Not_Now.Soon,

Bravo. The error many believers make on pages such as this or in life generally is to try to explain their belief in the deity by logical reasoning. But that is an impossibility. The deity can neither be proven nor disproven through logic.

All you can do, is what you have done. That is to explain that God exists for you and express hope that others will come to know God as you have, There is nothing more to be said or argued.

I used to have two juxtaposed items in my office - a statue of The Thinker ( http://openclipart.org/image/2400px/svg_to_png/224300/The-Thinker-Auguste-Rodin-Grayscale.png ) and a picture of Christ praying in the desert ( http://smartandrelentless.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/jesus-praying-750x375.jpg ).

Two men in similar poses doing similar things. One is exploring the inner mind, the other exploring ultimate mind.

(Unfortunately the statue fell from the shelf one clumsy day and is no more. It was decapitated. I wanted to blame Islamists but decided it as caused by an even more fundamentalist notion. . . gravity)

I have sought your God but have not found him. I envy your 'discovery'. To me, your praying is an internal dialogue. To you its a discussion with the deity. Who's to say who is right...maybe both.

As expected you get the usual attacks from those who are utterly convinced of their superior understanding. Kudos for resisting the temptation to retaliate. For these people the absence of evidence = evidence of absence. But that is rarely true. These people will happily, even eagerly, accept all sorts of unprovable notions as fact. and then mock others who accept other unprovable notions as being naive or ignorant. Oh and then assert their tolerance of the other.

The civilisation we have inherited was built by people such as yourself. It will only survive if people such as yourself continue to espouse their views OR if others who haven't discovered your deity live their lives as though they have.

'unner,

So, now the Old Testament trumps the New?

<<The psalmist was certainly right to declare that a fool says in his heart their is no god.>>

“... but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Matthew 5:22)

Looks like you need to study your Bible a little harder.'

quoting as an authority what you don't believe in AJ? Not suprising as your faith has no rational answers. Pathetic!

That depends on which deity you’re referring to, mhaze.

<<The deity can neither be proven nor disproven through logic.>>

The classical omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent god is easy to discredit using logic.

<<One is exploring the inner mind, the other exploring ultimate mind.>>

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by “ultimate” mind?

<<As expected you get the usual attacks from those who are utterly convinced of their superior understanding. Kudos for resisting the temptation to retaliate. For these people the absence of evidence = evidence of absence … These people will happily, even eagerly, accept all sorts of unprovable notions as fact. and then mock others who accept other unprovable notions as being naive or ignorant. Oh and then assert their tolerance of the other.>>

Wow, there’s a lot of accusations there. Mind pointing out which ones apply to whom, and providing some examples? Or would you rather keep it all vague, with no specific examples, lest you have your accusations shown to be utter BS?

My guess is it’ll be the latter.

<<[Civilisation] will only survive if people such as yourself continue to espouse their views OR if others who haven't discovered your deity live their lives as though they have.>>

That sounds like a rather bold, board, and presumptuous claim, especially given that you would have little idea of what Not.Now_Soon actually believes. What if his deity is against stem cell research? Have you considered the impact of resistance to such beneficial persuits? Or does this claim of yours pertain to just having something called “Christianity” around, while taking care to ignore just how frequently secularism has had to drag it kicking and screaming into modernity since the Enlightenment?

Furthermore, how have you determined what exactly civilisation requires now, and what it will require in the future, given that our needs are constantly changing? What worked in the past does not necessarily work now, and will not necessarily work in the future.

I think you need to unpack this claim of yours a little. It doesn’t look to me like you’ve thought it through very well.

Re AJPhilips: "You, Cossomby .... are off topic." I don't believe I was; just explaining why I will pass on Not.Now.Soon's advice in a non-confrontationist manner. I will be more explicit, though still polite.

Dear Not.Now.Soon, Thank you for your personal recommendation to adopt your religious belief. I accept that you feel you have gained strength from a belief in your god. However, I do not feel that need to believe in a god in order to feel strong and to have a philosophy based on the golden rule: "do unto others as you would have them do to you".

You write as though the god you believe in is 'the' god. But humans have and still do believe in many different gods; today, the closely related three Abrahamic faiths each act as though their version (or sub-version, eg Protestant v. Catholic, Sunni v. Shia) is the only valid one. This has led to a lot of cruelty and persecution between religions. Although I was brought up in the CofE, going to Sunday school and church, and being confirmed, this discrepancy was apparent to me before I was 10. I puzzled: if people from different religions believed that they were the only ones with the truth, and everyone else was wrong, maybe, just maybe, everyone was wrong, and no-one could claim to know the truth, or the only true god; maybe there was no god, and the concept was invented by humans to explain the world and their own existence. I became an atheist in my teens, and later a scientist.

I am sorry that believers are getting a lot of mocking and criticism these days, but then so are atheists. I'll do a deal with you: even though we both believe the other to be wrong or at least misguided, I won't criticise your beliefs, and in return I expect you not to criticise or try to convert me, and especially not to insist that I live by your version of the rules.

Regards, Cossomby

A specific question to Not.Now.Soon: I am puzzled by your statement: "No, if He did not love you, He would not leave believers here to be mocked, chided, or even killed in the most horrible ways."

There are three negatives here, and I can't unravel them. Do you mean that if he did love people, he 'would not leave' believers here to be mocked, chided, etc.? Or that if he loved people, he 'would leave' believers to be mocked and chided? Or if he did 'not' love people, he 'would leave' believers to be mocked etc. or he 'would not leave' them to be mocked and chided? I am seeking clarification of your meaning.

It's difficult to spell out all the possible ways of interpreting this multi-negative statement.

I wasn't about to add anything to this discussion, as a 'non-believer or atheist' or whatever label you want smack squarely on my forehead. I've always believed in one thing with the Christian Religion. If it gives an individual comfort, so why rip it down, just to unsettle someone's belief system in their hour of need. To do such a thing is a real dog act in my view.

And those who wish to resort to some academic argument that's calculated to disprove the existence of God and/or Jesus Christ, to me at least, it just smacks of academic arrogance. It's as if I say; because I have an MA in Theology, I 'know' God does exist. Conversely, another similar academic with his research, might claim, God can't possibly exist. Which really surprised me coming as it did from somebody as learned as DAVID F, with his strong attack on those who claim to be true believers in God.

Nobody can 'prove' or 'disprove' God's existence - It's my 'personal believe' there's no God, or any other supernatural being, which will save us all, at the time of our death. I say this neither to support other non-believers, or to upset true believers.