You haven't answered the question.

I'm not trying to convert anyone, so the question is erroneous. Why should you need my personal evidence for the reasons I feel the way I do about a relationship I have with another entity? All you're going to do is say it's personal experience/anecdote and shouldn't be brought up anyway, which makes it pointless to begin with.

Second, you are making appeals to emotion. Third, you are making the same [s]argument [/s] appeal gain.
[/quote]

The whole debate is about emotion and the emotional connection people have with another entity. How can you not involve emotions when you are talking about a person's relationship with another entity? My questions are perfectly valid because as far as I'm concerned they are the exact points that all of you are making.

I don't understand why all of you have such a big problem with asking that you be tolerant of people's beliefs.

Epic fail&nbsp;<div><br>Hey here's why it's irrational to believe in a god without evidence<br>I agree! &nbsp;But it's okay because I have evidence<br>What's your evidence?<br>I'm not trying to convert anyone!<br>Fine.. but what's your evidence?<br>I'm not trying to convert anyone!!<br><br>When does the cognitive dissonance kick in, or is it completely inhibited?<br><br>When do you quietly reflect, and say, "Jesus, they're right."?

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[font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]Epic logic fail =P[/font][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]

* Hey here's why it's irrational to believe in a god without evidence
* I agree! But it's okay because I have evidence
* What's your evidence?
* I'm not trying to convert anyone!
* Fine.. but what's your evidence?
* I'm not trying to convert anyone!!

When does the cognitive dissonance kick in, or is it completely inhibited?

When do you quietly reflect, and say, "Jesus, they're right."?[/font]

[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]Epic logic fail =P[/font][font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]

* Hey here's why it's irrational to believe in a god without evidence
* I agree! But it's okay because I have evidence
* What's your evidence?
* I'm not trying to convert anyone!
* Fine.. but what's your evidence?
* I'm not trying to convert anyone!![/font]

You never said why it's irrational. You just said it was irrational and then made a bunch of straw men arguments about it. I also never agreed with you. The only thing I agreed with you was that rationality is subjective, which makes the original statement erroneous.

You're trying to fabricate an argument that I am not making. I am not arguing for religion. I have said this repeatedly. Stop pinning that argument on me. It is not the argument I'm making. It was never the argument I was making since I entered the thread. You are asking for evidence supporting an argument that I'm not making in the first place. Why should you expect that I do that?

Epic fail&nbsp;<div><br>Hey here's why it's irrational to believe in a god without evidence<br>I agree! &nbsp;But it's okay because I have evidence<br>What's your evidence?<br>I'm not trying to convert anyone!<br>Fine.. but what's your evidence?<br>I'm not trying to convert anyone!!<br><br>When does the cognitive dissonance kick in, or is it completely inhibited?<br><br>When do you quietly reflect, and say, "Jesus, they're right."?

</div>

If you accept, based on everyday observation of, well, everything around us and common sense, that everything that happens has a cause that comes before it, and that cause defines how and when it will happen, otherwise that event/thing has no reason to emerge and no initial conditions to define how it will progress, you should accept that the universe, as a physical entity, has such a cause. How is that irrational. Please explain. Furthermore, you see that the universe has order and is not chaotic, as it could be. If I walk on a deserted island and find a scribble on the sand, I assume that that scribble was made by someone, even if I have not seen that person with my own eyes, instead of assuming that the scribble was made by random movements of the sand for thousands of years, even though the latter is also possible and does not need the introduction of a new undetected entity, but relies only on elements already detected(sand,water,wind,rocks).

So, since I observe that this universe has specific laws and is understandable by mathematics, and since mathematics can be argued that have only meaning in relation to a mind that understands them(nobody on Earth was doing math before man; not consciously) I very logically assume that someone with a mathematical mind set those laws. You on, the other hand, assume that it's just the way it is and always was. Evidence, in that regard, points to both directions. Tell me, why am I not irrational when I see the scribble on the sand and assume someone made it, but I am irrational when I assume that the specific laws of nature of the specific universe was a result of some entity with intelligence? Explain the difference.

If you accept, based on everyday observation and common sense, that everything that happens has a cause that comes before it, and that cause defines how and when it will happen, you should accept that the universe, as a physical entity, has a cause. How is that irrational. Please explain.

Because it's an argument from ignorance. Moreover, as I've already pointed out earlier, not everything has a cause. Look up virtual particles again.

Furthermore, you see that the universe has order and is not chaotic, as it could be.

How would an unordered universe look like?

If I walk on a deserted island and find a scribble on the sand, I assume that that scribble was made by someone, even if I have not seen that person with my own eyes, instead of assuming that the scribble was made by random movements of the sand for thousands of years, even though the latter is also possible and does not need the introduction of a new undetected entity, but relies only on elements already detected(sand,water,wind,rocks).

But you have seen people making scribbles. This is equivalent to the watchmaker argument: http://en.wikipedia....hmaker_argument which is a fallacy.

So, since I observe that this universe has specific laws and is understandable by mathematics, I logically assume that someone with a mathematical mind set those laws.

How you ever seen anyone/thing setting laws?

You on, the other hand, assume that it's just the way it is and always was. Evidence, in that regard, points to both directions.

I do not assume that.
No evidence points to ID, just your assumptions.

Tell me, why am I not irrational when I see the scribble on the sand and assume someone made it, but I am irrational when I assume that the specific laws of nature of the specific universe was a result of some entity with intelligence? Explain the difference.

Because we have seen people make scribbles, but no one setting laws for the universe.

Because it's an argument from ignorance. Moreover, as I've already pointed out earlier, not everything has a cause. Look up virtual particles again.
Furthermore, you see that the universe has order and is not chaotic, as it could be.

Excuse me, ignorance? Can you provide a *single* example of an event/entity that does not have a cause that comes before it? I don't understand where you are going with the virtual particles, they appear on equations as carriers of forces but cannot be detected in any experimental way, so I'll just assume you're just throwing buzzwords around. You better tell your friends to make a modification of the dice example: I have 3 jars, one with a photon, one without a photon, and one with a virtual photon. How do I tell which one has the virtual photon?

But you have seen people making scribbles. This is equivalent to the watchmaker argument: http://en.wikipedia....hmaker_argument which is a fallacy.
[/quote]

It's not the watchmaker argument. The watch is a mechanical thing, and we know that the form of mechanical, man-made things do not appear in nature this way. The scribblings can appear by completely natural and "random" ways. We have seen the wind do that, yet we do not assume that the wind made the scribbling.

How you ever seen anyone/thing setting laws?
[/quote]

Yeah. Me, when I program.

If you accept, based on everyday observation of, well, everything around us and common sense, that everything that happens has a cause that comes before it, and that cause defines how and when it will happen, otherwise that event/thing has no reason to emerge and no initial conditions to define how it will progress, you should accept that the universe, as a physical entity, has such a cause.

Three remarks:

• Everyday observation would exclude quantum mechanics and relativity. Don't pretend you understand the universe. The birth of the universe is a mystery, and will remain so.
• The cliché rebuttal: assuming the universe has been created, who created the creator? If he has any magic property ("physicality"?) that frees him from having to be created, why can't the universe have that property?
• Assuming there is indeed a creator, you know still absolutely nothing about him. Maybe Russell's teapot did it. Maybe the creator is dead. Maybe I am the creator.
  
  
  

  So, since I observe that this universe has specific laws and is understandable by mathematics, and since mathematics can be argued that have only meaning in relation to a mind that understands them(nobody on Earth was doing math before man; not consciously) I very logically assume that someone with a mathematical mind set those laws. You on, the other hand, assume that it's just the way it is and always was. Evidence, in that regard, points to both directions. Tell me, why am I not irrational when I see the scribble on the sand and assume someone made it, but I am irrational when I assume that the specific laws of nature of the specific universe was a result of some entity with intelligence? Explain the difference. [/quote]
  
  Wouldn't any universe that obeyed a set of rules be describable by mathematics?
  
  The only "surprising" thing about our universe is that it provides building blocks that allow something to develop which is intelligent enough to describe its environment. Different laws generally do not allow something as complex as us to exist. But even that can be explained. You just don't like the explanation. That's your right, there's nothing rational about choosing the one over the other. But it is definitely irrational to extrapolate from "we exist" to the whole lot of christianity stories.
  
  Using logic, I would say this whole thing is undecidable. There definitely either is a god, or no god, but which one of those propositions is true cannot be determined. It is IMO irrational to actually pick one as being the truth, as it is picked for personal (psychological) reasons. This is true for both believers and atheists.

Using logic, I would say this whole thing is undecidable. There definitely either is a god, or no god, but which one of those propositions is true cannot be determined. It is IMO irrational to actually pick one as being the truth, as it is picked for personal (psychological) reasons. This is true for both believers and atheists.

This is a good mindset. At the very least it encourages tolerance without advocating for or against belief structures.

How you ever seen anyone/thing setting laws?

Yeah. Me, when I program.
[/quote]
It is certainly possible that the universe is just a program running on some divine machine. But this is one of just an infinite amount of possible explanations.


But even if this is so, maybe our universe was created as follows:

allPrograms = [] : [ n : ns | ns <- allPrograms, n <- [0, 1] ]
map execute allProgramsAssuming our universe can indeed be simulated on a machine, then this program, which runs all possible universes in parallel (among other things, there's also a "Hello world" in there) actually runs our own universe. Many of the universes will have us type these messages, but only a fraction of them will actually contain the events as described by the bible. How do you know you're in one of them? Yet, still, all those universes are just running on a machine, with a creator that doesn't care (i.e. me). I hope you notice the absurdity of asking questions on this level. Anything goes.