I'm a few posts behind here, but I have something I would like to add.
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Originally posted by Yorick:
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Originally posted by Timber Loftis:
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Originally posted by Faceman:
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Originally posted by Yorick:
Faceman, I would say you cannot DISprove anything outside your experience. I would say your line of reasoning makes DISproving God an impossibility.
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Exactly!
You can neither prove nor disprove the existence of god.
And the good thing is you don't have to. If you already believe in God you need not prove he exists if you don't believe, what good would it be to disprove it to another who is quite happy with his beliefs?
As I said it all comes down to subjective perception and you neither can nor need to prove that to another [img]smile.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]Erm... let me beat Yorick to it: He *has* experienced God, and therefore God is proven. In fact, he'll say you can never PROVE a negative, since you can't experience the lack of something, and that you can only PROVE a positive. Basically, you're in the box of being unable to disprove anything but able only to prove things.
Right, Yorick? 
Oh -- and I disagree with him on quite a bit of this. [/QUOTE]Sure. You cannot with any certainty say something does not exist, only that you have never experienced something.
If you say, "God does not exist" I say "Yes he does, I experience him every day". Your statement attempts to devalidate my experience in it's assertion.
However, were you to say "I have never experienced God and have no knowledge of him" I have no argument. I cannot say "yes you have" that would be ridiculous, yet, if I said "Yes you have experienced God", I would be doing EXACTLY the same thing as a person saying to me "no you have not experienced God". Which is a person trying to tell another what their experience of reality is. [/QUOTE]I would also have to agree with this statement. One cannot question the existence of something they have not experienced. However, one can question the nature of that existence.
In all the theological discussions people have, I often feel as if they really do not understand the nature of the discussion. When two groups get together, one attempting to prove God’s existence and the other trying to disprove that existence, I think they are just talking to talk. The real discussion is how God exists. Is he nothing more than a conceptual being? Is he an omniscience and omnipotent creator outside the boundaries of our universe?
I place most the blame for this on those who do not believe in God, because many seem to feel if they acknowledge the existence of God in any form, they have no grounds for discussion.