“Start with evidence for the supernatural. It’s painful.”
>>What do you mean by ‘evidence for the supernatural, exactly’? Things we can’t explain? How does our inability to explain things prove a god or gods exist?
“I cannot argue with fools (forgive my judgmental description, I am generalizing, not attributing that to every atheist or those sincerely in search of God). There clearly is a god, or an intelligent force out there, whatever minimum credit you or anyone else want to afford it. I refuse to debate atheists on if there is a god. I will discuss their motives, however.”
>>In the post I replied to you indicated that it could be factually established that god exists, but it seems all you can offer to support god’s existence is an unsupported assertion that ‘clearly god exists’.
JGC: “And that objective proof of god's existence is...?”
JV-12: “It is enough.”
>>What’s enough? Be specific.
“Because when you add it all up, the miracles, the history, the Words, the prophets, the acts of love and hate, the charity, the promises and fulfilled ones, and the reason behind it all ---Christianity makes sense and the others do not.”
>>How does Christianity make any more sense than does Judaism? How does Christianity make any more sense than Islam? How does Christianity make any more sense than Hinduism? How does Christianity make any more sense than Wicca? Explain that to me.
“I, personally, find most of your arguments doubting most of the revelations I have put forward in the past to be weak. They are desperate, they are mathematically exponentially improbable, and they are agenda driven. Consequently, I lose ambition in arguing the same points over and over with you.”
>>If I was as unable as you to defend a position I was emotionally vested in I’d probably lose motivation as well.
“You out and out refuse to believe any eye witness to any alleged miracle, I do not care if there are 3 of them, 50 of them, or 70,000 of them.”
>>I simply ask absolutely fundamental questions whenever you offer accounts of miracles in lieu of evidence: How can you reliably establish an event actually represents a miracle? How can you reliably attribute that miracle (once established) to any specific candidate for god? If miracles are proof of the existence of god, why don’t you accept the miracles associated with non-Christian religious traditions as proof that their gods exist?
You’ve never adequately answered such questions—your typical response takes the form of “What else could it be?” or “Well, it’s enough to convince ME.”
“They mean nothing to you. And if there have been a hundred eye witnesses to 1,000 miracles, the number of miracles mean nothing to you. If they were all connected with Jesus Christ or his mother Mary, it means nothing to you.”
>>Let’s start with the Zeitun lights, JV. How exactly have they been connected to Mary? What was the basis for that identification?
“You do not impress me JGC nor do your rebuttals. You are so agenda driven it tires me out.”
>>You have a habit of alternately making false claims (“There should be millions of transitional fossils found, but there hasn’t even been one”) or extraordinary claims for which you can offer no credible support (“That god exists can be proven as fact”). My only agenda is to correct the former and ask you to actually provide the missing support for the latter.
“You refuse to believe 70,000 people saw the sun dance defying cosmic laws.”
>>For the sake of argument, let’s presume they did: how would that speak to the existence of a god or gods?
Consider UFO abductions—do you believe they occur? The body of evidence which supports abductions takes the same form (eye-witness testimony) and continues to accumulate.
“You do not care if there were 1,000 atheists in attendance, doctors, communist government officials, and anti-clerical journalists who with great reluctance reported the truth of what they saw in the their Lisbon newspaper “O Seculo. You refuse the testimony of everyone present who said it lasted 12 minutes or and when it was over their totally drenched clothes and soaked soggy ground were bone dry. It matters not to you.”
>>you’re speaking as if all the witnesses present report the same observations: that isn’t the case. Some but not everyone reported seeing the sun move in zig-zag patterns, some but not everyone saw it emit radiant colors. Some saw nothing at all.
But again: if you believe that this miracle is sufficient to prove the existence of the god of Abraham, why don’t miracles associated with other religions prove the existence of their gods?
“That is all the proof I need for is there a God and which one is the one true God.”
>>That ultimately is what all your claims of evidence reduce to—that there is all the proof you need.
“But all I hear is “yeah, but other faiths have miracles, too.” Fine, then they both have a supernatural element to them. Then one needs to go further and see what else those faiths have to offer.”
>>What does the Christian faith offer that other religions don’t?
“There is no comparison on countless other levels or arguments. Christianity is so overwhelmingly more convincing than Islam, Hindusm, Buddhism, Shintoism, tribal religions, etc. as to where God is revealing Himself in the most profound, detailed and truthful way. It is beyond doubt.”
>>In what way is Christianity “so overwhelmingly more convincing”?
“You have your reasons to doubt, or you refuse to believe.”
>>Or it could be that I simply see no reason to believe as you do.
“Fine. I find them to be mostly lame or agenda driven. We have come to an impasse is that not obvious?”
>>Yes: you will make the same claims over and over, and I will challenge you to provide evidence rooted in something other than faith to support them.
