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[Crowbar]

Are you an agnostic? Do you know with 100% certainty that God is real?

[jimwalton]

No I'm not an agnostic. I believe in the reality of the external world, the capability of the human mind to discern reality and truth, the competence (though not guarantee) of the sense to discern reality, and the legitimate authenticity of reason. I think there is such a thing as truth, and truth can be known.

On the bases of those experiences, observations, and assumptions, I could say I know with 100% certainty that God is real. There are several ways to figure out if God is real or not. I'll mention four.

1. We reason about it. You are probably aware that there are logical "proofs" of God's existence: causality, purpose, morality, consciousness, etc. These arguments make a whole lot of sense, but they're not watertight or foolproof. I find that they are far more solid and substantial than arguments against God, but whenever such arguments are posted in a forum like this, they are ridiculed by the people who don't find them convincing. Here is where reason alone will serve you, to consider how much the arguments make sense to you, to weigh their logic against the counter-arguments, and to infer the most reasonable conclusion. I, for one, feel that arguments for the existence of God are strong, and that there are no good arguments that atheism is true. Whenever I say such things, I get drilled to the wall by people who feel they are worthless. No matter. This is one way I determine that god is real, and you can figure out if God exists or not.

2. Evidences. Some people are convinced there are evidences of God in the world. They believe in evidences of spiritual forces; they intuit that this life is not all there is; they have experienced answers to prayer or the presence of God in a situation. These are all subjective, but for some people they are so strong and convincing they would say they have evidence for the existence of God. I fit into this category. I have seen evidences that to me are convincing.

3. Experience. You can know God exists completely separately from arguments. Things make sense to us; we believe in the external world and the objectivity of reality; we believe other minds exist besides our own. We use logic, abstract reasoning, intuitions and perceptions to arrive at reasonable conclusions. We can also use our own experiences, subjective though they are, to understand our world and other abstractions such as time, motivation, preferences, advantages, and even spiritual realities. Scoffers, again, will say that nothing reliable can be based on one's experiences, but you and I both know that our experiences are not always false or untrustworthy.

4. The Bible. The Bible for some is a powerful book of truth and wisdom, even though for others it is a joke. The Bible's interpretations of life events make sense to people, its prophecies are astounding, and its teachings are life-changing. They find the Bible to be a forceful and stalwart source of spiritual truth.

As is evident, these four factors are subjective and highly debated. Over 2 billion people in the world self-identify as Christians and find these arguments convincing. That also means slightly less than 5 billion people in the world don't find them convincing. You have to weigh the arguments, study the evidence, search your heart, and come to the most reasonable conclusion.

[Crowbar]

There's a lot of things wrong with this in my opinion.

If you don't mind, I'll point them out so we can discuss it.

The only argument against the existence of god is that there's no proof or actual evidence (I'll come back to this) that one might exist. If there's no proof or evidence of something to exist, its illogical to believe it...whether its true or not.

Personal experience is not evidence. Neither is the bible. They maybe enough proof for you, but they are not actual evidence and proof. These things need data to support them, they need to be able to be studied.

Again, if that's all you need to believe then I'm happy for you. Honestly. You just need to know that because you think your prayers were answered (and maybe they really were!) That in and of its self is not proof to anyone else that god exists.

[jimwalton]

> The only argument against the existence of god...

But there must be reasons you believe what you do. I know you can't put up an argument of negative evidences, because there is no such thing. But there must be things in your mind that substantiate what you do believe. I have read such things from others, and in my considered opinion they don't carry anywhere near the weight of the logical arguments for the existence of God. The logical arguments for the existence of God are quite substantial and far greater in logic and reason than anything from other positions.

And while there is no proof of the existence of God (for that matter, I can't prove to you that I exist either), the evidences are strong and quite logical, not illogical in the least.

> Personal experience is not evidence.

It's not scientific evidence, but science is only a portion of what constitutes knowledge. I saw a rainbow last week. I can't prove it to you. It was just my personal experience. But it was as real as the computer I'm typing on, for sure. I am 100% convinced of it, even though there is no residual material evidence I can show you. But you want to know if I'm 100% about God? Absolutely.

> Neither is the bible

The Bible doesn't stand as evidence by itself, but in combination with other things (the logical arguments for the existence of God, personal experiences, etc.), it corroborates with both history and experience. It stands as evidence of truth just as surely as the newspaper article I read about Trump's inauguration. The article isn't evidence, but it corroborates with reality, and therefore I can have confidence in its reliability. So also with the Bible.

> These things need data to support them

You put too much weight on data. Not all knowledge is confirmable through data. Have I forgiven my friend for missing my birthday? There's no data about that. What is my favorite movie? There's no data about that. And a million other things. Data is not the catch-all for truth.

> You just need to know that because you think your prayers were answered

Answers to prayer are not subject to scientific inquiry. There are too many variables and possibilities to capture in a control experiment, and it's impossible to have an objective control group.

What brings me to 100% certainty is the cumulative effect of many factors and elements, not just one. With each one (Bible, experience, prayer, etc.), you may say, "Well, that's not good enough." But what I'm saying is that all of them together (logic, reason, experience, prayer, the Bible, correspondence to reality, evidences of spiritual realities, and evidences of spiritual truth) add up to 100% for me. I wouldn't expect you to recognize that, or you'd be a Christian also. You wanted to know if I was an agnostic, or if I was 100% certain that God is real. I'm 100% certain; you're agnostic. We each take our data, experiences, presuppositions, and gut feelings and arrive at a conclusion.

[Crowbar]

If there is no evidence of something existing its illogical to believe that it does. So no, its not logical at all.

Your comparison is weak. We can prove that rainbows exist. And there's pictures.

You're silly.

Data and science are the best thing we have to find the truth. Do you disagree?

I can agree with your last point. Except that I'm an agnostic atheist, not just an agnostic :p

[jimwalton]

> If there is no evidence of something existing its illogical to believe that it does. So no, its not logical at all.

Except there is evidence of God. It's in logic, experience, the Bible, and such, as I said. The evidence for God is just as real as the evidence for a rainbow. After all, the rainbow has no material existence. It's the refraction of light through water particles. Neither do our thoughts or our memories exist materially. Time doesn't exist materially, and yet it's as real as anything else we deem as real.

> Data and science are the best thing we have to find the truth. Do you disagree?

I do disagree. Science is one path that leads to the truth, but science can only function in a particular arena. Science is valueless if we are discussing Beethoven's 5th symphony, issues of forgiveness, an environment of peace, or a thousand other realities. Science has it's place, and it's a fantastically beneficial discipline, but to relegate all knowledge to science is surely a mistake. Even your statement of "Data and science are the best thing we have to find the truth" is a philosophical one, based on a value judgment, and it cannot be confirmed with a science experiment. Therefore your statement is self-defeating, because you can't prove the truth of your claim with science alone.

Even your statement of "I'm an agnostic atheist" cannot be confirmed or denied by science. Can data and science lead me to discern the truth of your self-identification? Of course not. If data and science are the best thing we have to find the truth, I need to reject all notions of agnosticism and atheism, because they aren't scientifically established or confirmable.

[Pass Hole]

> On the bases of those experiences, observations, and assumptions, I could say I know with 100% certainty that God is real.

If belief is to any extent predicated by assumption, then we'd have to admit that there's at least a non zero probability that your assumptions are wrong (comes with the territory of assumptions). How do you allow yourself to jump to "I know I'm 100% right"?

[jimwalton]

Because belief is grounded in evidence. The Bible defines faith in several different ways, but the one pertinent to our discussion is faith as a form of knowledge. I define faith as making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable to make that assumption. In the Bible, faith is evidentiary. In my opinion, belief is always a choice, and is always based on evidence. When you sit down in a chair, you didn’t think twice about sitting down. You believe that the chair will hold you. Faith? Yes. You’ve sat in chairs hundreds of times, but you can't be absolutely sure it will hold you this time. Things do break on occasion. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption, and you sit down. That’s faith, and it was a conscious choice.

Almost all of life works this way because we can never know what lies ahead. Every time you turn a door knob you are expressing faith. Because 10,000 times you’ve turned a door knob, and it opened the door. So you turn the knob and move forward. Does it always work that way? No. Sometimes you turn the knob and the door doesn’t open. But you make an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for you to make that assumption.

We know chairs hold people. That's past experience and learning. We know turning door knobs open doors. We know that when we turn a key a car starts. But every time we turn a car key, we do it because we believe it will start. The evidence is compelling, and it was a conscious choice. We don't know for sure that the car will start, and unfortunately sometimes it doesn't. Then we use our knowledge to try to figure out what to do about it. We dial our phone (as an act of faith, assuming it will work and help us reach another person), and try to get help.

You'll notice in the Bible that evidence precedes faith. There is no "dumping on a random doorstep" and good luck to ya! God appears to Moses in a burning bush before he expect him to believe. He gave signs to take back to Pharaoh and the Israelite people, so they could see the signs before they were expected to believe. So also through the whole OT. In the NT, Jesus started off with turning water into wine, healing some people, casting out demons, and then he taught them about faith. And they couldn't possibly understand the resurrection until there was some evidence to go on. The whole Bible is God revealing himself to us all—and I mean actually, not through some exercise of faith.

My faith in God is a conscious choice because I find the evidence compelling. It's an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to make it reasonable for me to make that assumption. When you read the Bible, people came to Jesus to be healed because they had heard about other people who had been healed. They had seen other people whom Jesus had healed. People had heard him teach. Their faith was based on evidence. Jesus kept giving them new information, and they gained new knowledge from it. Based on that knowledge, they acted with more faith. People came to him to make requests. See how it works? My belief in God is based on my knowledge of the credibility of those writings, the logic of the teaching, and the historical evidence behind it all. The resurrection, for instance, has evidences that give it credibility that motivate me to believe in it. My faith in the resurrection is an assumption of truth based on enough evidence that makes it reasonable to hold that assumption. The same is true for my belief in the existence of God, my belief that the Bible is God's word, and my understanding of how life works.

With the same confidence that I can claim I am real and the external world is real I can affirm that I know with 100% certainty that God is real. Now we're dipping into epistemology. Knowing is essentially relying on clues to focus on coherent patterns discoverable as reality. As we all know, formulating foolproof criteria for certainty and knowledge in ANY regard has not been successful, philosophically. But in the real world of practicality, knowing God involves an epistemic act that has the same basic features that our ordinary, workday acts of knowledge exhibits.