[Cavernio]

Forward: This was very purposefully made a CT topic, and while I feel that its a topic that is and has been easily derailed many, many times, I don't think there was a need to lock or move the thread. I think many posts should have been edited or perhaps deleted to avoid the 'you're dumb' part of them, and I also feel that it's unfair for a moderator to feel like a thread or comment is derailed when they themselves haven't bothered to follow it. There were a number of different topics being discussed in the thread, and right up to the last page I learned things/thought of things I hadn't thought about. Lock this or delete it or whatever if you feel I've done wrong or whatever, but I'm going to write this anyways.

I respect you and I understand at least part of where you're coming from jj, but you've made a fatal logical error, and it is apparent in many of your posts, and I don't believe anyone's exactly pinpointed it, although there's definitely been talk around it.

"But in all these posts I haven't read not one reason why someone doesn't believe in God except to say that he doesn't believe he exists because he can't prove he exists. While on the other hand, I have gave countless reasons why I believe by qouting many passages from the Bible to explain them."

When you have a theory, and you want to scientifically test it, you don't use the same data to run experiments on. That's circular reasoning and ends up proving nothing and you might as well be saying 'It's so because I make it so'. When you say the Bible gives you proof for Gods existence, it's the exact same thing. You can't use evidence that already requires belief of what you are proving as proof. It's 100% circular. And because there is so much anti-religion sentiment these days, its crystal clear to most people that this is what you are doing, (even though I find people will not see themselves making those same errors in so many other aspects of their lives), which is why people have called you stupid.

I believe you have a fairly good grasp of the principles of needing proof though, because you have said that people themselves are fallible and cannot know everything, and I feel like you've pointed out that people themselves, by being bound within ourselves, fall into the same logical error of lacking any proof. Therefore everything we think and experience is all circular within ourselves. What I failed to grasp when you brought this topic up, however, is how believing in God circumvents this. Yes, if god exists then God by definition is omniscient which would, of course, allow us some sort of True clarity into existence. But there seems to be a rather serious missing link in what you're saying that everyone who doesn't believe in God sees; if I believe in God then that belief is also still within the realm of our own, self-supporting selves. To reiterate, even if God lies outside these bounds, your belief in God doesn't. (Which leads to an atheism vs agnostism argument, which is what reincarnate has gotten into, and that I think was best understood in a post he made a few years ago, but I can't even remember if it was ct or chit chat or if he was even the OP.)

Now you have also touched upon the idea that it is a sad, imperfect, lonely existence without God, not just for all the reasons that people have pointed out, but because then you know that nothing is fully real, that we are all just ourselves, that there is no proof of anything REAL. But then you turn around use your feelings and thoughts and ideas as proof that there is something real, and then illogically conclude that God must exist because otherwise, nothing real would exist. But all along, it's just been your perceptions, which you know are limited. All of it, Godly or secular (which I suppose means all Godly to you).

Maybe you wonder how you can possibly exist without God. But then you can in the same vein wonder how can God possibly exist. But God just exists...umm, obviously, it's God. But you just exist...obviously, you're here.

And now we are led to the ideas about feeling and beliefs being strong enough to count as proof of God. And so I ask again, if you didn't have emotions, if you didn't experience God's love, would you believe in God? And if you stopped feeling God's love, at what point would you start questioning how you lost God's love when you did nothing to stop God's love? I'm not talking about God's love as being portrayed through His actions, like killing your family or something, and then you rejecting God. I'm talking about actually losing God's love even though you have only tried ever harder to love and please God, even though you don't reject Him. At what point would your own self-perceptions of God not be strong enough for God to exist? Why do you think that peope who haven't found God must not be trying? Why do people who believe in God (jewish) believe in the same God as people who believe Jesus was God's son? And the follow-up, how can people who only know half of God say they know God just as much as you do if Jesus matters so much to being loved by God? Once you answer that, then why does it matter that ANYONE believes in God in order to experience God's love? Why is it not possible for every secular person to experience God's love all the time if God loves everyone? If it is always possible to feel God's love, then why do I have to be religious, ie: why would I have to attribute this love to your specific god when I could attribute it to Life or Existence, things that are so much stronger to my perceptions? (You can't call back on 'Because God exists' because that's circular reasoning and is not logical, and if you use arguments that are obviously not logical, then there's no point in debating or no way of gaining any sort of understanding.) Why would you think someone would be wrong if they prayed to The Spaghetti God? What makes your belief so strong that you know God but I don't?

In order to answer all of these questions properly, don't use circular logic.