Welcome to Gaia! ::

But what is there to make me believe that these so called miacles are acts of your God intead of an act of my Gods. Miracles are rahter subjective in may cases.

And at zslone, this is a religious debate and discussion forum. Christianity is a valid religion and she is just stating her religious views. I don't agree with them, but I don't have to be insulted by them either.

Like I said in the atheism thread, miracles usually have some scientific proof, theists are just much happier crediting their gods.
Like if a child survives a natural disaster with a one in ten-thousand chance of surviving, it's a miracle. Well statistically one person for every ten-thousand in that natural disaster will live. That child got lucky. Meanwhile 9,999 people died.
Or even if that child was saved by God, how do you know it was your god? Maybe it was a pagan god. Or even Satan.
And how are you so sure that other religions are Satan tricking others out of Christianity, but by that logic it's possible that Chritianity is set up by the Satan of another religion keeping people in the dark from that religion as well.

And no, we can't disprove God.
But it's illogical to say that because we cannot disprove His existence, He must exist.
By that logic, uncountable pagan gods must exists. Along with the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
You can not prove that He does exist either.
There are miracles in every religion. None with any proof that they are performed by God.

Then there are no truths and falsities, for these are absolutes.

Hehe, really?
Care to show your work?

Sorry for interrupting, I guess it's impossible, as the God rests within one's head then. But then again: it exists. The problem is it's status.

The process can be refined to such simplicity, although I'm sure in practice it is much more difficult than it may be made to appear.

@Zslone: Sorry, I'm really trying not to. It's hard to post your (religious) opinion sometimes without sounding preachy. xp And, my point was if you can't prove He doesn't exist, it's a little illogical to assert that He doesn't. If you have an inner conviction (which comes with loving Him. How can you accept the denial of the existance of someone you love, someone who means the world to you? Some do, but personally it'd tear me up inside not to at least assert He exists. Do athiests have that same emotional attachment to their disbelief? Would you die to deny Him or any other god?) that He does exist then it would be silly of you to deny it.

@dio: I'm trying to come from a place where thing make sense, not where my opinion means more then yours. What makes sense to me is that in Christianity there's a powerful evil being who can cause lies to take people away from the more powerful being who not only created them, but loves them. If you come from a place that makes more sense to you then that, then please share it, and I'll think about it, okay?

@Raven: Thanks, and I see what you mean. Just wondering (I'm trying not to offend anyone, but I really do wonder), do you have a jealous god who wants to be loved and loves people or a villian who would cause false miracles to lead people away from that god?

@brainn: That's what Christians assert, that ours is the only true religion. That makes sense to me in that, because if the supernatural is real, then there's rules governing it, so only one religion dealing with supernatural could be correct.

There's miracles, like my mom and the bee (anyone want me to go over the story again?) and the woman who couldn't walk, and a visiting pastor who didn't know her says run because of the Holy Ghost, and she RUNS. Those things still happen. But inner conviction is all some people need too. It depends on the person.

Not always, and everything requires a reason. If the miracle is based around faith (as with my mom and the bee), if prayer is involved, if you feel the Holy Ghost, all the above the reasons are good reasons to think it might be the Lord. And honestly, how many other religions have Satans, or jealous gods who truly care for people. As much as the Greek gods interest me, they're too human to really be gods (if they were, our universe would be so much more chaotic). My God is the model we were shaped after, but He's GOD, and He CARES. If you can name god like that, tell me please.


But why do you care if you believe He doesn't? I'm emotionally invested, you aren't (are you?). To me, should the athiest be right, and thiests really are delusional, well it's a bit like telling a kid there's no Santa Claus, except that all a kid has invested in Santa Claus is presents and a holiday. My life is invested in my religion. Do you see?

Besides that, all it takes for there to be be a god is for one of the many, many people who experienced any greater power to be right. All it takes for it to be the Christian God, is any one of the millions who have experienced the Holy Ghost to be right.

And I apologize if I was preachy sweatdrop . I'll try and keep that to a minimum if I can help it.

But yours is not the only religion that explains what is unexplained.
That's what religion does. It explains what we can't yet.
And if you wish to believe that the reason for something is God's will, then that's fine and I will respect that, but there really isn't any evidence unless you believe in God, and even then you can't say for sure, so you really can't expect us to believe that those are miracles of God.
Or even for people who believe in God but aren't Christian, it could be any God.
And I know that both of those stories have some link to Christ, but hey, maybe God has a sense of humor.
My point is, you're free to believe whatever you wish but you have to see things from a neutral perspective if you want to make sense to those of us who aren't Christian.

And to say that your religion is correct because your religion says its correct is circular logic and doesn't really prove anything unless you first decide that Christianity is correct, which is often what we're debating.

And yes, everything requires a reason.
But why automatically assume that it's God?

And you're biased as to how God should be, because that's the perception that you were raised with.
As someone who wasn't really taught too much about the details of Christianity until later in life, the fact that He had no problem with killing off his creations when he didn't like how they turned out, kicking us out of Eden into a world of suffering, damning us to hell for not worshiping him concerns me.
A lot of religions don't even have a hell.
In fact, the worst hell I think I've ever heard of is the one depicted in the bible.

Why do I care? Well first of all, knowing the consequences, I'd better be pretty sure that I'm right. So I think about this stuff a lot.
But also I love learning about different religions and trying to understand people's faith.
It offers an amazing window into what drives other people.
For example, it's pretty clear that we don't agree on religion very much, right?
But I can always follow your logic and understand how you see the world and why, even if I don't agree with it.
And I understand that you are devoted to your religion. And I'm not trying to change that.

I want to be very clear here.
I'm not intentionally trying to tear down people's beliefs or spread atheism.
In fact, in real life when people ask me why I'm an atheist, I usually don't tell them because it's probably contrary to what they believe and I don't want to offend them.
The only reason I do so here is because this is a debate guild and I assume that people who approach me with questions can handle having them answered, even if it's contrary to everything they believe.
I try not to be condescending or insulting.
And I'm not trying to get you to turn your back on your religion either.
I'm just giving my point of view.

And just because millions of people believe something doesn't make it right.