I think most people have to realize that most of religion is blind faith.

Wait, wait. I just realized something.

"... he isn't bound by the rules of his own creation."
Who ever said needing a temporal starting point is a rule of His own creation?

@ Chrispminis. I'm referring to an atheist perspective. Atheists have nothing to lose by following a religion. It's either certain death or uncertain death.

What is He? He's God! I don't know what that means exactly, but you certainly can't get to heaven by flying there in a spaceship.

diplomat actually put it best, for once. It's silly to try to define God through science because in a way God invented science and its laws don't apply to Him. You might say that's illogical and I say you're right.

Personally, I think God is an old Italian man. He does speak Latin, after all.

"Who ever said needing a temporal starting point is a rule of His own creation?"

That's a little too New Age for me, but I guess I can't refute it offhand. I don't believe the Six Days to make Creation were actual 24 hour days, so I suppose it's not too far a stretch to say God could have mad the universe "outside of time" as it were. I dunno.

"That's a little too New Age for me."

If you have ice cream, I will give you some. If you have none, I will take yours away.
It is an Ice Cream Koan.

*Rimshot*

The thing is, my assertion that an omnitemporal (I wordmake!) God makes an omnitemporal Universe a possibility works in reverse.

The concept of an omnitemporal God is not contradictory to the nature of existence if any other thing can be omnitemporal.

That's assuming the universe knows what it's doing. A personal God has consciousness (for lack of a better term) while the universe doesn't. You're making this pretty convoluted.

I'm not even talking about the matters of self-awareness; I'm just saying, either anything can be omnitemporal, or nothing can.

The problem with how I view God is basically that for God to exist, one of the conditions is God existing - it's circular. Thus, I would need to see concrete proof, which thus far, I have not.

Proof is not needed for faith, but faith is needed for God. You're never going to get a sworn affidavit from God, so I guess you'll just never believe. At least you're not a dick about it.

*Nods*

When I see something I consider proof - maybe not even a direct proof, but something I believe only a divinity could cause - then I'll say, "That's what I've been waiting for," and accept that there is, at least, some form of divine being.

It'd push me, at least, from agnostic to deist.

Until then, though, I really can't have faith without what I see as a legitimate reason.

Pandarsenic - what would constitute proof? How would you know that it's God and not simply an impostor? (think of "Q" in Star Trek Next Generation) It would not be the first time that a sufficiently advanced technology is mistaken for magic... or that an advanced being is mistaken for a god. It seems that to prove omnipotence to me that I would have to be omniscient myself in order to be able to adequately observe and confirm the omnipotence. (I'm assuming that omnipotence would be the primary criteria for God).

Invictus - I agree with Pandarsenic that consciousness is beside the point... but as an aside, how do we know that the universe doesn't have self-awareness? It would certainly be beyond our ability to detect.

Sirither - interesting article... fatal flaw: If the universe is the object in question, what makes it "contingent"? I tend to think that the universe would fall into the "necessary" category. Forms within the universe such as individual people or planets are clearly contingent... but why exactly would the whole of the universe have to be contingent?

Dexter: I don't mean simply a show of power: i.e., converting something from one form to another, or even an apparent violation of the laws of conservation. I'm thinking something more in a mental way, like yours, though even that could be faked.

But shit, since whatever would do that could control your thoughts, I probably would not be about to have much choice about believing in God or not anyway.

Somethings you can test: "does praying to a particular god work."
How to test it: get 40000 roughly similarly sick people* and randomly put them into one of 4 groups.
group 1 (control): tell them nothing / do nothing
group 2: tell them you'll pray for them / pray for them
group 3: tell them you'll pray for them / do nothing
group 4: tell them nothing / pray for them

Have the prayers said by real believers who really want these people to get better, perhaps even at multiple churches.

If the correct prayer is said to the correct god then groups 2 and 4 should be better off than groups 1 and 3.
These study has already been performed, any one want to guess on what the outcome was?

Careful here sceptic. This prayer issue is nowhere near conclusive for either side.

Nearly 200 studies on prayer and healing have already been conducted. One conducted by Williams Harris and James O'Keefe, both skeptical cardiologists. "From a purely scientific standpoint," said O'Keefe, "I thought it was illogical." Harris agreed, "We were even doubtful that the phenomena itself was real, that prayer could do anything."
The 1000 heart patients in their study didn't know that half the group was ebing prayed for. The results? Patients who were prayed for had 11 percent fewer heart attacks, strokes, and life-threatening complications than those not prayed for.
Admitting that he couldn't explain it, O'Keefe said, "This study offers an interesting insight into the possibility that maybe God is influencing our lives on Earth."

When Dr. Elizabeth Targ, a psychiatrist at the Pacific College of Medicine in San Francisco, tested prayer on seriously-ill AIDS patients, she found that "ten of the prayed for patients lived, while four who had not been prayed for died."
In a larger follow-up study, Targ found that the people who received prayer "had six times fewew hospitalizations, and those hospitalizations were significantly shorter than the people who received no prayer." "I was sort of shocked," she says. "In a way it's been like witnessing a miracle. There was no way to understand this from my experience and from my basic understanding of science."

And I liked the leading question, "anyone want to guess...?" Like the answer was obvious. I find no offense, but beware you're insinuating idiocy and blindness in people much more intelligent than you or I.

And "proving" the existence of God is simply not going to happen. As I've stated above, this is not a chemical reaction we can theorize about it the lab.

Now, various arguments can be made for the existence of God that are compelling, but "proof" they are not.

To further this cosmological argument we've been happening, pandarsenic, I'd say the reality of cause and effect is compelling enough for some to consider it persuasive in believing in God.

And Einstein's theory of relativity describes time as beginning at the big bang itself. So arguing that things just "were" seems a little silly.

And someone explain to me the law of conservation and how it makes sense with Einstein's theory of relativity.

If you'd like to follow deductive reasoning rather than inductive, I could provide an argument from Anselm, the archbishop of canterbury in the 11th century.

1. the idea of a perfect being exists.
2. To be "perfect", God must be greater than any other being we could conceive.
3. A real God would be greater than an imaginary one.
4. God cannot exist only in imagination, for then He would not be the perfect being.
5. Therefore, God must exist in reality.

@bartdogg42: "where do you get those 11% from"
http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/9136
"The researchers found no significant differences among the treatment groups in the primary composite endpoint"
However what people who are desperately looking for some sort of positive result do is look at all data and pick out the data that supports there hypotheses. This is why the statistical analysis is sometime also done blinded.
The end conclusion is praying for someone does them about as much good as doing a rain dance does for getting rain.
And until we see evidence to the contrary I don't see why we should treat people who pray for others to get better any differently then people who dance to make it rain. (the only difference between the to believes is the amount of people who believe in them)

On the other hand I'm pretty sure that praying might have the same sort of calming effect on the person praying that meditating has been shown to have.

1. the idea of the smelliest being exists.
2. To be the smelliest, God must be smellier than any other being we could conceive.
3. A real God would be smellier than an imaginary one.
4. God cannot exist only in imagination, for then He would not be the smelliest being.
5. Therefore, God must exist in reality and stink to high heaven.

sceptic: I totally agree with this, in absolute reverse as well:
However what people who are desperately looking for some sort of positive result do is look at all data and pick out the data that supports there hypotheses. This is why the statistical analysis is sometime also done blinded.

So you're claiming atheists are clear-minded, fair, and conduct their, in this case, prayer studies totally objectively? No bias whatsoever?

This is why I said the evidence for either side is nowhere near conclusive. This entire type of "proof" or "argument" for or against God would be tossed by an objective judge with lightning speed.

Please note that in science you don't proof anything conclusively you just give evidence for it. The best you can hope for is "beyond reasonable doubt".
Only in math you can prove stuff conclusively, i.e that my sorting function uses the fastest possible algorithm to sort numbers.

and I'm not saying at all that theists conduct their studies objectively either.

bartdogg42: This is why I said the evidence for either side is nowhere near conclusive. This entire type of "proof" or "argument" for or against God would be tossed by an objective judge with lightning speed.

Again your thinking only of your god, there are millions of creator god concepts out there all as valid as your.
It's like going to court claiming Jimmy stole your muffin with your only evidence being, your muffin was on the table at some point and now there are only crumbs there

bartdogg42: This is why I said the evidence for either side is nowhere near conclusive. This entire type of "proof" or "argument" for or against God would be tossed by an objective judge with lightning speed.

Again your thinking only of your god, there are millions of creator god concepts out there all as valid as your.
It's like going to court claiming Jimmy stole your muffin with your only evidence being, your muffin was on the table at some point and now there are only crumbs there. It's equally possible that Brian, Izzi or Jen stole your muffin or that the dog ate it or that you just forgot you ate it. While all I'm saying is that Jimmy probably didn't steal your muffin even though I can't 100% prove that he didn't.
Any objective judge would rule non guilty because it's your job as the accuser to show that Jimmy really did steal your muffin.

Which is why I'm technically an agnostic, but I'm as agnostic to your god as I as too all the other possible gods or fantasy critters that people have believed in over the years.

Again we're having two different conversations. I was simply trying to argue for a creator God. In this portion of the discussion I've said nothing of the God as Christians believe Him to be.

If you're conceding that "someone stole the cookie" from your analogy, to carry it further you're conceding that a creator God is a reasonable, rational, and logical conclusion to the arguments. You mustn't say "I do not know who stole the cookie (or created everything) so I will throw up my hands and care not." The identity of the thief is not in question, it's whether a cookie was stolen (or things created).

And I am definately not the accuser. Throughout the history of the world, belief in a creator God or gods has been the norm, not the exception. Atheism is a non-belief. The burden of providing proof for the non-existence of something lies with the atheists.

"The burden of providing proof for the non-existence of something lies with the atheists."
Bullshit, then the burden of non-existence of an invisible green dragon in my cellar lies with the people who don't believe it exists.

The big bang happened, I don't know any more.
Claiming that whatever caused it is intelligent and did it on purpose is a very bold claim, which I think is what your aiming for right now.

Then let's visit your cellar. I'll take on the burden of proving the non-existence of your green dragon. And you missed the point that throughout history the extreme vast majority of peoples have believed in a creator God. Belief in God is the norm, not the exception.

And I've never even breeched "intelligent design." If you like, I may, and it's far less bold than you think. But you're reverting back to a specific kind of God. I've said nothing of intelligence or purpose within the creator. I'm simply pointing out that belief in some type of a creator is a reasonable conclusion to these arguments.

I missed the "invisible" part of your rebuttal, but my point remains that throughout history the vast majority of people have not believed in your invisible green dragon. They have believed in a creator God.