Resolved: God Exists

"Thanks for the return fire. I believe I'm on the defense now. Playing devil's advocate for God's existence is like trying to skydive into a kitchen sink through the roof." LOL "Why God Would Either be Evil or Impotent: You never said God was evil or impotent. I said that. If you follow your logic through, an all-powerful God would be evil if he didn't help children who are suffering and dying as a result of starvation and other ailments. In other words, if he has the capacity, he is responsible for the suffering of these children. If he doesn't act responsibly with his capacities, he is most certainly immoral. If he can"t help suffering children, he would be impotent. Of course your argument contradicts his benevolent nature. I thought it an axiom that logic would end at the inference I"ve offered - that God is either evil or impotent." Ok... Doesn't relate to debate. "God created the world and now no longer participates in it for good reason: I just waved my hand in front of you. You will forget about what I wrote here. And then you repeat: "I will forget what you wrote here." You will go home and rethink your life. "I will go home and rethink my life. " And you don"t want to sell me death sticks. "And I don't want to sell you death sticks."" OK, consider that argument forgotten. "True happiness: True happiness is not any different from normal happiness. I merely added true to happiness because it sounded more full and exciting!! Yeaaah!" OK... "Why you have to know the bad to know the good: Just like a deaf man will never know sound without hearing it, you couldn't know any amount of happiness without suffering." This analogy doesn't make any sense. Let's break this down: Claim: Desirable (happiness) requires undesirable (suffering). Analogy: Desirable (knowing sound) requires desirable (hearing) I don't know how the deaf man even fits into this. I mean, I guess deaf people will know sound when they hear, but do normal people have to go deaf to "know sound"? NO. "If God made everyone happy, you wouldn't know the difference, and you wouldn't be able to appreciate it. If God made everyone happy, in a way, he would be preventing you from experiencing life"s fullness, and you could not experience agency - happiness can only be appreciated in light of suffering." Um, why can't God just make us appreciate happiness and understand how lucky we are WITHOUT torture. If he is omnipotent, can't he bestow that upon us? "Life will inevitably produce suffering as a result of God"s intentional design:" Why would a benevolent god do such a thing? "A more pressing issue to bring up is: why is there happiness? And why do I want to experience joy and happiness? Because you like it, obviously. And you want to experience it." Doesn't affect topic. "As stated previously, without suffering, there is no happiness. I think its fair trade. God"s design was to allow for happiness." Why can't there be? You haven't even provided a logical argument for this. "The origin of suffering is attachment to a state of being, object, or whatever: This is the second noble truth taught by Buddhism with my own stink on it. I found an article that explained it nicely." "The reason that we experience suffering comes ultimately from our mind. According to Buddhism, our main mental problems or root delusions are attachment ... How can attachment bring us suffering? We just have to think of chocolate and there is the temptation of eating more than is good for us. Or as example, my favorite story: the way people used to catch monkeys in South India: One takes a coconut and makes a hole in it, just large enough that a monkey can squeeze its hand in. Next, tie the coconut down, and put a sweet inside. What happens next is pure attachment. The monkey smells the sweet, puts his hand into the coconut, grabs the sweet and ... the hole is too small to let a fist out of the coconut. The last thing a monkey would consider is to let go of the sweet, so it is literally tied down by its own attachment. Often they only let go when they fall asleep or become unconscious because of exhaustion. Ultimately, the Buddha explains that our attachment to life keeps us in cyclic existence or samsara, which does not bring us continuous happiness." Why couldn't god make suffering NOT EXIST? "Why did God decide to create beings with the capacity to suffer? I believe I already answered that question. God"s design was to allow for happiness, and without suffering, you would never know happiness." I already addressed this claim? "Proof that God exists: As stated earlier many people have experienced spiritual phenomena as a result of their pursuit to know God. It is objective that these people are experiencing mental phenomena that have yet to be explained. If enough people relay their subjective experiences of this mental phenomena in congruence with a common source, this may be evidence that supports the claim that God exists. Here is poll for evidence sake. Enough people were to claim experiencing crazy mental phenomena as a result of aliens probing their brains, then that would also be possible evidence to support extraterrestrials. HAHAHA I sound like a crazy person. I can"t prove there is a connection between God and the spiritual seeker. I can only tell you that there are plenty of people who would make the connection, and their claim may have some validity and weight. 33.99% of people who voluntarily surveyed have had a spiritual experience, per the poll linked below. http://boards.straightdope.com...; As pro points out himself, he can't show that the evidence most likely points to god, so its pointless ("I can"t prove there is a connection between God and the spiritual seeker.").