[quote]
[quote=CCIP]
Before you place the "burden on proof" on anyone, please establish the reason why we should presume that presence, rather than absence of God, should be viewed as the default/unmarked position to a logical mind.
For the same reason many presume the non-presance of God.

That is non of your business. That is between me and my Lord.

You asked us to prove that God doesn´t exists, but you are not even telling us which god you believe in? There are supposedly hundreds of different gods as you know... :)

hehe. He won't tell you what he askes you to prove doesn't exsist. :doh: :rotfl:

I could only invite Jesus into my heart and confess that he paid for all of my sins if I wanted to believe and wanted to be a Christian. Jews, Muslims, Hindus and many others don´t let Jesus into their heart.

Not in my mind.

I feel bad for you because you have nothing greater than yourself to believe in.
You all spend a great deal of time questioning my beliefs yet I have yet to see your proof that God does not exist.

Well you've lost the argument at the point where you failed to state which precise God's existence you want us to disprove, or rather which God's absence you want us to prove. You have no reference for us. You also haven't managed to say anything substantial in regard as to why the burden of proof should be with the unmarked (absence) rather than marked (presence) position.

Meanwhile, since you're asking us to prove the absence of a God to whom we can't possibly have a reference, you're essentially asking us to disprove the existence of a concept without reference. In other words you're asking us to disprove nothing. We can't disprove nothing. Nothing is nothing.

You've essentially asked us to divide 0 by something here and come up with an answer of 1. We can't divide a 0 by anything. Give us a number to divide, and then we can start dividing it.

Someone could say:

"Your god doesn't exist because my god says he does not exist. Unless you can prove that my god does not exist then your god does not exist."

You could say the same back and so on

This is a logic loop, so your assumption that the burden of proof is to disprove something must be nonsense as anything that creates a logic loop is nonsense.

For me there is no arguement. God exists. You have not proven that he does not.
God is beyond your mathematics. Your attempt to place Him within your human understanding is how He wants you to find His grace.
AND
Seems to me the only thing(s) proven is that atheism is a religion on this board (my original post was moved to a discussion about religion). Secondly, that there is a prejudice against those who believe in God on this board. Its OK to question those who believe in the existance of God but not to question those who deny God's existance.

OK, we have reached a point where you either are not reading what people are posting or your are not understanding what people are posting. You certainly are not responding to posts in a way that makes sense.

I'm not sure if there are any atheists in this topic. The majority of the people posting in this topic have some form of spirituality. My self very much included.

You are quite welcome to question those that do not hold your beliefs, but be prepared to have the validity of your questions questioned.

*edit* I'm going off to spend my time else where for a bit. Over to you guys..

Thank you! Exactly what I wanted to say.

Someone not even reading our posts, that's for sure.

Just a page ago I outlined my perception of God and my view of spirituality, along with my acceptance of the core Christian philosophy (but not dogma).

Honestly, I'm willing to come out and say that a "Lord" perception of God is
1) degrading to God (lowering himself to doing the dirty laundry of wayward primates - and that's besides being clinically insane);
2) shamelessly egocentric (raising the place of humanity and one's own individual status as an 'immortal soul' in the grand scale of things without cause);
3) an insult to what one might call a 'divine' harmony of logic and structure that is precisely WHERE God most obviously is (in my view) - you're rejecting universal reason in favour of a concept you've no proof for. I think it's in the rejection of God's reason (in the sense of logic, harmony and structure) where you most directly and unwittingly disproved his existence in the form that you perceive.

Furthermore, I believe your (waste gate, if it's unclear) most recent posting has been a rather thinly veiled insult, at which I'm not pleased.

Perhaps you are correct Letum. What did I miss. If by spirituality you mean the majority of the people posting in this topic believe in God but cannot bring themselves to clearly express that belief, then you are correct. I missed that.

I perceived something else. Although I am comfortable with my beliefs, I am not comfortable with the implication that I am some how fooling myself, or worse an idiot, because of my beliefs. The implications offends not only myself but I dare say many.

My relationship with God is not up for your debate. How dare you question how I speak to God?

I'm sure you can easily disprove one of my prior posts on the subject, from Islamic sources.

Go on. It should be easy. Waiting.........................................
But you didn't poke a hole. You dug yourself a rut in the very first example you gave.
Not 100% correct? What are the conclusions and lessons of the commentary I posted? You were 180 degrees off course, captain, sir. :ahoy:

And I am comfortable with my atheism. I don´t want to hear things like that you feel bad for me because, as you say, I have nothing greater than myself to believe in. I believe in many great things, just not in any kind of higher beings.

I don't think I questioned your atheism. My question was; prove God doesn't exist.
This thread, although stated to the contrary, suggests that God doesn't exist.

I was attempting to show the other side of the arguement, and to allow the atheists to articulate their argument with the same assurity that those who believe in God are asked to provide for their beliefs.

Solution: let's not be condescending to each other.

It's plain that we work on different wavelengths. One wavelength is essentially the affirming one, the other is the denying one. My side of things (if there is such a side) plainly believes in questioning everything until answers come. The other side (generalizing) believes in trusting an established value through which answers will come. Naturally there can be no agreement and the generic "we" seem like the 'meanies' and the generic "you" seem like the 'condescending bunch. Because both will be compromising something at the centre of their being to be able to even respond to the other side in a way that is acceptable. (NB - I don't believe in the "us and them" thing, but let's generalize for now).

Unfortunately, the simple fact is, you can be as comfortable as you'd like, and I will still believe only what I can verify by virtue of reason. I believe there are plenty of things higher than me, but there is nothing higher than a perfectly ordered process by which things are the way they are.

Fair enough. What I don´t get is that you always to speak of a single god. "Those who believe in God", not "those who believe in a god". You don´t specify which god exactly you believe in and you seem to think that there´s only one god, is that correct? If it is, what do you think about people that believe in many different gods and none of them includes yours?

Let me see if I can explain. Firstly, my relationship with God is sacrocant as far as I'm concerned and I will not allow anyone to to bring that relationship or how I speak with Him up for debate. If you plan to question my relationship with my Lord I urge you not to. That being said I will give you some insight as to how I found God.

I have flown airplanes both privately and commercially from 1978 to present.
Much of my time during these years have been an effort to remove all risk.
When I say all risk I mean ALL risk which is associated with taking an aircraft into the air. As you may suspect, over close to thirty years I have had my share of incidents.

Some of those incidents have been minor close calls and others have been gut wrenching. Everything from the door opening on take-off on my first cross country solo in a C152, to heavy ice on the wings that the boots wouldn't clear on a ATR72, to smoke in the cockpit and engine failure of a B737.

Yes, checklists exist for all these situations. When you have gone through all of the checklists and its a wing, your past experience and a prayer..... You have to question your mortality and make your peace and believe God is looking over you, your family and your passengers.

Thanks, but that doesn´t answer any of my questions.