because of the recent debate i've been having in the "Jesus... is he Gay?" thread, i've decided to make a new thread so that I can argue eith ppl and not be off-topic. When anyone is ready, ill start the assault.

The only problem I see here is that you will be going to an anti-religious university. Even "Christian" universities allow anti-religious propoganda to be taught.

How do you know it's real? Because Carl Sagan says so? I know that God exists and formed the earth. I know it because He told me through scripture AND (now this is important) through revelation.

Please tell me if and how I'm wrong here.

Your premises are:
Atheism must explain why we/I should not believe in God.
You have experienced no evidence of God's existence.
I have no qualms with these.

The formal argument:
Arg.1
If A then B. If B then C. = If A then C
A therefore C
1. If there is no evidence for the existence of God, then He does not exist.
2. If He does not exist, then I should not believe He does.
3. There is no evidence that He exists.
Therefore I shouldn't believe in the existence of God.

OR

Arg.2
If A then B. A therefore B
1. If I have received no evidence of God's existence, then I should not believe He exists.
2. I have not experienced any such evidence.
Therefore I shouldn't believe in the existence of God.

It seems like you are saying Arg.2 is rational.

Arg.1 is clearly an argument from ignorance. Arg.2 I accept as it operates on rationalism. Essentially, the philosophy that we should fit our beliefs to be proportional to reason, logic, and evidence.

I would never say that if we do not have evidence or reason to believe that then the nonexistence of any spiritual power follows. Rather, I am saying that until such evidence or reason is presented we, if we hold within ourselves any form of dispassionate intellectual honesty, must not believe such propositions.

As I have yet to be presented with such evidence or lines of reason, I can not find it within myself to believe things for which I have no reason to believe.

I have heard many arguments, however I have found all of those to be insufficient, or fallacious. As the standard of evidence and burden of proof both present a great amount of pressure on the believer, I continue an open dialogue. This is not to say that I have not created my own arguments to prove the negative existential propositions that a strong (positive) atheist would wish to validate.

Good news:

Nice to see you post again.
Great to hear that your theological theories are, at least, far more sophisticated than those of mainstream Christianity.
Awesome to see that you understood where my criticism of "Christian Doctrine" was directed.
Your tone and mood is understood. Not a problem at all.
There is no bad news.

I am pleased that I understand your positions. Not that there was any lack of clarity.

A spark of hope in an otherwise predominantly irrational culture.

I don't think that God's existance is provable through words alone. This is the basis of my belief in God. I believe that knowledge can be obtained through feelings as well as senses. Hence, my rejection of strict materialism. I understand that thoughts and feelings are merely electro-chemical actions in the brain. That does not however explain causality. I don't believe miracles are supernatural phenomena. Rather, they are occurences of natural laws acting in a way that current science can not explain. I believe in a God bound to natural laws. I believe He wants us to gain a knowledge of him, and it is through Him directly revealing himself to us. I know He exists because He has caused me to feel it.

I would love to hear them.


Between my duties as a husband, father, student and employee I can only dedicate a limited time to explaining my views. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. (Note: At once this an advertisement and a sincere invitation.) If you would like more in depth discussions you can have the Mormon missionaries visit you, order free videos(which the missionaries will deliver and try to get you to accept visits , or you can wait however long it takes me to find time to post here. I willing to continue our discussion. If you know any Mormons please ask one for a copy of the book of Mormon or order one (I think Barnes and Noble has them, but we give them out free ), as it would help if you could confirm what I say. Edit: or read it online
A disclaimer: Missionaries are akin to salesmen, but different in that they should not use pressure or manipulation. Keep them honest, and they will be able to answer most questions with research. Most missionaries are instructed not to jump into "deep doctrine" because being 19-21 yrs old they often don't know what they're talking about.

Anti-religious universities? I didn't know they exist. Can you elaborate?

By anti-religious university I don't mean to imply that the universities have policies that prohibit or condemn religion(s). I am alluding to the fact that a super majority of instructors in higher education are exponents of areligious or anti-religious thought. For some non-scientific anecdotal evidence read Mike Adams' articles. They will at the least entertain.

Oh. I recently had missionaries visiting, so I could learn more about the Mormon faith, for several weeks. I also felt like getting some decent debate in. Which I did, despite that being against their rules. I also offered them coffee as an awful and cruel joke. They both declined. From these experiences, and exstensive personal study, I have come to the conclusion that The Church of the Latter Day Saints is crazy. It is by far the most manipulative, brainwashing, unreasonable, sexist, racist, and irrational faith within the christian circles that I have yet come across.

To study Josepth Smith is enough to discredit the entire faith. However, I would always give the Mormons this: Their current theology is the most sophisticated of all Christian sects. However, the issue is that they have even less proof than any other Christian sect, not because those other sects infact have more, and that the Mormons have less, but because of the fact that the Mormon faith has a much greater number of assumptions and propositions that can be, far more easily, shown to not be true.

Most directly, the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon and other such divinely translated texts.

I have never been to church in my 14 years of life, but I do believe in God, and heaven and stuff like that.

^What's stopping you? If you truly believed in Jesus, God, Heaven, or any sort of Christianity, you would actually go to church to listen to the gospel. is it that you don't have the time (I doubt that)? Or you're intimidated by the one-hour mass of listening?

Why must one go to church in order to worship God? Cannot one worship Him on his own?

^Well yeah but doesn't a full-fledged Christian go to a bible-based church to listen to the gospel? or listen to the homily the priest preaches (doesn't have to be on a weekly-basis)? And how can you receive communion without church? Sure you can pray in your house but if you've NEVER been to a church, that's saying something

You must receive the sacraments at church.

Why?
I don't think I remember Jesus saying that...

^Well there were rules added. If you want to be a commited Christian then you have to take responsibility without complaining...

Then you'd better dust off that bible and catechism. We receive Jesus' body and blood at church.

While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you;
for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

-Matthew 26:26-28

I'm pretty sure this is meant to be highly symbolic. He never truly commanded that we must go to church and receive sacracments from a priest, did he? To me, that would seem kind of out of character for Jesus to say anyways.

^Ok Nate, think of it this way, when you want to marry someone, you have to go through papers, and ceremonies just to make it official, even though you already love the person and you know the papers don't prove it, but you still do the papers and the ceremonies because it's necessary and legal proof of your commitment.

The sacrements are kinda like that for the Christian community. (ah I hope my analogy makes sense )

But that is a social contruct. The question was, why must we do these things?
If marriage is not required for someone to be in love, or in this case, if communion is not detailed and required by the Christ, why would you have to do it?

All in all, I was just trying to say that you can be a Christian, just as "Christ-like" as any church-goer, even if you do not attend mass or go to church.

That's a bad analogy; a marriage doesn't occur to prove love to anyone - it's to legally bind a couple to eachother. That doesn't prove that they love eachother. I know plenty of married, or soon to be married, couples that really don't necessarily love eachother enough to be fully committed. You know if you're committed to someone. That's cementing you as a couple so that you share legal benefits and debts that they may encounter.

How can you be Christ-like if you don't even know a phrase or rule from the bible? This argument started when I said it annoys me when Christians say they ARE Christian when they don't even know a thing about their religion. It's their responsibility to practice religion. That's what it is. It's an obligation for those who were baptized to know what's going on, the teachings, gospels. If the responsibility seems to be too much or not enough then convert or just stop being a Christian all together.


//edit

Ah I knew something was wrong with it..but oh well, I tried my best giving an example

Well, I understand and often share your frustration. However, you can read the Bible from home and on your own. Church isn't a cornerstone of christian theology. Or at least, I would hope it wasn't.

^eh there's a rule in the bible (somewhere, I don't pay attention really) that says you have to go to church every week (sabbath)

Yeah, it goes "Keep the sabbath," then it goes, "Don't keep the sabbath."
The Bible is awesome.

^very, it practically writes out my life

He never commanded that we must go to church? Come on now. I thought you said you used to be a Catholic. You should at least know this one.

The Third Commandment: Remember to Keep Holy the Sabbath Day.

As for receiving from a priest, clergy are not the only ministers in the sacraments. I'm almost postive Baptism is the only sacrament absolutely necessary for salvation. But priests are not the only people that can perform a baptism. Pretty much anyone can perform a baptism! Of course, there are rules that must be followed for the baptism to be valid.

Reconciliation is necessary because we sin. But why can't we just confess directly to God? Priests are necessary to absolve us. They are the successors of the disciples who were given this ability. Read 2 Corinthians 5:18: "Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation."

If you think receiving the Eucharist is symbolic, then I suggest you read John 6:32–71.

That's it for tonight.