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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Why do none of these arguments, or any arguments for the existence of God, count as possible evidence? Or, conversely, what evidence would you require?[/quote]

OP, you need to go look up the difference between arguments and evidence.  In brief, arguments are something you make, evidence supports arguments, and makes them more than half-assed theories scribbled on cocktail napkins.

When asked for the "evidence" you claim establishes "beyond a reasonable doubt" that God exists, you come up with philosophical arguments.  Which is fine, and entertaining, but ducks the question.  Well, not so much ducks as ignores and answers a related yet completely separate question.

For the record, I believe in God, but that's an act of faith. [b] Which is the whole point of faith - believing, against all rationality, in the unprovable. [/b] (Organized religions, on the other hand, range from amusing and ineffectual to font of all evil in my book.)

If you feel you have to prove (or worse yet, actually HAVE proven) the existence of God using science and "evidence," I can only conclude that your faith is lacking, and you don't actually "believe" in God.

There is a problem with the sentence in bold.  Reason and faith are both relative to truth.  Reason is a way of knowing truth, of understanding it, proving it, and discovering it.  Faith is a way of discovering truth.  All human beings have faith, because faith is belief in what others tell us, rather than what we have experienced personally.  Reason and faith can lead to truth in matters of science as well as morality.

Dualism is the popular understanding of faith and reason today, though.  Dualism divorces reason and faith completely, with ONLY reason as a way of knowing truth.  It does this by reducing reason to scientific, mathematical, and empirical reasoning, and faith to a personal attitude or feeling.

However, an alternative makes three different categories of truths:

#1  Truths of faith and not of reason
#2  Truths of both faith and reason
#3  Truths of reason and not of faith

#1 Would be truths revealed by God but not understandable, discoverable, or provable by reason (such as God as a Trinity of persons)
#2 Would be truths revealed by God but also understandable, discoverable, or provable by reason (such as God exists, and there can only be one God)
#3 Would be truths not revealed by God but known by human reason (such as the natural sciences)

Faith is secondhand knowledge, through authority.  If we ever find ourselves face to face with God, we will not need faith.  But reason and faith are allies, both paths to truth.

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