The fine-tuning argument for God's existence

[Crackerbox]

We've spent a whole thread proving that that's simply not the case.

CORRECTION: A whole thread proving that such a position is untenable. The proof has largely been that there's no way to know how likely it is that nature came about as it is.

...and since there is no way to know, we accept it on faith, one way or another.

 

[Flying Pig]

By the same logic, you're as justified in assuming that the sun isn't going to rise tomorrow as you are in not doing so - after all, there is no way to be sure.

 

[Crackerbox]

By the same logic, you're as justified in assuming that the sun isn't going to rise tomorrow as you are in not doing so - after all, there is no way to be sure.

Why? Why would you assume this about me? Why does it matter what I think?

Since we cannot prove things one way or another, then really one of the few remaining redeemable qualities to a debate is not to win by a popularity contest and think we won in the world of ideas, but to hone our personal beliefs by communicating them. It's not to convert one another. I doubt that one person can make another think like them. I cannot believe that one parent can make their child believe as them. Nor can a wife make her husband believe something. Nor can one's mentor impose beliefs either.

The second benefit in the exchange of ideas is to learn what other people think. Tolerance is a good thing to cultivate for civilization.

Debates leave a sour taste like spoiled milk when one person presumes they are right and you are wrong. It's not a contest. There isn't a trophy. It doesn't matter what sentences I write or that others write. I can only change myself due to Free Will.

Debates might have a benefit in shaping flawed thinking and pointing out error to that process, but not to make another think like them.

 

[warpus]

...and since there is no way to know, we accept it on faith, one way or another.

Why do you think there is no way to know?

 

[Crackerbox]

Why do you think there is no way to know?

It's axiomatic that God cannot be proven to exist, nor negated definitively as a cultural trifle without merit. See any philosophy text.

At best I'd indicate that the observation of order in a Universe that skeptics claimed arose randomly is a contradiction. That something as simple as the Mandelbrot set indicated order found within fractals. That this hidden order points at the very least to purpose and not random creation. Maybe Ultimate Reality is at the very least that which lends order to the Universe and that creates existence.

Chaos and order are illusions, but the linkage in something like a fractal seems to me why we argue whether something is random or if there's an order within it.

 

[Plotinus]

And so you're lost in Darkness.

Goodness me, have you read Matthew 7:1?

Skeptics would rather dwell there than with God. That's your choice.

But it isn't, you see. That's exactly the point. First, I wouldn't "rather dwell there than with God". I'd really quite like for God to be real. If I thought he were real I'd certainly want to "dwell with" him. But it doesn't seem to me that he is. That's not my choice. That's simply how it seems to me, for a whole host of reasons, both rational and experiential.

You'll never understand how or why people disagree with you if you can't realise that some people really think things are different from how you do. If you insist on asserting that those who don't believe in God do so merely because they prefer to reject God, then you'll never understand what they believe at all. If I were to say that you believe in God only because you wish that God existed, and that really you don't believe in him at all but you've only managed to delude yourself out of wishful thinking, then would that be a fair characterisation of your belief? Of course it wouldn't. But that's basically what you're doing when you say the same thing of those who disagree with you.

If you can't consider that God might be real, submit yourself to God and ask for the forgiveness of your sins, but want logical proof of God without you forsaking the darkness, then why would you ever encounter God?

Here again it seems that you're reacting not to what I actually said but to what you imagine I probably said. I'm quite capable of considering that God might be real. I consider it frequently. There was even a time, as I said before, when I not only considered it but thought he was. Indeed, at that time I did submit myself to God and ask the forgiveness of my sins, just as you recommend. But I'm not able to do that now because I no longer think he's there.

And at no point in this thread or elsewhere have I demanded "logical proof of God". I don't think such a proof is possible and I don't think it's necessary for belief. All I've said is that I'm not able to think that something is true without at least some reason for thinking that it's true. Is that so much to ask? I don't demand "logical proof". But I do think that if God existed it would be reasonable to expect some indication of this fact; and I think that we lack any such indication. It's possible that I'm wrong about this - it's possible not only that God exists but that there's good evidence for his existence - but if so, I haven't seen it, and there's not much I can do about that.

It's like trying to take a boat ride into the sky. The mind is not the vehicle to find God, it's the heart. This is the beginning of the journey. Jesus stands at the door. God will open that door if you but submit to this tiny thing.

There are a number of problems here. First, you talk about "submitting to this tiny thing" - but what tiny thing? Loving God? Submitting to God? Trusting God? But what does that even mean for someone who doesn't think that there is a God? I'm not sure that you're even describing a meaningful psychological state. I can imagine someone loving, submitting to, and trusting something that does exist. And I can imagine someone adopting this attitude to a non-existent entity that they believe exists. But I don't think I can imagine someone adopting it to an entity that they don't think exists at all. It would be like swearing allegiance to Narnia. How would you do it?

And just as importantly, why would you do it? Why would anyone adopt any such attitude towards something that they don't think exists? Why would they adopt it towards that non-existent thing and not another? You say that Jesus stands at the door, but from the point of view of a non-Christian, any number of competing religious figures do too. Ganesh also stands at the door, as do Muhammad, Orpheus, Joseph Smith, Buddha, and the Horned God. Now I don't believe in any of them (at least not as genuine bearers of divine revelation). It makes no more sense for me to believe in the Christian God - in any sense of the word "believe" - than it does for me to believe in any of the rest of them.

This is one of the fundamental problems with the kind of extreme fideism that you're recommending here: by its very nature it cannot give any reason to believe one thing rather than another, because it refuses to accept that there can be any reason for belief. This is not only wildly impractical (why talk to people of different religions at all?), but also quite implausible as an account of how and why most religious people do actually believe.

I find it intriguing that someone who studies theology professionally then can't do this small thing as it's so basic and small.

Merely studying something doesn't give you any inclination to believe in it. I study the philosophy of Leibniz too, but believe me, it doesn't incline me to believe in monads. I have friends who study ancient Greek mythology, but they don't actually believe in Zeus. Studying Christian theology isn't any different, at least not for me.

And besides this, as I said previously, I did believe it. I'm not some dreadful closed-minded person who obstinately refuses to believe. On the contrary, I'm perfectly open-minded and will change my mind depending on how things seem to me. But after years of believing that God existed, and putting my trust in God, I realised that actually he didn't seem to be there at all. Again, perhaps I was mistaken in thinking this, but nothing I've experienced since, and no discussion of the matter I've participated in, whether rational or not, has given me any reason to change my mind.

it's interesting you use a fictional example of believing someone loves you even if their behaviour is inconsistent with that premise, as it happens a lot in reality. Have a look at the testimonies of victims of domestic abuse. Believing that the perpetrator truly loves them despite the verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Believing that they, not the abuser is ultimately responsible. These are common beliefs amongst people (usually, thought not by any means exclusively, women) who have been in long term abusive relationships.

And having written that, I've realised that it has some rather....unpleasant implications for those that believe God loves them even if there is no evidence from his behaviour that he does, particularly the point about the victim believing it's their fault. That certainly wasn't the intention when I wrote that, I simply wanted point out that it happens in reality, not just fiction.

Yes, indeed, though I thought it a bit more tasteful to use a fictional example. But of course, we would normally think that an abused person who continues to believe, against all reason, that their abusive spouse loves them is irrational and deluded. They have such an emotional and psychological investment in believing that their spouse loves them that they're incapable of losing that belief. That's not a laudable state to be in.

Healthy love always has reasons, though it doesn't reduce to those reasons, because love s very complex. It's partly a passive thing (you can't help loving them) and partly active (you make an effort to keep the love alive). It's partly an emotion, or set of emotions, and partly an attitude, or set of attitudes. But it's got to have something to do with who the beloved actually is and what they're like. If my wife asks me why I love her, I can give her reasons. If she asks why I love her and not, say, her sister, I don't just shrug my shoulders. I wouldn't like to try that experiment! I love her, and not her sister, in part because there are features of her personality that I find especially loveable. And I know she has them because I've talked to her, and seen how she behaves, over many years.

Crackerbox's view of religion, though, would make it quite unlike this. He suggests that people should love God not on the basis of what God seems to be like, but simply through a mysterious prompting of the "heart" that has nothing whatsoever to do with any apparent features of the divine personality. We should love God even though we have no reason to think that he's good, or loving, or even exists at all. Those beliefs have to come later. We must have this rather nebulous attitude of love towards a mysterious Something, that may or may not exist, and all of the details will get filled in later. It's a bit like expecting someone in an arranged marriage to fall in love with his bride before he's even met her (or even if he doubts that she exists at all). Or, rather, it's like someone who has many relatives, each of which has arranged a different marriage for him with a different unseen woman, and he's expected to choose one of them and fall in love with her even though he hasn't met any of them. I don't think this is a plausible (or attractive) view of how romantic love works, and I don't think it's a plausible view of how religious belief works, either. It completely overlooks the cognitive side of it.

Nope, prove that it Nature (on Earth) came about by itself. Such random chance is infintesimally remote. It could have happened that way as a happy accident, but all of the Universe came about by a happy accident isn't likely.

As Flying Pig said, we've pretty much comprehensively taken that argument apart throughout this thread, but more interestingly, don't you see that this completely contradicts everything you've been saying over the last couple of pages? You insist that the way to God is via the heart, not the head; you insist that there is (and can be) no evidence whatsoever for God's existence, and that people should believe in him nevertheless; and now here you are, caught with your hands in the jam pot, trying to argue that actually there are really good reasons to think that God exists.

You can't have it both ways!

 

[Unicorny]

And so you're lost in Darkness. Skeptics would rather dwell there than with God. That's your choice. If you can't consider that God might be real, submit yourself to God and ask for the forgiveness of your sins, but want logical proof of God without you forsaking the darkness, then why would you ever encounter God?

It's like trying to take a boat ride into the sky. The mind is not the vehicle to find God, it's the heart. This is the beginning of the journey. Jesus stands at the door. God will open that door if you but submit to this tiny thing.

I find it intriguing that someone who studies theology professionally then can't do this small thing as it's so basic and small.

Jesus calls upon us to love the Lord with all our mind, body, and soul...but you can't do that unless you first begin with the heart. It's not that we only use our hearts in faith. It's not faith alone. Faith is the beginning to allow the call, not the sum total of being a Christian. All along I've said that you need to apply the sum totality of your being to love God who is BEING and this is demonstrated by altruistic love of other's being. That's done with heart, mind, and soul...not just the heart.

Spoiler :

7“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7
9“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

God is not denying you this privildge. God does not ask you to be perfect or enlightened. God demands though that you humble yourself and forsake the Darkess.

Agree to a certain degree about the notion of faith and the role of the spiritual heart.

Faith is rooted ultimately in what we etymologically coin as “the heart”, that is, the spiritual heart. This is the locus of belief for a human being. It is the faculty within the human being that enables him or her to know the Eternal, with a knowledge that results from submission, devotion, contentment in His decree, and gratitude. These are the means by which to reach knowledge of God, and they are the only means. As such, critical thought must be put aside for the heart to thrive.

Therefore, the intellect, as important and valuable as it is, is not the only capacity with which the human can perceive truth. It alone can never reach true experiential knowledge of God. However, it is still an indispensable tool for humans - as blind faith alone is not sufficient to convince a rational thinking being of God - as this thread surely attests to. Proof, evidences, hints, etc. are required - and the fine-tuning of the universe is one example of such an evidence.

The mind is one of the greatest gifts of God to humanity. Humans are intellectual and thinking beings. Intellect is the very basis of human civilization and development, as well as the means by which humans learn how to worship the Eternal. And coupled with experience – or experimentation – it has immense potential for societal betterment.

Having said that however, like any organ or faculty in the human being, intellect itself does have limitations. As such, often the misguided are those who happen to be impressed with their opinions and their intellects (an inherent form of pride), and therefore seek truth from this created faculty within them that alone is simply incapable of discerning the truth. This is because the intellect cannot perceive all things, just as the human eye cannot see all things. So they are veiled and prove incapable of discerning truth, and fall into misguidance and go astray.

Therefore, the very first task of the intellect is to realize its limits. That is, whoever realizes his own incapacity will come to know the infinite power of God. Such a person will not rely on himself or his intellect, but rather place his complete trust wholeheartedly with God and seek the truth from Him alone. And whoever places his trust completely in God, God proves sufficient for him and guides him or her to the right path.

It is sad that we live in an age in which the intellect is worshiped – total reliance is placed on it for discerning all types of truth. Yet the intellect, as spectacular and brilliant of a faculty as it is, is nevertheless limited. Just like the human eye, it cannot perceive all of reality. We now know that certain wavelengths comprise what is termed “the visible spectrum,” and that the eye – despite it being an amazing organ – is limited and cannot perceive wavelengths outside the visible spectrum. No matter how much it attempts to focus, the eye alone will not be able to perceive realities outside of those wavelengths.

Does that mean reality is limited to the visible spectrum, since that is all we can see? Of course not. And moreover, we know that certain species of birds and bees, for example, can indeed see outside of our visible spectrum. They have access to what we do not have access to.

This is how we must understand the intellect. It is a phenomenal faculty that we are endowed with, and it can indeed do wonders in the material world. Yet it is limited. There are certain realities it simply does not have access to, no matter how much it endeavors to perceive those realities. Coming to terms with this is not easy for the
modern man, who is engrossed in an age devoted to science and critical thought.

Accepting these realities, then, is not a matter of cognition but rather one of belief. The human intellect cannot perceive these realities, no matter how intelligent the person and no matter how much technology he has to aid him. Logic or critical thinking will not confirm these realities, and scientific method is proven useless.

The more we are impressed with our mental capacity, the more difficult it is to realize its limitations. Sincere desire to discern spiritual realities is predicated upon humility and recognition of one’s limitations. This is the key to accepting truth, as well as the key to moving forward in implementing truth in one’s life.

The mind exists only to understand them, yet it is the spiritual heart that believes in them. It is the spiritual heart that endows the human with full conviction in them, as well as the aspiration and resolve to respond to them appropriately, namely, through fear, love and gratitude to the Divine. Hence, submitting to these beliefs would not make you a hypocrite; it would not entail any sort of self-betrayal. Submission to God is no insult to Him, but instead the very epitome of doing what He loves.

Belief does not entail a rejection of reason. Rather, it is the most appropriate delegation of roles to each faculty. The mind is at home when working within its limits, and the heart is at home when with the God.

In conclusion, neither faith nor intellect/critical thinking alone can convince you of God's existence. Both have to work in tangent as blind faith is lacking and science/reason cannot prove God's existence in absolute terms.

As Flying Pig said, we've pretty much comprehensively taken that argument apart throughout this thread, but more interestingly

Did I miss something? Did someone prove that God does not exist from the fine-tuning of the universe argument? I'd love to see it.

 

[Borachio]

It's a practical faith, a rather undemanding one as well.

Wut? Undemanding, eh? Well, sign me up right away, says lazy me!

 

[Sommerswerd]

Indeed. The problem seems that when you want to convince others (and possibly by extension, yourself) you have to meet them on their playing field. When you can not out-reason skeptics and retreat into a "this can't be reasoned" position, you have essentially said, "This field is too muddy, too flat, too cold etc... C'mon lets go to my (supernatural) field and play there." Some might come with you and look around there for a while, but you will never "convince" them to "play" there because they don't care for that field.

But if they refuse, you have to come back to their field, and are drawn back into trying to argue reason/logic/science, which you have already declared inapplicable.

 

[Unicorny]

But if they refuse, you have to come back to their field, and are drawn back into trying to argue reason/logic/science, which you have already declared inapplicable.

Reason/logic/science can be sufficient to push you over the edge. For example, deists believe in the existence of God, on purely rational grounds, without any reliance on revealed religion or religious authority or holy text. Numerous top-level renowned scientists came to believe in the notion of God based on reason & logic alone.

Some degree of faith is required, but it is minimal at best.

 

[Crackerbox]

Translation: you lost your faith and reverted to the Darkness of demanding proof. Ditto that for hapless Plotinus who once had it enough that theology was so important to study. Poor Plot, reason has nothing to do with the acceptance of God. It's faith. I'm not being the Defender of the Faith here. I doesn't matter if you believe. I don't think I can convince you. You certainly haven't persuaded me. Look at my first post. It was bemoaning that people attempt to prove things rationally instead of letting people believe what they desire.

Christian Witnessing is personal and direct. It's never anonymous. It's a lengthy intentional process.

If you want people to consider atheism, then the only way that will be conveyed is following a similar tactic. You befriend someone and share your thoughts out of sincerity. No one will accept either by reading a random Internet forum post.

Consider this. Think of the huge number of self-help books written by both well meaning people as well as charlatans. People buy tons of these to alter their ways, for the words of the authors sometimes resonate. Do people really change or revert to the way the pattern they have chosen before. Most of those readers will find themselves doing the very same things once more.

Why? Because we cannot change the minds and hearts of others. Only they can change themselves. They can emulate another by mentorship. It's a tried and true way of altering the course of another, like nudging a drifting canoe in a river. You can for a short time nudge a person to go one way, but you're not the only one nudging them. Without overwheming mentorship and a community of likeminded believers, then they'll revert to whatever was comfortable before.

Atheists are wising up and creating their own churches for this reason.

Let's say that I have all the answers and can prove God. Would it be desirable to persuade another such that they parrot my words, or would it be better to mentor them such that they use their hearts and then by critical thinking for them to come to their own conclusions? Which will result in a strong belief that is sustainable? If I desire longevity of conversion, and for it to be sincere and not just making a clone, then I chose the latter.

 

[Unicorny]

Translation: you lost your faith and reverted to the Darkness of demanding proof. Ditto that for hapless Plotinus who once had it enough that theology was so important to study. Poor Plot, reason has nothing to do with the acceptance of God. It's faith. I'm not being the Defender of the Faith here. I doesn't matter if you believe. I don't think I can convince you. You certainly haven't persuade me. Look at my first post. It was bemoaning that people attempt to prove things rationally instead of letting people believe what they desire.

Now you're jumping to false conclusions based off false premises. My personal faith aside, I'm arguing that faith alone is often not sufficient to convince a rational thinking being of the plausibility of God's existence.

Reason & critical thinking is a part of who we are as we're bestowed with intellect. Asking questions and looking for proof & evidences is a part of who we are. As such, blind faith does not cut it; faith and reason go hand in hand; and if you read my post, I've outlined why faith is arguably more important as it is the only way in which someone can never reach true experiential knowledge of God.

Read my post again

 

[Tigranes]

Translation: you lost your faith and reverted to the Darkness of demanding proof. Ditto that for hapless Plotinus who once had it enough that theology was so important to study. Poor Plot, reason has nothing to do with the acceptance of God. It's faith. I'm not being the Defender of the Faith here. I doesn't matter if you believe. I don't think I can convince you. You certainly haven't persuade me. Look at my first post. It was bemoaning that people attempt to prove things rationally instead of letting people believe what they desire.

Christian Witnessing is personal and direct. It's never anonymous. It's a lengthy intentional process.

If you want people to consider atheism, then the only way that will be conveyed is following a similar tactic. You befriend someone and share your thoughts out of sincerity. No one will accept either by reading a random Internet forum post.

... sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence

 

[Plotinus]

It's axiomatic that God cannot be proven to exist, nor negated definitively as a cultural trifle without merit. See any philosophy text.

Only any philosophy text written after about 1800!

Almost the entire theistic tradition up to, and including, the Enlightenment, has held that God can be proven to exist. In my previous post (which you seem to have overlooked) I linked to both Thomas Aquinas and the teaching of Vatican I on this, and I quoted St Paul, who at least implies the same view. The notion that God can't be proved to exist, and that one should just believe in him anyway, would have been absurd to pretty much any Christian thinker before the sixteenth century at the very earliest. It was only after Kant that it became anything like a mainstream view. It's one of the oddities of the history of ideas that it's now become, as you say, "axiomatic" among so many people today, although they can rarely give any good reason for it. This is despite the fact that this view, that God's existence cannot be proved, remains not merely rejected but condemned as heretical by the largest Christian denomination in the world.

Did I miss something? Did someone prove that God does not exist from the fine-tuning of the universe argument? I'd love to see it.

No, but we have shown that the fine-tuning argument fails to prove God's existence (or even give any good reason to think that God exists). That doesn't prove that God doesn't exist, it merely removes a supposed reason to think that he does.

You addressed (unsuccessfully, for reasons I went on to point out) the less important points I made in this post, but you didn't address the more important ones I made later on, including Kant's demolition job of your cosmological argument.

Translation: you lost your faith and reverted to the Darkness of demanding proof. Ditto that for hapless Plotinus who once had it enough that theology was so important to study. Poor Plot, reason has nothing to do with the acceptance of God. It's faith.

I'm touched by your concern, though it might have been a little nicer (and surely more Christlike) if you'd expressed it a tad less patronisingly. Doesn't Jesus generally at least show respect to people in the Gospels? At any rate, I don't think your concern is warranted - as I said, I'm happier now than I was then. The world certainly makes a bit more sense.

And I don't demand proof. It's starting to look, once again, like this is one of those times where I can repeat myself as often as I like, and the other person simply won't hear. To you, I must "demand proof" because I'm an obstinate rationalist atheist who won't open his heart. The fact that at no point in this thread or anywhere else have I actually "demanded proof" won't change the assumptions you're making about what I think and why I think it.

If you want people to consider atheism, then the only way that will be conveyed is following a similar tactic. You befriend someone and share your thoughts out of sincerity. No one will accept either by reading a random Internet forum post.

I wonder why you're bothering, then! At any rate, I'm not trying to convert people to atheism - I don't really care what people believe, as long as they're not irrational about it. This thread is meant to be about the supposed attempt to prove God's existence. I was posting in order to show why I think the purported proof doesn't work. That's not an argument for atheism, it's a criticism of an argument for theism. That's not the same thing.

 

[Crackerbox]

Only any philosophy text written after about 1800!

Almost the entire theistic tradition up to, and including, the Enlightenment, has held that God can be proven to exist. In my previous post (which you seem to have overlooked) I linked to both Thomas Aquinas and the teaching of Vatican I on this, and I quoted St Paul, who at least implies the same view. The notion that God can't be proved to exist, and that one should just believe in him anyway, would have been absurd to pretty much any Christian thinker before the sixteenth century at the very earliest. It was only after Kant that it became anything like a mainstream view. It's one of the oddities of the history of ideas that it's now become, as you say, "axiomatic" among so many people today, although they can rarely give any good reason for it. This is despite the fact that this view, that God's existence cannot be proved, remains not merely rejected but condemned as heretical by the largest Christian denomination in the world.



No, but we have shown that the fine-tuning argument fails to prove God's existence (or even give any good reason to think that God exists). That doesn't prove that God doesn't exist, it merely removes a supposed reason to think that he does.

You addressed (unsuccessfully, for reasons I went on to point out) the less important points I made in this post, but you didn't address the more important ones I made later on, including Kant's demolition job of your cosmological argument.

Well now that my post count is high enough to have a sig for my mod, I'll leave you to it!

Good luck persuading people!

 

[Plotinus]

Well now that my post count is high enough to have a sig for my mod, I'll leave you to it!

Ha, I knew there must be an ulterior motive!

Well, if you're a Civ III modder, at least we can agree on some things. Have a look at my scenarios too if you get a chance, as you might at least like some of the themes in them.

 

[Crackerbox]

Ha, I knew there must be an ulterior motive!

Well, if you're a Civ III modder, at least we can agree on some things. Have a look at my scenarios too if you get a chance, as you might at least like some of the themes in them.

Busted! I hope you realize my words are in jest much of the time. The problems with debate is that they end up as chest thumping matches over the world of ideas, when they should be about understanding and respect.

Yeah, I was getting my post count up, but what I said about my beliefs and background are true.

One problem Plotinus is that theology is so complex, and I doubt that much of what you say penetrates. Not due to lack of communication skills, but people come to the field with preconcieved ideas. Mostly it's the ardent Christian or Muslim who seeks to justify their beliefs by witty discourse and hurling Bible verses. Or it's the emphatic atheist who proclaims, "Just as I suspected all along!"

If everyone had to describe their beliefs, while that it's a cruel process of revealing our ability to command the language as well as the ability to turn a phrase, it would be an excellent aspect of maturity. The best way to discover what it is that you believe is to journal what you believe. In this, a forum post exchange of ideas might benefit that process.

 

[Perfection]

How do you know that there isn't an Ultimate Reality that ushers in the Universe? You cannot. You take it on faith that no deity is necessary. I take it on faith that the nature of Being must arive from some root cause. Nothingness cannot create Being. My first post though points out to an eternal collapse and expansion (not one Big Bang) and so it's an illusion that nothingness creates reality.

It really doesn't matter that you don't believe except for your Life (both moral and eternal). It's your choice due to Free Will. If you consider that a lifetime spent in manifesting altruism to honor BEING could be a noble task, then this alone makes Christianity worthwhile. It's the basis for missionary work to build hospitals and schools, and not to simply make churches everywhere. It's a practical faith, a rather undemanding one as well.

The presumption that things work by logic and laws has been pragmatically useful in allowing us to describe the universe. When you see things this way you do not need a God. Can I be sure there is no intelligent creator to ultimate reality? Not really, but I must say that it would be odd that science can so well explain how our intelligence came from non-thinking matter and yet ultimately require a thinking being. And of course I can't imagine that it would likely have a connection to the thoughts in believers heads.

As for virtue. I don't need God for that. And my thinking of the universe in terms of logic and laws instead of divine will has helped me solve problems in a way that has beneficial impacts on many lives.

 

[Crackerbox]

The presumption that things work by logic and laws has been pragmatically useful in allowing us to describe the universe. When you see things this way you do not need a God. Can I be sure there is no intelligent creator to ultimate reality? Not really, but I must say that it would be odd that science can so well explain how our intelligence came from non-thinking matter if we should ultimately require a thinking being. And of course I can't imagine that it would likely have a connection to the thoughts in believers heads.

As for virtue. I don't need God for that. And my thinking of the universe in terms of logic and laws instead of divine will has helped me solve problems in a way has beneficial impacts on many lives.

OK, you don't need a God in your life. And? You see the point of my responses is not to dissuade you that you do need God in your life. I don't have the power to persuade you.

Let's say I had a larger-than-life personna and somehow you desired to emulate me. You decided, probably weakly, to commit to attending church for a short time. I doubt it would last more than a month. People are that fickle.

But with any intentional mentorship, where people see that another cares for them personally, not to gain a convert, but out of respect and friendship, then there's a good chance that many conversations happen over supper and a beer in front of a roasting fire. After a time, the relating of experiences results in commonality. Some of the Other's ideas no longer seem so daft...on both sides. Affinity happens.

It's in that process that people risk faith, whether for Islam, Atheism, or Christianity.

Some people think of the Great Commission as a personal responsibility to convert others. My question for them is, "Are you certain that's a call from God, or your latest big idea?" The same would go for atheism. Are you sure that communicating and trying to get some 17 year old Christian on a game forum to consider atheism is a noble idea? A large number of people justify making thousands of forum posts to persuade others and actually end up making really nasty comments that make it difficult for anyone to stomach their responses. Some don't care about the person they're responding to. I've seen vile things written by passionate people that made atheism, Christianity, or Islam seem horrid. Some people are fanatical and in Christianity ruin the spread of the Gospel, but some of them think they're actually helping. That's true for any number of belief systems.

You see mentorship is not like that. It's not generally trying to create clones of ourselves and have people perfectly agree with our ideas. Atheist churches are coming into existence because they're finally getting this Christian paradigm and tweeking it to their own belief system.

 

[Borachio]

OK. But just how strong is your faith, Mr Box? Can it withstand chats round the fireplace with jovial atheists?