So this is how low humans have sunk !!!

[MurphyGuy]

I always been a person that runs completely on Logic and Science for answers. I have not been to Church in 30 years except for weddings and funerals.
i have always been calculating and analyzing why something has or has not happened and yet there are these moments in my life when no logical or rational explanation can account for what I am seeing or an event that has occurred. For me it is like the voice of God reminding me that there are forces at work that we just cannot comprehend.

Like what?

The James Webb is certainly make us rethink the idea of a never ending universe.

Not really, it's just making us rethink some of the models for how the universe behaved early on. We determined the universe is flat a couple decades ago, and therefore flat=infinite. Gotta love math.
The real problem with our models is that we can't account for dark energy and dark matter, and so some models are a bit wonky due to the unknown variables. Well.. I guess we could also include the lithium abundance problem in that wonky-ness, but that's been around for a long time and its an issue that is sort of isolated in its own right. It's a mathematical curiosity that doesn't seem to have any real affect on our theories.

James Webb hasn't really discovered anything significant yet, but that doesn't stop them from playing up every little quirky surprise as if its some mind blowing new thing. If their reports were limited to "Yup, the pictures are a lot better than Hubble and WOW, look at that one over there" then funding for the next big project would be limited to something less enthusiastic.

Hubble did make mind blowing discoveries.. The Hubble deep field was a science changing eye opener of unparalleled achievement. Had Hubble not made those discoveries, we probably wouldn't have the James Webb today.. because the funding wouldn't have been so enthusiastic.

But give JW its chance.. its only been operating for a year, it needs time to look around. And unlike Hubble that could point in any direction at any time, JW has to wait to look around with the orbit of Earth around the Sun. JW has a very narrow ability to look left or right because it must keep its heat shield mostly centered on that big ball of fire..

The new testament is based on real people whose existence has been proven. The only issue is how much of the details of the stories been exaggerated during the time when they were handed down as oral stories.

By extension, the fact there is a new testament means god didn't get it right the first time. Let that sink in for a moment.

We humans never exaggerate anything.

 

[LeoThomson]

here are these moments in my life when no logical or rational explanation can account for what I am seeing or an event that has occurred

For me there are unanswered questions as well, but I am well aware that I don't know even close of what humans have already discovered and will discover. Jumping to the conclusion that it has to be a god is not rational though.

Again I not discouraging any one to give up their religion, as long as you are peaceful and kind to others and you claim that is because a god through an intermediary told you to be like that, I will even encourage you to continue.

I have a problem with fake morality, consenting adults can do pretty much anything they want with each other. And if I don't like seeing it, I know how to switch channels. I also get upset with some movies and tv programs, I walked out on "Schindler's list" as the cruelty on display was just too much for me personally, but I never had the urge to ban it.

 

[Batvette]

I have way too many first hand experiences with a God that speaks to me to even contemplate that there is no spiritual side of this life, i'm a rational person, the atheist has a lot more faith than I do! They have faith that basically everything came into existence by chance, those are quite some probabilities. Will we know it all, absolutely not, but we aren't designed to know it all, our minds cannot comprehend time as "eternity" never ending. I leave us with a nice joke:
A guy and a young girl are sitting on an airplane
The guys is bored and strikes up a conversation with the young girl
She is annoyed as she pulls off her headphones and asks what do you want to talk about
He says how about how there is no God?
She says okay, but first you have to answer me a simple question
He Agrees
She says, Cows, Deer, and Horses all eat grass, but the cow poops patties, the deer pellets, and horse road apples. Why?
He thinks for a bit and is stumped.
She says you want to talk about the existence of a supreme being, and you don't even know shit?



I find also the amount of cross referencing in the bible to blow my mind as seen in this diagram, written by many authors over a long period of time and holding to a line. View attachment 138741

The fact is many theists mislabel people atheists, when like myself, they are actually agnostic anti-theists. We dont allege to the existence or lack thereof of a God, but we can absolutely be sure that the one presented by virtually all organized religions, is complete malarky, as are those religions themselves.
I would surmise as your post suggests that this is so you can present their position as equally illogical as yours.
There is no evidence for a God which stands up to scientific scrutiny, there is plenty showing mans propensity to mislead others for their own gain.
Could there ever be a bigger con job, than "everlasting life"? One that proof need never be shown, but faith is required? Its almost comical how evangelicals get people to fall in line for this with so little skepticism, and the whole bible as "word of god" for "men of the cloth" to pummel people with, their actions amount to a sin in the eyes of the God they present.
Make no mistake I hope I am wrong about all of this, but consider the difference of our beliefs:
If you are wrong, youre never going to know about it.

Have your faith if it keeps you off the streets at night, but humans have a natural tendancy to expose BS when we see it.

 

[myles]

For me there are unanswered questions as well, but I am well aware that I don't know even close of what humans have already discovered and will discover. Jumping to the conclusion that it has to be a god is not rational though.

Again I not discouraging any one to give up their religion, as long as you are peaceful and kind to others and you claim that is because a god through an intermediary told you to be like that, I will even encourage you to continue.

I have a problem with fake morality, consenting adults can do pretty much anything they want with each other. And if I don't like seeing it, I know how to switch channels. I also get upset with some movies and tv programs, I walked out on "Schindler's list" as the cruelty on display was just too much for me personally, but I never had the urge to ban it.

Rationalize this one personal experience of many

I was going sledding (snowmobiling for non canadians) one weekend to an unfamiliar area, lots of snow, rolling hills wide open country, amazing place. A few days before leaving I got a random text from an uncle, whom I do not normally text or talk to except family gatherings or other business dealings as our business's are in the same industry, his text says I had a dream last night that you were sledding and ran into a fence, take it or leave it. There is no possible way he would have known that we were going sledding anywhere, or just in general sledding at all. So I say thanks thats odd. I usually drive fairly aggressively when sledding we like to push the throttle get the sled to stand up, boon dock, side hill do all the fun stuff :D, but given this odd unsettling warning I drove not super cautiously, but more scoping out new areas to look for obstructions before just going in guns blazing. There was this one new area that looked just awesome, untouched snow, amazing to ride, so i am going down the rolling hill into this new area, going slow, all the sudden I hear a high pitched noise tightening into a higher pitch and slowing down my sled, like this "toong----tong----ting----ting--ting--ting-ting-ting, So i stopped and assessed what the heck is wrong with my sled? Belt blowing, ski scraping on a rock or what?! I stopped and was SHOCKED to find a cattle wire (just a single strand cable) unmarked stuck under my headlight at chest height, i did not see it, but its quite possible that text saved my life from going in guns blazing and being decapitated.

I am thankful for this divine intervention!

 

[LeoThomson]

Rationalize this one personal experience of many

I was going sledding (snowmobiling for non canadians) one weekend to an unfamiliar area, lots of snow, rolling hills wide open country, amazing place. A few days before leaving I got a random text from an uncle, whom I do not normally text or talk to except family gatherings or other business dealings as our business's are in the same industry, his text says I had a dream last night that you were sledding and ran into a fence, take it or leave it. There is no possible way he would have known that we were going sledding anywhere, or just in general sledding at all. So I say thanks thats odd. I usually drive fairly aggressively when sledding we like to push the throttle get the sled to stand up, boon dock, side hill do all the fun stuff :D, but given this odd unsettling warning I drove not super cautiously, but more scoping out new areas to look for obstructions before just going in guns blazing. There was this one new area that looked just awesome, untouched snow, amazing to ride, so i am going down the rolling hill into this new area, going slow, all the sudden I hear a high pitched noise tightening into a higher pitch and slowing down my sled, like this "toong----tong----ting----ting--ting--ting-ting-ting, So i stopped and assessed what the heck is wrong with my sled? Belt blowing, ski scraping on a rock or what?! I stopped and was SHOCKED to find a cattle wire (just a single strand cable) unmarked stuck under my headlight at chest height, i did not see it, but its quite possible that text saved my life from going in guns blazing and being decapitated.

I am thankful for this divine intervention!

I prefer quiet time outdoors myself, but it sounds like you had fun, which is great.

You claim it was your god who came to the dream of your uncle, imagine if you replace your god with something like "pink unicorn", would that still seem likely? Would that persuade you to believe in pink unicorns?

A long long time ago, when I was traveling through Europe in a VW kombi camper, I did some temp work in a milk factory. The heat exchangers are fed with steam to pasteurize the milk and we had a few of those and separators to take the cream out of the milk while the milk was still warm and then both were finally cooled using the incoming milk and finally with water from the ground. It was relatively efficient for the day, but all the gauges had to be checked every 15 minutes and the consistency of the cream was tested by running it over your finger.

One day, while everything was running smoothly according to the round I just did (it took about 7 - 8 minutes to do a round) and I as was about to sit down I sensed something was wrong. I walked over to the heat exchanger and saw the temperature dropping, so I closed the valves in order and had the milk and cream tested in the lab. Turned out I got there just in time and didn't have to pasteurize tons of milk and cream again. Just 1 minute later would have been too late. Now we had to wear ear protection as it the place was loud, so I have no idea why I walked over to the machine that had a problem, but experience is more likely than define intervention.

A couple of years later I was driving on a windy back road with two female passengers (being male I was expected to do most of the driving, but that is a whole other issue), it had 2 lanes, one lane for each direction. I had consciously slowed down to below the speed limit a couple of minutes earlier, again just on a hunch. At the next blind bend in the road, a car had decided to pass three cars at high speed and ran out of road before the bend. If I had kept going at the speed I had be going earlier (which was fine for that section) I would most likely have been in a serious crash.

Again I have no explanation. There have been other incidents and I could make up a "reason" without evidence. To you it is your god, to some one else, they will believe it was their god, to others it is ghosts, whichever way people chose to interpret it, it is fine with me. I just have a problem with forcing religion on other people, or even taking it away by force. I am also comfortable with not having an explanation for everything.

 

[Batvette]

Rationalize this one personal experience of many

I was going sledding (snowmobiling for non canadians) one weekend to an unfamiliar area, lots of snow, rolling hills wide open country, amazing place. A few days before leaving I got a random text from an uncle, whom I do not normally text or talk to except family gatherings or other business dealings as our business's are in the same industry, his text says I had a dream last night that you were sledding and ran into a fence, take it or leave it. There is no possible way he would have known that we were going sledding anywhere, or just in general sledding at all. So I say thanks thats odd. I usually drive fairly aggressively when sledding we like to push the throttle get the sled to stand up, boon dock, side hill do all the fun stuff :D, but given this odd unsettling warning I drove not super cautiously, but more scoping out new areas to look for obstructions before just going in guns blazing. There was this one new area that looked just awesome, untouched snow, amazing to ride, so i am going down the rolling hill into this new area, going slow, all the sudden I hear a high pitched noise tightening into a higher pitch and slowing down my sled, like this "toong----tong----ting----ting--ting--ting-ting-ting, So i stopped and assessed what the heck is wrong with my sled? Belt blowing, ski scraping on a rock or what?! I stopped and was SHOCKED to find a cattle wire (just a single strand cable) unmarked stuck under my headlight at chest height, i did not see it, but its quite possible that text saved my life from going in guns blazing and being decapitated.

I am thankful for this divine intervention!

Why would a god have to warn you through your uncle, utilizing phones, a human invented technology? Why didnt he remove the wire himself, or give you a flat tire on the way... Or stop it from snowing that day? Your descriptions that:
You didnt talk to this uncle often.
You only spoke to him about business and at family gatherings.
You were more cautious than usual and that affected your contact with the wire...
Are entirely subjective and quite possibly formed in your mind after the event to support your beliefs.
As well as the fact that as your uncle he may have been sledding with you as a small child and you dont remember, and a recent snowfall sends a lot of people sledding.
Whatever may or may not have been going on, these descriptions of "divine intervention" take real stretches of the imagination. Like a tornado wipes out a small town, kills dozens including a family with a small toddler... Who is found in an upside down bathtub two counties away.
"Its a miracle. Gods will!
He works in mysterious ways, has a plan for us all."

Seems to meet he sent the tornado in the first place. Shoulda saved their parents.

Just comfirmation bias looking to make a story.

Ever hear of a little girl named julianna wetmore?

Just google the name. She is one of perhaps thousands of babies brought into the world every year with just horrible birth defects, not caused by man. On top of the millions of people who die worldwide every year from painful, disfiguring and debilitating disease.
These are all things that the bible tells us God controls, creates, has power over.

Any SOB that curses julianna wetmore with a life, if you can call it that, is not an entity Im bowing before. In fact hes getting the finger and a kick in the nuts.
Which is a good reason to believe there isnt a god. Nothing could be that cruel.

 

[Batvette]

Julianna is on top
Baby in the middle has eye cancer.
Man on bottom has tumors.
None of this is manmade, in fact juliana only has some semblance of life today because of medical technology, an industry that theists have often tried to obstruct. Christian scientists? Bizarre.
Is this divine intervention, or does God only get credit for when he isnt making peoples lives hell? Or when theyre not killing each other by the thousands trying to please him?