nikolas said:
This...is...wishful...thinking...at...best... trust me, i think i speak for most athiests when i say we would all love to live in a world with a good and rational God, we however, simply don't believe this is the case.
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Why not? And rational by whose definition? How would we know if God were 'rational'? The whole basis of Christianity is that we, as humans, can not always understand the purpose of the decisions of the Lord... so rational is not a very good adjective to use. And what does 'good' mean? What would a 'good god' act like?
nikolas said:
I'm not willing to have faith, like tommykins has said, faith is the equivalent of skipping all the working out and then jumping to the conclusion that x=2 or whatever the case.
Then that's it. Case closed.
The basis of Christianity is faith, just like the basis of any belief in the big bang, structure of atoms and so on. You say that you won't have faith, but you already do, even to believe in science. What's required for something to be proven by your standards? What would be suitable proof that God existed? A sample of heavenly cloud (lol)? An angel wing?
nikolas said:
We don't need to provide evidence against, you need to provide good evidence for. See Russel's teapot and negative proof fallacy.
Indeed.
You can cite Russel's teapot and negative proof fallacy as much as you like, but the fact is, the burden of proof is not on me at all. I am content believing in Christianity; whether or not you do is beyond me.
The whole idea of a burdon of proof for me, in actuality, is quite ridiculous. I am making an assertion, if you wish to challenge this assertion, you should present evidence to contradict it. As it stands, like in a court of law in Australia, one is innocent until
proven guilty - by the same notion, the onus of proof is on you if you wish to challenge the statement I have made. This is not a scientific proof, which works the other way. If you want it proven yourself you'll have to find your own answers...
And as for faith, I don't agree. Just because one can't explain something, doesn't mean one has jumped to a conclusion. Some things are beyond both human understanding and expression; it's as simple as that.