You are aware there's a difference between the first hand evidence of billions of real people and the imagined opinions of a massively smaller number of the long dead?

We could provide several billion witnesses ready to swear that he exists? How many witnesses to something do you need before you start to find it convincing? I am confident that far more people will honestly claim to have experienced God than will claim to have experienced Australia, and I'm fairly ...

@Octavious: I think this is actually quite important. If Adam and Eve had obeyed God's instructions, and had kept away from the tree of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, you would give your life to change Adam and Eve's decision, and to make sure they defied God's word. That's what you're sa...

I remain a little confused about your belief in God's power and domain. It seems to rest on the idea that there are concepts / rules that, once brought into existence, even God can't fine tune. So if "free will" means "free will", God has to abide by some absolutist version wherein he never gets in...

I'm even more concerned with the answer "maybe it is an evil and terrible, but God will fix it in the next life". Both of these things could be true, but they're both totally unfalsifiable - no matter what evil happens, these two answers are akin to the faithful giving God a get-out-of-jail free ca...

If God's domain is infinite, why couldn't it be the case that every weapon up to weapons of mass destruction is possible, but weapons of mass destruction are not. It seems profoundly strange and unfair that the right of very very very few humans to the moral choice of whether or not to use an atomi...

So in your view suffering has to exist for personal choices, morality, love, etc. to be meaningful. But how much suffering needs to exist for these things to matter? Why couldn't we get by with some smaller amount of suffering? We certainly suffer less today than most people did in the past. Would ...

Our difference, as I see it, is that I would choose* to minimise human suffering, even if this limits the extent of human pleasure, whereas you would like to maximise the possibility for pleasure, even if this also maximises the amount of suffering. What a hedonist you are. *Not that I can actually...

Nope, I literally said I would willingly die to prevent your nightmare vision of humanity constrained by cosmic straightjackets

Yes. Ah, then we have identified the chief reason for our disagreement. What you find preferable I find abhorrent and repulsive to the extent that I would willingly die to prevent it. This has been quite enlightening, but does suggest a zero chance of us ever coming close to agreement You would wil...

Out of curiosity, would you prefer to live in a universe where there was no suffering and no evil, if it meant that nothing you ever did would have any consequence and love and joy were mere shadows of what now exists? Yes. Ah, then we have identified the chief reason for our disagreement. What you...

Can I also ask (and I apologise for going on and on).... If Adam and Eve had never eaten the forbidden fruit. If God's original command to Adam and Eve had been obeyed. What would have happened? You talk as if original sin was inevitable. But if it was, WHY WERE ADAM AND EVE GIVEN THE CHOICE??? Wha...

So, if a man beats his wife every Monday, but is kind and loving to her for the rest of the week, you think that's ok, right? Because the occasional beating helps her appreciate the kindness and love she receives the rest of the time. Right? If you have no interest in taking the conversation seriou...

I don't think such a thing is possible. The observable universe does not suggest the existence of a God. Neither does the observable universe suggest that God can't exist. Of course it is possible. I refuse to believe that you have such a pitiful imagination that you are incapable of such a task. T...

Countless millions of people used to think the Earth was flat. Do you? Prove it. The vast majority of people didn't have an opinion or even hold a concept of the Earth as a planet, be it flat or spherical, in the first place. They believed that their bit of the universe was flat if it looked flat, ...

To give context to my question, which you side-stepped: If God is omnipotent and omniscient, and if babies who are not sinful die of leukaemia, then God either plans for them to die of leukaemia, or he wilfully permits it when he could easily stop it. I'd like to know how a benevolent, loving, all-...

It suggests that maybe Athens had it right and that sortition is the best form of democracy

He doesn't So you believe in a version of God that is not omnipotent? Interesting. Nope, I simply don't use that to jump to bizarre conclusions purely for the sake of making God easier to dismiss I challenge you to come up with a version of God that is consistent with the observable universe and wh...

He doesn't

I don't see what that has to do with whether babies are sinful. God thinks that some babies are sinners and should face punishment. This concept disgusts me. For someone who doesn't believe you have a very firm idea in your mind of what God is. I suspect that you create a personal God that you find...