
How many times will you repeat that lie?
My grandfather didn’t come back to life then, I take it. The hospital’s equipment just decided to flatline for 30 minutes, and his body decided it wouldn’t show any signs of a pulse, but he wasn’t dead, everyone at the hospital just imagined it happened.
Silly me.
Aside from the fact that a “personal experience”, by definition, is NOT something you can sensibly try to prove as anything other than “personal”. The moment one tries to convince everyone else that it’s an absolute truth, it’s not a “personal experience” anymore. All they can sensibly do is say theyve had the experience and admit that they cannot prove it to anyone else. In short, they must “take it on faith”, which makes any following attempt to scientifically or empirically prove it entirely ludicrous. The attempt to universalize or empirically prove a “personal experience”, something which only you have exclusively felt or percieved (delusion or not), is incredibly disingenous.
This entire thread is dumb. I didn’t sign up to argue with fundamentalist christians about the existance of a diety.
Final fantasy VII? Awesome.
Indeed, although I’m disappointed I couldn’t find an example using Xenogears.
There you go. I am a believer.
Rest In Peace
This is exactly the kind of story that is discredited by the atheist. Recently, I read on Yahoo news an effort by scientists to explain what happens in near death experiences. Since near death experiences by definition are individual experiences this would be insufficient evidence for atheists to pursue scientifically. However, obviously some scientists understand that human experience can be credible evidence and can not simply be ignored because the scientific proof of the experience is very difficult to achieve.
This is where the atheist charge that these things can not exist is irrational.
Maybe if you grasp after enough straws you can build yourself another strawman…
Just because one can’t confirm or deny an ‘individual experience’ doesn’t make it true by default. That’s one of the problems of using single source evidence. Which, apparently, is all there is to ‘prove’ the existence of the christian god.
Now if one were to provide multiple sources of evidence like the biblical account of the destruction of Soddom and Gommorah and a clay tablet that tracked an asteroid things would be a lot different. OK, I probably should also say that the multiple sources also need to agree with each other because The Hand of God™ doesn’t seem to be the cause of the destruction in this case and the biblical account left out the critical detail that it was an asteroid and not ‘fire and brimstone’ that fell from the sky.
Oh, yeah, and I’m still waiting for you to provide the source of this ‘athestic doctrine’ you know so much about.
I defined it right out of the Websters dictionary about 50 posts ago. If the dictionary defintion doesn’t apply to you then so be it.
Here it is again, in particular part B I am referring to: 1archaic : ungodliness , wickedness2 a**:** a disbelief in the existence of deity b**:** the doctrine that there is no deity
Part A I have stated several times is reasonable.
No single source isn’t true by default nor is it false by default which is what atheists would have you believe. I simply say it is evidence and to deny that is irrational.
Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that credible people have experienced things you have not and that these things are beyond our current scientific comprehension.
He was never dead.
Silly you; death is final. There’s no coming back.
Just as much as people discredit stories about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc.
Evidence is a pre-requisite for rational assent, and just because someone claims something to be evidence doesn’t make it so. Unless, of course, you will admit that rain is the evidence for the elf on my shoulder just because I say so. If you do not admit that, you’re a hypocrite.
BECAUSE NO ONE IS DENYING THAT, YOU MORON.
Sheesh–how many times must you be told that? How many?
Now then, just because something is “beyond our current scientific comprehension” DOES NOT mean the automatic leap to “supernatural”. You are guilty of the fallacy of argument from ignorance.
You obviously don’t understand what evidence is. You saying you have an elf on your shoulder is evidence. The issue is, is the eye-witness evidence credible? If the witness is not credible then we don’t believe it. It always helps to have additonal evidence of any eye-witness claim but that is not a requirement for it to be true. Look at your exmples, there have been plenty of scientific efforts to research the loch ness monster and even bigfoot because enough eye-witness and other evidence that appeared credible made it worth investigating. So your examples prove the point that eye-witness evidence is evidence and can not be universally regarded simply because the event witnessed or experienced is supernatural.
Apparently you don’t understand what death is then by the traditional scientific definition. Or does science no longer apply when confronted with evidence that is counter to your thinking?
Thank you though, you have provided the perfect example of the atheist disregard for any evidence that is counter to their ideology. You have disregarded without any counter evidence that everything claimed by Banned regarding his own experiences is by definition false even though you obviously have no knowledge of the event yourself.
I obviously do.
No, it’s actually not. At least not of there actually being an elf.
No, the issue is whether or not it’s actually evidence.
No, there are merely delusional people.
Ok. I witness that there is no god. Therefore, there is no god.
Deny that and you’ve destroyed your argument.
Happy day.
Apparently I do.
Thank you for showing that you have no desire to be in reality. You just wish to spew your fantasy and scream at anyone who disagrees with you.
When I was little there were monsters who lived in my closet. That was a PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. Are you going to deny I had those experiences? I not only SAW there were monsters in my closet, what is far more important is that I FELT they were there. I was not alone in this. Lots of little kids over the years have seen and felt and sometimes even heard the presence of monsters in their closets.
I also do not think death is the worst thing that can happen to someone. I agree with Epicurus’ view of death. My larger point was not about death specifically but tragedy and injustice in general. Let us take disease, torture, cruelty or war. Why would an all-powerful being allow these things to take place? One could argue war and torture are manmade but diseases, hurricanes and earthquakes certainly are not.