Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
1. Despite evil and suffering, God exists. Evil and suffering exist so that greater good may come of it. For example, look at nature. A young sappling sprouts only to be muched on by caterpillars and eaten by a dear. The sappling nourishes the dear which is the killed and eaten by wolves. The dear keeps the wolves from starvation and they die of old age. The corpses of the wolves turn to soil and offer good nutrition for the sproting sappling. I submit to you that without the necessary sufferings and evil of death that there would be no life at all.
2. The hypocrisy and sin of men does not disprove God, but makes God necessary. I agree that many of those professing a religious creed are often no different than those not professing one. But the very fact that man often lack moral direction and a sense of decency shows that on his own man could never create or uphold an uncompromised moral code. Many of the codes -such as karma- encourage immorality because each man thinks he is infalliable and not all men have the same mind thus there is a contradiction. Many of the codes have similar elements. How can this be but that there is a God of whom we percieve and makes himself known to us if in practice we do not keep the codes we make. How could we even agree to the contents of the code if we cannot even agree on who should govern us, save for a higher Authority.
3. The existence of God is not a scientific one but a philosophical one. Say for example, I combine baking soda with vinegar. Gas is released and a solid participate is left behind. However, looking at the participate although one could determine the original substances were vinegar and baking soda, one could not determine that I had put these two substances together -they could only assume I had. I could come to them and said that I had done I had created the resultant but one does not have to believe me. Thus though there are natural laws and reason, these alone cannot prove or disprove God. Belief, that is, faith is required either way.
4. There is no proof that sorrow is real except in ones own experience and that of tears rolling down anothers cheek. Nor can joy be percieved except by ones own experience and that of a smile on anothers face. There is no scientific test to verify these things -no scientific method. All there is to validate these things is personal testimony and yet these are universal. So too is God though testimony is all we can offer. If we have not experienced him we have seen him. Most of us have not experienced the lost of the child but we can, though imperfectly, percieve the deep grief of those who had and we learn from them. Similarily, not all recieve the grace of faith but we can percieve the deep faith of others. Though we cannot percieve God as we would like always -seeing or feeling- He is still there. Though we can't percieve another's sorrow, we know that they are grieving. Though we can't percieve the joy of another, we know that they have joy. We just know.
5. God always answers prayer, He just doesn't always give us what we want. God will either say yes, no or wait. Getting a no or no response, doesn't mean He doesn't exist.
6. A Christian is not God, he does not magically become a perfectly moral person nor does God ever promise that. In fact, such would go against the laws of nature if he did. Reemember the sappling at the end of my example? It will take atleast a hundred years or more until it is fully grown. So too does it take many years for the best wines to ferment. It can also take years and years before a professed Christian could be considered of saintly morality. But the failing of man does not deny God's existence any more would it purport to go against evolution - since neither in evolution is found a perfectly superior organism.
7. Every teenager rebels against their parents in one way or another. Each doubts their parents to be right about this or that. It is often not until the parents themselves have died or the teens growup and raise teens of their own that they realise how right their parents were. So are we like teenagers when faced with the Word of God. We question it's authority and think we know better but often it can be found to be correct even if it takes us into our old age, looking back at our actions and that of our generation and regret going against His Word. The history of man is riddled with the collapses of empires that sought to uphold relativistic ideals.
8. It is an interesting argument. But you see, it is God who created us and we did not create ourselves. It is God who knows the hearts and minds of people, we do not though it certainly doesn't stop us from thinking we do. Every society has punishments for those that transgress its rules. Many societies past and present have the death penalty as a punishment. Sometimes the death penalty is used to protect lives and sometimes it is the merely the ultimate punishment. People are always informed of the rules and resulting punishments and yet many still choose willing to commit such crimes. So it is of God. He has set rules and punishments and many goes against him anyways. Murder is considered immoral because it makes the murderer a god, not the literal act of bringing death but rather the reason why is what makes it moral and immoral. That is why only God is really just in allowing death for he is giving what those who go against Him what they ask for. Only He has the authority.
9. So it was that people to this day believe dinosaurs do not think dinosaurs exist despite the bones, for the personally did not see living dinosaurs. So too it is difficult to believe that Jesus is God despite the miracles. Just as we are told about dinousars and how they lived by an authority by which we are compelled to believe, so also are we given testimony of Jesus which we are compelled to believe. But just because one believes dinosaurs did not exists doesn't mean they did or didn't, so also does one not believing Jesus is God not affect whether he is or isn't.
I think I answered them logically and citing known human experience as fact, but I suppose there might be emotion in there.
