Evidence for the existence of God

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veiam said:

Kasz216 said:

veiam said:
I don't know why I have to prove to you the non-existence of god. Every time a person comes up with a new idea he changes the status quo. He then has to prove his idea to everyone so that his idea becomes part of the status quo. Everyone else doesn't have to prove him wrong, he has to prove himself right. Same thing with religion. God and religion, even though they have been around a lot, are NOT the status quo. Each god and religion has been introduced by different people (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, w/e) but they, or their followers, have yet to prove that god DOES exist. Atheists/Agnostics/etc. don't have to prove shit. The burden is on the religious people to prove the existence of a god. So far the evidence provided is weak and full of holes. Therefore, I am nowhere near being convinced god exists, nor should any person with enough intellectual capacity (there are smart people who believe in God, but I blame their parents not them).

Another thing that annoys me about religion and god is the way it spreads. I can go ahead and tell you about my friend Joe. He's a great guy, amazing personality, always nice, etc. I can also get 100 more people to tell you the same thing. I'm sure you'd believe this Joe person exists and is a great guy and really nice and all that. But just because i told you so doesn't make him any more real, the fact is Joe does not exist, even if I had 1 billion people tell you he was real. Religion works the same way, based on trust. Children get their minds corrupted by the people they trust the most, their parents, and are shown to their church leaders and get their mind corrupted even more.

I find this the lowliest possible way of spreading any idea and/or opinion, targetting the children who will believe anything a person tells them. Because of this I view religion as a cancer on our world, only causing great division and wars (crusades, 30 years war, jihads, etc.) and also hindering VERY beneficial technologies( Stem Cells, Cloning to some extend too). I bet you that if from this point on no one ever told anything about a god to their children and let's say this lasts 150 years. Then I bet that religion and god will be non-existent and the human race will STILL progress forward. Meanwhile if you do the same thing with science, I foresee billions of people will dying. But it would be fine because we would still have God, right?

Isn't the status quo set by what most people believe? Most people believe there is some sort of god, though disagree which one is the case. Therefore you in fact would have to prove it as such.

There is also no proof that the existance of belief in a god didn't originate itself with consious thought.

Status Quo - the existing state of affairs; specifically : the last actual and uncontested state of affairs that preceded a controversy and that is to be preserved by preliminary injunction In other words, the status quo was the time before religion was introduced. Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true? Also, I was raised without the mention of anything relating to a god or religion (meaning there wa neither "god is great" nor "there is no god" in my house at all) until I was 8-ish. And then I remember my grandmother teaching me how to pray and my mom being pissy about it. I couldn't understand why my mother was so angry about it back then, but right now it makes perfect sense. In an environment where the person is not introduced to god he will simply not believe just because he has never been brainwashed into believing in something purely based on faith.

You have NOT answered Kasz216's objection that religion dates back at least as far as civilization itself. Although no one religion has been supreme throughout the world, religions in general have had a firm grip on humans that has only loosened in recent times. The status quo is in favor of religions. Saying "oh yeah, well what about a million years ago" is disingenuous at best.

You assume that the status quo is "no god" when for thousands of years -- and indeed as far back as we are capable of finding evidence -- the vast majority of humans have believed otherwise. Why is that?

"Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true?"  Sigh.  If you're talking about the existence of something that we can do nothing to prove or disprove, and you don't want us to talk about people's opinions on it, then what's left to discuss?