Proof of Purchase

I think Cthulhu is on the right track with this question. “Proofs” are not often available in the area of human relations (even human relations with God). Proof is the stuff of mathematics. What we base all of our everyday lives on is evidence. I can’t “prove” that my wife loves me, but the evidence is strong enough that I would, and have, stake my life on it. Now, we Christians do make some unique claims about God and His incarnation in the person of Jesus. (It took me 38 years to accept the evidence as strong enough to act on it.) I finally decided that none of the evidence for the alternatives to the claims of Christianity were good enough. I tried hard to be a straight up atheist, but that led straight on to materialism-determinism. If everything is the result of the accidental (mindless) collision of particles, then even my thinking about God and the ultimate nature of the universe is random. Even if a truly random universal could produce consciousness, would it have any meaning or value? For me, there has to be something outside the frame of reference of the “natural universe” for life to have any meaning. Given that opinion, the claims of Christianity make the most sense to me. Having said all that, I believe that each individual is free to decide for him/herself what to believe. I DO NOT mean that any belief is as good as any other, I mean that my respect for you as a human being requires me to not interfere with your right to seek the truth as seems best to you.

camppapa: I’m honestly curious: Why do you think that your ideas as to what would or would not be ‘meaningful’ would have any impact on the actual reality of the universe? Why isn’t it plausible that what you think should be the case (‘the universe should have a purpose’) has no relationship to how the universe actually is?

And once you’d decided that you wanted the universe to have a purpose and a creator, why christianity? What is it about the ‘evidence’ that is better for christianity than, say, islam, shintoism, or the greek pantheon? It seems an awful coincidence that the ‘only’ credible religion also seems to be the one that you likely had the most exposure to.

I think most people use “proof” to mean something like “enough evidence” is cases like this. We aren’t looking for only mathematical or philosophical proofs, although they would be nice. We’re looking for enough evidence to convince us that a claim that runs contrary to our experience is true.

If you think about it, you yourself started believing because you were presented with anecdotal evidence: Someone you respected, probably your parents, taught you that your religion was true at first, and later you probably joined some group made up of others that believe, and it reinforced your belief. No one believes in a religion without somehow being told it was true. People who don’t believe just haven’t accepted that evidence as enough to think the claims made by religion are true.

Because believing things without sufficient evidence is a good way to end up scammed or injured. I like to know exactly what I’m getting into.

I only ask for proof if someone else is in my face making ridiculous claims.

I don’t care if you want to believe in gods, fairies, leprechauns, or Santa, but if you try to spread such nonsense to me, darn straight I’ll challenge you on it.

You don’t need proof to believe anything. A child doesn’t need proof of an imaginary friend. That imaginary friend exists because the child pretends it does and that’s all that matters. My friend believes in vampires because she has faith that they exist. I would want some evidence to that because I don’t see how vampires could possibly exist! People who can live forever and feed off of other people’s blood? I need and want proof because it seems so far off and unlikely that vampires exist. I need and want the same proof before I would believe that god exists!

I would even take one tiny scintilla of evidence of the existence, let alone enough to actually prove it. But the fact is, there is zero evidence of the of any dieties.

Christians seem to regard my requirement of proof as a weakness. I think anyone who blindly believes an ancient text is true, with no other supporting evidence, is no different than believing in santa or the easter bunny.

You wouldn’t want your doctor to administer a treatment unless he was confident that its effectiveness has been proven, would you? You wouldn’t want engineers to build a bridge unless they’d proven it wouldn’t fall down when you drive across it, would you?

So why should I alter my life based on something that doesn’t have any evidence, let alone proof, for its accuracy?

The thing you have to consider is that religion only makes sense to believers.

For those outside of Christianity, Christian claims seem as bizarre and unlikely as the claims of other religions seem to Christians.

When a Christian tells me that I’m a sinner because I don’t observe the taboos of centuries ago and that God will only forgive me if and only if I believe with all my heart that he nailed his son to a post 2000 years ago for me I feel like such a strong claim also requires strong evidence to back up.

To avoid the childish “did too!” “did not!” “did too!” “did not!” sort of bickering I ask Christian proseltyzers to prove it.

Because as humans in todays society we don’t have much faith in ourselves let alone what is intangible. I believe that heaven is so great of an award that it must be earned with faith, if we could all see it without proving our faith then would we really deserve it?

I think those who do not have faith on their own as you say ipod but were shown proof of God’s existence would be the ones that point the finger, judge and ask the questions such as why do bad things happen.

I am also a big believer to let each individual find their own faith I do not believe that we should try to convince others of our beliefs like so many do these days.

There are far too many labels flying around! Christianity can mean so many different things to different people. There has got to be a reason for so many religions and faiths aside from fear. It is not an ancient text that some Christians are aspiring to, it is love. If I chose to call sin anything that goes against love and doing treating people like I want to be treated, then that is just a word for it. What do we have to do, change the word Chistianity to Loveangelist? Come on

It is just a very creative way to say, I am not interested in your God. Go away.

The bible says that the “proof” is all around you. However, your spiritual eyes ,have to be opened… to the truth.

because some people dont see religious texts as a metaphor

There will never be accepted proof cause people dont want to accept what proof there is.