The bad things doesn't have to do with proving or disproving religion. But the religious system supports those bad things. It's a system of control. And does everything to keep this control.



Neither nor. Prophets have the bad manner not to provide proofs of their visions. A vision is no proof. You can meet lots of people with visions in special locations nowadays by the way. And they can heal it now.



I never believe. I prefer to know. That's the big difference between us

When somebody does a so called miracle then i want to find out how he did it. Burning bush? Hmm, i have a lighter here. Easy. Burning down a town is a bit more complicated. I've seen volcano eruptions that spits fire though. So it was surely a natural cataclysm. Easy. Giving people bread? I go to a baker in such a case. And so on. I know of no so called miracle that didnt rely at some tricks. In the end there is just dust left from your so called miracles. Or some elements at work. Absolutely nothing that couldn't be explained. Tricks.

You tell us about an almighty god though. Why would an almighty god need to use tricks? Why communicate through some very doubtful people? Why not appear, and proof its existance? Whoosh, all doubts gone at once.

Give me a proof that your god exists. Not cheating miracles. Or Simon said. Or it is written. Provable facts please. Everything else will not convince me, sorry

But that is the problem, and we've been at that point before. There was no proof in the past. There is no proof now. There will never be a proof. It is called faith, not knowledge. There cannot be a proof anyways. There is no god.

There is a fundamental difference between the way we think. I think I understand it now, it's good.

You say you are relying only on provable facts, but I disagree. I think your rejection of God is just as emotional as my belief. How can I say this?

Let me provide an example:
There is a person who murders people. He murders them and he takes their money and he lives off of this method. He thinks murder is good, because without it, he wouldn't know what to do. Prove that murder is wrong.

For the record, I believe that murders is wrong for two reasons. First, I have a very bad feeling when I hear of someone being murdered. I 'feel' it is wrong because I wouldn't want it to happen to me or anyone I know. Second, I believed the prophets, when they said that God commanded us not to murder.

We have feelings for a reason. I don't believe that all truth is something that can be proven or disproven, it is intuitive. If you don't agree with this, please prove that murder is wrong.

You should really explain this with a different example. Rejecting an idea in this case is often very rational!

I do get what you're hinting at though, but it's a matter of getting caught up in semantics;

Example: When I say I literally know something is true, I believe the test to figure out whether or not something is true, was acceptable enough and indeed 'proved' beyond reasonable doubt that something to be true.

So ultimately I must be having faith in facts because I believe it is or accept it as know-ledge. Of course having faith in a method is different from having faith in something that can not be tested at all regardless of the method.



We don't have to prove murder is wrong, because God has nothing to do with natural intuition or 'feeling' something is the right or wrong thing to do. This is obviously also known as 'morality', right?

Contrary to what a lot of Christians think, morality isn't exclusive to people with faith in a certain religion only.

In fact, read your Bible and you'll see 'Christians' murder, rape or what not.

Cheers

Surely you don't believe that the origin of all matter is proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Besides, it is well known that only math has proofs, science only provide evidences for theories. Even math has its grey areas, nothing in the universe can be proven absolutely.

But in contrast there are plenty of intangible, immaterial things that can be proved absolutely. For example your willpower is absolute, also your imagination is absolutely boundless.

A survey will find that there are many non-material things which can be proved in absolute terms, and in contrast no material thing can be proved absolutely. Therefore aren't non-material things more "real" than material?

Since material things had to have an origin, it makes sense that they would originate in the non-material. In other words, for the universe to emerge from no time and no space, it would need to have been caused by something which had no time/space limitation.
I don't think that at all, I agree 100% that Christians do not have the exclusive ownership of morality. However, Christians have long seen the inability of mankind to uphold morality, therefore enters Jesus who pays the price for the 'debt' of immorality.

True Christians follow Jesus, they do not follow a set of moral codes.

Moral codes cannot be obeyed by humanity, history shows that.

I have not been able to read through all the posts here, but I did want to respond to the thought about there being or not being a god or gods:

The default position should be one of skepticism (no matter WHAT subject). It is easy to accept the concept of "nothing" because it does not require any answers and, thus, no questions. As a result, it is the default position. When someone says the universe came into being via X, Y or Z, then the default position of skepticism is to say, "No! But let's test to see!" So even the Big Bang (and other theories) was treated from a skeptical viewpoint when first presented. Subsequent tests on the concept show that it is a possibility. This chips away at skepticism.

The same logic should be applied to the concept of god or gods. When we first encounter the concept we should immediately say, "No!" and then begin to apply tests to see if there is any validity to the idea. There are many things that we cannot test about the concept of god or gods, but there are things, in relation to this concept, that can be. So far these tests do not validate the concept, but quite the opposite. In this manner, the skeptical stance is maintained.

For example, both those for god(s) and those against tend to agree that SOMETHING is eternal. It could be a god (who is then the first cause and creator of all things) or it could be the universe itself ... that matter is eternal. Both thoughts need to be approached from the skeptical point of view ... disbelieving both, but with a willingness to test the concepts to see if there is any truth in them. The funny thing is, it is a FACT that the universe exists. This we can prove. But we cannot prove (or disprove) that a god exists. From a skeptical point of view, the universe (matter) already has a hand up on being the eternal existent item. There is proof for the universe (matter), but not for god. Further, we can test for things like the age of the universe and test theories about its current beginnings and concepts about cycles (expansion, contraction, etc) and see if they support ideas and beliefs about the universe. But, again, the concepts of a god or gods cannot be tested. From a skeptical point of view, there is infinitely more evidence for the universe being self-existent WITHOUT a creator (or an intelligent designer) than for there being one. The result is that the likelihood of a god or god(s) existing is virtually nil. We simply cannot substantiate the claim.

If we do not start from the position of being skeptical, then we could, in all likelihood, start with a false assumption and accepting it to be true. For example, the intelligent design advocate assumes that every intricate thing requires a maker. No one would find a watch lying on the ground and assume it just popped into existence! However, those that study such things as Quantum Mechanics (and some other disciplines) discover complex things being created from nothing all the time without the guidance of an intelligent hand behind them (i.e. things being coming into existence without a cause). Again, their work also needs to be approached from the point of being a skeptic, but their ideas can be tested and tried to see if their is truth in them. The concept of god cannot. As a result, he cannot exist or cannot be known.

Well this is just a different mind set, my mind knows that matter couldn't have come into existence by itself.

Cannot be known by you, perhaps, only time will tell.
If you would care to enlighten me about how complex things are created from nothing I would be very interested, but simply stating that 'some people' have proven that matter comes from nothing 'all the time'is not sufficient for me.However it is most likely that you know close to nothing about the subject and I honestly don't expect that you could dig anything up...so I really don't expect you to try. However maybe your friend jcl can help you come up with something, because obviously he is very knowledgeable about quantum physics... and I'm dying to hear about it.

Although these claims are absolutely intuitive , they are false
Quantum mechanics claim that matter \ energy must exist without the need of an origin \ creator
Although this claim is absolutley non intuitive, it is true being supported by many lab evidences

like what evidences?

This is an interesting thread, and I've tried to read the majority of the posts here over the last week, but it seems like most of them go back and forth between the proof or no proof thing. There is no proof either way, so it seems that most of the posts are rhetorical with the expected result simply being another reply about proof, or the lack of.

In the face of a lack of ability to ever prove anything, wouldn't be it more beneficial to argue the logic of a particular point of view? We have the ability to think logically, I'd think that would make a much more interesting conversation/debate. Forget for a minute what's written in a book, or what someone has said, but from our total life experience what does logic dictate.

Sorry to jump into the middle of things, but after taking the time to read most of this I thought it might be alright to drop in a post...

I have observed it a thousand times that things falls downwards. That is knowledge. It is repeatable, it is repeatable by ME. And never changes.
I can count a tenthousand times. Two and two will always be four. That is knowledge. It is repeatable, it is repeatable by ME. And never changes.

It doesn't change for me, it doesn't change for any others. It is provable and repeatable. This stuff exists.

That is nothing emotional. I don`t need to believe into an apple that it falls down. It will fall down in any cases as long as there is no other force that pulls it upwards. I also don't need to believe that two and two is four. It simply is four. No matter how much gods or demons i hire to change that.

Okay, you say you have a god here. Nothing at that concept is provable or repeatable. Not for me, nor any others. It's even the opposite. Most stuff in the book that claims to be the proof for the existance of a god is disproven by other facts. Which just can lead to one conclusion: this stuff called god doesn't exist. And i don't need a feeling for that. Just cool thinking.

That is the difference between us. As told, i prefer to know instead to believe



What we have here is one of the reasons for religion. Humans needs rules that allows them to live with each other without killing each other in the very first moments. They need laws. Religion provides such laws. Religion controlled the people.

That is why religion was once necessary. There was no police everywhere and no equal laws like nowadays.

In that ancient times the scientic knowledge was at the beginning. Gods was the only possible explanation for all those ongoning things. In those ancient times just strong gods survived. Weaker gods simply got forgotten. To be attractive to the masses such a god needs to be strong therefore. The masses just bow to a strong being. They don't listen to a weak god.

That is why a cruel god survived. With the concept of a heaven and a hell because folks prefer easy concepts. A god that kills and burns down whole towns when the people doesn't do what this god wants them to do. Your god of love

I personally trust more in the laws of my country than into religious laws. I dislike the ethic that is behind religion. I dislike these ancient concepts that doesn't longer fit in our times.