Hi

[toadhall]

Hi,
I'm 16 years old and relatively fresh in the world. My religious views are currently favouring the Christian side because I find it has strong foundations. My ultimate goal here is to find the truth, so I'll try my best to shape my thoughts based on the evidence as I see it. I have no emotional attachment for any side and I'm not scared (that much) of being defeated in argument. I'll try and be as considerate and intellectually honest as possible; however as a fair warning I like playing Devil's (or Angel's as the case may be) advocate. I like defending positions I may not myself hold for the sake of truth-seeking.

The main question I want to discuss here is the most important - the existence of the Christian god. I look forward to sharing my views with you guys and hopefully refining them into tenable positions. Cheers!  

[Kyuuketsuki]

I'm 16 years old and relatively fresh in the world. My religious views are currently favouring the Christian side because I find it has strong foundations. My ultimate goal here is to find the truth, so I'll try my best to shape my thoughts based on the evidence as I see it. I have no emotional attachment for any side and I'm not scared (that much) of being defeated in argument. I'll try and be as considerate and intellectually honest as possible; however as a fair warning I like playing Devil's (or Angel's as the case may be) advocate. I like defending positions I may not myself hold for the sake of truth-seeking.

Please don't because all you end up doing is winding up, sometimes infuriating, others and that gets no one nowhere ... can I suggest you qualify statements to say something like, "and if I were to express the view ... " which makes it clear it isn't yours simply a possible viewpoint.

The main question I want to discuss here is the most important - the existence of the Christian god. I look forward to sharing my views with you guys and hopefully refining them into tenable positions. Cheers!  

The current situation is that there is no validatable evidence for deity, that no currently accepted rational explanation either requests or requires the action of deity, that any indirect evidence left to indicate past action of deity is better explained within a naturalistic framework or by admission that our understanding of the phenomenon is sketchy at present and that the introduction of deity as a an acceptable explanation introduces far more problems for science than it solves.

Welcome to the forum.

Kyu

[McQ]

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for the introduction and the explanation of your views and how you will conduct your discussions. I disagree slightly with Kyu on your playing Devil's Advocate. I think it's fine, provided you say in advance that you are making an argument from that standpoint. Otherwise, it will confuse and irritate people, as he said. And then we will probably hunt you down and eat you.  

Glad to have you here!

[curiosityandthecat]

The main question I want to discuss here is the most important - the existence of the Christian god. I look forward to sharing my views with you guys and hopefully refining them into tenable positions. Cheers!  

[Faithless]

And then we will probably hunt you down and eat you.

Woohoo, Christians on the menu!

Welcome to the forum.

[toadhall]

Hm. I just hope most of you aren't afraid of losing an argument either.  

Well, I'm leaning towards Christianity at the moment. "Christians on the menu" is not a fair thing to say - one, I'm still unresolved, and two, it sounds as though you're so attached to your position that you could never accept possibly losing an argument. I've seen this everywhere on both sides. It gets in the way of the truth and just makes everyone angry. You could be wrong, you know - no one should be afraid of being mistaken.

[Ihateyoumike]

"Christians on the menu" is not a fair thing to say - one, I'm still unresolved,

Perhaps we need a sarcasm smiley.  

[curiosityandthecat]

Perhaps we need a sarcasm smiley.  

 

[Ihateyoumike]

Perhaps we need a sarcasm smiley.  

 

[Whitney]

Hi toadhall, welcome to the forum.'

it sounds as though you're so attached to your position that you could never accept possibly losing an argument. I've seen this everywhere on both sides. It gets in the way of the truth and just makes everyone angry. You could be wrong, you know - no one should be afraid of being mistaken.

I think what you have probably ran into a lot is people who have heard all the basic arguments hundreds of times before.  So, what you percieve as being closed minded is actually just frustration.  Of course, theists do have a good reason to fear being wrong on issues related to god existing...their afterlife beliefs are at stake; it can be scary to go from believing you live on to not having a basis for that belief.

That said, since most atheists don't believe due to lack of evidence and religions are based on faith; you'll find that many arguments religious people find convincing are not convincing to athiests or freethinkers.  If you think this approach to understanding reality is wrong, that's probably where you should start your discussions.