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i'm sorry you didn't receive the response you thought you might get... but i'm close to as hard-core a believer as you'll find.
i have a problem with the argument that disbelief is warranted by a lack of logical proof all by itself. i think it's somewhat vain to think that because the concept of God doesn't fit into your reason, then he must not exist. if history teaches us one thing, it's that human reasoning has limits... very severe and costly limits. why do we deny the existence of something that, by definition, must be bigger than our minds on the grounds that our intellectual faculties cannot verify existence?
now i'm not suggesting that our logical/rational processes are bad and should be ignored... just that i feel they're sometimes given too much credit in solving problems that are beyond their scope. you may doubt the existence of God based on your logical/rational understanding, but don't kid yourself into thinking that somehow you or anyone else has disproved the existence of God... logic cannot extend itself with confidence into that realm.
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Hey I agree with you alot here, you seem a very reasonable believer. If only everyone else was as openminded as you. Im also sorry i didnt pick up on your response earlier, as it was an interesting point.
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if we were to contact multiple alien civilizations, not finding one among them who had a concept of God. i would either have to discard much of what i believe or try to reason a way to synthesize this new knowledge with prior firm convictions.
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I would argue that a concept of god is a natural part of the evolution of any thinking species. Both a thinking evolution and literal one. This is kind of going off topic here as we are not really debating the existence or not of god, but rather what it takes for someone to believe/ not believe. I will say this tho, whilst i agree with your points regarding disproof. I am content to consider that as there are societial and biological reasons for a beleif in divine power and no supporting evience for such power; The natural conclusion is that beleif in god is meerly a symptom rather than evidence in it self.
Anyway enough rambling back on topic.
You state you would beleive if multiple alien species were discovered that had no concept of god. Based on my suggestion above ill take the liberty of extended your suggestion to alien species that are sufficiently advanced and have rejected the idea of God for many years(millenia?).
So thats kind of fair enough, but isnt this a case of redefining the goal posts considering contempory knowledge. For instance it used to be all life started on earth and life elsewhere was ruled out by Genesis. However now well informed scholars like yourself realise there is a very real chance that bacterium life may be found on mars. This imo would disprove much of what the major religions offer. So the goal posts shift and now you talk about advanced alien civilisations. But say we find them , do your goal posts shift again?
I think you hint to it here:
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or try to reason a way to synthesize this new knowledge with prior firm convictions.
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