I have absolute proof that there is no God.

[seeker]

I've just seen in our local paper that a little girl who lives in our town has died. She has been the focus of much prayer since she was taken ill last year. Her parents were thoroughly good Christian people who trusted God absolutely.

The is no way that a loving, omnipotent, beneficent God who notes even a sparrow falling would not have answered these people's prayer.

So, if I had even a scintilla of doubt, it is now gone. There is no God.

Hi, sorry to have abandoned this thread, RL has got crazybusy all of a sudden! Back online next Tues - I wonder if the conversation will still be going on then? :)

I generally don't believe in prolonged discussion on controversial topics in church meetings.

Oh, I thought that's what they were for? I admit ignorance - haven't been to a bible group since my late teens. If you have to pretend the violent ninth verse doesn't exist, what's the point? Presumably the author(s) put the stuff together that way for a reason.

It would be like reading Homer (late teens trickling back into consciousness!) and studying the bit about beautiful poppy fields, before getting to the next line where it turns out the fields are not full of poppies, but blood. Imagery appreciated; message entirely lost.

Just can't resist, Holo ... C U n T

So the upshot is: all three beliefs have the same amount of evidence. All three are equally valid. The reasons you stated for finding the first one understandable are common fallacies that we make in our thinking.

Holo, was it a coincidence that you abandoned the thread when you were asked to give straight answers to questions?

Headinhands -if you were talking to me, no there isn't 'equal evidence' of all three fallacies. There are millions of believers over thousands of years who believe that there is a god because they feel they have evidence. Compared to that, the number of people who believe in Elvis, vampires etc is a tiny drop in the ocean. Whilist I don't believe the evidence, they do and the sheer weight of numbers over such a long time would mean that it would be stupid to complete rule out the possibility. Can you not see the difference in scale?

Technodad - that is a bit harsh. It is still the school holidays. We can't all spend all day on MN having philosophical debates on the meaning of life and examining our own navels. I can't ignore my children forever. Maybe you can but I have a responsibility to at least feed them and speak to them occasionally. Holo may well be the same or maybe life is just complicated. I don't like the idea that just because anybody doesn't answer the question that they have somehow conceded a point to you. A bit childish if you ask me.

Billions used to believe that the Earth was flat. We know how well that turned out.

Unquestioning billions believing in something with no proper evidence does not mean that they are right.

Oh come on, it was only banter.

BBB it's basic rules of logic though, it's not specialist philosophy or something of that ilk. Millions used to be sure that the sun orbited the earth. And look how many everday people in Germany in the 30/40's thought Hitler was the bees knees.

All the experiences/feelings of believers of all faiths can be explained with psychology. And as I said before people who claim to be able to speak to the dead and beliefs in mythological creatures are at least as old as the bible not that it matters at all because there is no evidence anyway for any.

True, Cote, and some of the early christian church's leading philosophers argued against a globular Earth. The church was also very cross with Galileo for showing the planets rotate around the sun. It does seem to have a bit of a history when it comes to refuting scientifically demonstrable facts.

xpost, head

I found this earlier - It is quite a good read: whynogod.wordpress.com

I quite liked this picture: whynogod.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/sogk1.jpg?w=640

Back from a Mumsnet-less holiday and have read most of the thread.

I think it's perfectly valid to bring up such an experience for discussion as seeker has done. I am terribly sorry for the family and friends of the child. I cannot begin to imagine :(

I'm not sure where to wade in, really, as there is so much stuff, and perhaps the thread has run its natural course in any case?

I'll just say a bit about prayers and miracles, if that's OK. A lot of the questions on this thread have been regarding why, if there is a God, God does not answer the prayers of God's people in the way we would like/expect/hope. And if prayers make the slightest jot of difference.

I've struggled with this, and questioned, and studied, and prayed.

One of the most helpful ways I have found of thinking about this is in terms of 'the now and the not yet'. I believe that when Jesus lived on earth and died and was raised to life he brought with him glimpses of God's kingdom, a place where everything is reconciled, justice is done, there is no more death, crying, mourning, pain. He did a heck of a lot more than this, but I'm pointing to this for now. The miracles he did were signs of this - almost signposts pointing to how it will be when God reconciles heaven and earth. When he talked to his disciples about prayer and God answering prayer he was demonstrating how things could be. How things will eventually be. But, as Holo referred to, they didn't exactly stick to the letter of how Jesus said things would be. They screwed up and got screwed up. Because they were living in the now, and the not yet was not yet. However, miracles happened, and signs of the not yet happened. But they didn't happen all the time. God did not answer prayers in the way they perhaps expected.

And it is the same now. I have seen signs of the not yet, but living in the now. Somehow, some prayers seem to be 'answered' and some do not. Seeker keeps asking about severed limbs and such. No, I do not know of such a case. I do know of other impossible happenings though, but I am not going into them, partly because I feel it is insensitive at this moment, and partly because I actually don't feel that recounting subjective evidence would have any bearing on a thread asking deep and wide philosophical questions about suffering. The fact that I may know of some miracles doesn't answer the question as to why children die or abuse happens or why the world is so utterly screwed.

However, living in this now and not yet, can give a hope, can give substance to that niggling feeling about things not being right, a thirst for ultimate justice, a hunger for reconciliation, a mourning for a world in chaos. Many of you see the world as a place of 'blind pitiless indifference', as Dawkins would put it, but for me, believing in Jesus Christ gives me a hope of so much more. It does not make me a better person, it does not make me a healthier person but it shapes my deepest longings and so much more than that, gives purpose and meaning.

I'm going on too much, I know, so I'll leave the ramblings there for now.

This is so very sad and my heart goes out to anyone who loses a child, or who loses a loved one.

However, it is not proof that God doesn't exist. Those who believe in God also believe that God has a plan, a bigger picture which might not fully make sense to us human beings, because of our limitations. God decides when he'll take people back to be with him and the children who he takes will go to heaven.

That's the other perspective of those who believe.

madhairday when you say a thirst for ultimate justice does that involve some people going one way and some another after death?

perceptionreality when you say god taking people back to be with him do you mean they were with him before? And does that mean everyone who dies goes back to be him? Why bother sending us 'here' first?

"One of the most helpful ways I have found of thinking about this is in terms of 'the now and the not yet'. ...But, as Holo referred to, they didn't exactly stick to the letter of how Jesus said things would be. They screwed up and got screwed up. Because they were living in the now, and the not yet was not yet."

This is rationalisation.

Why should you even need to find a "helpful way"? Shouldn't things make sense on their own without struggling to find a contrived explanation that makes it all look less bizarre?

garlic - Do you know when the Church finally accepted that Galileo was right?

1990

I can certainly appreciate - and relate to - how your faith gives your life purpose and meaning mhd ...but I just feel that it may be that God is one of our greatest creations, rather than we being one of His. So, ATM, I'm inclined to take the slightly unusual standpoint of appreciating religion, but not believing in any faith literally (unless that's the rather wooly and tremendously liberal Quaker faith, where I do feel rather at home)

As for perceptions post "a bigger picture which might not fully make sense to us human beings, because of our limitations" - Too right it doesn't fully make sense, and never mind our limitations ... what about God's ? If God is omnipresent, omniscent, and omnibenevolent he does take a strange approach to things you must say. He makes my lazy Saturday morning seem quite busy and efficient !

I am aware that these seem like audacious questions. But I think we need to break free of any inhibitions about asking them (especially for those of us raised with strong church influence) And maybe break our reluctance (that some of us sometimes feel, least we leave people without something that they need in life) to challenge people of faith about their beliefs. They will be OK if they move on in their life and faith journey ... there are other consolations and comforts ... not least the company of other honest seekers x

Dearest Expat and everyone else who's prayers were not aswered.

I sent many, many positive vibes North, they worked no better than prayers and am still thinking you.
I was brought up in an atheist household, the OPs reasoning was very much my familiy's for not having faith.

My DFather also strongly dislikes the whole church trying to control people through their fear of death etc.

To me religion just makes no logical sense.

My equally scientific DH does believe in a very personal God. I don't think he prays for people, but for the strength to cope with what life brings. I think he also believes in some kind of after life.

We agreed to differ 2 days after meeting 24 years ago. For each of us to change would betray happy childhoods and neither of us ever would.

I just struggle to understand the idea of an omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity who would bother with the idea of earth, and human life on earth. What are humans and earth in that interpretation other than some kind of bizarre Reality World game for said deity? Why would you do anything so convoluted as give humans free will and make them mess up, suffer a lot and then give some of them a nice eternity afterwards? And complicate it still further by a weird side story in which you sent your son to earth via a virgin birth and made him die and be resurrected as a sign of your benevolence - but made it so that only certain people got to hear of this side show and its significance?

You see Juggling, I've thought long and hard about the whole God being a human creation thing, and I can't get my head around it. For me, it would make life probably a lot easier if God was made up and I could discount her and get on with it. But I can't see how that could be the case. 'God as a psychological projection' has been explored by many, believers and non believers. A lot of the thought originated with Freud who believed that God was a projection of human feelings about their fathers, or lack of. Even he admitted that science could not prove the lack of a God and that there were great gaps. Equally though, could the contention of there being no God be a projection of our feelings about authority, about our own pride and prowess? There is no proof for such, in either case. But either case could be argued as a projection.

For me though, it comes down to a more factual basis, that of Jesus Christ. Extensive study of the bible and early texts, of the mechanisms involved in bringing the bible together, of scholarly writings about the bible, and perhaps most importantly, my own experience of God, convinces me that God is more than my own happy little creation. If I was going to create a God, I sure as heck wouldn't have bothered with one that had to die and would have perhaps made the Christian life be a bit more nice and cushy. As it is, it is far from it, and I worship a God far beyond my imaginings and limited creativity.

Crikey - I think we all need helpful ways to describe things sometimes, we are not all logical thinkers and need pictures or ways of describing a reality. It's not about a contrived explanation, it's just to me a way of getting to the heart of the issue which helps me. It may not others, they may find other ways.

madhair can I ask why it is you chose Christianity instead of a different religion, like Islam say?