Kudos to you for sourcing your accusations that God is "petty and vindictive," as I asked earlier so I could properly form a response to them instead of just throwing out more out of context assumptions of the worst case.

Plagues of Egypt ring any bells? God wants the [font="sans-serif"]Pharaoh to release his Israelite slaves. Instead of just killing the Pharaoh, God has to prove how powerful he is and kills off the first born of everyone, all the way down to the slaves who had no part in the Israelite's slavery. Also, somehow omnipotent and omniscient God needs the Israelites to mark their door with lambs blood so he doesn't make any mistakes. Some versions even state that God reinforced the Pharaoh's will so that he would not give in prior to the final plague just so he could prove his penis is bigger than that of the Egyptian gods.

'popsoftheyear' said:

3) Insisting that belief in God is equal to not being intelligent doesn't necessarily make it that way…

I wasn't insisting any such thing. Take my question at face value.

in fact, for many, God is the absolutely most logical conclusion, whereas fairies might not be.

Could you please explain the logical argument that causes people to conclude that God exists, and also demonstrate how that same argument cannot be used to support the existence of fairies or the efficacy of homeopathy?

Bear in mind that in order to turn a non-believer or an undecided-believer into a believer, it would need to begin only with premises that such a person would hold true. So for example, one argument in favour of God that doesn't work for fairies or homeopathy is: The bible says so. But that uses the premise that the bible is infallible, which a non-believer or undecided-believer wouldn't accept.

Instead of asking other people to prove God's existence, ask God - ultimately if you've asked Him, even though you don't believe in Him, but you have just a shred of enough of belief to at least pray one time, and ask Him (even if you feel foolish), at that point it's His responsibility, no?

Mere Christianity can explain, logically, the existence of God far better than me, for anyone that actually wants to get a fair basis on whether it is logical or not, from a believer's point of view.

As for the fairies and homeopathy.... it seems to me if someone was told homeopathy would help, and they tried it, and the person was better, they would believe in it. If this happened to them again, and again, and again, they would grow in their faith of homeopathy. The reason that homeopathy is generally unaccepted, to my understanding, is that it generally doesn't work.

And fairies? Well... one night everything in my heart changed. Drastically. My life has had sweeping changes since then. It wasn't an unusual circumstance that changed me either - it was a pretty normal night! After acknowledging it was God, one thing after another in life has made more and more sense, and it really isn't fair to try to summarize that. Really, just everything. I suppose it could have been fairies, or a proven anomaly in the way our brains work that happens to a certain percentage of the population that claims to be "born again", or even something I ate that night. I know for a fact I'd be lying to myself to claim one of these things. In the mean time He continues to change me and grow me.

My point is this... my initial proof was the changes in myself. Not some explanation. The changes that happened in me were not changes I would have brought about on my own. I know myself well enough to know this... you know? It's somewhat similar to saying that you don't believe in God... but if something inside you changed and you did believe in God... you'd know it was Him who changed you because you would have never done it on your own. ... And since then, I've noticed Him change people around me in ways that are similar - ways that are highly unlikely. Once or twice and it's an anomaly... but more than that? ...

So yeah... ask Him yourself if it even means enough to you to type about it... ask Him to show you without another doubt that He exists... and check out that book... if nothing else it'll give you final closure that believers have it wrong.

[edit] eh, sorry about all the ...'s

Plagues of Egypt ring any bells? God wants the [font="sans-serif"]Pharaoh to release his Israelite slaves. Instead of just killing the Pharaoh, God has to prove how powerful he is and kills off the first born of everyone, all the way down to the slaves who had no part in the Israelite's slavery. Also, somehow omnipotent and omniscient God needs the Israelites to mark their door with lambs blood so he doesn't make any mistakes.

God also asked him 10 times and only after the last most extreme plague were the Israelites released. It was the arrogance of the Pharoh that brought the plagues on Egypt, not the arrogance of God. God is actually remarkably calm given that Egypt has essentially welcomed his chosen people, turned around and stabbed them in the back to make them their slaves, and refused to let the Israelites go by God's own request repeatedly up to that point.

The LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt; hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

http://bible.cc/exodus/9-14.htm
This is the passage that is supposed to indicate that God reinforced pharoh's will. Below that is a link with all the English translations of the passage.

God also wasn't the one that killed the first born. The angel of death did. Who knows what reason there was for marking the doors. Any number of things would look stupid to people that don't understand them. The affirmation of faith is a reoccurring theme in the Bible, so it could have just been that.

God also asked him 10 times and only after the last most extreme plague were the Israelites released. It was the arrogance of the Pharoh that brought the plagues on Egypt, not the arrogance of God. God is actually remarkably calm given that Egypt has essentially welcomed his chosen people, turned around and stabbed them in the back to make them their slaves, and refused to let the Israelites go by God's own request repeatedly up to that point.

Yes, the timeless being is so very patient and of the thousands of ways that the situation could be resolved, God of course responds with the slaughter of innocents. Oh, sorry.. that wasn't god, it was the "angel of death". I'm sure God didn't want all those people to suffer right?

It really comes down to the fact that God of the old testament is a terrorist. Killing the innocent population in order to change the policy of the government. The difference is, if terrorists could simply kill the president, they would. God had that power and STILL decided to target the innocent instead. That really makes the God of the old testament WORSE than a simple terrorist.

Instead of asking other people to prove God's existence, ask God - ultimately if you've asked Him, even though you don't believe in Him, but you have just a shred of enough of belief to at least pray one time, and ask Him (even if you feel foolish), at that point it's His responsibility, no?

Ahh... the ultimate Christian cop out answer. The fact is you can provide no logical evidence and result to feelings. That's great if that works for you, but I need something more substantial to go on.

As for the fairies and homeopathy.... it seems to me if someone was told homeopathy would help, and they tried it, and the person was better, they would believe in it. If this happened to them again, and again, and again, they would grow in their faith of homeopathy. The reason that homeopathy is generally unaccepted, to my understanding, is that it generally doesn't work.
I'm sure it's much like faith in the Christian god. The placebo effect can be quite powerful.

God is actually remarkably calm given that Egypt has essentially welcomed his chosen people, turned around and stabbed them in the back to make them their slaves

You probably forget to mention the insignificant background of that slave story.

Zephu, son of Elifas, son of Esau, caused this, in revenge of Jacob's betrayal. While he was bound by an oath to his father not to (directly) harm Jacob and his kin, he took great care to hurt anyone near him, which happened to be the Egypts, who had been very, very hospitable until Zephu tricked them into a bloody, devastating, senseless war between Aeneas, the Edomites, Israel, and Egypt. Which makes it totally surprising that the Egyptians would end up hating the the Israelites.

Yes, the timeless being is so very patient and of the thousands of ways that the situation could be resolved, God of course responds with the slaughter of innocents. Oh, sorry.. that wasn't god, it was the "angel of death". I'm sure God didn't want all those people to suffer right?

It really comes down to the fact that God of the old testament is a terrorist. Killing the innocent population in order to change the policy of the government. The difference is, if terrorists could simply kill the president, they would. God had that power and STILL decided to target the innocent instead. That really makes the God of the old testament WORSE than a simple terrorist.

wow. I'm surprised you came up with this load after saying this earlier:

And this is why you can't have intelligent conversations about religion with zealots. Irrational defense of every facet of their religion.

Zephu, son of Elifas, son of Esau, caused this, in revenge of Jacob's betrayal. While he was bound by an oath to his father not to (directly) harm Jacob and his kin, he took great care to hurt anyone near him, which happened to be the Egypts, who had been very, very hospitable until Zephu tricked them into a bloody, devastating, senseless war between Aeneas, the Edomites, Israel, and Egypt. Which makes it totally surprising that the Egyptians would end up hating the the Israelites.

Jubilees was WAY before Jacob went to Egypt. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/jub/jub73.htm

The bible says that they were enslaved because they were becoming so numerous that the egyptians feared they would become to powerful, so they were enslaved (Ex 1). This eventually culminated in the slaughter of the Israelite firstborn males, which Moses survived.

'Exodus 1' said:

11. And the king of Canaan was victorious over the king of Egypt, and he closed the gates of Egypt. 12. And he devised an evil device against the children of Israel of afflicting them; and he said unto the people of Egypt: 13. "Behold the people of the children of Israel have increased and multiplied more than we. Come and let us deal wisely with them before they become too many, and let us afflict them with slavery before war come upon us and before they too fight against us; else they will join themselves unto our enemies and get them up out of our land, for their hearts and faces are towards the land of Canaan." 14. And he set over them taskmasters to afflict them with slavery;

'ChaosEngine' said:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
-Dawkins

Dawkins verbosity aside, it's a pretty accurate list of accusations.

I don't think Dawkins is the best person to go to for any sort of unbiased picture of God.

Exactly. In any case, judging the actions of God from a human perspective is futile. That's like an ant judging the actions of humans. We're simply not qualified to do so objectively.

Jubilees was WAY before Jacob went to Egypt.

... and two generations before the events I refer to.

The bible says

...which is entirely irrelevant, since the Bible was conceived around the 6th century according to whatever was politically opportune at that time. It is well-documented that what became "canon" and what became "heresy" mostly depended on the respective proponent's political power. Whatever the people with the most powerful lobby thought would fit into their "plan" went into The One Book, and whatever they didn't deem fit was shoved under the carpet or declared heresy. The One Book which holds The Single One Truth was severely overhauled in the 9th century and again during the 12th century, and has undergone a few dozen to hundred minor modifications since then.
Similar can be said for the respective Single One Truth in the other abrahamaic religions (and likely in every other religion, too). Take the alcohol prohibition or the polygamy thing in the Quran, for example. Both were added centuries after the initial conception of the One Truth, as a reaction to very real, practical problems (one reason being guards having been drunk on duty at a most inappropriate time, the other being widows having to be taken care of after the crusades). Which is not bad in any way, and admittedly very intelligent... but it has no correlation to "truth".

Insofar, any sentence starting with "the Bible says" automatically disqualifies itself from being relevant in respect of historic facts.

But, never mind that. We will not find a consensus, so let's just live-and-let-live and agree that everyone is right, no matter what we believe :-)

'popsoftheyear' said:

Instead of asking other people to prove God's existence, ask God - ultimately if you've asked Him, even though you don't believe in Him, but you have just a shred of enough of belief to at least pray one time, and ask Him (even if you feel foolish), at that point it's His responsibility, no?

Ahh… the ultimate Christian cop out answer. The fact is you can provide no logical evidence and result to feelings. That's great if that works for you, but I need something more substantial to go on.

As for the fairies and homeopathy…. it seems to me if someone was told homeopathy would help, and they tried it, and the person was better, they would believe in it. If this happened to them again, and again, and again, they would grow in their faith of homeopathy. The reason that homeopathy is generally unaccepted, to my understanding, is that it generally doesn't work.

I'm sure it's much like faith in the Christian god. The placebo effect can be quite powerful.

Why the aggression? Both of your comments were addressed further in the rest of my post... not only was there was no cop out (I gave more than feelings and even made a well-known reading suggestion - if you really want to affirm your stance on a purely-logical basis), but also, this wasn't about the placebo effect: If homeopathy worked again and again, then we would start trying to figure out why as opposed to saying it was merely some deception to a small handful of people. Right? Or did I misunderstand what you meant?