...Continued

<<But the more explanations you need to explain away an experience, the less likely those explanations have merit.>>

The likeliness is determined by how rational the explanation is (and how rational it is could be determined by the fact that we can know that, say, co-incidences happen; whereas, we don’t know whether a god exists). One could invent an infinte number of bizarre and fictional possibilities, but that doesn’t make the more rational possbilities any less likely.

<<As for the experiences themselves I gave you two figurings. One is that to judge mine, you have to first judge me. If I am rational and sensible, then there is no reason to doubt what I account to have happened.>>

Yes, and I explained that this means nothing, because even intelligent, generally rational, and trustworthy people can believe irrational things.

<<The problem with [theological paradoxes] is that even if you find a theological issue to try to disprove God, if you know God exists because of your experience then the theological issue is a moot point ...>>

How could you know that a god, which has been disproven, exists when it’s been disproven to exist. This sounds to me like the ultimate form of denial.

<<Sound logic is only sound if it has enough information to not be misinformed.>>

Logic is independent of what we believe or are informed of.

<<You challenged me to reconcile those theological issues. I assume you did not think there could be rational to counter them.>>

Correct. There isn’t.

<<But as said befor ... what difference do they make?>>

The difference would be that god could not possibly exist in the way that you believe he does.

<<But to offer you a reconciliation to your challenges, I did that.>>

No, you sidestepped the free will paradox, and somewhat conceded the paradox behind the idea of prayer changing anything.

<<If we do not pray how will God answer them?>>

This is painfully tautological. God could still do the same thing, it just wouldn’t be answering a prayer.

Continued…

...Continued

<<He will allow us to pray before answering the prayer in the way He has already decided.>>

Can he allow us to pray in a way that he hasn’t already decided (there’s the paradox)?

<<Evolution is not a reliable standard of thought to be able to dismiss your own experiences.>>

Evolution isn’t a standard of thought. It’s a field of science.

<<If you do dismiss them over evolution then I have to question your experiences as a whole.>>

They were along the same lines as your experiences. Unless, of course, you have some more extraordinary experiences to tell me about?

<<The original element of evolution based on biological elements has it's merits, but there are also other explanations as well.>>

No, there aren't. Apparently you are unaware of what the evidence for evolution is.

<<Similarities between species ... might exist due to having a similar environment.>>

So, you think the only evidence for evolution is a similarity between species?

<<Another explanation for evolutionary findings is the same explanation for doubting answered prayer. It was just coincidence.>>

And with this, I can conclude that you know absolutely nothing about evolution. How is it, then, that paleontologists knew exactly where to look for the whale’s land ancestors?

<<The bible is a solid foundation because of it's own authorship (inspired by God) …>>

As Toni Lavis has noted, this reasoning is painfully circular.

<<... and by the wisdom held with in it.>>

What about the unwise things in the Bible, such as slavery and some of the things Jesus said on the Sermon of the Mount? Are they evidence that the Bible is NOT the word of God?

Drear AJ Phillips,

There are several things I'd like to explain further, offer as a response, or just correct you on. However, in this site there's a limit to the words we use, as well as a limit to the posts. For the purposes of this site, that makes sence so to draw many opinions and gather more of a community's voice instead of having one or two people dominate their specific viewpoints or battle it out with long unending arguing.

So from there where should I go? Each day I respond, I've chosen what to respond to and what was less important to spend words on. Should I focus on my experiences? Give more details on them and show they aren't like your discription of them? Give more examples? Continue on theology or paradoxes? Reply to several sentence replies you gave with just as short a retort so neither of us has any more siginifantly to gain?

No. I will say this instead. This topic is old enough and strayed from it's origional purpose. I think our discussion has given at least enough merrit to students being allowed to talk about religion in schools because there's apparently a lot to talk about. I want you to know that what I've had happen in my life has convinced me of God being real. The details aren't important, because it's not your life. But the experiences of God being in our lives is real. Search for Him yourself or do other reasurch looking into other people's stories. No one shares about finding car keys, they tell about the strange and the amazing; the encouraging and the frightening. Either the world is full of liars, or there really is more to it then you wish to give it credit. But no doubt you will find may a story.

Also, don't be nieve about logic. Without information to draw on, logic loses it's merit. The best logical conclusion is based on good reasoning based on the information you have available, as well as having enough information available to have a clear grasp of the sitution.

Answering everything you've brought up will do me no good, and the way you're responding it'll do you no good either. There's not enough writing space to address it all to the measure that is needed to address each of them, and you're focus on the things not addressed will only make me bitter to the conversation, because it's not feasible to address it all with out more time and word space.

Let's let this conversation retire. There's no point to continue on in this kind of way

I’m mostly happy to leave it there, Not_Now.Soon. However, there are two points which I can’t let slip through the keeper:

<<Either the world is full of liars, or there really is more to it then you wish to give it credit.>>

This is a false dichotomy. There is a third possibility: that some people are simply mistaken.

<<Without information to draw on, logic loses it's merit. The best logical conclusion is based on good reasoning based on the information you have available, as well as having enough information available to have a clear grasp of the sitution.>>

Here you are confusing logic and logical conclusions. In your first sentence, you appear to be talking about logic alone, then, in the very next sentence, you start talking about the conclusions.

Everything is what it is, isn’t what it isn’t, and nothing is neither or both.

This is the three foundational laws of logic summarised in one statement. The above statement doesn’t change according to evidence or observations. These are unchangeable logical absolutes, and they are foundational to all logic, as described by the Law of Identity, the Law of Noncontradiction, and the Law of the Excluded Middle.

Every bit of reasoning which we engage in, every belief we hold, every conclusion which we come to, can all be deduced back to these foundational laws of logic. Logic doesn’t change because we find new evidence, and it certainly doesn’t change because we have experiences and assume that a god is responsible for them when there are other more rational explanations.

Actually, Not_Now.Soon, I should note that when we get down to a quantum level, our logic certainly does seem to come into question (e.g. causation), which is why so many theists are now trying to use use the weirdness of quantum mechanics to shoehorn god into science, but this hardly means that subjective experiences have to ability to change foundational laws of logic.