Is the statement "god exists" true?

[_dartagnan]

I should probably add that social conditioning doesn't always refer to falsehood. We are taught/conditioned to believe many things that happen to be true. Atheists no doubt condition their children to rejct any belief in God, and would perhaps condition them to reject any spiritual experiences they might have, insisting there were merely psychological phenomena. But I doubt an atheist would consider this type of conditioning bad.

[_guy sajer]

I am not sure comparing fairies to God is a good comparison. God at least had tradition, scripture and some claimed supernatural events attributed to him for which we have records of those events from a variety of witnesses. If you can compile the same thing for fairies then your argument may be good.

Your response is quite reasonable. I cannot dispute that you had a "spiritual experience," what I am, however, is highly skeptical of the cause and the meaning of your experience. I think (not claiming this IS the way it is) that if you would stop and really reflect on this and consider all the "evidence" and counter-arguments, you might also concede that you cannot state with certainty what the cause and meaning are either.

OK, if you don't like my analogy of fairies, how about alien abductions? It meets your criteria in that there are records from a variety of witnesses, there is tradition, and there is certainly a lot published about it. (By the way, your answer, I think, supports my contention that belief in god is culturally privileged, although I do not discount something akin to a "God gene," and my hypothesis is that one exists.)

So, let me restate the question. If an alien abduction adherent accused a theist of being closed minded because he/she did not believe in, or consider the least bit credible, alien abduction, would the theist concede the point? (This applies to the particular case in which the same theist accuses atheists of being closed minded for not believing in, or given any credence, to the existence of God.)

Instead of alien abductions, we could also talk about witches, which also seem to meet your criteria and probably many other sorts of superstitious beliefs.

[_Mercury]

You CAN prove that God exists. It's called Moronis promise. People do it every day.

The sad thing is that Mercury KNOWS this and sits here railing against it anyway.

Sigh. Gaz, the overwhelming majority of those who take this sad little mindgame to heart actually come to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon (which is what moronis promise is abut, not the existence of god) is all bull. the small SMALL percentage that are convinced drastically overwhelms those who call teh missionaries bluff.

If moronis promise were treated as it were then the conclusion reached would be that the Book of Mormon is bunk.

[_Mercury]

Can you prove that God esists? No. Next question?

I'm assuming here so correct me if im wrong but if you can't prove that god exists then there is no utility in believing in him.

[_Mercury]

Instead of alien abductions, we could also talk about witches, which also seem to meet your criteria and probably many other sorts of superstitious beliefs.

Or succubi, the precursor to Alien Abductions, a.k.a. "Night Terrors/Sleep Paralysis".

[_guy sajer]

You CAN prove that God exists. It's called Moronis promise. People do it every day.

The sad thing is that Mercury KNOWS this and sits here railing against it anyway.

Oh brother; here's Gaz using one of the favorite ploys of the true believer. The rest of us KNOW it's true, like the true believer, we are just too craven to admit it.

Jesus Humbert Christ, Gaz, give it a rest. This ploy is so pathetically weak it only makes you look like a fool.

I don't suppose you'd find it convincing if Mercury responded in kind, "That sad thing is that Gaz knows the Mormon Church is bunk and sits here promoting it anyway."

I swear to Zeus, I'm convinced you must have a direct phone in line to the COB who feed you the simplistic crapploa you spew on this board.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

Can Mercury prove other minds exist?

[_A Light in the Darkness]

Oh brother; here's Gaz using one of the favorite ploys of the true believer. The rest of us KNOW it's true, like the true believer, we are just too craven to admit it.

That's not what Gaz said. One can only hope that when you are correctly papers you do not display similar poor reading comprehension. Otherwise it is rather unfair for your students to draw you as a professor. Gaz said that a/the method by which one can come to knowledge of God is something Mecury knows about given his past association with Mormonism, so his questioning about methods of "proof" is done with a false ignorance. There's a large difference between that and what you say he said.

What Mercury is doing here is trading on different senses of the word "proof" so he can raise the bar that no standard can meet it. When it is then pointed out that he really can't "prove" many things he believes either, he than can lower the standard down to the normal "have compelling reason to believe," at which point he can play the game again.

[_guy sajer]

Oh brother; here's Gaz using one of the favorite ploys of the true believer. The rest of us KNOW it's true, like the true believer, we are just too craven to admit it.

That's not what Gaz said. One can only hope that when you are correctly papers you do not display similar poor reading comprehension. Otherwise it is rather unfair for your students to draw you as a professor. Gaz said that a/the method by which one can come to knowledge of God is something Mecury knows about given his past association with Mormonism, so his questioning about methods of "proof" is done with a false ignorance. There's a large difference between that and what you say he said.

What Mercury is doing here is trading on different senses of the word "proof" so he can raise the bar that no standard can meet it. When it is then pointed out that he really can't "prove" many things he believes either, he than can lower the standard down to the normal "have compelling reason to believe," at which point he can play the game again.

Oh brother; here's Gaz using one of the favorite ploys of the true believer. The rest of us KNOW it's true, like the true believer, we are just too craven to admit it.

That's not what Gaz said. One can only hope that when you are correctly papers you do not display similar poor reading comprehension. Otherwise it is rather unfair for your students to draw you as a professor. Gaz said that a/the method by which one can come to knowledge of God is something Mecury knows about given his past association with Mormonism, so his questioning about methods of "proof" is done with a false ignorance. There's a large difference between that and what you say he said.

What Mercury is doing here is trading on different senses of the word "proof" so he can raise the bar that no standard can meet it. When it is then pointed out that he really can't "prove" many things he believes either, he than can lower the standard down to the normal "have compelling reason to believe," at which point he can play the game again.

I was responding to the snippet included in Mercury's post. Here's the exact text:

You CAN prove that God exists. It's called Moronis promise. People do it every day.

The sad thing is that Mercury KNOWS this and sits here railing against it anyway.

I went back to the original full text, and it is exactly the same thing.

I see nothing in this text to suggest the interpretation you’ve given.

What I haven’t done is take the 20 minutes to read all the preceding posts to pinpoint the context of the quote. My time is more valuable to me than this.

I stand by my interpretation.

One can only hope that in whatever it is you do that you demonstrate a higher degree of reading comprehension that what you’ve demonstrated here.

[_Who Knows]

I think if LDS backed off of their 'true knowledge / absolute' claims, then so would the critics.

This thread is not about the LDS Church. This thread is about God belief and all religion in genreal. Your point is not relevent.

Fine, change 'LDS' to whatever religion you want. My point is, is that the level of atheistic 'attack' is probably directly related to the level of 'absolute knowledge' claims ("I know my church is true") by the religious.