Demanding proof of God

[joe370]

I feel that you’re just admitting that there is no reason to believe in a god, though, by stating such a thing.

Of course not; just stating the obvious. There is nothing I can say or do to prove to you that God exist. Your thoughts on Fatima my friend? That, to me, is empirical proof, but even that is viewed as mass delusion by many atheists.

 

[cranster]

Two fleas sitting on a dog. One flea says to the other, “I want proof of dog’s existence”. The other flea says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the flea says, “I see no evidence of dog, you’d think if there was a dog it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

I would ask if God did provide proof would it change your life, Would you repent, love, and worship God making Him the center of your life, and spend the rest of your life seeking to do His will rather than your own?.. Hint… These things are anathema to people who live as their own god, have pet sins they don’t want to give up, and don’t want to be told what to do by anybody. Proof to a person with an atheist worldview would do nothing more than satisfy an intellectual curiosity no different than the discovery of the Higgs particle… Ok…Now we know there’s a God, let’s see what else we can discover. It would not be a profound life changing event.
My experience with atheists is they aren’t looking for reasons to believe, but reasons for which they’ve already found not to believe. What they are really looking for is not faith for themselves, but to separate you from yours. I take the new breed of aggressive in your face atheists as an example of what I’m talking about?

If I’m wrong about this assumption I’m open to hearing from atheists why.

 

[User124]

Two fleas sitting on a dog. One flea says to the other, “I want proof of dog’s existence”. The other flea says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the flea says, “I see no evidence of dog, you’d think if there was a dog it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

I would ask if God did provide proof would you change your life, repent, love, and worship God making Him the center of your life, and spend the rest of your life seeking to do His will rather than your own?.. Hint… These things are anathema to people who live as their own god, have pet sins they don’t want to give up, and don’t want to be told what to do by anybody.

My experience with atheists is they aren’t looking for reasons to believe, but for reasons not to believe which they have already found. What they are looking for is not faith for themselves, but to separate you from yours.

Fleas don’t have philosophical thoughts or demand proofs for dog’s existence.

The whole situation isn’t about a “flea” example, it’s far greater than that, unless you mean in the example by God to be the physical universe that we are a part of, that would be another discussion and it contradicts with any personal god including the Catholic one.

As an non believer, I’m not looking for reasons to believe (you are right on that) otherwise I would be able to have faith in absolutely everything without a thought, I am looking for knowledge and undeniable facts, all what I’ve found in religion is just claims without enough evidences, I don’t take that much into consideration what believers say that “God is obvious”, because if any god is that much clear we won’t see different and thousands of faiths, religious beliefs, dogmas or divine moralities, and the problem, they all claim to be the true ones.

 

[User124]

Two fleas sitting on a dog. One flea says to the other, “I want proof of dog’s existence”. The other flea says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the flea says, “I see no evidence of dog, you’d think if there was a dog it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

I would ask if God did provide proof would it change your life, Would you repent, love, and worship God making Him the center of your life, and spend the rest of your life seeking to do His will rather than your own?.. Hint… These things are anathema to people who live as their own god, have pet sins they don’t want to give up, and don’t want to be told what to do by anybody. Proof to a person with an atheist worldview would do nothing more than satisfy an intellectual curiosity no different than the discovery of the Higgs particle… Ok…Now we know there’s a God, let’s see what else we can discover. It would not be a profound life changing event.
My experience with atheists is they aren’t looking for reasons to believe, but reasons for which they’ve already found not to believe. What they are really looking for is not faith for themselves, but to separate you from yours. I take the new breed of aggressive in your face atheists as an example of what I’m talking about?

If I’m wrong about this assumption I’m open to hearing from atheists why.

Fleas don’t have philosophical thoughts or demand proofs for dog’s existence.

The whole situation isn’t about a “flea” example, it’s far greater than that, unless you mean in the example by God to be the physical universe that we are a part of, that would be another discussion and it contradicts with any personal god including the Catholic one.

As an non believer, I’m not looking for reasons to believe (you are right on that) otherwise I would be able to have faith in absolutely everything without a thought, I am looking for knowledge and undeniable facts, all what I’ve found in religion is just claims without enough evidences, I don’t take that much into consideration what believers say that “God is obvious”, because if any god is that much clear we won’t see different and thousands of faiths, religious beliefs, dogmas or divine moralities, and the problem, they all claim to be the true ones.

 

[ReapReason]

Of course not; just stating the obvious. There is nothing I can say or do to prove to you that God exist. Your thoughts on Fatima my friend? That, to me, is empirical proof, but even that is viewed as mass delusion by many atheists.

What are you talking about? I thought you was a Catholic?

 

[PRmerger]

Fleas don’t have philosophical thoughts or demand proofs for dog’s existence.

Oh, brother!

Come on, now, User.

 

[User124]

Oh, brother!

Come on, now, User.

You didn’t explain your question.

Well, if someone wants to use an example for the existence of a god, at least make it rational!

However I still followed her/him by that example.

 

[PRmerger]

You didn’t explain your question.

I don’t believe I posited a question.

Well, if someone wants to use an example for the existence of a god, at least make it rational!

Analogies/metaphors/parables ARE rational, User. But they’re symbolic/metaphorical/analogic.

 

[User124]

I don’t believe I posited a question.

Post # 174

I’m not going to argue with you about whether he’d be offended or not.

But I think your comment brings up an interesting thought.

Do you have a concept of the Numinous? That is, of something so incredibly holy it leaves you speechless? Of an entity that is so wondrous that when you approach it you must “remove your sandals”, to use a primitive idiom?

Analogies/metaphors/parables ARE rational, User. But they’re symbolic/metaphorical/analogic.

At least, they are preferred to be rational, specially when evaluating such an important issue.

We are not giving a moral lesson to eight years old kids to mention a flea talking to another flea about the existence of a dog, I find that example cute, but irrelevant.

 

[PRmerger]

Post # 174

Ah.

I just didn’t feel like going into what Numinous means, so I just dropped it.

At least, they are preferred to be rational, specially when evaluating such an important issue.

We are not giving a moral lesson to eight years old kids to mention a flea talking to another flea about the existence of a dog, I find that example cute, but irrelevant.

But to say that fleas don’t have philosophical thoughts is to declare that one cannot think in the abstract.

Clearly you have that ability, so I wonder why you made that comment.

But I’ll let you have the last word about fleas not being good analogs to the human person and leave it at that.

 

[User124]

But to say that fleas don’t have philosophical thoughts is to declare that one cannot think in the abstract.

Clearly you have that ability, so I wonder why you made that comment.

But I’ll let you have the last word about fleas not being good analogs to the human person and leave it at that.

"Two fleas sitting on a dog. One flea says to the other, “I want proof of dog’s existence”. The other flea says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the flea says, “I see no evidence of dog, you’d think if there was a dog it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

That looks more like a universe, that we are a part of. Unless we are in the body of God? Or standing on it?

It would be better if s/he said it directly:

Two persons sitting on a god. One person says to the other, “I want proof of god’s existence”. The other person says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the person says, “I see no evidence of god, you’d think if there was a god it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

How does looking around and seeing things around us, are proof for the existence of any god, specially a specific god of any religion?

It’s similar to saying, Christmas presents are a proof of Santa.

 

[SirWillliam]

You didn’t explain your question.

User124, you haven’t responded to the post I put out 2 days ago to you about the story of
Bernadette of Lourdes, which I explained in detail, as being strong evidence of the existence of God.

I’d very much like to hear your take on that one.

 

[joe370]

What are you talking about? I thought you was a Catholic?

What are you talking about? You assume, because I cannot provide you with tangible proof that God exists I must not be a catholic? Chrisitianity is a faith-based religion. We don’t need proof. Again, your thoughts on Fatima my friend? That, to me seems pretty empirical but even that is viewed as mass delusion by many atheists.

 

[User124]

User124;9636370:

You didn’t explain your question.

User124, you haven’t responded to the post I put out 2 days ago to you about the story of
Bernadette of Lourdes, which I explained in detail, as being strong evidence of the existence of God.

I’d very much like to hear your take on that one.

I’m replying.

 

[User124]

User124, I quote in this thread quite a while back the story of Bernadette of Lourdes as
being fairly recent proof that God exists. I’ll repeat it since I"m not computer savvy enough
to copy it here. I don’t think you noticed it.

The real miracle of Lourdes was Bernadette’s identification of the beautiful lady she was seeing as
The Immaculate Conception. Being an uneducated peasant girl, Bernadette had
no idea what these words meant. She had to repeat them over and over again returning
from the Grotte De Massabielle to her pastor, so that she wouldn’t forget them.

SInce Bernadette couldn’t possibly have made up the words, Immaculate Conception,
herself (a theologian said that it would have been beyond her abilities), she could only
have gotten them from the Virgin Mary, herself.

Bernadette had asked the lady many times to reveal her name, and finally, on the 16th
apparition of Mar. 25th, 1858, Mary said to her in the local dialect, “Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou.”

The official investigation into Bernadette’s apparitions learned that neither her father,
mother, nor even the very intelligent aunt who was the real head of her family, knew
anything about the Immaculate Conception, and that it was not taught in her school.

If the Virgin Mary exists, then Jesus exists, and if Jesus exists, then God exists.

I was taught that story in my childhood, so it’s not new. I am being honest with you, if a person sees a lot of evidences and reasons to disprove religions and particular gods, including Christianity and Catholicism, wouldn’t be strange for that person to accept Catholic miracles without being able at first to disprove the reasons of disbelief that person possesses? It’s like that what is based on falsehood is false, if a non believer considers Catholicism to be untrue, how could s/he believe in these miracles where even many of those who believe in miracles may not accept them?

It would be hard to investigate and examine every miracles, I am not being in the fields when these miracles happen, all I have to do is searching for some facts in these miracles, perhaps on the internet of books, but right now I’m very skeptic for two main reasons:
1- I don’t believe in Supernaturals and Catholicism.
2- I believe that there is people who are not very much innocent when it comes to making up things for their owns profits.

If you have some convincing links about that miracle, let me know

 

[User124]

What are you talking about? You assume, because I cannot provide you with tangible proof that God exists I must not be a catholic? Chrisitianity is a faith-based religion. We don’t need proof. Again, your thoughts on Fatima my friend? That, to me seems pretty empirical but even that is viewed as mass delusion by many atheists.

What does the “miracle of the Sun” have to do with Catholicism?

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Two fleas sitting on a dog. One flea says to the other, “I want proof of dog’s existence”. The other flea says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the flea says, “I see no evidence of dog, you’d think if there was a dog it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

Well, yeah, but we’re not on God’s back so that analogy doesn’t work. A better one would go like this…

Two flies are sitting on a turd, when one goes “I want to know what created this turd.” The other fly turns towards him, and announces “Is it not obvious? It must have been a dog. Just look at this turd! It could only have been created by a dog!” The first fly shrugs, and shakes its head. “No. There’s nothing to suggest that at all. The turd itself is not evidence of where it came from - it is simply showing us that we are on a turd.”

This one also works better as you’re claiming that God created the Earth, not that he is the Earth.

I would ask if God did provide proof would it change your life, Would you repent, love, and worship God making Him the center of your life, and spend the rest of your life seeking to do His will rather than your own?.. Hint… These things are anathema to people who live as their own god, have pet sins they don’t want to give up, and don’t want to be told what to do by anybody. Proof to a person with an atheist worldview would do nothing more than satisfy an intellectual curiosity no different than the discovery of the Higgs particle… Ok…Now we know there’s a God, let’s see what else we can discover. It would not be a profound life changing event.

Well, first we’d have to be sure what god it was. After that, I guess all would be answered.

My experience with atheists is they aren’t looking for reasons to believe, but reasons for which they’ve already found not to believe. What they are really looking for is not faith for themselves, but to separate you from yours. I take the new breed of aggressive in your face atheists as an example of what I’m talking about?

If I’m wrong about this assumption I’m open to hearing from atheists why.

You couldn’t be more wrong. Thing is, you Christians manage to pass it off as “Oh, well, it’s only belief in God. Nothing more. I don’t see what the big deal is!” And, yet, you know it is much, much more than this. You’re not merely asking for me to believe in something, but to devote my life to it. You’re asking me to become a sycophant towards this God. You want me to worship him, and tell him I love him again, and again, and again. Every day of my life, until I die. You want me to give up my life, my own morality, my own perspective on people and humanity, my perspective on history, almost everything, for an idea - an idea that you try to pass of as being simple, and easy to follow, when it’s life-consuming.

This is why I need to be 100% sure there is a god, and I need to know which god it is. However, at this stage in time, there is almost nothing significant to suggest a god, let alone the existence of any specific Catholic God. And yet you still, somehow, believe I’m the stupid one, when my previous paragraph covers all the reasons I will not be willing to accept any god without absolute certainty.

 

[User124]

Two fleas sitting on a dog. One flea says to the other, “I want proof of dog’s existence”. The other flea says “look around, it’s every where”. To which the flea says, “I see no evidence of dog, you’d think if there was a dog it would make itself known so we could observe it”.

I would ask if God did provide proof would it change your life, Would you repent, love, and worship God making Him the center of your life, and spend the rest of your life seeking to do His will rather than your own?.. Hint… These things are anathema to people who live as their own god, have pet sins they don’t want to give up, and don’t want to be told what to do by anybody. Proof to a person with an atheist worldview would do nothing more than satisfy an intellectual curiosity no different than the discovery of the Higgs particle… Ok…Now we know there’s a God, let’s see what else we can discover. It would not be a profound life changing event.
My experience with atheists is they aren’t looking for reasons to believe, but reasons for which they’ve already found not to believe. What they are really looking for is not faith for themselves, but to separate you from yours. I take the new breed of aggressive in your face atheists as an example of what I’m talking about?

If I’m wrong about this assumption I’m open to hearing from atheists why.

About your question, if we found proof about the existence of a god, on whether we accept him or not.

I’m going to present this example:" if someone brought me a person to marry, would I accept that person or not?"

We can’t give a quick answer of yes and no, without making up our minds and emotions about that person, after a good communication and knowledge.

Same for the existence of a god, if I found out that a god exists I can’t give you a quick answer about whether I accept or reject him without being able to know the characters of that god and then decide. Or I would lie to escape hell ( if he has a hell) and say “yes, I accept you god” without truly liking him. If he was an all knowing god, he would know I’m lying, so it doesn’t work.

Now, if it happens that any of the Christian/Jew/Muslim (Abrahamic) god exists, I would be happy to reject that kind of god.

I don’t think if there is an intelligent and great being who made this vast and amazing universe, billions of galaxies, stars and planets would really focus on what humans do, asking them to not use condoms, worship him as much as they can, go to confession, wear veils, prevent the use of alcohol, pray 5 times a day, enter the bathroom with the left feet instead of the right, opposing gay marriage, standing against pre marital, or other religious dogmas. In my opinion, an intelligent being would never be a part of such dogmas.

 

[SirWillliam]

To User124,

, but right now I’m very skeptic for two main reasons:
1- I don’t believe in Supernaturals and Catholicism.
2- I believe that there is people who are not very much innocent when it comes to making up things for their owns profits.

If you have some convincing links about that miracle, let me know

Convincing links? The only one I can give you about St. Bernadette is the book, Song of
Bernadette, written by Franz Werfel, an Austrian Jew who was hiding out in Lourdes from
the Nazis and vowed that if he escaped to America, he would right a book about Bernadette.
I visited Lourdes last summer and it was a wonderful experience.

I hope you’re not referring to Bernadette when you refer to “people who are not very much
innocent when it comes to making up things for their own profits.” Bernadette never
accepted any money for seeing her apparitions, although many wealthy people tried to
give her money because she was very poor. That was the first thing the police
in Lourdes accused her of, and they found that she never took anything.

You’re like any atheist, you refuse to accept any logical proof of God and, as I and
others have observed on this thread, talking to you is a complete waste of time!

So, I’m going to follow the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, and Bernadette of Lourdes to
wherever they’re going, and you can follow Richard Dawkins to eternal nothingness, a
black hole, which is where all you atheists are headed!

Good bye and good luck. I’m out of here.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

…]Two flies are sitting on a turd, when one goes “I want to know what created this turd.”…]

You know, as I read this I wonder if the two flies were really on the excrement from a dog. It could have been some other animal and they only thought that a dog. Coincidentally you happen to write this at about the same time that the Atlanta Fernbank Museum has an exhibit on excrement (click here for details). Thinking about seeing how they decided to approach the topic.