We have plenty of recorded evidence of His existence. All of the samples and measurements that have ever been taken of anything, anywhere, supports His existence. I've said this before, said it till I was blue in the face, but for the benefit of those of you who didnt get it the first five hundred times, I'll say it again...CREATION ITSELF IS PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE! We're walking on it, eating it, breathing it, living it. Cant make it any simpler than that for ya.

I'm not a rationalist in that respect, Al, so you don't have to convince me. However, you surely know what a rationalist would say to that. I'd imagine the response would be, "Existance is proof of existance, but it does not prove HOW we got here or WHO is responsible."

I'd rather not discuss my personal views on creationism though. I just posted that analogy, because I thought it was intriguing.

My last post WAS the rationalist's point of view. Any rational person would arrive at that conclusion, that creation itself is proof of God's existence. It all had to start somewhere, didnt it? If you take it back far enough, SOMETHING had to have made all of this. That SOMETHING, for lack of a better word, is GOD. A boulder could understand this. Anyone who claims otherwise is being willfully obtuse.

LOL, congratulations Texasbelle on turning 40! I am 46 and trust me, you have at least 5 more good years ahead of you! ;)

Here lets help Neo out a little:
LOL: Laugh out Loud
LMAO: Laughing My @ss Off
ROFLMAO: Rolling On Floor Laughing Myt @ss Off
IMHO: In My Humble Opinion
JMO: Just My Opinion
GLTY: Good Luck To You
BTW: By The Way
CYA: See Ya!
L8R: Later!
FWIW: For What Its Worth
IWRBIADC: I Would Rather Be In A Dentists Chair

LMAO, just joking around a little on that last one... :D

I see. I understand your perspective. You are not claiming to understand what God is. You're saying that whatever put us here is God and everything else is a side point. Is that right? My definition of "rationalist" is somewhat different, but I think I see your rationale.

We just havin' a little phun skoolin' ya there Neo.. Neo might stand for neophyte. (ducking) Or you may be The One. who knows.. Not me. But I do know that Cypher (Joe Pantolaino) was Guido the Pimp in Risky Business, one of my favorite old timey flicks.

Precisely! WHO, or WHAT God is we cant say. We can say only two things with utter certainty...that He exists, and that He is a force beyond our comprehension. All else is speculation.

Well, in your rationale, the word "God" seems to be merely a label for something that is otherwise unidentified. This is a very constricting definition for the name because other than knowing He is the creator, you don't know anything more. This rationale states that He created us, but what happened to Him after that? Is He still out there? Is He still creating other worlds? I may not understand your rationale entirely, but these seem to be easy questions you'd run into when purposing this rationale.

The point I was making earlier depends on the rationale that is shared by most mainstream religious practice who do attempt to identify God's existance here in the modern world of science and not so much what He was back when the world was created because, as you say, that is merely speculation that we will never know.

My analogy addresses the question, "How do we know God exists when we can't physically perceive Him?" The answer is that we know He exists the same way we know a single point in space exists even know we can't see it. We know there are dimenions of existance above and below us. This is part of quantum physics. However, we cannot see these dimensions because most of them fall outside of our perception and therefore cannot be measured. If God is in one of these other dimensions right now, then that would explain why we are having so much trouble "measuring Him," so to speak. Because we can't measure what does not have length, width, height, or duration (anything that is not within dimensions 2, 3, and 4).

If God is truly as omnipotent as most Christians believe, then I would not be a bit suprised if God himself were in the 10th dimension where He would have direct access to every point in time and space in every possible dimension there will ever be. However, mankind has not even mastered time travel yet and that doesn't happen until we master the 5th and 6th dimensions. This gives you an idea of just how much more God is than us.

It occurred to me
 

It's occurred to me, that this thread started off "Is Christianity in Trouble?" but it quickly turned into a "Prove God exists" thread. Which is a ridiculous point.

Now when someone says to me, "Is Christianity in trouble?" the first thing that comes to my mind is for example, these priests etc who have been caught, literally with their PANTS DOWN. Something else that I would want to consider, is attendance at churches UP or DOWN ?

We can never hope to quantify the Creator, regardless of how advanced our science becomes. To succeed in doing so would put man on an almost equal footing with Him. However, science is on the threshold of doing the next best thing with the "Theory of Intelligent Design". It is becoming apparent that the complexity of creation, of life, of reality, could NOT have occured randomly, that there MUST be a "designer" behind it all. A perceptible, cosmic prescience at work. In other words, our scientists are close to confirming empirically what the rest of us have already figured out.

Call me a rationlist or not. But I define God as the sole entity who can create life. If you think I am wrong, then prove me wrong. Create some life..., or name someone who has. Just one single cell organism, that's all I ask. If you can't demonstrate that someone besides God can create an amoeba or a single cell of algae, then you cannot replicate the experiment of creation, and therefore you cannot say one way or another.

Well, one thing leads to another, doesnt it? The question "Is Christianity in Trouble" naturally attracts those who deny the existence of God, which in turn attracts the proponents of His existence. Its germane to the topic.

Talking about the existance of God is closer to the topic than talking about Al getting a spanking from the ladies. :D Then again...

Hey Al, did the creation of your last offspring involve spankings? :laugh:

Ha! Reminds me of that old S&M joke. You know, the masochist says "hurt me", and the sadist says "no" ! GET IT?;)

I have a 16 y/o step son who adamently states he doesn't believe in God's existence. About a month ago, we were discussing it and finally I picked up some grass and asked him, "Can you make this?" He promptly said "No". I said, "Well neither can I. There is only one person who I believe can and unless you can name for me someone else who can create this grass in my hand I am going to believe that only God can." He promptly gave in and gave up the debate.