: : As far as we can tell using our limited senses and equipment, atoms exist; we are confident in this to make our day-to-day lives dependent on this science; computing, plastics, nuclear power, genetics, chemistry - all are dependent on the atomic theory.: : Of course, we can never be sure that anything exists; but I'm going continue breathing in oxygen atoms; I trust the atomic theory enough to risk my life on it.
: : (As do you, although you may not realise it.)
: If I'm following you correctly, here's is where I take my next step and put it into faith.
On what do you base this 'next step'?
Prove you have a soul, Gotch...
(hint: you can't. Ever. Proof is a logical concept; and the 'soul' is an entity as alogical as God; you can no more 'prove' you have a soul than you can 'prove' the existence of God.)
: I am staking my eternal life on it, just as my physical life is staked upon the existence of atoms.
Predicated entirely on the idea that you have an eternal life; again, an assumption; and one that you can never 'prove' in any meaningful sense.
In talking of 'staking' your life on it, you are falling for Laplace's hedging-the-bets strategy; how meaningful is any faith based solely on fear of eternal damnation?
Do you really think that any omniscient deity would be placated by someone who believed because they thought they'd go to Hell if they didn't?
Such a belief is not belief in God, it is a belief in Hell; your faith is founded not on love of God, but fear of Hell.
: I believe that atoms exist -- I also believe that God exists.
Really? I don't 'believe' atoms exist; they are the simplest theory that fits the observed facts; it will do until a better theory comes along. There is evidence to suggest atoms exist; regardless of how many people 'believe' in atoms.
(Deities, however, do hinge on how many people believe in them; how many people think Toutatis exists nowadays?)
: And in my mind the existence of God is a completly logical extension of the results I observe in looking at the physical world.
Only because you have a decidedly faulty idea of what is and isn't 'logic'; as I've repeatedly demonstrated.
Will you finally, once and for all, admit that you cannot use logical means to provide evidence for the existence of God?
: As you said, we can't "prove" anything, per se.
There is, however, a difference between a scientific theory; which rests solely on observed phenomena and a faith; which can never rest solely on observed phenomena.
Here's a bet; we'll both jump out of a plane; I'll rely on a parachute, you rely on God. That's the difference between science and faith.
: I see physical results of God.
You cannot say that, Gotch. If you say 'X is the direct result of God's actions' you are imposing limits on your God; and as you've said, your God is omnipresent and infinite.
If there are 'physical results of God', then God is not infinite; simple as that.
: Others are free to interpret them as natural results of evolutionary processes. Both of us are staking our eternal destiny upon them.
Again, you are assuming that you have an eternal destiny; based on nothing more substantial than non-logical belief.
Prove your soul if you can, Gotch. Provide us with logical, measureable dimensions and weights of your soul; also the ways in which your soul is directly measureable with physical instruments.
You can't.
Your faith is based on a belief in something physically unproveable.
So don't talk of evidence or proof when dealing with nonphysical things - you cannot justify the existence of the paranormal by using the normal.
Gideon.
None.
