"Um. Have you asked "If you exist, I want to know, so please show me?""

Sure, I suspect everyone has. I even meant it when I asked.

"There is no god" is not a statement that can ever be proven. "There is a god" is, but you first need to agree on a definition of a god and produce something that can be shown to meet all the requirements.

d31, you are so correct. Science as we know it exists within our bubble, this natural universe, but one must be willing to at least consider a greater reality before one can seriously consider accepting or rejecting God.

@GDF, awaiting an answer. And by the way, I'm not asking just to be a smart-aleck. I think that a crucial preliminary discussion for something like "How do you know there's a God" is how we know things in general.

"For those claiming with certainty that God does not exist, where is your evidence?"

There is not a single trace of this all powerful being here on Earth or anywhere in the discovered universe. If this being was so powerful and omniscient, there'd be evidence of it everywhere, yet all we see is one theistic theory of the physical world after another being overthrown. We have materialistic accounts of the universe's existence which have strong evidentiary support without the hand of 'god'. We have materialistic accounts for how life has progressed without the hand of 'god' .We have materialistic accounts of how the universe is structured that completely reject god-based theories. We have materialistic accounts for the origin of human beings which completely reject god based theories. We have materialistic accounts of meteors which completely reject god-based theories. All the materialistic accounts have strong evidentiary support. There is not a single solitary piece of evidence backing up any of the god-based hypotheses.

But since belief in god/religion whatever word you want to call it is a celebration of irrationality and anti-science, none of that will persuade a single theist.

@Mujus

Yes, I do. Are you going somewhere with this line of questioning, or just passively questioning my character?

Abge, even if you consider the possibility of the existence of God a random choice, if you seriously ask God, he will give you the evidence you need. I refer you to Thomas in the Bible, a man who wouldn't believe until he felt the nail holes and the wound in Jesus' side. And God didn't leave him to perish in an agony of doubt--He wanted to know the truth, and God revealed it to him. Are you familiar with the story?

"Putin, umm, no, that's not how I'm defining God."

This 'personal relationship' sounds like you're bypassing the requirement of worshipping in public via the proper channels. No community, just you and your god.

@Mujus

I've already told you I've sincerely tried to reach out to god in the past and received nothing. Not sure what you expect me to do besides that.

@ Abge, I am not questioning your character. Christians are as weak as everyone else in terms of character traits. We don't know God because we are "good," but because we need God's power to save us from our sins, and then slowly to change us into his image--morally perfect. But that doesn't happen on earth.

""There is no god" is not a statement that can ever be proven."

Not true. There is no god in the universe is equivalent to saying there is no unicorn on earth or there is no purple jacket in your closet. Within a defined space, negatives can be proven. If the excuse is that god is "beyond physical space" then that's a nonsensical statement. No being can be beyond physical space and still be a being.

The question of whether a god exists is nonsensical precicely *because* it cannot be proven to be false. See my statement about invisible space gorillas.

"No being can be beyond physical space and still be a being."

In other words, you're assuming what you're trying to prove. Clever.

It can be proven to be false. All claims of god involve interventions in the physical world - example - the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Annihilate that claim, and the whole edifice of Christianity falls apart.

No I'm not assuming. It's the equivalent of a square circle. What is the definition of a being?

@ Putin, there you go again with your wild assertions. God is the author of all creation, and you can see him in the math and physics and biology and... the immense complexity of the human brain, and more.

Statements in scripture of various religions can be shown to be false, sure, but not the basic question of whether something exists or not.

I'm stilling waiting for someone to explain my line of reasoning in my OP is wrong. What exactly am I missing out on, besides this alleged bond with god, which no one can possibly know if I already feel or not.

I cannot prove there are no invisible space gorillas. It is impossible to prove there are no invisible space gorillas. That does not make it rational to believe in them.

A being, putin, is something that exists. Nothing in that implies physical, a priori.

Putin, there is WAY more legal-historical proof in sheer numbers of ancient documents that Jesus rose from the dead than there is for the fact that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, which is accepted history.

@abge, your epistemology is what's wrong. You assume that evidence as evaluated by your brain is the right way to come to beliefs about things. Well, so it generally is. What you fail to recognize is that if your worldview were true, it wouldn't be. If your worldview were true, your belief in any scientific fact would be as baseless and irrational as the religious faith of the most blindly fideistic religious believer.

Abge it's not really a feeling, it's a relationship, a surprising and growing one. Scary in many ways. But oh, so real.

Semck, that's deep!

Caesar crossing the Rubicon is very plausible in the light of changes observed by many observers with very different opinions on the matter (such as the appearance of Caesar's legions south of the Rubicon). A few minutes with a search engine and I could produce several accounts. For the resurrection of Christ we have as our only evidence scripture. More evidence, you say?

"You assume that evidence as evaluated by your brain is the right way to come to beliefs about things."

That's complete balderdash. If god made our brains and then expected us to completely ignore them to have a relationship with him, then I want nothing to do with him.

"There is no god in the universe is equivalent to saying there is no unicorn on earth or there is no purple jacket in your closet. Within a defined space, negatives can be proven. If the excuse is that god is "beyond physical space" then that's a nonsensical statement. No being can be beyond physical space and still be a being."

A curious statement that presupposes humanity's knowledge of all things. There are still vast stretches of this our own planet that no human foot has trod upon. There could very well be unicorns in the unexplored jungles of Borneo for all you know; they did find Hobbits on the nearby island of Flores a few years ago, you know. There could very well be a God (or gods) hiding out in any of those 8 (of 12) dimensions our primitive scientists have theorized about but not yet explained or explored. I believe science will eventually be able to prove (or disprove) the existence of God, but that could be tens, hundreds, or thousands of thousands of years from now.

http://www.tikihumor.com/wp-content/uploads/tiki-humor/2011/09/There-be-a-shit-storm-a-brewin.jpg

"That's complete balderdash. If god made our brains and then expected us to completely ignore them to have a relationship with him, then I want nothing to do with him."

He didn't. You're the one ignoring your brain. Because my argument isn't balderdash at all. The fact is, you have no good argument (in your worldview) for why the sun will rise tomorrow.

And don't tell me because it has in the past. As a being in a purposeless universe, you have no omniscience by which to know that it will continue to follow its past patterns.