Is there anything that would make you no longer believe?

[Tietjen]

"Circular Argument, meet Begging the Question.

“Begging the Question, meet Circular Argument.”

Rinse. Repeat.

I’m not mocking your response… well, yes, I guess I am. But I plead guilty by reason of weariness. It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I’ve been working everyday for the past three weeks, and am giddy at the thought of relaxing tomorrow, and I knocked off early today.

anyway, back to the question at hand…

I’m sorry that you see it that way. Perhaps with time and more education, you’ll understand how inane the question you asked seems to Christians. For us, the existence of God is unmistakable. We see the evidence in the order of all that exists. It is easier to believe in God than to believe in the trillions upon trillions of coincidences it would take to explain that there isn’t a God.
As far as you “mocking” my response… it matters very little to me. I do however wish that you had a better argument than to simply title my response “Circular Argument” and dismiss it. That, IMHO, is simply lazy and would be similar to a Christian simply saying, “Stupid question” to your OP without follow-up. God bless and happy Thanksgiving.

 

[nucatholic]

Ridgerunner, without human rationality and logic you can end up believing any kind of bizarre thing imaginable. For example, you could never convince a cult member that they are wrong, for they would use your reasoning: it doesn’t matter that your human logic and rationality tells us that there are no aliens on Haley’s comet. They are so far above our intelligence that they wouldn’t allow themselves to be detected so they communicate telepathically with us. Ect. Ect. Your argument leads to any absurd claim about any kind of absurd spiritual or extraterrestrial being. There is no difference between my example and yours other than the specific content of the delusion.

 

[nucatholic]

Oh and by the way, you are attempting to use a logical argument to convince me to believe that we shouldn’t use logic and rationality when it comes to god. What an odd thing to do…

 

[mosher]

Disclaimer: First off, let me clearly say (write? type?) that I’m in no way setting out to ruin anyone’s belief. That said…

I’ve read lots of apologetics here who present reasons to believe in God, but I always find myself wondering if there is anything that could change their mind about the existence of God? So…

What event, evidence, thought, vision, discovery, dream, or whatever would prompt you to no longer believe in God?

My suspicion is that most believers would answer with an emphatic “NOTHING!”, but I’d like to read it for myself.

The objective nature of reason would have to cease to exist. There are many times that I do not want to believe or feel that it would be an easier life if I left the Church but it is at those low times that reason holds me fast because it is that very reason which compels me to remain faithful.

 

[mosher]

I used to be a firm believer in Jesus but I am no longer a believer. I’ll tell you what did it to me: logic and rationality. Despite the Church’s claim that faith is compatible with rationality, I discovered that this was not true and this I discovered while I was studying to make my faith stronger. It didn’t make my faith stronger, but it made me a stronger person because I was able to acknolwedge that I was wrong. The only way the world will move forward is when the religions of the world can acknowledge when they are wrong instead of saying “Nothing will shake my faith! Nothing will shake my belief that Jesus is the only way to heaven! Nothing will shake my faith that there is only one god Allah and Muhammed is his prophet!!” See where this leads us…straight to a hell on earth like Sept 11th, the Inquisition and the Crusades.

Silly, it is obvious that you either did not understand what the faith taught or you have no idea what reason is.

Ridgerunner, without human rationality and logic you can end up believing any kind of bizarre thing imaginable. For example, you could never convince a cult member that they are wrong, for they would use your reasoning: it doesn’t matter that your human logic and rationality tells us that there are no aliens on Haley’s comet. They are so far above our intelligence that they wouldn’t allow themselves to be detected so they communicate telepathically with us. Ect. Ect. Your argument leads to any absurd claim about any kind of absurd spiritual or extraterrestrial being. There is no difference between my example and yours other than the specific content of the delusion.

This proves my statement above - you have no understanding of what reason is. For a lesson we can start another thread if you choose.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

What could make me no longer believe in God? Nothing can make me but there might be things that could convince me. I believe there is a difference. I suppose if Hell’s gates succeeded in destroying the Church, I’d stop believing in the Christian God. As a side note I believe that will never happen. Anyways, from there, I’d seek out God elsewhere. In the end, there is little that can be done to convince me there is no kind of God whatsoever. There are multiple ways to believe in God. There are non-theistic versions, like the God of the Stoics and other pantheistic versions. God can be viewed as an embodiment of our highest ideals and morality as well. Besides this there are Deistic concepts of God. I suppose you could refute the existence of the Stoic God if you could prove there is no such thing as fate and everything occurs by random chance. There is actually little proof of that and the idea of fate/predeterminism is compatible with science, from my understanding. There is nothing you can do to refute the idea God is our highest ideals, assuming you have no proof that other concepts of God exist, because it is a matter of personal interpretation. So, to sum things up, nothing can stop me from believing in God, the only possibility is making me amend my beliefs about Him.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh and by the way, you are attempting to use a logical argument to convince me to believe that we shouldn’t use logic and rationality when it comes to god. What an odd thing to do…

I think it flew by you, my friend. It was you, not me, who said your “logic and rationality” demonstrated to you that God does not exist. My point is, and was, that human logic and rationality are limited to our own capacities and are, therefore, inherently inadequate to the task of either proving that God exists or that He doesn’t. Instead of confronting this point head-on, you simply argued that there are lots of things we can’t prove one way or the other, but disbelieve because we feel, viscerally, that they seem preposterous. If your “logical and rational” argument is that the idea of God just seems preposterous to you, then that’s an expression of faith on your part in the truth of your proposition, but it’s not really belief based on logic and rationality.

There’s nothing at all odd about using logic to point out that it has its limitations. It is you who, in effect, maintain, without supporting it, that logic can somehow exceed the inherent limitations of the user. In so doing, you’ve deified Logic.

 

[water]

Ridgerunner, without human rationality and logic you can end up believing any kind of bizarre thing imaginable.

With your logic, please explain to me how Monkey originated.

What event, evidence, thought, vision, discovery, dream, or whatever would prompt you to no longer believe in God?

frankly, with all above, it makes me believe there are Heaven and Hell.

Nothing will stop me not believing in God!

 

[Exalt]

Anything that would make me no longer believe in God?

Of course not!

That would mean that the Church would be wrong about something. And we all know the Church is right about everything. How do we know that? Because the church says so! And, if you read the beginning of this paragraph, you would know that the Church is right about everything.

 

[cheddarsox]

There are things that have made me stop believing in a specific concept of “God”, but not in the existence of the Divine.

I stopped believing in the limited concept I once had, which did not mesh with what I saw and experienced in life, and now believe in an unlimited understanding of the Divine.

So in a sense I stopped believing in God, because there was evidence of something else that was more compelling.

So…I guess it depends on how one defines God. I no longer believe in the God of my childhood.

cheddar

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

No. I know my redeemer lives.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Disclaimer: First off, let me clearly say (write? type?) that I’m in no way setting out to ruin anyone’s belief. That said…

I’ve read lots of apologetics here who present reasons to believe in God, but I always find myself wondering if there is anything that could change their mind about the existence of God? So…

What event, evidence, thought, vision, discovery, dream, or whatever would prompt you to no longer believe in God?

My suspicion is that most believers would answer with an emphatic “NOTHING!”, but I’d like to read it for myself.

I don’t believe in God - not the god of the philosophers, who is nothing more than a verbal construction​

I believe in God as made known in the Bible, & above all, as made known in Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham, Isaac. & Jacob. Only if He is believed in do the words cease to be mere verbal constructions.

But I’m not interested in the existence of God as the plaything of theologians writing treatises “On the Existence of God”; or in the idols one so easily tends to substitute for the real, Living, God. God is a great iconoclast, thank God

Jesus Christ is LORD, whether believed in or not - our disbeliefs don’t & can’t alter that. He is not altered by any created thing - so nothing can un-God Him So no reasons can un-God Him. ##

 

[mommyof4]

At this point in my life, I’d have to say no, nothing could make me not believe. And I don’t wanna change my opinion, either!

 

[StCsDavid]

Disclaimer: First off, let me clearly say (write? type?) that I’m in no way setting out to ruin anyone’s belief. That said…

I’ve read lots of apologetics here who present reasons to believe in God, but I always find myself wondering if there is anything that could change their mind about the existence of God? So…

What event, evidence, thought, vision, discovery, dream, or whatever would prompt you to no longer believe in God?

My suspicion is that most believers would answer with an emphatic “NOTHING!”, but I’d like to read it for myself.

Nothing…faith is beyond reason. Not to say there couldn’t be things that gave me doubt, but doubt goes along with faith. What you’re asking for is something that would give me certaintly that there is no God, and I can’t imagine that scenario.

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

I can see myself deciding not to believe. I hope and pray that it never happens, but I am so weak that I cannot say with certainty that my faith will remain through every trial. I don’t think that any vision would make me lose faith, because I trust what God says through the Church over my perception of what God says. But if I endured horrible tragedies, coupled with an experience of alienation and distance from God, all I can say is that I hope my faith would remain. I pray that I would always respond to the grace offered to me. But I cannot guarantee that I will. I can only hope in God’s faithfulness and mercy.

Even in the worst case scenario, I can’t see myself actually not believing, as much as deciding that it’s too much effort to believe. I see it more as a denial of what I deep down would still know to be true, and not so much as a complete stopping of my belief.

 

[IsMiseSteise]

I can’t imagine anything happening that would destroy my faith. Even when I had fallen away (been back for a few years now) I still couldn’t shake my faith. It was the sins of mankind that shook me up, but it didn’t shake my faith.

Hope that makes sense.

And, thanks for the giggles. Some of the responses here were rather funny!