Why do some Christians compare Gods existence (or lack thereof) to unrelated true or false statement
  • BBQueue
    24
    This is just an example, but there was a religious philosopher on youtube who said that he told his wife "I love you", and said that he doesn't have to prove that he loves he because she already knows it's true. The guy went on to compare this example to the existence of God, as if to say that Christians in theory already know that God exists and so this doesn't have to be proven to them. The problem with this is that he is comparing a faith-based blanket statement that no one including his wife has ever contested or asked for any evidence, to one that is based on a specific, binary premise that is often heavily contested and should in theory be proven with science in order to show that it is not simply a matter of faith.

    Moreover, I don't think there is any dispute even among Christians that religion itself is a matter of faith, and therefore the same can only be assumed about everything that goes along with it and that has not been proven either physically or by science. If for some reason this were to be contested though, it stll doesn't change the fact that religion is indeed faith-based, which is why for example there are different religions with different belief sets. In any case, I don't believe it is at all implausible for a person to request or want evidence of something related to religion that has not been shown to be fact-based by any (scientific) means at all, especially not when there are other religious matters that have indeed been shown to have existed or taken place. The presence of Jesus would be just one example of this, even if his life did not exactly mirror the New Testament. There is at least physical as well as scientific evidence that he existed, whereas there has never been any on behalf of the Christian God or any other religious deities.
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  • The Questioning Bookworm
    109
    ↪BBQueue


    Some Christians do this because of faith. There is no way to prove whether God exists or not nor does anyone 'know' God exists or not.

    It is faith on both sides of the argument of whether God exists or not. There are assumptions on each side of the argument.

    For the existence of God, there is a leap of faith because what is even the instrument for us to prove his existence, first, and, second, reasons for their faith in God is usually due to rearing in the religion, spiritual encounters, reflection or things that have happened in life or things these people have experienced. Third, people may assume that God exists based on the scientific evidence we do know. Why is there a code to DNA? Some people try to use this as evidence that there could or may be a God or a higher being that has programmed us or our DNA. But, even in this case, there is still faith involved.

    For the non-existence of God camp, first, where is the instrument, again, for us to even prove that God exists or not. From my knowledge, there is no instrument for this purpose, so there must be faith involved. The reason I claim this is because most of these people presume since there is no evidence of God that therefore God must not exist. But, many things exist without evidence of why they exist that people take as truth. For example, why do certain species have characteristics where there is no recorded origin or explanation of this characteristic. Why do some galaxies appear to exist--through telescope images--but when Einstein's relativity and the speed of light is considered, maybe they don't anymore due to the distance of these galaxies away from our planet but we don't know for sure. So, we have faith in the fact of some evidence that a galaxy might have existed or might exist, but we still don't really know if it exists nor do we have an instrument to tell if it does or not due to the distance away.

    So, to answer your question, why do Christians compare God's existence (or lack of) to unrelated true or false statements, well, in my opinion, they do this because they have faith in God's existence based on their reasons for having faith, but, when confronted by a scientific question of evidence or fact, they appeal to other true or false statements to back their faith in God up and not whether or not God actually exists or not.

    Anyhow, I hope I am not babbling on anymore. Thanks for posting this, it is surely very interesting. Cheers!
    The Questioning Bookworm Options
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