[snapshot]

Just place a question mark at the end in place of the period.

Originally Posted by JcP

but I am more than happy to agree that neither of us knows. That it's possible there is a God and it's possible that there is no God. I'm only posting to you because you questioned the ability for questioning and faith to coexist. Which we've proven.

I don't see how we've proven that.

And I still don't know exactly what you're talking about when you say "God"? It doesn't make logical sense to me, which is why I don't know. How can there be a creator of that which has always existed (a creator of infinite regression)? And how can something come out of nothing? How can something come out of nothing if something always existed and there never was nothing? If there is a creator of an infinite regression, then it's not really an infinite regression, since there is a starting point.

That's why I see atheism as faith, just like my spirituality. They both require "empirical evidence" we do not have...at least in terms of how you choose to set the standards for what counts as truth :-).

Would you say that the fact that I don't believe in that which you, or any other person who says they believe in God, makes me an atheist?

I feel like I'm being labeled an atheist by theists simply for not believing what they believe. If someone believes in something that I don't understand or that doesn't make sense, that doesn't mean I have faith; to me, it means there must be a contradiction somewhere, either in my thinking or theirs which is impossible to accept without some sort of irrational reasoning.

I don't consider myself an atheist, with regards to Sam Harris. I'm just trying to understand via reasoning. At its base, from what I've gotten so far, it seems like you're saying God is That Which Is, since I can't understand anything more than that because it all seems illogical:

How can there be a creator of that which has always existed (a creator of infinite regression)? And how can something come out of nothing? How can something come out of nothing if something always existed and there never was nothing? If there is a creator of an infinite regression, then it's not really an infinite regression, since there is a starting point.

So, from my point of view, these are logically bulletproof arguments against any sort of creator argument, since a creator, through logical consistency, also needs a creator; since infinity negates a starting or an endpoint; since something cannot come from nothing.

I'm not saying I know there is no God. I'm saying I don't have enough information to process, which would be able to lead me to begin to consider such a conclusion (that God doesn't exist). I am saying that logical contradictions cannot exist, and thusly any definition of God with a contradiction, I can safely say, cannot exist--nor, certainly, could one argue such a case. This is why I say that faith comes after thinking is ceased. If I believe there is a God, even after these considerations, I have to have ceased thinking about these considerations, because they are blocks which shield me from accepting the concept of God logically.

I'm not saying what you feel is wrong, or that your feelings are invalid, but I do think that, even though questioning may have led you to your belief, it is ultimately feeling, not thinking, which keeps people tuned into that belief.