typo alert: *Now, talking about the New Testament that does not go against what I said God can and cannot do. If you think there is a place, tell me where.*

His position from you state obi is fairly reasonable - he is agnostic but chooses to believe in God. You can't fault that.

Now it's time for him to tell us why we should too or else this actually is a waste of time.

@obi: My point was to debate which is better, choosing to believe that God exists or choosing to believe he doesn't.

Okay folks.. Even in a rational perspective, you can't prove anything of God's existence.

If evil is defined as stopping free will... then stopping a bear from mauling my child is evil. Penning in cattle for eventual slaughter is evil. Cutting grass and squishing a poisonous spider are both evil. I guess the way out of that is to deny that anything other than humans have free will. But then, how likely is that? ...and based on what evidence do we conclude that?

@Putin:

Huh.

You know, I've never thought of that, as either a religious Jew or now as an agnostic...

But that IS interesting--if it says not to worship other gods, doesn't that seem to imply God might be afraid folks might buy another subscription to another faith and switch him off like so many Dish Network viewers turning to DirecTV (seriously, if you don't have it, folks, and you like sports, GET IT, SOOOOO MUCH BETTER...MLB NETWROK, NHL NETWORK, and NFL SUNDAY TICKET=ALL THE GAMES ON SUNDAY!) :D

@Thucy: I don't consider myself agnostic, but I guess you could say that.
"Now it's time for him to tell us why we should too or else this actually is a waste of time."
Ah, yes, evidence time. My next post will include my evidence for God. No one post please until I post again.

@Conservative Man:

BULL. SHIT.

To be inelegant, but blund.

From your OPENING to the thread...

"How about we debate the existence of God?"

How about we debate the existence of God? =/= Is it BETTER to believe or not.

I just want to know which god.

"My point was to debate which is better, choosing to believe that God exists or choosing to believe he doesn't." I seriously don't think we "choose" what to believe... we believe because we are convinced by evidence or feeling or whatever. If I "choose" to believe in something that I don't think is likely then I'm lying - either to you or to myself.

No no no. You can not present evidence for God that will convince me.

What I am asking you to do instead is tell me why believing in God is a good thing.

I prefer a life which is filled with spiritual experience. I wonder if Atheists have any feelings of spirituality.

Also I should add CM that if you believe there is any good evidence one way or another about whether there is a God then you are certainly not agnostic.

@CM: so God changed his mind? God has different consciousnesses? So he's not all-knowing and all-thinking?

I'm sorry, but I'm calling bullshit on you. God, if you believe in him, by his actions has decreed that it is not okay to commit certain acts, but it is okay to murder people, and that he is perfectly content to interfere in free will. A god does not simply change it's mind (unless it is a humanoid god, such as Thor, Zeus, etc. which are not gods in the Christian sense). Once again, your own beliefs contradict themselve,s unless you do not believe in the Old testament? Oh, and New Testament: I believe that judas had no choice in the matter of betraying Jesus. In jesus's own words (I'm paraphrasing) it was going to happen, no matter what. God interfered in judas's free will.

Cm, the problem with your "proof" is that you simply make some claim like "THAT DOESN'T COUNT THAT'S DIFFERENT" when something you have based your beliefs on directly contradicts your own beliefs. it's pathetic.

Do not pretend this is a debate, this is you talking about your beliefs while you wildly deny anything that could go against your beliefs, using the cold hard fact that "you believe in it".

That fact that you have the audacity to use the word "debate" to start this thread sickens me.

What does "spirituality" actually mean though furball... I can have intense emotions and sometimes near-transcendence or an almost mystical awe at something.

But these are mostly just words...

Now if I were to ask a God-fearing person why he existed, he probably would say: "Because God made me, God made everything." Now, if I were feeling particularly nasty, I would continue: "Well then, why is God here, who made god?" The God-fearing person would probably be flustered for a few moments (perhaps he had not thought about the concept before), and might continue: "Err ... He just ... is."

I interject this lovely narrative to give an explanation of why this God-fearing person became God-fearing in the first place. To make a long story short, religions were created to answer the question of why people exist. It gave people comfort to feel like the world wasn't so empty. It provided even further comfort and security through worship and sacrifice: "The friendly neighborhood God will keep my chickens safe if I burn up my best silk." These religions gathered strength through supposed miracles (such as chickens actually being safe) and military conquest (forced religion), until they sufficiently controlled much of the earth. The God-fearing person, undoubtedly, was the offspring of generations of people that had dutifully believed in their God, without thinking of "Why God is God in the first place?"

The status quo of thousands of generations bore down their weight on the God-fearing person as he clumsily tried to answer. "God just is..." He would say.

So, so far, we have:
"Why are we here?"
--"Because God made us"
"Well, why is God here?"
--"err ... he just is"

Would it not be better to skip the God part and say:
"Why are we here"
--"Because we just are."

+1 PSMongoose

I guess I would define spirituality, Thucy--though I don't speak for furball, of course--as just what the name implies:

A belief and focus on the "spitual."

What's the spiritual?

A focus on the "spirit."

What's the spirit?

Here we can go two ways:

Either spirit is = to "essence," ie, keeping "in the spirit of things" means to be in keeping with the essential parts of a practice which define that practice, idea, or whatever, and make it what it is, ie, "in the spirit of fair play" would imply comonents of justice and fairness and adhering to the rules of the game and not cheating...

OR

"Spirit" can be = to "soul/the metaphysically transcendent."

Which of these work?

Depends on who you are?

If you believe in souls and all that, likely the second carries a bit more subconscious weight in determining what "spirituality" is, it's involving the spirit/soul.

If, however, you're like me and take the "essence" route, then "spirituality" becomes 1. a bit more of a colorful metaphor than an accurate description, as "essence" captures it much more accurately, the idea being conveyed, and 2. A view of "the essence" of a person, place, or thing as being, in some way, profound or powerful beyond the norm.

What created the matter that exploded in the Big Bang?
Out of a void something had to "begin" the universe.
God is a perfectly logical explanation for beginning the universe because science can't explain where the Big Bang mass came from.
Science stops at the Big Bang and can't go further back.
As an epicurean would surmise, God doesn't intervene in our daily lives and that is why we have free will.
You can believe in God without believing that God participates in our daily lives.

well said Thucy and obiwan.

First of all: @Putin: No, it implies that we could put other things before God in our life, making 'gods' of a sort.

Now, evidence time: I guess most atheists agree that Jesus was a real person, even if he wasn't God. Now, I assume you know there were many prophecies made in the old testament about Jesus. Some won't come true until Jesus returns, some you atheists don't believe because they involve Jesus' miracles or his rising from the dead. But there are plenty that history agrees definitely took place. Now, I once heard that the odds of all the prophecies about Jesus coming true for one person is about 1 in i think 10^63. Now I have no idea how this was calculated and it was likely pulled out of someone's ass. But considering that there were hundreds of prophecies about Jesus, I'm sure the odds are very slim. Now, I'm not sure how many of those hundreds of prophecies even atheists agree happened with Jesus (i.e. ones that don't involve miracles or rising from the dead). If any atheists here know, could you please tell me? Anyway, the # is probably 1 or 2 hundred. And I'm sure the odds of those prophecies coming true for one man are extremely slim as well. So yeah, that's my first bit of evidence, and it is admittedly the weakest. But I have more.

My second bit of evidence is this: Doesn't the creation of the universe violate the Law of Conservation of Energy. How the hell can it's matter just 'appear'? Doesn't it need a supernatural creator who can break laws of physics, and is not made of matter, to create it? What other possibility is there, that doesn't break a law of physics?

My third bit of evidence is this: If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, where is his body? And if you say that his disciples took it, I hope you realize that his tomb was guarded by a bunch of TRAINED Roman guards. It would be pretty damn hard to steal it away from them. (I believe that the official report is that they were asleep when it was stolen, but if they were asleep, then how could they know it was stolen? And also, there was a HUGE stone in front of the tomb. I think moving that stone would have woken them up). Also, all of Jesus' disciples dies HORROBLE deaths for being Christians. If they actually stole the body and knew that Christianity wasn't true, don't you think they would have stopped the hoax to avoid being killed? But they didn't.

There are also a lot of little evidences here and there for God's existing. All circumstantial, but still evidence. In fact, there are so many, I don't think I could post them all here. But a simple google search of "evidence of God's existance" should turn up numerous lists.

god had no problem believing in people's lives when people had no way to explain base phenomena, tettleton's.

The matter from the Big Bang came from a super tiny bunch of superheated subatomic particles (or even smaller than that). That is a much better explanation than "God was there" What? Why was God there? Where did *it* come from? See, god is actually a words explanation, since just saying "god" does not even attempt to explain the early universe directly after the big bang. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean you should make some stupid blanket statement to cover everything. This isn't the dark Ages, ffs.

@psmongoose: "Well, why is God here?" Because he is the beginning of everything.

I once believed, like you, Tettleton. I was from a religious background, and had pressure to also be religious. I rationalized your explanation of 'God made the Big Bang' also. But then I realized: The idea of God came from man. It was man's idea. I begged god to give me a sign that he existed. None came. So, I sit here, an atheist. It is just simpler to leave God out of the equation.

Also, science doesn't stop at the big bang. Have you ever heard of the M-Theory or the String-Theory?

Why is he the beginning of everything, Conservative Man?

CM, you're making assumptions again.

You assume the Old Testament was actually written before the New testament. I can write a fictitious story in the matter of days, and easily say that the timespan between them is thousands of years apart.

Also, as far as I know there is no evidence for Jesus having ever existed past the Bible. Show me evidence to the contrary if you have any.

Regarding Jesus' "resurrection" see my post above. in addition, It is not impossible to assume that somebody stole his corpse even if he had existed. there *were* graverobbers in that day and age, and you can;'t be so dense to think they could not move a boulder.

Your proof is shit.

oh, and evidence for God's existence is basically "We don't know this currently, so god must exist" which, isn't evidence.

If people could explain everything perfectly, we'd be gods.

"No, it implies that we could put other things before God in our life, making 'gods' of a sort."

But isn't that covered by the 2nd commandment?