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Yet, by your statement, you acknowledge that He does exist, if only in the human mind.


I'm not arguing for the existence of God in that statement. You can insert any entity in that statement and make it true. I can say the rock of Gibraltar exists or it doesn't exist, and the statement is still an absolute truth.

The universe is vast, and there is much to be discovered about it. New discoveries are going on almost daily. Suppose there is a physical law in the universe that hasn't been discovered yet. There is no clear and convincing evidence of it, but it is just as true as the ones that we have.

We don't need evidence of a truth...If later, the law is discovered, then we have evidence.
But, the evidence didn't make it true. It was true before we had the evidence.

clean'

Yes, but you clearly state that is irrelevent. This is the heart of the matter here; there are clearly creations of the human mind that have no correlation in the natural universe. My use of Unicorns is an example; I can understand that Unicorns are free creations of the human mind, but none exist outside the human mind. The same is true of god. How would your life change if you understood that god does exist "out there," but is a product of, and resides only in your mind?
Carl Jung understands:

and


CS, we can easily verify the existence of the Rock of Gibraltar. Your statement: "I can say the rock of Gibraltar exists or it doesn't exist, and the statement is still an absolute truth.": Is a hypothesis, subject to verification or proof, not an absolute of any sort.


So your position is that truth exists, prior to and before evidence("But, the evidence didn't make it true. It was true before we had the evidence."), is this correct? So before a child is born the "truth" of his or her experience of the world is somehow present or known? Where exactly does this "truth" hide itself until it is made manifest? The "truth" of the exact date, time and method of their death is somehow there before the event itself occurs? No CS, Truth is what we can verify, and this is usually only a relative truth, not anything absolute.

Scenario...You are walking down the street, and around the corner there is someone
waiting to attack you and take your money. You don't know he is there until you turn
the corner. This is a real person with bad intentions. Is he there before you see him
(evidence) or is he there only after you see him?

It is an absolute truth that he was there before you had evidence of him. The fact that you saw him didn't make it true....it was true before you saw him...

I don't know how much clearer that I can make it..

If you still don't agree, then I'll just concede this argument to you.

clean'

Show me your bible god. Can you do that? If you can do that, you won't have a problem showing me the tooth fairy, or the invisible friend that visits my cousins little two year old for milk and cookies.

We pretend to know Susie's little friend. She has named him Jack. Not that that was actually his name of course, but because Suz has given him that name. "He's my friend", she says. So, we go along with her little milk and cookie setup, where Jack never eats the cookies or drinks the milk and Suz gives all sorts of excuses for Jack's lack of interaction. "He's tired", or "He's not hungry", and as you can see it is Susie who speaks for Jack. Just like in the bible where all those prophets spoke for God because their invisible friend needed a mouth to speak.

If you're not getting the picture now, you never will. So, isn't it time you grow up instead of pretending like Susie?

What's your point Clean? That there are absolutes? I agree with that. But what you cannot do is tell me how they make any difference. I mean, it is an absolute truth that there either is or is not a God, at least one. But, so what? From there the point of who this God is, if s/he exists, is chock full of uncertainty and speculation. I personally worship Shiva as the Self within all, but you worship Yahweh. Which one is true? I say they are the same being, you would probably say that Shiva is a demon. So, so what?

Children are often such con-artists. At such a young age they think they can fool grown ups. At least for the time span they're playing in. When Susie's mom talked with her about her invisible friend Jack and said: "Suz, you know that Jack really isn't there, don't you?" Suz responded " uh huh, but I like to play when you're busy mom." That inquiry was all it took to bring Suz into admitting reality apart from wishful thinking, and for Suz to admit that she was only pretending and because she was bored, or because her friends could not always be around to play with her. She's due a puppy pretty soon that will give her companionship and lots of attention that she needs for her little mind. As she grows and her mind continues to grasp all the reality around her, Suz will forget her invisible friend Jack, as it should be. However, should her parents continue to feed Susie on her imaginnative invisible friend, like religion does to the mind of its adherents, then Susie just might actually "believe" in Jack forever. But that isn't about to happen.

CS, don't get your knickers all knotted up, I understand what you are trying to prove, but I simply keep showing how to disprove your assertions. In the situation you describe above, I, the person walking down the street, cannot make any statements, true or otherwise about what is around the corner until I make an observation, gather some evidence. Prior to turning the corner all I can do is speculate, create a hypothesis, and after making an observation determine what the facts are. You are stuck in the classical world view.


And, you did not answer the question I posed in my previous post. I would really like to hear your answer.

CS,
I just went back and see I need to edit the quesion I posed, here it is(corrected version): How would your life change if you understood that god does NOT exist "out there," but is a product of, and resides only in your mind?

Sorry, I accidently omitted the word NOT in the original post.

You're a feisty one, ain'tcha, Jedi. Cool your jets a little. It seems to me by the very fact you're calling him out, you're saying that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

If that's what you're saying, as an interested bystander to this conversation, I'm just curious how you can be sure the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth.

If that's not what you're trying to say, I apologize. And please explain.

To answer your question, I think whether or not *anyone* (including you, me and Clean Sword) has found "absolute truth" is a matter of faith. (See my tagline below.)

Then I accept your apology because I have said several times in this thread that I do believe in absolute truths.

That is exactly my point. That was the reason for the article. But, when I posted that article, everyone went beserk thinking somehow or another that I was attacking them..(for what, I don't know)..

I was posting an article for discussion..That's it...I know that the majority of the posters on this forum don't believe in the christian God. I wasn't trying to convince anyone otherwise.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion...Even Geisler. His article was originally written for a
christian audience...If someone is offended...then don't go to that site. He didn't
post that article here, I did. To attack Geisler or Ankerberg for stating what they
believe(which you did), and then get agitated when someone does the same to you is
dishonest. Why do people question the motive the article writer instead of the content of the article itself?(which you did). It's standard procedure on this forum to attack
the author of the article when they don't agree with what he has written. Is your belief so fragile that it must be propped up by ridiculing anothers belief?

Many articles are posted on this forum with an anti-God theme. I don't take them
personally, as an attack on me...or what I believe. I read them to determine if I can
make an intelligent response. I find most of them amusing

clean'

Yes, I was a bit confused by that question...glad you cleared it up...
To answer your question...I suppose that my life would change, as would yours if you understood that God does exist out there and not just a product of your mind.

You state that God exist only in one's mind...That's cool...live your life as if that is true.
I believe that the Christian God is the only true God that exists inside and outside the mind.
He is a living entity. He created the universe. He created the earth and placed humans on the earth as a full grown man and woman. I live my life as if that is true.

You defend your position and I defend my position. Someone who worships another god other than the Christian God doesn't have to prove His god...... if he worships a god at all.
So, why should I have to prove my God?

Just saying'

Clean'

That's a bunch of hypersensitive bullshit, Clean. You don't understand a thing I've written or the spirit in which it was written. I thought you were much more debate savvy than that.

I want to be very clear CS, I never said god "exists" in the human mind, I said the abstraction called god is a "creation" of the human mind. This does not in any fashion imply any form of "existence." Error occurs when the misinformed and misled, sans any understanding of the nature of the human mind, reify the abstraction. Just making sure you understand my position, wouldn't want you to misconstue it.