The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #148075   Message #3437938
Posted By: Steve Shaw
17-Nov-12 - 04:54 PM
Thread Name: BS: Afterlife new exciting proof?
Subject: RE: BS: Afterlife new exciting proof?
Jeez, I'm glad that Shimrod has maintained the closed ranks possessed of rational people and refused to talk bollocks, which appears to be going a little viral in recent posts. "For me there is no God." Sheesh. Now lookat here. There is either a God or there isn't. There is no "for me" about it. The deluded and irrational among us will say "I believe in God. Look around: his existence is self-evident! I cannot be persuaded otherwise!" The sensible and rational will say "Some say that there is a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful, who trumps all the laws of nature that he himself is supposed to have designed, and who hasn't got a beginning or an end, and who created everything, yet I haven't seen one smidgeon of evidence for his existence. Interesting!" Let me do a Musket-pastiche: for me, there may be a God. I was brought up to believe that there is one. But in all my life I have yet to see any evidence for his existence. Not only that, he is posited as an explanation for all creation, yet those who position him thus never seem to be able to explain how someone far more complex than the complexities he's supposed to explain, who breaks every rule of nature there is, and for whom there is no evidence, can even remotely be the answer to anything, let alone everything. Now that doesn't mean that there isn't a God. But it does mean, after I've applied all my rationality to the issue, that the possibility of his existence seems very remote indeed. As a scientist, of course, I would be more than happy to take on board any evidence to the contrary that anyone puts forward. But I do reserve the right to remain a rational being by applying the usual standards to any "evidence" put to me. Which, unfortunately, rules out ancient stories, tradition, witness, visions, edicts and the sayings of religious leaders. Not to speak of over-bloated, tendentious videos.