Hitch is dead

Frankly, it is just as baffling to me that there are those like yourself that are materialists. I can't comprehend the belief that life ultimately has only mindless origins. I can't muster up that kind of faith.

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I can't comprehend the belief that life ultimately has only mindless origins. I can't muster up that kind of faith.

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Yet you have the faith to believe that accounts of car accidents are routinely confused about the location - by about a 100 miles.Of course it isn’t about faith. That’s why you have no sensible objection to the idea. That’s just the sort of inversion Faith so loves.Edited by PaulK, : Clarified last sentence

When I wrote that I also mentally made a note of your reply. I said to myself 'I just know he's going to create an equivalence. He's going to claim that I believe just as much in the other thing.This is despite years of attempting to show you that our positions are entirely different; not just equal and opposite.Not believing in god is NOT a belief in something else; it's just a non-belief in god. End. Maybe there is a god, who knows? But that has nothing to do with a belief in materialism. Or a belief in theism of whatever flavour. We both accept materialism or naturalism or whatever you want to call it because it's not a belief, it's evidenced facts. How far back we can take it is just a matter for how far science can go. We've only just started.My position on *your* god is not the same as on *a* god. What I'm exasperated about is that we have a stack of actual evidence that tells us that the story you believe is just hokum. Yet you swallow it whole knowing how impossibly unlikely it is to be true. Just by reading your book it shows how questionable it all is. Any reasonable person would treat the entire thing with utmost scepticism.My postion on your god is rational; yours is irrational. The two positions are not equivalent.

Not believing in materialism is NOT a belief in something else; it is just a non-belief in materialsim. Maybe there isn't a god, who knows? Here is the definition for materialism.

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the doctrine that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications.

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It isn't a matter of how far back you go. The doctrine, (and all doctrine requires belief), is that there is only matter. I was simply arguing for a theistic position, and yes my personal beliefs extend to Christianity. Yes, there are discrepancies in the detail of the NT accounts but just as you contend that the resurrection is impossibly unlikely to be true I contend that the rise of Christian belief is highly unlikely to be true if the resurrection isn't historical truth. However, in the post you responded to I only was talking about materialism as opposed to theism. IMHO the materialist position is irrational.

I'm going to agree with you here - not just for the sake of argument but because it's true. Anything accepted by belief is irrational and as it can't be totally ruled out, regardless of how improbable, it's simply not possible to say that ALL there is is material. We can conclude it from the evidence, but just as we can't disprove leprechauns we can't disprove a deistic god.But the point that you can't and/or refuse to get is that that is NOT true of a theism. Ignoring all the (lack of) historical evidence and simple logic that shows beyond reasonable doubt that biblical events are fiction, if there was a god intervening in our lives we'd know about it.There is no equivalence in our positions - try to get your head round it. Believe what the hell you like but don't believe that a disbelief in theism is irrational; it's not, it's easily demonstrated by evidence, facts and logic.

Not necessarily. Why must the presence of this God be obvious (equally) to every sentient creature? The perception of absence is due entirely to lack of evidence, but evidence is not (or should not) be the only standard. For most of my life, I knew about God, the character in the book, and subject of mythos. I knew of other magical human-created legends as well. The day that I publically confessed and surrendered stands out to this day as a day that impacted me and a day in which I truly felt, believed, and daresay *knew* that I had met God. A couple of years later, my one memorable encounter with something unexplained, voices out of nowhere, no evidence of trickery or deception, hair standing on end and a keen awareness of what I heard(also heard by 3 others who would tell you the same story to this day) confirmed to me that there was a supernatural realm. (or at the very least an unexplained event.) Since then, I have heard similar stories. You wont find this on You Tube. Now why is that?

When I first heard voices that came not from any human or hidden device (after later further verification) I too was baffled. Still am. The difference between me and you is you would keep looking for evidence until the cows came home, never allowing yourself to accept the weakness of surrendering to a belief. Perhaps that is a strength, i don't know.

OK then we have reached one point of agreement. Yeh!! That is not a rational comparison. There is no evidence for leprechauns but there is evidence for at least a deistic god. The fact that life exists at all is evidence for at least a deistic god. Of course I'd go further and say that the fact that there is not only life, but sentient life is strong evidence for at least a deistic god.If we take that evidence and conclude that we are created by the intelligence of that deistic god then we are in a position to consider a theistic god. If we are the result of intelligence then it seems reasonable to consider that our intelligence is somehow an extension of the original intelligence that is responsible for life. When we as humans create something with intention we do so with a purpose in mind. By extension then I suggest that it is reasonable to conclude that we were created for a purpose. That being the case then the idea that a deistic god who created us and then ignored us isn't as reasonable as a belief theistic god who created us and is still involved with what he/she has created.I have now IMHO given a rational reason to believe in a theistic god. I'm not saying that it is conclusive but only that it is reasonable.As you know I go a step further though. If then, we have an intelligent theistic god that has created life with a purpose then I don't see it as a stretch to accept the concept of resurrection into a new and renewed form of existence. The resurrection if nothing else is evidence that Jesus' life based on unconditional love, is evidence of the life that we are called to. Also the resurrection is evidence that the purpose for our lives extends beyond the life that we know. What that life will be like is essentially a mystery but it appears that unconditional love will be a basic ingredient of it. If the heart and mind of God is interwoven with our consciousness then it is simply part of our being and would be invisible to us.

How is this evidence for a god at all? Please explain as it is not obvious to me that this would be evidence of a god existing.Edited by kjsimons, : No reason given.

nope, Leprechauns created life

Fairness? After all, you'd have us believe that this is a high stakes game, involving our everlasting souls. Maybe prejudice and bias is inappropriate in those circumstances? There is no other standard is there? Nothing but I believe which has been proven hopeless at explaining anything. Always.

Life exists and there has to be an underlying cause, whether it is by chance through mindless processes or intelligence. As we are sentient beings then I contend that the reason that life exists is more likely to be intelligent than mindless. Life itself is evidence from which we draw subjective conclusions.

Fair enough, but that just means that god is a leprechaun.

That life exists is just evidence that life exists, no more, no less. You seem to need to have there be a underlying cause for life's existence, that is on you and not an actual requirement.

Sorry but that makes no sense at all. First, almost all life is mindless. The fact the we might be sentient beings is a data point so minor, so irrelevant to live now or at any time in the past that it cannot be evidence of anything beyond the fact that all known God(s) and god(s) have been created by sentient beings in the image of sentient beings.If sentience is your reason to think there was an intelligent cause wouldn't the fact that almost all life at all times that life has existed on the planet both now and in the past is and has been not sentient but rather mindless be stronger evidence that the cause was mindless?