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1.) On a non-religious level God exists in all of our minds and therefore, even if God is not physical he is a mental creation and therefore he exists as firmly as the idea of social equality.
2.) God is a possible being or supernatural being, he may exist in reality because there are no internal contradictions in his existence.
3.) (The third point I quote from St. Anselm, although all my other points are loosely based on his, I'm sure you already realised this.) "If something exists exclusively in our understanding and might have existed in reality then it might have been greater. This simply means that something that exists in reality is perfect (or great). Something that is only a concept in our minds could be greater by actually existing."
4.) Suppose then God only can exist in our imaginations, dreamt up in a time of hopelessness or moulded from an age old story.
5.) So then God is greater than he is in the physical realm (sounds like De Carte here)
6.) "This would mean that God is a being in which a greater is possible."
7.) This is stupid and impossible because the Lord, a being in which nothing greater is possible, is a being in which a greater is possible. Herein lies the obvious contradiction.
8.) Thus it follows that it is false for God to only exist in our understanding.
So God can exist in reality and our mind.
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I have no problem with the idea that god exists in our imaginations. That is, however, a very imaginative use of the word "exists".
As for the logic of the argument, which I have heard before:
1.) On a non-culinary level the perfect cookie exists in all of our minds and therefore, even if the perfect cookie is not physically real it is a mental creation and therefore it exists as firmly as the idea of lunch.
2.) The perfect cookie is a possible snack or supernatural snack, it may exist in reality because there are no internal contradictions in its existence.
3.) "If something exists exclusively in our understanding and might have existed in reality then it might have been greater. This simply means that something that exists in reality is perfect (or great). Something that is only a concept in our minds could be greater by actually existing."
4.) Suppose then that the perfect cookie only can exist in our imaginations, dreamt up in a time of hunger or moulded from an age old restaurant critique.
5.) So then the perfect cookie is greater than it is in the physical realm.
6.) This would mean that the perfect cookie is a snack in which a greater is possible.
7.) This is stupid and impossible because the perfect cookie, a treat in which none greater is possible, is a treat in which a greater is possible. Herein lies the obvious contradiction.
8.) Thus it follows that the perfect cookie is in my mouth.
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A petty example would be me and my brother, he says that I have never had a girlfriend yet I knew he was obviously arguing for the sake of arguing, I applied time and energy to prove him wrong with photographic evidence
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I'm not sure we can really pursue sibling teasing as an honest example.
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I refuse to believe that you honestly believe that anyone who believe in God/ a god, i.e. different to you, is mad.
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I said "on the face of it". There is a compelling case to be made, I think, even though it is probably untrue. Superficially the differences are few. Believing in something that cannot be said to be there, claiming to be in telepathic communication which such an entity, seeing patterns and signs of it everywhere. It doesn't look good.
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The history of man and the nature of man is to be ignorant, we are a minor body in an enormous Universe, we can only create ideas were we lack understanding and debate conflicting ideas were it is impossible to find truth, this can be said of the scientific bodies debating the creation of the Universe via the Big Bang v Other theories, it is unlikely we will ever truly know how we came about, we just are.
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Maybe not, but don't sell the human race short. We can produce extraordinarily accurate models of the universe, which is all science strives to do anyway. And certainly scientific theories have evidence to back them up. I'm loathe to call the "other" theories "theories" at all. Nothing is certain, but we have a damn good idea, and it is getting better all the time. No other enterprise does or is.
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Anyone who threatens another with hellfire must be certain in their mind that they are right and this shows a great worry for the person they threaten, enough to try and scare their 'enemies' into seeing how they see things.
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Children, mostly. You can tell from their questions that they see through religion from an early age. Is it any wonder this treatment is "required".
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On a non-debate note it's a shame you ended such an intelligent offensive with a pointlessly rude embellishment.
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I don't think it was rude. And if I'm honest, I'm not truly bothered if it was. It's what I think. If you mean the use of the word "fucking," frankly it was the only word available to properly express my disgust, emotion, vehemence and generally provide sufficient emphasis to the point.
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it basically comes down to god vs science, there is no 100% proof for either god or science
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100% proof is neither possible nor required, but you will find that when it comes to evidence, science is holding all the cards.
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someone mentiond something about "it can't all be randome chance" well I think that's why scientists came up with the parralell universes theory were anything that can happen has happened, eliminating the randomeness factor (which means in some universe I'm the president of earth fighting off an alien attack)
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Parallel universes are proposed mainly as a solution of quantum theory, which concerns genuinely random events unaffected by anything that preceded them. However, these quantum events are only appropriate at the subatomic level and don't have on affect on the macroscopic world. But the significant effect of random on the universe cannot be ignored, but it doesn't actually pose any problems for science.
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there is one thing I want to set strait right now and that is that some christens say that they are the most persecuted but to be honest I think the mozlums get persecuted most, think about it christens get persecuted in some third world countries but just about anywere on the planet mozlums are seen as teroists because of one teroist group that happened to be mozlum, that's the equivilent of saying birds eat insects therfor anything that eats insects is a bird therfor spiders are birds. (I'm not mozlum Im just saying they get the brunt of the persecution)
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It is somewhat different in their own countries, in some of which you can be put to death for not being a Muslim, and especially for leaving Islam. In many of them atheism is actually illegal, making false accusations that lead to corporal or capital punishment against non-Muslims is not uncommon (and permitted according to some holy texts). Atheism is not recognised at all in Indonesia, where your religion has to be registered in your ID (neither is Judaism, which is a bother for the nation's 25 Jews). Though in many Muslim countries the number 1 oppressed demographic is most certainly women.
In America simply stating that atheists exist, especially if you are one, is enough to cause a disproportionate fuss.
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to close of Ill leave something for non belivers to think about, if were wrong we have a lifetime with meaningless restrictions but if your wrong you have a blissful life but forever suffer in hell afterwards (Okay we christens do seem to overstress the hell factor)
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Pascal's Wager is so flawed that even Pascal, a celebrated mathematician and progenitor or probability theory, did not consider it valid. It is religious hucksterism of the cheapest, nastiest, most vulgar kind it is possible to imagine. It says "what have you got to lose?" Quite a lot, I should think, but that is another story. "What have you got to lose? I've got a good offer for you! Come into
my used-car lot! Come on baby, just lie a little, and you'll never know!" Don't talk to me like that, and don't call it piety when you do. As if one can simply believe in the obscene by sheer force of will. You imply your god is both very cynical and very stupid. One who is either fooled by this or else says "I notice you make a profession of faith just there, and I also know why you did: in aid of gaining favour with me. Well that's all right then, come on in!" That is a contemptible thing, a contemptible person, and a contemptible god (nothing new there). And were I to find myself sitting, surprised, before your god in a celestial tribunal, no lawyer, no jury of my peers, no appeal, no order (why the faithful want this to be true, I'll never know), all I will be able to say is "I was honestly unable to believe the word of your Earthly representatives." Not that any particular outcome at this point is very attractive to me at this point.
But I turn the point back at you. Suppose, having believed all your life, presumably on actual faith and not this petty gambit, you find yourself before the celestial tribunal,
and it's the wrong god. Who is in the worse position now, eh? You'd best hope that the real thing isn't the jealous type, like the one that you had bet on. Thousands of human gods (I've seen the lists), an infinite number of possible gods no one has yet thought of, no reason to believe that any are true or reflect in any way any actual gods, and there you are, believing to be true the religion that you happened by the sheerest chance to be born into. Which itself takes the arrogant and egocentric to the extremes and beyond. I can expand on this further. But how confident are you, really? Keep in mind that the exact same source of confidence and faith you may hold to be true in the deepest reaches of your person is identical to that of those of all the other religions that have ever existed.