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Originally Posted by Red Swingline
I and many others have said time and time again that there is no direct, measurable, quantifiable evidence of God's existence. Were there such evidence, the need for (here's that word you so deride) faith would be unnecessary. It's as simple as that. As long as you challenge God to show you absolute proof, He will not. If you ask God to change your heart He most definitely will. Now, those of us who believe in God recognize His hand in every aspect of life. I recognize His workings in everything from "the birds of the air" to quantum mechanics, but that's just me.
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In the end if you really are truly interested in finding God, wherever you are sitting right now, take a moment and sincerely ask Him to change your heart. Hey, if He's not real, no harm no foul - but if it is time for you to find out about Him, He will answer you.
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For those that believe (or want to believe), recognizing God in everything and thinking that you get an answer from him (when asking him to change your heart) is just an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You think that God created everything, and also that he is perfect and would create beautiful things. So, you recognize the beauty or birds flying in the air or of quantum mechanical laws and think, "Of course God must have created these things!". And if you ask him to change your heart, you want it to happen. Because you want it to happen, it makes it more likely that you will behave and think in ways that will make it happen (or even if you don't, you still may just randomly have a change of heart anyway - we know that change is the only thing that is constant in life). So if/when it does eventually happen, again you say, "God must have made this happen! He answered my prayers!" And then of course, if it doesn't happen, you don't blame God (because he's perfect, and can do no wrong). You blame yourself - you prayed for the wrong things, you didn't believe hard enough, etc.
For those that don't believe, the same recognitions can be made, but just different conclusions drawn about causality. I recognize that there are many beautiful things in this world, but that doesn't make me immediately think that they must have been created by something magical or mythical. I recognize that I want a change of heart, but when that change of heart happens it doesn't make me immediately think that some outside, supernatural force caused that change. And if that change doesn't come, I just realize that some things are beyond my control (and that doesn't equate to those things being in control of a spirit or god)...
Yes, there are things that we have no explanation for still. But there are many things, that we once thought that a God was an explanation for, that have now been understood to be caused by some other, previously unknown, natural force(s). It is just too easy of a cop-out to say that some unknowable, unprovable entity is the cause of everything (whether we understand how it works or not) we observe in the world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Swingline
This leads in to your third point - free will. You are free to live your life exactly how you want. If you don't want to deal with God, you are welcome to avoid Him, it's as simple as that. The exciting thing is, if you choose not to believe in Him, that means you don't have to believe in the afterlife either and so don't let it worry you. Now, let me pre-empt the response to this; one that goes something like, "Why would I want to believe in a God that will punish me for not believing?" Let's try some other variations of that question. Why would I want to pay taxes to a government that would put me in jail for not paying taxes? Why would I want to be healthy when I'm just going to die anyway? Why do I have to be responsible for the consequences of my actions? Well, to put it bluntly, that's the way it works.
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You answered the last three questions reasonably... "that's the way it works". But if you are trying to use these three questions as a logical equivalent ("other variations of that question") to your previous question "why would I want to believe in a God that will punish me for not believing?", then that's
not the way it works... "That's the way it works" is not a rational answer to that question. It is to the other three: We can observe our tax and justice system at work. We can observe the human life/death cycle at work. We can observe physical actions and reactions/consequences. We do know that "that's the way it works". But we
cannot observe the supposed afterlife or punishment of a God for not believing during our actual, observable life... so therefore we
don't know that "that's the way it works".