mjpb,

The thread is about to close yet again and still no evidence even after seven months, now spanning over two years.

If this evidence can’t even be presented in dot points, then I suspect it is mere obfuscation, and if you find the atheist position so “untenable”, then I certainly see no reason why it can’t be presented in dot points. What I find really strange though, is that this evidence of yours is apparently SO obvious yet, even as a former Christian myself, I have no idea of what you’re referring to, and neither does Philo or George for that matter.

But your apparent lack of interest in keeping the thread alive by leaving it to close like this makes me suspect - as I have suspected all along - that you are waiting for it to close so that your busy period can end and you can continue as a regular poster here on OLO.

I can’t help but wonder if my previous suggestion - that you break the cycle of responding to me and just present this evidence - sapped your enthusiasm for continuing here.

As the scripture says he that doeth the works of God shall know God. Try forgiving your enemy and demonstrating you are genuinely interested in their personal development.

Philo,

Unless by “enemy” you simply mean “opponent”, mjpb isn’t my enemy. I don’t think I’ve ever really had any real enemies.

It may look like I’m getting some bizarre satisfaction out of this without any interest in anyone’s personal development, but in all fairness to myself, I think mjpb has been giving me mixed signals here.

On the one hand, he expresses a desire for the discussion to keep going and even a disappointment when I said earlier that I wouldn’t keep this thread alive (if he wasn’t going to show any interest anyway), then on the other hand, he appears to (secretly) be quite happy for it to close so that his busy period can end with a, “Whoops. Sorry, maybe next time, eh?”, and his regular posting can resume.

But why such a cynical suspicion? Because on Tuesday - as just one example - mjpb had the time to pop in according the “Users Currently Online” list on the forum’s main page (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/), yet couldn’t spare a minute just to keep the thread alive despite it being only days from closing.

Why, it’s almost as if he was only popping in to ensure that no more comments had been posted here with his fingers crossed in the hope that it stayed that way until today. But alas, it looks like this busy period will last at least another 21 days from today.

Back to personal development though, I can assure you that I genuinely do hope mjpb takes away from this what I mentioned on 7 December. What I also hope he takes away from this is the understanding that it is utterly absurd to claim the one can come to faith through reasoning and evidence, and that if you do make such claims, expect to be able to back them up and understand that weaseling one’s way out of such an obligation with sleight-of-hand, or just the hope that the other will run out of puff before you do and simply give up, won’t always work.

Continued...

...Continued

In all fairness to mjpb though, his insistence that he came to faith through evidence and reasoning (let’s just ignore the astonishing contradiction there for a moment) is understandable since most believers feel the need to rationalise their beliefs in one way or another. But perhaps this is another way he can grow; by finding another rationalisation less prone to attack.

Sophisticated theology specialises in this, so perhaps he could adopt one from there. He could insist that god does not actually exist, or simply that others are just not sophisticated enough to understand that which he himself does not understand.

It works for them.

But I already forgive mjpb despite the fact that he hasn’t the courage to admit he went over the top with the “untenable”, “didn’t have enough faith” and “extremist” claims, because I understand that such outrageous claims are a necessity when defending a position that is less rational due to the violation of Occam’s razor - and the sharp end at that.

While you are looking for a physical God you wil never find such. God is spirit and can only be found as your spirit aspires for moral purity.

Philo,

I realise believers don’t think god can be found by looking for something physical, but anything that we can know manifests in reality, is measurable demonstrable and verifiable, and if god is not any of these or beyond them, then we have no way of distinguishing between god and something that doesn’t exist.

<<God is spirit and can only be found as your spirit aspires for moral purity.>>

Unfortunately, until you can define and demonstrate what exactly what a spirit is, this is all fairly meaningless.

'Spirit' and 'spirituality' are words that have been used so often and in so many ways, they've lost all meaning.