"If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away".

Rest of it here; http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html

About the Author: As a former atheist, Marilyn Adamson found it difficult to refute the continuously answered prayers and quality of life of a close friend. In challenging the beliefs of her friend, Marilyn was amazed to learn the wealth of objective evidence pointing to the existence of God. After about a year of persistent questioning, she responded to God's offer to come into her life and has found faith in Him to be constantly substantiated and greatly rewarding.


This whole show is kind of a flea market if there is no consideration of why two billion people are having the exact same "hallucination"[/color].

This post was last modified: 01-20-2007 12:34 PM by NoMereMortal.

Can you explain what you you mean by "evidence" in this context?

As to the website, clearly there is a great confusion. The first argument is that because we are here, and because our world happens to be how it is, then god must exist. This is no different from simply stipulating god must exist since the premises do not even mention must less necessitate that a god must exist.

The second point they make is nothing more than Paley's watchmaker argument, which is nothing more than an appeal to ignorance. The idea is that because there is a degree of complexity, and humans create complex things, then since the world is complex, something must have create it. This is still simply claiming that god must exist.

If I throw down chicken entrails, the pattern that forms will be quite complex yet it was not at all designed. If the chicken entrails simply fall from the bird the pattern will be quite complex yet there will be no intentional act whatsoever, much less any design or designer.

The third is not really an argument at all but simply an appeal to a misunderstanding of "chance" as well as a misunderstanding of how reality works. However rather than try to explain what should have been picked up in any elementary level class, let's employ a single standard and point out that the "chance" of a god (something for which we have exactly NO evidence whatsoever) creating everything is infinitely less than the "chance" that the universe developed as it has. This becomes even more clear once one recognizes that the notion of the judeo-xn god is self contradictory thus making it an absolute impossibility.

The fourth:

Here is a fine counter-example to this appeal to emotion and appeal to popularity (both of which are logical fallacies, which means that conclusions arising from then are NOT supported): There is a huge number of people who are very passionate about the Chicago Cubs, and believe no matter what that the Cubs are the best baseball team ever. Yet every year this is proved to not be the case. You see truth is not a popularity contest, and really really wanting something to be the case does not make it the case.

This clearly assumes the existence of the god as the lone premise for the existence of the god. This is a text book case of circular reasoning. The god cannot be "looking" for you if it does not exist, so to assume that it is looking for you, you must first assume that it exists. It is a neverending and never sound circle.

Two major problems with this approach. 1. Lots of folks claim to be god, unless you are willing to accept that they are all god, and that all of the conflicting messages are true, which means of course that necessarily none of them are gods, and none of it is true, then you must recognize that jebus was not a god either.
2. There is no evidence that this claim was made. Remember that at best you have long lost hearsay which has been edited by those we know to be seeking great power over others, and re-edited again and again.

So we see after going through the claims and arguments carefully that still not one whit of evidence has been presented to support the claims that the judeo-xn god COULD exist, much less actually does. Without any basis whatsoever to believe that this impossible entity could exist, much less does exist, it is by definition irrational to belief that it does, and dishonest to assert that it does.

Just a note.
Water is not tasteless, we simply can't taste it, our tongue doesn't have the ability to. It also DOES have a smell, since smell is simply particles of a substance falling onto certain places in the nose, we don't have a 'slot' for smell, but it does give off one.

Compared to what? It doesn't have an 'unusually high' anything.
'Chemically neutral' AHAHHA you want to know WHY water is 'chemically neutral'?
Because scientists decided to use it as a mid point.
[i]TXStorm's Wisdom: It is known as the universal solvent, meaning that regardless of the ph of an object or substance, water will destroy it. So one could make the case that we are full of destructive fluid Hardly the form a "god" would create...[i]

Overreactive information on the brain This argument is used SO MUCH and is SO FOOLISH,
A. the brain is not perfect,
B. It is, in fact, designed, but not by an seintinent creator, rather it was formed over 4 Billion years by natural selection and mutation.
C. 'How does one explain the human brain' >GOD OF GAPS MENTALITY<

'Life cannot arive from unlife'
Complete Bullshit. Sorry, wrong, wrong, wrong. Scientists have created RNA, similar to DNA without any intervention, by simply placing the chemicals that make up RNA in conditions similar to those of the earth in it's early stages, and GUESS WHAT. RNA formed, RNA can self replicate, provided it has more resources to work from. Sure the chances of this happening EVERY SINGLE TIME you put the chemicals together isn't 100%, but out of trillions of planets, the chances of it happening on one, are fairly large.
Richard Dawkings cut down these arguments a decade ago.

/Jesus/
Sorry mate, Jesus was just as insane and wacky as all those people you see on the street claiming to know the meaning of life. Simply because some church officials warped the bible so as to make it appear as if he is a holly figure doesn't mean he does.

We have NO proof he healed anybody, NONE, the bible does not constitute proof, as it has been altered many times, we have no evidence today of people being able to do it.

This entire article reeks of classic church dogma, it is blatent feel good propaganda with arguments that where put to rest ages ago.

This post was last modified: 01-21-2007 08:54 AM by XTimmy.

XTimmy,

Good points, which made me think of another point you could add about water. It is known as the universal solvent, meaning that regardless of the ph of an object or substance, water will destroy it. So one could make the case that we are full of destructive fluid.. Hardly the form a "god" would create...

Not a hallucination, a delusion,
'When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity, when many people suffer a delusion it is called religion'.

A hallucination would have to include some sort of sensory false-hood, you would have smelt, or heard or saw or touched or even tasted god, whereas a delusion is something along the lines of 'a false belief or impression' Penguin dictionary

Finally, I doubt you can get more than two Christians together that believe exactly the same things, if Xians as a whole could agree on a definition of Christianity then that would mean your 'two billion' people would all be suffering the exact same delusion, but as it stands Christianity is almost a religious buffet of traditions and dogma, simply pick and mix, don't want to believe the earth is 6000 years old, you don't have to! But other Christians might,
Take this sentance.
"Of course the earth was created in 6 days, I'm a christian"
"Of course the earth wasn't created in 6 days, I'm a christian"
Both make sense, since both are christian beliefs.
Every christian has their own private delusion, they simply flock to others with similar delusions.

Moreover, even if we could take the 2 billion claim seriously, that would still leave 4 billion who do not beleive that the xn "god" exists, and since apparently popularity is supposed to be the lone support for the "truth" of the claim, clearly xnty must be false since only a small number of the total actually believe in it..

Actually, the reason that the boiling and freezing points are so high is because of hydrogen bonding. The hydrogen of one molecule bonds to the oxygen of another, therefore making the water stick together. This is why when your pour too much water onto the top of the cup, it bulges over instead of simply spilling over.

When boiled, each individual hydrogen bond must be broken, therefore increasing the boiling point.

Also, the website says that water is colorless. Wrong. It is slightly blue. It appears to be colorless in small amounts, true enough, but if you fill a bathtub full of water, it has a slight aqua-colored tint. If you fill a pool, it is also blue. Oceans and large lakes are very blue, because of the reflection of the bottom and the sheer amount of water that is there.

This post was last modified: 02-24-2007 04:30 PM by overcaffein8d.