"It could equally be argued that believers are being less honest or showing more arrogance by adamantly claiming they *do* know."
I cannot speak for all Christians. People are people and arrogance is a human failing even among Christians. But to claim that just the fact that knowing the answer to a question is arrogance is absurd. Apply that reasoning outside of the question of the existence of God. Does just knowing the solution to an algebra problem make you arrogant? Arrogance comes from how a person acts upon learning a truth. But there are plenty of people who are just as arrogant believing misinformation or false theories as truth. There's an awful lot of smug atheists who cling very tight to the theory of evolution and just do not understand that 1) it is just a theory and 2) it has absolutely nothing to do with the existence of God or not.
"Is there a God or isn't there? I don't think it's quite that black and white. First, you need to define "God". You're a programmer, so you can appreciate that. If you don't first define/declare the term, the code won't run. I *have* spent a lot of time on this already."
Ha ha ha!!! You got me. Yes you have to define a variable in many programming languages before you can use it.
But atheists have already define and initialized that variable as Boolean and initialized to as false. Many of them won't even accept something as vague as Aristotle's "unmoved mover". When the concept of Intelligent Design came out a few decades ago, it was denounced by the scientific world as being too "Christian". It had absolutely nothing to do with any religion or any proof of God.
There are about as many definitions of what a supreme being, unmoved mover or intelligent designer are as there are people.
So let me simplify all of that. Just ask God if He exists. Then ask God who He is. Then ask God what our purpose is. There is only one God, not many. Read the Bible, not with the intention of proving it wrong but in it's proper context. It is a religious history of the Jews (Old Testament) and a history of Jesus Christ and his disciples, plus a lot of letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians in different parts of Asia Minor and Rome (New Testament).
The process is simple but the work behind finding out is not easy. Some people search their entire lives to know. Some know immediately.
Like I said before, the existence of God is the most important question in life.
"That the concept of eternal damnation is illogical. And if God endowed me with reason, He can't very well hold it against me for using that reason to question it and then punish me forever."
Is the concept of failing a class in college illogical? Damnation is a misunderstood concept by most people. It is not burning in a lake of fire. It is a cessation of learning. This life is a test. It is for us to find and choose to follow God or not.
God does not hold anything against anyone of His children. He is a loving father and loves all of us. But the most important part of our life is the right to choose. We are entirely responsible for our actions and the consequences of those actions. God will never stop a person from rejecting Him or from doing all sorts of reprehensible things. That is why bad things happen to good people. It is also why good things happen to good people and good things also happen to bad people. God is not a dictator and He will never try to control or micromanage your life.
He has set laws in place and it is up to us to adhere to those laws or not but we choose the consequences. Those consequences were never about endlessly burning in a lake of fire. That was used throughout the Bible as a metaphor and a warning because bad actions lead to bad consequences.
"But saying "I don't know" is not about a copout; it's about honesty and, dare I say it, humility in the face of an ancient, vast Cosmos that we have just started to understand. I *don't* know. That's why I admit I don't know."
There are just so many people out there who are content with the question. They don't want an answer. This isn't just about the existence of God but nearly every question in life. They hide behind the question because if they found the answer it will require them to move out of their comfort zone and they don't want that. There are some who even think they are intellectually superior as long as they have the question without an answer.
The answer to the existence of God is not impossible. I think it is a copout that soooo many atheists (and the more intellectually honest ones who call themselves agnostics) just do not want to deal with the change it would require them to make. I think that goes all the way up to the most intellectual atheists. Change scares people almost as much as truth.
You must have been bored and had nothing else to do.
That was about as much of a non-reply as I've ever seen. You come off like a militant atheist only to later condemn militant atheists. You constantly rip Christianity as "childish nonsense" and then say you have "no particular interest to go around 'deconverting' believers". Make up your mind.
Seriously dude, what is your point?
And knock it off with the "I'm superior to Christians" attitude. Atheists have no exclusivity on intellect. I've seen atheists that were dumber than a bag of hammers but somehow still think they're smarter than Christians. Yes, some Christians are also stupid. I've met them. I am a software developer, Years ago I have wrote code that dealt with reading bar codes. A friend of my father-in-law was trying to explain to me how barcode were the mark of the beast. I told him giving every item in your inventory the item number 666 is an insane inventory system.
Both atheists and Christians are human beings. Some are dumb and some are very smart. Education, learning, reason and intellect does not make one an atheist. In fact it is probably the opposite because it is human nature to question our existence and atheists are grossly deficient on that answer. "Duh, I dunno" just doesn't cut it for most people.
it is real simple Boolean logic, either there is a God or there isn't. The most important thing that everyone on the planet should do is find out for themselves if there is.
But as you say, you have no time for that. Well... it's your life. I'm not going to tell you what to do.
Is that true??? Every time I go back to So. Cal. the traffic just seems to get worse and worse. I know that at a ratio of around 2:1 that more people are moving out of California than moving in but you sure wouldn't know it by driving the freeways. My wife and I left California 25 years ago but we go back maybe once every other year or so to visit family and friends.
I would love it if traffic dropped to the 70's era levels. I would love it even more if every single liberal packed up and moved to New York and permanently left California. Make California Great Again.
