Hmm. This has ALWAYS been a touch statement to make in my presence.

No one can truly say that they KNOW that God does or does not exist.

Even us Christians have to have faith in order to walk with God.

Here's my point:

Draw a big circle on a piece of paper. A big one. This circle represents every bit of knowledge that has ever been. Everything, in totality.

Now draw a eety beety slice that represents what you know.

Take a look at your measly little slice.

There is just SO MUCH that you don't know, you cannot possibly say that you KNOW unequivocally that there is NO God.

Logic dictates that you can't make that statement. But this is MY logic, and if someone disagrees, it's no skin off my nose.

know
To perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty.

But who said anything about "spiritual highs"?

More proof: This is a bit complicated, and some may not understand this, but there is really a noticable difference in you that lasts forever once you submit your life to God. You immediately get this awesome, indescribable feeling that just fills you up. Its powerful, and you just know that what you submitted, confessed, and asked for forgiveness and reconsiliation just came inside you and is the truth and the life. You just know its a true fact; you know it is (once again) The Voice of Truth!

Really though, if you just believe in God and he doesn't exist, you haven't lost anything. But if you don't believe in he does... well, then you're in for a bit of trouble.

But I do have some thoughts I would like to interject. Rick, you said that you cannot accept that mankind is basically evil. Well, what if we are? I mean, just look at the world we live in. We're fighting a pointless war in Iraq, and if things continue the way they are, there's a good chance we'll be fighting Iran next. There is political, religious, and racial persecution all around the world; we don't see most of it because we're nice and safe back here in the US, where we're relatively free to live the way we want (as opposed to being shot or beheaded, as you might be in some other countries).

The fact is that there is something wrong with humanity. An honest (and I do mean HONEST) look even at ourselves reveals this. Whether you say we are basically evil, or that we are not perfect, or that we are just plain broken people, the fact remains: none of us are what we could be. All of us have character flaws, mistakes we've made that haunt us, addictive behaviors of various types. It's not that every person on the planet is as bad as that German guy from the 1940's. But certainly every person has the POTENTIAL to be that.

The doctrine of Original Sin is not a theological category intended to motivate people to run to God. It is an honest observation of the world around us. Yes, there is good in people--we are, after all, created in God's own image--but that image is cracked, and in some people, shattered. Something is wrong with us inside, and all of us must either struggle with it, or risk becoming a Charles Manson or a Joseph Stalin.

Technically, to know something it doesn't have to be true. People knew for many years that the Earth was flat, but they were wrong.

I perceive the non-existence of God grasped in my mind with clarity and certainty, so therefore I know that there is no God.

Yes, there are evil people, but if it weren't for the majority of good in all of us we wouldn't be improving the world every day.

Yes; there is still mass poverty and depression, but in 200 years we've gone from almost everyone being poor to only 50% poverty.

If we're evil, why do we choose to help the less fortunate through charity and tsedaka?

First, I assume you are speaking pre-Ptolemy here (2nd century b.c.). Because, as I’ve stated numerous times before, the belief that the earth is round goes back at least 2000 years, and probably further.

Second, we have a word for those people who believed the world was round: mistaken. We do not call their false supposition “knowledge;” we call it “superstition.” Clarity and certainty in the definition relate to the way beliefs or suppositions match reality. Therefore, there can be no “knowledge” that the earth is flat, because the supposition does not match reality.

You can only believe that there is no God. An experience of something can prove its existence, but the lack of such an experience cannot prove its nonexistence. Therefore, there can be no knowledge of God’s nonexistence.

Improving? A hundred years ago we didn’t have nuclear bombs. A hundred years ago we didn’t have rampant air pollution. A hundred years ago we didn’t have crack cocaine. The last time I checked, people around the world are still being oppressed and slaughtered because of political, religious, and racial differences. The last time I checked, people around the world were still being denied their rights to basic necessities like food, shelter, and freedom. I don’t know what world you live in, but the one I see around me isn’t improving much at all.

Remember how I said before that we are fairly insulated against most of the evil that takes place in this world because we live in a country where we are relatively free? That still applies. Evil exists in this world, and continues to exist. Mankind has not improved, but is continuing to find new ways to oppress and destroy.

I’ll believe mankind is improving when I see illegal drugs eliminated (and that, because people no longer need to self-medicate their pain). I’ll believe mankind is improving when there are no need for jails and prisons. I’ll believe mankind is improving when the US completely dismantles its nuclear arsenal and disbands its military. I’ll believe mankind is improving when places like China and Saudi Arabia institute religious and political freedoms in their countries.

Your belief that mankind is improving is an illusion. And so, I ask you the question: are you willing to accept hell (and I mean accept it, not just risk it) in order to cling to your illusion that everything is all hunky-dory with mankind?

That depends on who’s defining poverty. And I’d question your statistics, too. I’m not sure they are correct.

So, at this point, I must ask the question: what do you want from us, Rick? You started this thread, so it must have some importance to you. You know how we Christians understand our relationship to God at least to some degree, and you know what we see to be the solution to that problem. You’ve already and vehemently rejected our proposed solution. So why are we here? What do you want me to say? Or do you want me to say anything at all? Do you want me to change my beliefs for your sake? Do you want me to let you continue in your illusion without confronting it? What is it that you want from me, Rick?

Ahh, but there's the rub. How can anyone authoritatively deny the existence of anything? The only evidence that the atheist can present is that they themselves have had no experience with God. That's like saying, "Gorillas don't exist because I've never seen one in person." One cannot argue authoritatively from lack of experience. However, one can speak of his own experience.

What's more I cannot speak for Muslims or for any other religion's experience of God and/or similar Higher Power. I can only point to my own experience and understanding, which has a living Savior Jesus Christ at its center. Maybe they're experiences are misinterpreted. Maybe they're flat out wrong. Or maybe God deals with them in ways that are beyond my understanding (although I cannot imagine why he would say to me, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," unless he really meant it).

But if you honestly think you can argue me into believing I don't know my own Father, then I really hate to disappoint you, but you'll have to do much better than that. For me, this is more than a mere intellectual exercise. This is the summation of a whole set of life experiences which would take far more than the space provided in this forum to explain. Not that there is no intellectual foundation: a whole lifetime of historical, philosophical, and biblical studies inform my life experiences, and vice versa.

My question for you would be who gave you the right to completely discount me as a person and completely ignore my life experiences? Who gave you the right to use pink unicorns to try to prove to me that I do not know my God?

It's nonsense because no one has ever seriously made such a claim as, "William Shakespeare is the Son of God." That's what makes the argument nonsense. "If I had a dollar, I could buy a soda," does not afford you a soda in the real world. But the fact is that people did seriously claim that Jesus was the Son of God, and only appeals to real evidence can be used to discredit it, not some silly argument that somebody MIGHT have made the same claim about William Shakespeare. So here we are yet again: eight credible men wrote that Jesus rose from the dead. No credible evidence exists to the contrary. Therefore, the highest probability (barring a priori assumptions against miracles) is that he did indeed rise from the dead.

There is still one chief difference between Jesus Christ and the Invisible Pink Unicorn: those who concocted the Pink Unicorn do not take it seriously. The whole thing was crafted to mock those of us who do have religious faith. That's a difference that stands out very clearly in my mind: a serious faith vs. a mockery of faith. That to me is one of the chief flaws of the IPU argument: no one really takes the IPU seriously at all, not even her supposed followers.

Basically if you break any of the ten commandments you are going to hell. Especially number 5.

Try This on for size
http://www.areyougoingtoheaven.com/GPmovie04.html

No one can truly say that they KNOW that God does or does not exist.

Well, to start, thank you for completely ignoring the details of my post. Look over them again. Didymus, I'm truly sorry for you for what you and other Christians are taught to think of the world.

Secondly, I'm not going to accept Hell because I don't "believe" it exists.

I don't believe that Hell makes sense in a relativistic sensical universe

You have no right to mock my beliefs in true world optomism.

I've put the most important part in bold here. Compare: the highest probability (barring assumptions about the reliability of works of fiction) is that Peter Pan will indeed never grow up. But you see, I have an a priori case against the Christian philosophy which overrides any probability of Jesus rising from the dead. And you can't just say "bar X, Y and Z, there's no evidence against this proposition".

wouldnt that mean the nicist person could go to hell just cause they follow one way what about gandi

Just because you don't believe it's real doesn't make it any less real. In counseling we call this "denial."

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Well, I'll have to answer this question by saying that since I am a strong Athiest, I do not believe in Heaven or Hell. So, nobody is going to Heaven or Hell. We die when we die, and nothing happens afterward.

That's my opinion.

well i belive that he meant that he was the only way meaning you need to follow his morals

14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

and what about Jesus, he was jewish, i doubt he's in hell

and i can go on with a long list of people that deserve to be in heaven

and your acting like all chathlics go to heaven

"not all people that call my father lord will enter the kingdom of heaven"

Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven.

if god dose what you say the moral chistians wouldnt go to heaven they would refuse, if this is true i refuse to go to heaven.

i still dont think that ether of us are going to hell

i belive that we should let people belive in what they belive in becuase maybe THERE the correct ones how are WE so sure and they deserve to go to heaven or there acuvalent to it

if god wanted all non-christians to go to hell wouldnt he just burtualy kil them all, that dosnt sound like him now dose it?

the more i think your wright the more i dis-like god

Here's the flaw in your logic here, Upsilon. Everyone knows (or at least should) that works of fiction are not meant to be taken as reliable. However, in order to claim that miracles cannot or do not occur, you need to be able to prove that with certainty. Just like with what's his names argument against magic, this is only something you can claim from lack of experience. I.e., you can only claim, "I do not believe in miracles," whereas someone who has witnessed one can say, "I witnessed a miracle."

Again, I must caution you: hell is not God's fault, but people's. If people refuse to be reconciled to him, you can't blame him for it. In any case, being that you are not equal to God, I would suggest you not try to judge him. Hell is the natural consequence of people not being reconciled to God. God has already done more than enough to rescue people from hell: He sent prophets to warn them. He gave his Law so that people might know right from wrong. He gave his Word so that people might come to know him. He sent his Son to mediate for them, and to reconcile them through his death and resurrection. After all this, if people still refuse to be reconciled to God, it's their fault, not God's.

But a priori theories about miracles are by no means the only thing that brings down the Bible. As I said in my last post, it's my logical case against Christian doctrine that cancels out the Bible's reliability.

You're falling into the same logical traps again. First, you claim that Hell is not God's fault and but ours. But it is God's fault if he's the one who made it so. (I also think that saying that all humans deserve Hell because two people a few thousand years ago disobeyed God is questionable.)

And you use the word "refused" as if it's a simple choice of accepting God or going to Hell. It's not; it's a question of whether or not you believe. And if you don't believe, you can't refuse.