Hi everyone! I love the show! I like to listen to the archives while I'm doing my art. Its a show that makes you think and I like that.

Anyway, one thing I've heard, even from Atheists, is that when someone has a personal experience from the christian god, like the holy spirit spoke to them, etc. that its really something thats only proof to them, its not proof to anyone else.

However I would go as far as to say, if its the biblical god, its not even proof to the person experiencing it if they think it through rationally, because the bible claims its god is at least seemingly omnipotent to humans.

(Matthew 19:26 - Matthew 28:18 - Luke 1:37 - 1 John 3:20 - Isaiah 14:24-27 - Revalation 19:6 - Isaiah 46:10 - Mark 10:27 - Luke 18:27 - Job 42:1-2 - Isaiah 55:11 - 1 Kings 8:27)

What that means is, even if we were to hypothetically say something like the biblical god is true, how do we know this is not just a very powerful being, beyond our understanding, who is trying to do something evil and is tricking us into thinking its a good God? A very powerful being, who is beyond our understanding, would be very much capable of doing that. So asking us to believe in it and worship this Christian God when its not proving this to us doesn't make any sense and is irrational for it to demand that we believe and worship it when we don't have a way of knowing this.

What it comes down to is we would be talking about a being that goes beyond the human minds understanding if its even seemingly omnipotent to humans. So we can't know its full nature, thus we can't know its real place in the universe and its relation with it, thus we can't know if what its doing is right or if what someone describes about it is correct and so its not possible for us to truthfully believe or worship it.

What if its something with an intelligence far beyond ours giving us illusions for reasons that only it can know?

It would even be irrational for this being to ask us to believe what it shows us is true, if it knows humans nature. I would think something that supposedly created humans would know that.

The bible even has a very powerful being in its story that deceives people, the devil. How do Christians know the devil isn't the one who actually wrote the bible to decieve people into worshipping him? (That would explain the slavery)

How do they know its not something like Q from Star Trek? I love that example. I'm a Star Trek geek. :)

What it all comes down to is Christianity claims truth about something we can't possibly know about. When someone doesn't know something the possibilities are infinite on what it could be because the possibilities include things that we haven't thought of or things that we are not capable of thinking of, things we can't comprehend.

Christie Luv says, "What it all comes down to is Christianity claims truth about something we can't possibly know about. When someone doesn't know something the possibilities are infinite on what it could be because the possibilities include things that we haven't thought of or things that we are not capable of thinking of, things we can't comprehend."

Quick answer to this is to best understand the things we do know about or in your case do some research. It's easy to say that, "the possibilities include things that we haven't thought of or things that we are not capable of thinking of", without actually researching and understanding the things that we already know.

I mean before you jump into conclusions on what we don't know, shouldn't you try to understand the science and evidence that has been collected before you make that leap into faith. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the argument of God of the Gaps. Whatever you don't know just shove your God in it and hope it fits. The more you investigate and ask the kinds of questions that invokes critical thinking, you'll be better prepared and the things that seems possible will be less and less based on fantasy or your own preconceived thoughts. You'll might even comprehend what you think was incomprehensible. By building a knowledge base and practicing critical thinking skills, you'll find some of the questions you have are not that tricky to answer.

Hi Sammy! I totally agree that investigating things the best we can is a great thing to do, but when we don't know something it is also good to say we don't know, because if someone instead jumped to a conclusion before knowing the evidence it will not lead them to the truth, considering of all the possibilities it could actually be. Jumping to conclusions before seeing the evidence is mainly what I see a lot of theists do.

Yes some theists will flip what I said about possibilities and say humans don't have the capabilities of understanding everything, so we have to just accept what God says because God knows best. What I said above is actually a rebuttal to that claim. I agree that there are so many possibilities out there when we do not know something, but that doesn't mean to automatically jump to the conclusion that it is God, or that if a very powerful being existed claiming to be God we should jump to the conclusion that they are what they claim to be.

I agree that when human knowledge hits barriers where we don't know, saying that we don't know is perfectly acceptable. But there are people much more motivated and smarter that are looking into those questions.

My point was toward the rest of us that are not scientists or make it our life's career experimenting and finding actual evidence to those questions. All that I can understand and all the research and thought I can put into something, I will never know everything. What I do know is fabricate elaborate ideas about how the universe works or the worshipping of anything would not bring me closer to finding answers. From my point of view I only have one life and to believe that some God exist that needs my worship is a pathetic being and would be a waste of my time.

My only disagreement to your rebuttal to the theist claim is that atheist should not also jump to conclusions that there is no God. For me, I've decided to lend toward the no God assumption merely because there are far more natural explanations to things than there are supernatural. Not believing gives me the ability to question anything that doesn't provide scientific evidence. Believing in a God means I'd have to follow some religion that that God falls under. But if I just say I don't know, I'd have to give both sides equal legitimacy. And for me scientific evidence outweighs any supernatural god claim I've ever heard or cared to address. Over and over god claims loses as far as evidence and what is true without having to skew the information. The evidence for no God is the lack of evidence for any God.

Christie, I enjoyed reading your unique perspective on this. Your arguments remind me of some of the elements found in mythical stories, such as Joss Whedon's TV series "Angel", in which there is continual reference to beings in other dimensions and one is never quite sure who is on which side. As the series unfolds, good turns out to be bad, bad turns out to be good, but in the final analysis the viewer is left wondering WTF is good or evil. I applaud writers and producers who embrace this ambiguity even as they create mythical worlds rooted in classic notions of good and evil.

In the final analysis, your argument that the Christian God could be an evil being deceiving humanity is just as valid as Christian arguments for the goodness of their god. Once we embrace all possibilities for good, evil, spiritual entities and deceptions, they all cancel each other out and we're left with nothing more than our daily experience and flawed reasoning. We make do with what we can ascertain by using our senses, which evolved for purposes of survival, not for ascertaining Ultimate Truth, if such a thing even exists.

Our sensory perceptions are distorted in favor of believing we're correct, that life is predictable, and we primarily see what is relevant to our physical and egocentric survival, excluding irrelevant or contrary evidence. We do this without even noticing it, we deceive ourselves into imagining that we're capable of being objective and we glorify our personal perspective as though it were the correct interpretation of the flood of ambiguous sensory information through which we sort in order to construct our subjective version of reality.

and yet...what other choice do we have?

we can only work with the information we have. and it is only natural that we get caught up in the day to day banalities of our lives, because the multitude of inane problems we must solve every day are the ones we have to answer. those "whats for dinner" problems.

i like to ponder deeper questions of existence as much as the next person, but at the end of the day i try to bring it all back to my own backyard reality and ask, "how does this effect me now, here?"

and this is really where i think religion loses the most. not in its ability or inability to make sense of the universe, but in its limited use in everyday life. monotheistic religions in general create unnecessary US vs THEM dilemmas when i do not need or desire them. they slam shut intellectual inquiries...and so i am not interested. they are mired in bigotry and sexism...not interested. and for all the blather about love and acceptance and forgiveness, i do not see christian communities are any happier or humane than any other group of people.

i see churches as offering an easy solution for a multitude of complex problems. i am as uninterested in them as i am in a get-rich-quick scheme.

Hi Tongpa-nyi! That looks like a fun show to watch! Yes, if we wouldn't be able to observe what is good and bad outside our senses, or even if the being had a concept of good and bad, I think the way to answer that is "I don't know" instead of saying "I believe". Since we wouldn't know what it is we are believing. Just as I said before, we wouldn't know its nature or it's relationship with the universe. That is what Atheism is, the lack of belief in a God, which doesn't automatically mean the belief that there is no God. I don't think the christian argument is just as valid because they say "I believe" which is jumping to conclusions.

In defense of reason and common sense; it doesn't require any faith not to believe in something for which there is no evidence, therefore atheists have no doubt that God does not exist.

There are many things that I can prove do exist and everyone believes in them. What exist means is (to have actual being; be real) a tree is real and I can prove that. God is not real because there is nothing that confirms the existence of any God/Gods. An idea in someone's mind is not evidence for anything to actually exist. I am an atheist because I can determine what actually exist and what does not. Imaginary beings for which there is no evidence do not exist. That is a firm no answer to the question does God/Gods exist, and that is the position of the atheist. Atheist can tell the difference between things that exist in reality and imaginary beings. Atheists do not even consider the idea of God/Gods plausible.

There is no reason for an atheist to query over a non-existent God (if God is good or evil) because there isn't one. The nature of the God of Abrahmic religions is portrayed in ancient scripture. There have been thousands of God/Gods throughout human history. There are God/Gods portrayed in legends, fables, and stories that date from the medieval era or earlier. It is true that ancient people considered anyone an atheist if they didn't believe in their God/Gods, but that's not actually a person who does not have a belief in any God/Gods. There is no "knowledge" or first-hand witness accounts of any God/Gods. It has all been about inspired writings, legends and myths. These God/Gods were used to fill in the (real knowledge) gaps with a supernatural explanation. A person can claim not to know one way or the other that god exist, but that is not an atheist.

Atheists positively deny that God exist. Atheists do not think that you can say I will never know so God might exist, an atheist says you have to prove to me that something exist before I believe that it does. If there is no evidence for it to exist that is enough for the atheists. The burden of proof is not on the atheist to prove that something doesn't exist. If there were evidence for God then a belief in God wouldn't be called faith. Things that can be proven or that do exist do not require faith, and faith is not the equivalent of real evidence.

"What Can Be Asserted Without Evidence Can Be Dismissed Without Evidence" - Christopher Hitchens