I'm a little confused by this.  Don't you believe that a brain with no brain exists?  Besides the blunt language, why would you be insulted by this claim?

Most theists think God is a thinking being of some sort, a conscious entity at least.  Most theists also thing God is not material, sooo....brain with no brain seems like an appropriate description.  How else would you describe it?

To me it seems factually incorrect, just blunt, like when I say Christians believe in a Jewish necromancer.  Insulting, but factually correct: Jesus was a Jew and he was a necromancer.

And I just watched the other day a documentary about giant squids. Their brains are doughnut shaped and their throats go through the hole in the center. If the squid swallows something too big, they can suffer brain damage. Cap constantly tries to dodge any blame to his god. What would a squid know about human suffering, and why would it be the squid's fault for it's own "design".

That's like blaming a kid for choking on a piece of candy. Is it the kid's fault that his eating path and breathing path share the same tube?

Cap doesn't want to face that there is no magical super hero. It is nothing but evolution, environment and nature, luck and circumstances, void of any thinking entity in the sky or cosmos, by any name, past or present.

This is nothing more than his emotions ruling him because the idea of having a super hero protect him is appealing to him. But it is nothing more than his own flaw of allowing his sense of awe fill in the gap with a placebo for an answer. It is a common human mistake. Cap is not the first or only human to do this.

It frightens most humans to think that this is all there is and that our species and life and our planet are finite. Not wanting to die is an evolutionary drive, but is still confused with some comic book grander meaning. God is simply an ignorant way of saying, "I want to live". Atheists do too, but we don't cross or fingers or consult Ouija boards or invisible friends in a placebo attempt to avoid reality.

Cap is in as deep as any Muslim or Jew or Scientologist and no different than the Egyptians who falsely incerted the sun in as their super hero.

fairy tales can be anything of fictional nature.  Understanding that there is only one Truth, are you sure you're not believing in the fairytale?  if so present your case.

So... rigor mortis exists... therefore God is false... ah, got it.  I'm now an atheist, thank you for your clarification

I will admit though, you in fact are special... maybe not in the way you intended to be.  You are making one of the biggest scientific no-no's and dont' seem to care.  That being concluding only by what you understand and not by testing the hypothesis to confirm.  I could be wrong here, but are you saying you've exprimented on thought processes and have found that a spiritual world in fact does not exist?  I'll have to ask you for your methodology and paperwork please.

Start making an effort.  Then I'll make one with you.  Stop using excuses for your understanding and start actually trying to show me why you think you're right. 

YOU know me better than that.  I'm looking for someone who is willing to take that route with me here without coming up with excuses every 5 minutes.  In other words, instead of critisizing what they do not understand, ask me more questions about my understanding.  If it is as flawed as everyone is so adimently claiming on here, then evetually your questions will back me into a corner.  Then you ask me more questions when I try to push out of the corner and it will make me cower.  If you've noticed, it's worked with others on here.

agreed

depends on the approach you take from there.  If you take the approach to prove that you can explain why you have feelings, of course it fails.  Science can explain why things are or why commonalities happen.  does it disprove the latter, no because you weren't looking for God in your feelings experiment, just for an explanation of feelings and how they work in our physical body.  In order to effectifly prove or disprove God through science or the scientific method, one would have to come up with a methodology that they understand would ultimately prove God if in fact he existed.  Would you disagree there? 

I would then ask the scientific minds here how we would go about doing that.  This could insue quite a conversation if people took the effort to do so.

   Please do.  (  Btw, I'm not trying to be a smart ass by asking...just genuinely curious  )  Lately we have a few varied and different Christian theists here who, off the top of my head, have some significantly conflicting doctrines which, nevertheless, are always presented as"Truth".  As you well know by now, they also have their favorite apologists, scripture references, etc to back up their claims.

...

ok, you asked me; "How can you show your belief is objectively true and other theists contradictory beliefs are objectively false?"

I answered first with a clarification of what I understood you to be asking.  If that undersanding was wrong, you should have stopped reading right there and replied to me clarifying what you were asking.  You did not so I assume my understanding of what you were asking was correct.

Then, because your question was not specific still, I elaborated on quite a few different approaches to specifically answering your question.  I then stated; "Now... for some reason, i just feel like you might think I was "avoiding your question".  Let me clarify my intentions here." as to which i did just that and explained how I was going to be as specific with you as  you are with me. 

I then explained how you asked me a general question and futher explained your failure at being specific enough for a focused response and one that i understand would be satisfactory not only to you but to any rationally thinking mind that might come across this post. 

I concluded ultimately with asking you to pick a topic that I had summarized above and we could go from there. 

you chose to ignore all of that and respond with me writing an entire post without saying anything?  Why do you choose to not make progress?  what are you afraid of? 

I will be blunt with you.  You're not thinking.  You're just looking for any way to prove your understanding and could care less about understanding the truth whether it's what you understand or what I understand.  Stop talkign to me unless you want to think.  If you want to believe what you understand, that's fine with me, I dont' care.  If you want to understand the truth (which could be better understandning what you think you know thus helping you in the future explain your understanding so you don't have to go through this with any other theist who can think for themselves and arent' dictated by a denominational or sect standard) then pick a focus from the previous post and let's make progress... or ask a more specific question that can be answered specifically and not generally, because you and I both know that a general answer will not be satisfactory for you and it wouldn't be for me and thus a general question will be answered in like manner.

I will say it again, I will answer you as specifically as you are with me.  Ask me a general question, you're getting a general answer, ask me a specific question, you'll get a specific answer.

no, it was the point of someone else that you tried to pull out and make your own point with.  I've already explained my intentions for that and we're beyond that point now.

really?  too bad, I'm intregued at what other tangent you can pull us on before specifics are forced out of you  

alright, lets try something.  you were general and never asked anything specific, so I'll pull a random belief and a contradictory one and compare the 2 and explain why I believe the way I do.  This will be one specific point where my belief is true through scripture and another contradictory belief is false.

There are some denominations out there who believe alcohol is evil and that no follower of the Chrsitian God should ever drink a drop of alcohol. 

I believe that alcohol is not evil and is not shunned by scripture.  That in fact it is not a sin when taken in moderation.  One big reason is Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine.  Now why would our sinless lamb and the son of God give a reason for people at a party he was at to sin when his message is to not sin?  He wouldnt'. its contradictory of his personality and his message.  Alcohol is not evil or bad.  All of the followers of God in scripture were understood to be drinkers of wine from time to time and of all the bad things they've done, not once did God discipline or consequence them for drinking.  It's even said that some drink so much as to feel buzzed and that was not even spoken of negatively, but as a norm for a party. 

I think where the understanding falls apart is when people get drunk and are drunk all the time.  Taht is said to be a problem in scripture and is frowned upon.  The Bible shunns alcoholism and the abuse of it.  Just as it shuns the abuse of pretty much anything and everything. 

That's why i believe that it is ok for a follower to drink, have a beer, take a shot or otherwise go out and have a party, just be responsible and be an example to others. 

Lets see how you tangent on this... or will you stay specific and discuss it for a bit?  dont' know... we will see, stay tuned!

I'm not at all insulted by this.  What happened here is first and foremost, Brian is making a "proof statement" or a statement that requires probable explanation and refuses to explain his reasoning beyond him not seeing evidences in the physical sciences which of course the physical sciences wouldn't have because they are sciences that study the physical.  Again, an example of failing to think before speaking.

the other issues is I've lost count as to how many times he has said that and it seems that he thinks if he says it one more time, I might believe him next time... yet he still expects me to explain myself, as to which I used to with him, but have given up because every time I try to and back him into a corner, he comes back with that same statement and denies being backed into a corner completely ignoring a need for response on his part to the explanation given.

Therefore, all i have now is sarcasm for him be it that it seems the same is the best effort I can get from him. 

Does it make sense now?

I agree with the brain with no brain statement.  I disagree with the delusionment claim he keeps trying to pin on me... again with no rational explanation behind it beyond this is what I see in front of me on the table, so nothing else off the table exists to me whether its there or not. 

Understand I'm not insulted by his statements, no one here has yet been able to insult me... probably becasue I completely understand their disbelief.  Where it all falls apart is when i try to find a ground on which to start from.  Some.... ahem... seem to think that they can just fly to the mountaintop without first walking to the base. 

The statement that Jesus was a necromancer is completely contradictory to who he was thus making that statement impossible logically speaking.

You seem to think you know me so well with out me telling you anything like that... so i must ask

What's my favorite color?

how about my favorite dessert?

Who's my favorite band or music group?

If you can so matter of factly say what you said above, then you have to know the simple things about me too like what I just asked... otherwise, you are as baseless as you're blaiming me for being... which still makes you a hypocrite.

 Generalizations are not quite specific.

Cap, thoughts require material. Thus invisible brains, by any name, past or present, magical, super natural, or superstitious, ARE ALL BULLSHIT CLAIMS. You merely like what you believe, and it really is all in your head.

This entire thread is not about you trying to convince us. It is about YOU maintaining what you have convinced yourself of. The challenge is not to us, the challenge is within yourself.

Virtually every animal has and exercises 'choice', ie a system for deciding between which of two or more optional courses to follow, so that is a trivial attribute. Computers make choices.

'Free will', in the ordinary use of the term, simply means free of pressure or constraint from other people.

A choice not 'determined' by your personal desires, current mood, perceptions of the state of your environment, etc, etc is effectively purely random, ie you would be choosing something for no identifiable reason, which is equivalent to a coin toss. Exactly what would be the difference if we didn't have 'free will' in the philosophical sense?

So, cap, if you are acknowledging chaotic unpredictability, ie the 'Butterfly Effect', such that even God cannot know the future, and actually admit that it would be entirely wrong to blame us for unpredictable consequences of our choices, and that nature develops essentially by its own processes, it seems you are leaning towards a 'Deist' god, who does no more than kick everything off, and stands back. This is inevitable if you are trying to have a concept of God that is 'compatible' with science. Even tho a disembodied intelligence and the related idea of an immaterial soul simply are not consistent with actual observation of our reality, ie Science, and no longer are 'necessary' in any sense to provide a framework for our understanding of ourselves or the wider 'reality'.

But then you have presented examples previously, as justification for the existence of God, where God specifically intervened to save a home from a fire, for example.

And Jesus doesn't really fit into the 'hands-off' God scenario.

What I am saying is that your belief system seems inconsistent and ill-defined - you seem to be trying to embrace and acknowledge 'science' while clinging to some personal interpretation of the Bible by finding excuses for why it still can be true and compatible with science, despite the plain evidence pointing the other way.

My point is simply a round-about.  Right, I'm saying you can't disprove God just as much as through the means people are asking me on here, I can't physically present God as proof or a peice of God for that matter and he cannot be tested through physical sciences in order to prove His existence.  It's just not logical.

to which I responded just as specifically either asking more questions or explaining how I find your reasoning illogical. 

I get that.  Here's the thing.  I can present God to you through the Bible... but that's going to mean nothing to you because you don't accept the Bible as a historical document. What would the point of me presenting God through the Bible to you be?  From what i can tell, there would be no point because it's not a means for you to comprehend my understanding or following.  This is why I ask of you what means you would like me to present.  i will do it through any logical means and if I'm somewhat unfamiliar with that means, I will use resources and knowlegable friends to help me.  In other words, you will get a sufficient and sound discussion through your most comfortable means.  A very daring approach for me to take really.

You ask me what it does for me...  To what, believe in God or live my life through the teachings of the Christian God and under His reign? 

It'd be like asking me; 'what does driving a car do for you?'  I'd say it gets me from point A to point B in the fastest most effiecient means we have today so it's logical that I'd use a car instead of anything else.  it really doesn't do anything for me, it just makes sense to use. 

For your question about God, what does it do for me.  I'd answer close to the same thing.  He helps me get from point A to point B in life understanding the expectations he has set forth for me and us a humanity and He just makes  the most sense to me as far as what i see around me and how things end up being.  

this would include an understanding of no God.  It'd be like getting to point B without a car.  Sure, you'll get there eventually, but it'd be much easier to use a car. 

What does he do for me?  A lot.  What does it do for me to believe in him?  same as not believeing in him does for you probably. 

Just as much as saying the Big Bang is the way it all started because we can see our universe is in an ever-expanding state and is running out of potential energy isn't proof that it actually happened that way, but is sufficient enough for many people to accept, i can present God in the same way by looking at the functionality of nature and the universe, how it works let alone direct effects of the spirit world on people, but for the sake of the conversation, we'll stick with the greater generality of nature. 

The pure assumption part... I'm not sure where you think I have only presented pure assumption.  So far, i have only been working on someone on this forum actually standing their ground for a moment and taking the floor as I have been offering them to.  I would love to get on a more specific topic with you if you are so inclined to do so.  I will just ask you to pick it and we can go from there.  That way I know whatever's being presented in the conversation will be at a level of understanding that will make progress for both of us. 

Nature.. that does sound like a good focus. 

The problem with taking something specific like the Haiti earthquake or a tsunami hitting a direct population then asking why is that as you said, the easy explanation is that God was absent... and also there better explanations to why than bringing God into the picture. 

 what if i told you that God designed nature like a machine?  he got it going, but once it started, it was designed to be self sufficient and is programmed to compensate at any moment for an imbalance in its mechanisms.  In other words, God designed it to do what it needed to do to sustain everything within it and adapt without His intervention every 5 seconds. 

How you answer this will decide the direction of the conversation.  If you go on the side of God allowing people to die, then we're talking about Choice (people and God).  If you stick with nature, then we can progress with why nature compensates the way it does and how its appropriate for the existance of nature and everything within it.  i have a feeling it will go the latter eventually anyway, but we'll see.

I don't believe I ever said that God is not all powerful.  Your defense seems to be shrinking.  Let's stick with the topic above "nature" and we'll go from there. 

I know what you've asked.  I'm sorry.  Its obvious now you don't realize how general of a question it is to ask a follower of Christ the central point of their following or reason to do so.  By your statement above, I can see you are looking at religion and not the following.  The difficulty apparently has been you've been looking for a religious answer and I haven't got one for you because I don't follow a religion (this being defined as a specific docternal belief). 

The central point of my following is Jesus Christ.  I base my salvation on His teachings.  Noone can get more specific than that. 

I'm sorry i didn't see it before.  I know religion has a central point of their followings and usually when you ask a religious person their central point, they'll tell you X.  E.g.  Jehovah's Witnesses will tell you their focus is 'the govenrning body of believers who teach that one must be a Jehovah's Witness for salvation and to be saved by works of bringing others to the watchtower and showing them the doctern of salvation through the watch tower."    In a simple statement, the central point of their dogma is "the watchtower society"  Whatever they say goes. 

We on the other hand do not have a watchtower, denomination, church or otherwise to answer to.  We follow Jesus Christ directly and to the best of our ability reflect his love through the way we live.   By means of a gathering (sometimes its an established church, sometimes not), we strengthen our understanding and spirits for the tasks ahead.  Regardless of the fellowship we seek, it's always prayer directed to God through Jesus Christ and wisdom and understanding comes from the same source. 

Is that what you were looking for?  Don't try and tell me I wasn't specific again.  the one sentence about jesus Christ specifically answers your question about the central point of my belief and what I base my salvation on.  If you have questions beyond that, instead of tangenting on me not answering your questino, just ask another one.  It's very possible that i misunderstood what you were looking for just as I had for a while here.  I just didn't get it that you were looking for doctrin.  I get it now, I should have sooner.  I'm sorry again. 

That's a great question.  Very difficult to answer i will admit, but I will give you a general point.

Let's put it this way, your physical body is damaged by what... sticks and stones, sharp objects, electric currents that exceed a certain wattage, etc.  Your soul... the difficulty first with describing yoru soul is that it doesn't get damaged like yoru body.  YOu can't cut your soul or shock it to death.  It can weaken and strengthen depending on how much it's been battling.  It's also not a "damaged soul" that decides its final destination be it that from what I understand, it doesn't work that way.  lemme go onto the other topic you mentioned.

You mention final destination.  The whole hellfire and brimestone is a fairytale.  Hell is never described in the Bible in such great detail.  Some try to call it the lake of fire as mentioned in Revelation... but the problem with that is Hell is also thrown into the Lake of Fire... which proves the point that Hell is not in fact the lake of fire. 

The other issue with the destination claim is a lot of the words translated "hell" in the Bible literally is translated from a word that means "the place where the dead go".  This would conclude by translation that everyone who dies goes to hell good or bad, but hell isn't bad, it's just the place where the dead go. 

I'm sorry to tangent a bit on your original question, but I feel I answered it above with the difference in damaging your body to your weakening soul.  I also feel that in order to better answer your original question, you should understand the "final destination".

From what I've read in scripture, there is no middle of the road.  You are either for God or against God.  Those who are for God are going to live with God and those who are against God will live absent of God.  It seems to me like a choice.  People can choose to follow God and they will be with Him.  As far as I can see Hell or the other option if you will, is nothing more than the absence of God.  Be it that God created the world and everything in it and his presence is always with us on Earth, no one really knows what it's like to live in the absence of God.  It can be assumed to be an existence void of anything good or beneficial.  One can only assume about that existance though.  

I can back it up by what scripture says through the teachings of Jesus Christ among other writings of the OT and supporting scripts.  Of course those are not valid measn of support for you so I would not expect that to be sufficient for you.  At this point, i would not have an objective way of showing your or justifying to your satisfaction the statement.  Yet if you can accept that there is a soul at all or a meta-physical existence, then I might be able to justify it for you.

This is also a very difficult question.  I don't think I can directly answer this for you either be it that among believers this is a debate as well.  I personally believe through personal experience that God directly intervenes in some situations and other "personal expereinces' have backed that understanding up for me, but personal experience again won't mean much to you because your personal experience just as easily concludes the absense of God.

One thing you'll have to accept if you're actually interested in understanding my following is to understand that just because we are followers of Christ, it doesn't mean we have all the answers.  We have deduced through logical means the understandings we hold onto and others who follow have done the same.  Sometimes there are different conclusions on the difficult topcs, both logically found.  Instead of arguing about it, we continue looking into it and move on for the moment. 

it flows into the metaphysical existance.  From what we know through testing of the physical only, thought does not exist outside a physical brain.  i don't believe anyone has found a way of testing thought outside of the physical therefore, its illogical to conclude that it doesn't happen.  We don't just sit and smile becasue it can't be done, but actually try to find better ways of going about it.  Some religions might sit back and smile when the topics that can't be explained through physical measn come up, but that's lazy and eventually will come back to bite them in the butt. 

A necromancer by definition does raise the dead, but they do it though a means of the Black art or sorcery/witchcraft.  Jesus had been accused of such in the scriptures and explained how he doesn't work through that means, but by the power of God only. 

What "choice" or "free will" does a baby have born in a starving disease infested third world country? Did the sperm and egg have "free will" when the parents had sex and put the baby in horrible conditions? Did a "soul" say to god before it magically got injected into the zygote, have the ability to say "Yes God, this horrible existence is exactly what I want, sign me up".

Cap, there is no god, there is no magic to life and we did not have a choice in being born. Life is a crap shoot, and for every sperm and egg that make it to term, there are trillions more that do nothing and end up as periods or get expelled in our urine.

It is silly childish bullshit to think that there is a super dad "giving us" anything. Our parents had sex and that is how we got here, nothing more. Making shit up as to why we exist is an unfortunate side affect of human evolution. Placebos get defaulted to more than our ability to face reality. Dawkins moth example explains why you still spew this bullshit despite the fact that we know what a brain is and that there is no such thing as a non=material super brain.

You are here for the same reason I am, our parents fucked. Trying to make reality a comic book romance is silly and childish.

I am not asking you to do anything like that.

'Scientific' evidence is not restricted to the the 'physical', even in the most philosophical sense, and certainly not to pieces of 'matter'. It is about anything that is 'observed' in at least some sense, even if just as a consistent element in what people report about personal experience, or a pattern in a sequence of events. Even personal experience is evidence, but, by itself, not evidence about something outside the context of the mind of the person. Just as with other types of evidence, it can only be validly treated as direct evidence for the category of things within its own immediate context.

For example, to claim a mental experience as evidence for the existence of some entity having existence, and not just 'physical' existence, but existence independent of your own imagination, it would need some other corroborating evidence that related to the same proposed entity, from a source independent of your personal imagination and intuition.

For such evidence to be strong, it would ideally need to be repeatable by other independent observers, ie not people with whom you had communicated with. That is a problem with evidence for God, most of it has become widely known in both specific and general terms in human society, and people are very prone to interpret unfamiliar phenomena in the context of stuff they already know, unconsciously adding to and changing or omitting important details of the 'raw data', so 'muddying the waters'.

So stop with this 'physical' limitation, cap.

Just 'asking more questions' is not really an adequate response, and we have repeatedly shown how your dismissal of our reasoning as 'illogical' is illogical or erroneous, usually based on seriously misinterpreting what we write.

Not really a problem.

Just means that you first have to present your personal reasons for accepting the specific Bible references, including your specific approach to interpreting their 'real' meaning, as accurate and valid.

I want to understand the 'means' you employ, that is all.  Now if you claim you have already attempted to do this, and we just haven't understood or accepted it, it means that we have seen what appears to us as serious holes, invalid or otherwise illogical arguments, un-examined or unjustified assumptions, etc, in what you have presented. I know this applies in many cases in this long thread.

Do you have anything you haven't already presented to us? Maybe I am just asking you to pick at least one important example and lay out for us the process by which you came to accept it, going back thru the chain of justification back to something fundamental, at least to you. As I said above, where your reasoning employs Bible passages, you need to trace back just what led you to accept your interpretation of those passages as valid.

Now if you are going to claim no one piece of 'evidence' has lead you to your beliefs, just the way the bits all contribute, that is ok, but we still would like to understand  the way you read those bits, and perhaps give us examples of how separate sources reinforce each other in combination.

It is important to 'drill down' as far as possible to specific examples, otherwise we are stuck in this endless disagreement over general 'principles'.

Can you even accept the possibility that your difficulty in coming up with something which 'satisfies' us in at least some sense, may reflect a reality that there really are holes and errors in your chain of reasoning? 

I think you misunderstood what I was asking here - it was really meant to be another way of putting my basic question about 'evidence' - what is it that convinces you, not what you personally find rewarding or gratifying about your beliefs.

The 'proof' of the Big Bang is not what you referred to - what you quite are mostly the observations that lead us to investigate possible explanations, which lead to several hypotheses, such as Fred Hoyle's 'Continuos Creation' theory, which was for many years seen as a valid alternative to the Big Bang. It was Hoyle who coined the term 'Big Bang' as derogatory way to refer the opposing theory. Eventually, the evidence, such as the nature of the Cosmic Background Radiation, was found to be much more easily explained and predicted by the Big Bang than by Hoyle's idea, which he had to keep adding to and adjusting in increasingly arbitrary and less plausible ways to try and fit it to the new data. 

See, that is another example of how you misunderstand the scientific process.

You seem to see it as some kind of debating society, with people 'standing their ground' etc. It is really about alternative 'explanations' being applied to some raw 'observations', and finding some test, some experiment, some specific points, which are more easily and naturally explained, using, as far as possible, ideas and concepts already accepted by both 'sides', by one 'theory' that the others.

The problem is, there is no sign of such pre-programming, or of a 'compensation' mechanism. What seems to better fit what we observe, is a chaotic process of variation, filtered through the contraints of the need for survival and reproduction, if any new trait is to persist.

Darwin was a devout believer, whose observations of the incredible range of minor and major variation of life-forms in the Galapagos did not fit the sort of pattern he would have expected from any form of deliberate Creation or Design.

This is another example of what I said in response to your Big Bang example - science goes with the explanation which best fits what we observe as we gather more detailed information. There are so many examples of poor design in life-forms, things which are adequate for survival, that the fundamentally purposeless, random aspect of evolution is by far the best context to understand it. It is random variation, filtered by the raw requirement that those variations that are most successful at passing on their genetics, that is the simplest explanation for all these details.

Of course you can say God just set things up to work this way, but that doesn't add anything to our understanding of how it happened, and raises all sorts of questions about why He would do it this way, if he really is an interventionist God, as you claim in other parts of the discussion. Undirected evolution leads naturally to things like disease organisms, and the compromises in genetic stability between the need for adaptation and the risk of nasty cell mutations that cause cancer.

If he is 'all-powerful', why did he choose to leave it to such a random and slow process as evolution to eventually produce such flawed beings as homo sapiens, when he could have explicitly designed us to not have those flaws, which lead us to make poor decisions which in turn lead to much unnecessary suffering, as well as being susceptible to nasty diseases even despite our best efforts?

So tell me again just why he allows earthquakes and tsunamis to kill hundreds of thousands of people, including children, if he has the power to stop it?

Bob, you have much more finesse and patience with believers than I do.

Ultimately before they get to their pet books, they have to sell a magical invisible super  brain with no brain or location. I find it much easier to avoid the distractions of different details when the core motif of all god claims are the same. "My super dad is real"

Cap has simply allowed his false perceptions to rule him. He is no different than the humans who believed the sun was a god, he just doesn't realize it yet. YET. I do have some hope for Cap. No one spends this much time back peddling without questioning themselves.

wow, hey!!! it has!  It's good to see you on again.

i see what you're getting at.  I don't think there's a problem though. 

I see it as God gave us a conscience to allow us to make a rational choice in any given situation.  The conscience is not dictated by God and is only dictated by life experience... which is different for each person.  In other words, there is still no pressure/constraint coming directly from God when any opportunity comes to make a choice.  You still make it based on life experience and not based on a puppet master making the choice for you.

Sure, God knows what you need before you ask... does it mean it's going to be given to you?

We could get really deep with this, but lets look at it this way.  I understand that God understands and knows every possible outcome for every possible choice we could possibly make in our lives.  In other words our lives could go in 1000 different directions every day depending on the choices we make.  It's beyond our brain capacity to comprehend every possible outcome throughout the day let alone thorughout our lives, but God can and does comprehend it.  It's not predestination which eludes to the fact that the choice has already been made for you regardless of how much you think you made the choice. 

Anything in history that has been untestable at the time or not yet invented has been questioned with great skepticism.  E.g. flying or black holes.  It never meant that it wasn't possible and it never meant that it didn't exist as we now know today.  Same applies with the metaphysical.  Though the metaphysical has revieled itself to people without complicated tests to understand it.  The question that now comes is how can that be proven to someone like you.  I'm not sure other than testing through the same means as others who claim to have experienced it coming from a similar belief as you now hold. 

not so much as he knew free choice would lead to mistakes.

If I remember correctly, that was taken from my explanation of our studying the scriptures and hwo they fit into reality.  it would apply in the same manner as any historian would understand what is true history and what is made up.  I'm sure personal interpretation plays a part, but in order for that historian to be deemed credible, they must have a means of explanation acceptable to others.  Same applies here. 

oh, i know that.  it was in reference to many others who have been asking that of me.   You seem to be smarter than that.

I agree with that statement.  Unfortunately with many on this site, they're stuck with the physical sciences and cant' see beyond that.  My question to those who can see beyond the physical sciences is what means of study do they want to take or intend to take on the subject.  In other words, what means would work for them as far as better understanding the meta-physical.

Again agreed.  There are literally millions of claims around the world that are congruent with each other claiming a meta-physical experience.  It seems that it's not enough for most on this site, so i again go back to asking what people here are looking for.  If you would need the same experience they had, then the logical approach would be to research the common approach to such an experience and replicate it.  The catch is with the meta-physical, the emotional aspect is usually a factor.   IN other words, most who seek God will find him, those who try to test God and not actually look for him aren't taking the same approach the others who did experience him have and thus would not have the same outcome. 

My apologies.  You seem to get it.  Others don't.  It's the only reason why I have continued with it. 

the point I keep trying to make is it has been repeated by independent observers.  There are many people out there like Lee Strobel who saught out to disprove God and in turn found him.  His approach is and has been repeated by others.  Yet there are still those on here who will play the "he convinced hiimself" card and thus we're again back to square 1.  it seems that everyone on here needs to experience it themselves without making the effort.  I know that doesn't apply to literally everyone, but that's what I'm working with here. 

It looks like you're different and if you're willing, we can work on progressing on this understanding and possibly see where it goes.  If you want me to try soemthing to better confirm your understanding with me, then the same would of course apply.

not that much has been presented by many to begin with.  Most of what has been presented is a misunderstanding of true Chrsitianity, so I must ask exactly what you might be referencing to in this instance.

Just as anyone has grasped an understanding of history or the world around them, I have also done.  I have also compared and contrasted wtih opposing views and through that along with learning a bit of the languages and translational issues found what i understand to be true.  These opposing views would not only include non-believer point of views, but also inter-denominational views and inter-religious views.  I then compared all that to what seems to be congruent in history, nature, etc.

In many ways I have tried to explain the above as I did in my last response to this post here.  If what i just said is still unclear, I'll answer any specific questions about it, but keep it focused on my means of understanding and not specifics of what i understand until we're past how I came to understand what i do. 

I will elaborate further to why I don't follow denomination which is because they answer to doctrin and usually do not question the doctrin.  When a challenge to their belief comes, they go directly to the written doctrin and never quesiton that source.  Not a good approach to take.  Most other religions do the same.  We again go beyond the Bible and make sure our understanding coensides with reality in history sciences, etc. 

There is a ton I haven't presented.  A lot because I'm trying to avoid redundant issues by asking what approach people want to take.  One important example... how about take a look at the forum I'm a part of with JPTS Myths, Ledgends, Parables real?  it's going through the Bible step by step focusing on real history and its congruency with the Bible.  Feel free to ask questions about anything we've covered on that site.  Granted it's a little more general than one important example, but maybe from that we can pull an important example out.  

What's hard for me is to pull any particular example out except for the acceptance of God with you because I know that unless you can understand the acceptance of God, most of the other examples aren't going to mean much... or may not mean much because their reasoning will go back to why I believe in the existance of a God in the first place.  

For specifics on the acceptance of God, i can start with a walkthrough of my testimony.  The first step would be how I came to question the existance of God by means of my father becoming a Jehovah's Witness and where it went from there.  

I would love to, but I then would need to ask you specifically where you would need me to start.  In other words, what bit or bits should I be focusing on to explain to you what lead me to my belief.  fi you're going to question what those bits of information might be, all i'm asking of you is a focus.  What direction am I taking... scientific?  historical?  spiritual?  Then to what degree?  Am I going to start in Genesis and get stuck with you on how creation happened, or is there another specifc point of Biblical history you'd have a greater interest in talking about.  It would be logical to pick something that would actually mean something to you and to approach it not as a way to disprove me or prove your understanding, but with an open mind that all is plausible until otherwise empirically shown. 

That's exactly what I've been trying to say

I accept the fact that I dont' have all the answers.  What I'm seeing is the difficulty in coming up with something that satisfies you in some sense is due to the fact that when I ask for specifics as you just mentioned above, people ignore it and argue that I can't present anything.  I take that approach as people expecting the answers to be printed to them like an instruction manuel and not make the effort to understand it.  Until I know exactly what they will actually take interest in, I'm not going to attempt to further an explanation.  I don't becasue due to the experience I've had on here after 2 and 1/2 years, me just spewing out information leads to a dead end conversation because it's not a topic that the participants are willing to take the effort towards.  This is common in any discussion setting and not just on this site.  This approach of seeing what the population's interest is is also a common approach to any discussion setting and not just in this site.  It's sociology. 

I think what i'm trying to get across is it took a lot to convince me. 

A big thing that convinces me is the relationship I have with this God (which is hard to do wtih a non-existant being) though some excuse it as the same as what a child would have with a stuffed animal.  Because they don't know this relationship, would not expect them to understand it and I don't use it as my defense on here. 

The other big thing would be consistantly approaching knowlegable people about specific topics in question related to the Christian God and getting real world answers that not only dont' disprove him, but in many cases support the understanding.  On top of that, the opposing views i have found have simply been rooted in peronal understanding and fail to base on real world reasoning.  

Simply, when you take away all person opinion and perspective and leave facts, God remains a plausible reality.  When you bring in the personal relationship people from around the world have with this God and the congruency of that relationship from one person to the next, the plausibility becomes more confirmed.  Then you add spiritual experiences with people around the world and compare them not only with each individual, but with scriptures and it seems to be even more confirmed. 

This is another example of how you misunderstood my point and how we start losign ground on the conversation.  My simple point was; just like people can comprehend the beginning of everything as a giant explosion causing everything we know to be as explained by the details behind the theory, So can God be explained, which is why many scientific minds will consider God a theory.  It has nothing to do with my comprehension of the scientific process and I would expect you to be a little more intelligent than that be it that we have confirmed the scientific process previously and agreed upon it. 

IT was about people comprehending reality without observing it, not about the scientific process. 

... if in fact alternative explanations are presented.  Sadly i have to say that has been severely lacking on this forum as of late.  If you disagree, then let's start at a specific alternative explanation and discuss it.  I would appreciate that be it that it's the reason why i came to this site in the first place.

Right here i would need to ask you what signs of such pre-programming would you expect to see?  Does not the need for survival and reproduction suggest a slight pre-production right there? 

close to the end of his life, he also questioned his own conclusions on the topic.

Right.  Would you agree that it might be slightly beyond our abilities as humans to fully comprehend the evolution of disease organisms and cell mutations from start to finish?  This would include causeation and environmental conditions that would lead to such mutations. 

I have mentioned that in many ways, discovering God does not answer questions in many ways as it raises more.  Not so much as to question if, but why.  It doesn't mean there is no good explanatino depending on the topic, but its' more of where we are in our comprehension of the topic. 

alright.  a few issues with your question/statement above.

1.  You claim it to be a long random and slow process when in fact God's time is explained to be a lot different than ours, what is 1000 years to us is a day to God (not literally, but as example of the time difference).

2.  What you see as random I see as quite specific and purposeful.  If it was random... I mean literally random, then life would not be so successful.  That is a logical conclusion through the scientific method testing randomness and statistics.  Be it that the possibility of life starting at all was estimated based on the dinamics of the Big Bang Theory at being 1 in 10^124, even if it did start, if it was completely random, it likely would have not continued. 

3. According to the Bible Adam and Eve were designed perfect... with one exception.  They had freedom of choice, or free will.  You see free will as a flaw, but it was not.  Those who saw choice as a flaw created Communism.  Do you agree with that approach? 

4.  You seem to think the way we were "designed" is what causes us to make poor choices.  Really?  How so?

I have a bit of a meteorology background and the general understanding of severe weather and geological occurances is to right an imbalance in the system.  (that's the short explanation)  understanding this point of view, is it logical to conclude that many more would have died if he didn't allow them to happen because the imbalance would not only be uncorrected, but get worse? 

Also, are you suggesting that most people are completely unaware that they are living in a location that might expose them to dangerous and possibly deadly natural occurances? 

"boundaries" contradicts "all" as in "all powerful."

God has the capability of turning you into a frog right now. God has the ability to magically make Hiedi Clume give me a blow job right now. God created the universe according to you, right? So why is it he has a problem with magic tricks? If he is all powerful, then he is capable of doing the absurd, otherwise you cant call him all powerful.

"God" as a concept, as a claim, is a needless superfluous gap filling answer. It is YOU wanting a god to be real. Nothing more. You inflict the same intellectual wound on your own brain because of wishful thinking.

The model you present us makes no logical sense. Once you limit your God  with "boundaries", there is no reason to call it a God.

You are following a natural progression that theists go through when they cant justify absurd claims. More and more people are rejecting the comic book claims of the bible but still want to cling to the god concept itself, instead of giving up on it all together, which is what they should do.

God is the claim of a brain with no brain, no location, that resides everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Tell me what is "natural" about that claim? Sounds super natural to me. Just like Thor making lighting is a super natural claim.

yet "his creation" contradicts the contradiction.  In other words, he chose to put those boundaries in nature, not that he didn't have control... and if you read carefully, you'd see that i wrote that He "chooses" to work within those boundaries leaving open the possibility that he could break those if he wanted.

You're so bent on proving your idea, you forget to look at what's right there in front of you.  Stop trying to prove me wrong and start trying to prove the truth to me.

hmmm. lets' think about this.  What would a child grow up to be if the parents decided to always use their full extent of power over or on or for thier child... and would you get to complain about it like you do?  of course not.

alright... I'll play again.

"God" as imaginary, as a claim, is a needless superfluous gap filling answer.  It is YOU wanting God to be imaginary.  Nothing more.  You inflict the same intellectual wound on your own brain because of wishful thinking...

Sadly we are now starting to sound like dispensationalists.  I thought you were against that state of mind...

You tried to put boundaries in a statement where they weren't.  Next time read.  We've been through this before.

Only in your head my friend.  You try to claim I'm doing somethign that I'm really not... this time it's putting boundaries on God.  I don't know what they are if there are any, but they're not what you're trying to claim they are. 

God putting boundaries on his creation and God being limited by boundaries are 2 very different concepts.

Ok, here's a post that can make progress.  I got scared for a moment that you were running away again, but I'm glad you decided to turn around and confront it.

The answer depends on how you literally define nature.  Is nature what is physically real, or just real?  By definition nature itself does not apply to the spiritual, therefore, it's not natural. 

I prefer to refer to it as meta-physical due to the connotations that supernatural has.  Most take supernatural is non-existant or unreal and I don't want to confuse people when I explain it. 

Meta-physical is a good way of explaining it because the word focuses on bases like "being" in God's case.  It details the idea of something existing outside the physical as we understand it.  To deny an existance outside the physical as we understand it is to say either:

1.  That humans have a full capacity of understanding our universe.  (no scientist would ever agree to that statement)

2.  You have tangeable evidence that proves the concept is impossible.  (not proving a negative, just showing that it's not at all possible for that kind of existance to be)

If you can't example either of the above, then you're S.O.L my friend.

"Allah is real"

"Yahweh is real'

"Isis is real"

"Vishnu is real"

"Bigfoot is real"

"There was a third man on the grassy knoll"

"Octopuses can predict the World Cup in Soccer"

Yea, those claims are so universal they are taught alongside scientific fact, like entropy and gravity and thermodynamics.

Cap, the only thing you, and those outside your pet claim prove, is that humans have vivid imaginations.

Cap, scientific 'evidence' is in no way restricted to the 'physical', the 'material'. The example you gave us way-back, about the house which seemed to have miraculously escaped the fire, was perfectly acceptable in principle, it just did not hold up when examined in a wider context, as we pointed out then.

We don't require a bleeding chunk of God-stuff, just some well-documented examples of some event or phenomena which could not have occurred if something having the specific attributes of your God thing did not exist. Otherwise, even if we cannot explain it, the only honest position is "we don't know the explanation".