Simple question?

Well I do believe that you should reexamine the first reason. Maybe a trip to visit the famous tilma not to far away from you and see this miraculous cloth that should have long ago disintegrated and which no one can explain the image and how it was put on the cloth. You could also look briefly at the many miracles associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe. However, you are right to not put too much stake in this first reason to believe. Ultimately, scientific proof is not what leads to belief. "For the believer no proof is necessary and for the skeptic no proof is possible." What you should really focus on is the second reason for your unbelief.

In that category I could only tell you what religion means to me and why I have come to believe so strongly and what it has offered to me in my life. If you are interested I can speak to that, but if it is really all just a nice rhetorical trick to speak to a mind already made up then maybe we should just go back to showing why your conclusions and logic is wrong concerning your first reason.

Quote: Nareed

As you'd expect, there are many articles concerning science and scientific explanations, mainly as regards utter nonsense like creationism, alternative "medicine," conspiracy theories, etc. Many of these deal with how proponents of these ideas twist and/or misinterpret science to their own ends.

Why the animosity toward alternative "medicine", and conspiracy theories. There are not only plenty of debunkers but a lot of support for alternative therapy's.

One of the highest rated alternative cancer treatments in the world is in Tijuana.

85% of medicines are plant based.

Are you familiar with "Quackwatch"? http://www.quackwatch.org/00AboutQuackwatch/new.html

We are just one "Giant Grey alien handing out ameros in Roswell away, from every conspiracy theory known to man being proven correct"

Quote: FrGamble

Well I do believe that you should reexamine the first reason. Maybe a trip to visit the famous tilma not to far away from you and see this miraculous cloth that should have long ago disintegrated and which no one can explain the image and how it was put on the cloth. You could also look briefly at the many miracles associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe. However, you are right to not put too much stake in this first reason to believe. Ultimately, scientific proof is not what leads to belief. "For the believer no proof is necessary and for the skeptic no proof is possible." What you should really focus on is the second reason for your unbelief.

See, this is a perfect, and reasonably concise, example of your habitual doublethink: On the one hand you tell me to go look for proof, then on the other you tell me no proof can be had.

You also employ the argument from ignorance, plus an outrageous claim. While I'm not that interested in archaeology, I've run across a fair bit of it while studying history. I know, therefore, there are Roman cloths which have lasted, without disintegrating, for thousands of years. A cloth a few hundred years old which has been carefully preserved for much of that time, is as likely to disintegrate as your refrigerator is of running away from your kitchen.

Lastly you misinterpret the complete lack of evidence for any deity as me not considering this to be very important.

I'll make it clear: It's HUEGLY important.

Why? well, read on:

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In that category I could only tell you what religion means to me and why I have come to believe so strongly and what it has offered to me in my life.

No need. I've probably heard it all by now. I've heard similar things regarding other things as well.

None are compelling, few are even mildly attractive. and none should rest on a foundation of complete lack of evidence. But they all do.

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If you are interested I can speak to that, but if it is really all just a nice rhetorical trick [misrepresentation removed]

It's rhetorical because most of what religions offer involve their deity in some form or another. If there's no deity, then what's the point?

Quote: Nareed

It's rhetorical because most of what religions offer involve their deity in some form or another. If there's no deity, then what's the point?

The more you study religion, the more
you realize the deity is needed to push
whatever crackpot idea the religion is
spouting. The deity is 'the can't be argued
with' fall guy. You have to believe because
Yahweh says it's true. Of course Yahweh
doesn't exist, that makes him the perfect foil.
He can take credit for, and be blamed for,
everything, and nobody can prove differently.

Quote: FrGamble

Ultimately, scientific proof is not what leads to belief. .

Yet scientific proof is what leads us to
everything else. Cures for diseases,
jets that take us far away, the smartphone
you use, the computer you're typing on.
To say science can't be used to prove
god exists, means you're frustrated that
it can't, so you're pooh-poohing science
instead of admitting it's bothersome that
god can't be found using it. It's not the
fault of science that it can't find something
that was never there to begin with.

You are misunderstanding me. Science can't move the heart to belief. Science can lead us to logically and reasonably discover the truth of God's existence. We can recognize in our head that God exists. However, people all the time ignore the evidence, look at what you and Nareed do all the time. I think even if science discovers proof for the existence of God you would still not believe because your heart is already made up.

Quote: FrGamble

You are misunderstanding me. Science can't move the heart to belief.

Of course it can! Science continuously turns
people into believers. It was soundly believed
that man would never fly. It was soundly believed
that a car going over 60mph would disintegrate.
The world used to be flat. At one time we believed
witches caused still births and crops to fail. The list
is endless of what we believed was true, and what
science proved to be true.

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I think even if science discovers proof for the existence of God you would still not believe because your heart is already made up.

That's ridiculous. Undeniable proof is undeniable.
Where is it?

Quote: FrGamble

Science can't move the heart to belief.

If there is evidence, the heart is not needed.

Quote:

Science can lead us to logically and reasonably discover the truth of God's existence.

It could, if there were a god that existed to begin with.

Quote:

However, people all the time ignore the evidence, look at what you and Nareed do all the time. I think even if science discovers proof for the existence of God you would still not believe because your heart is already made up.

It's like this: If the one true god, Athena, allowed us to take measurements of her body type, composition, energy utilization, etc, maybe some tissue samples as well, and these showed something different to what we know, I'd look at things closely and draw conclusions.

Quote: Nareed

If there is evidence, the heart is not needed.

Never have you written more false words.

Quote: FrGamble

Never have you written more false words.

What, FrG? Nareed is exactly on point and correct; scientific method is designed to be objective and impartial, to separate emotion from fact. If there is scientific evidence, it relieves the argument from depending on hypotheses or beliefs, both of which carry emotional attachments. So the heart is not needed, either to love irrationally, or to be hardened against belief; the evidence itself stands as the fact of the matter.

You can argue that the existence of God is knowledge beyond facts, or build a logical argument that ends with Intelligent Design, but neither really refutes the simple fact that there is no one, universal, objective and undisputed example of God. We are always asked instead to interpose faith or belief in things we cannot understand.