[Castle]

Quote by: Epistemologist I guess to test your faith or at least to make you have more doubt in God.

So God is killing people to make sure that I don't believe in him and am condemned to Hell? Got it

Quote by: Epistemologist Well, basically the premises don't logically lead to the conclusion. What logical principle are you using in that argument?

1) If God is omnibenevolent, he wants maximal good (definition)
2) Knowledge of God's existence contributes to good by allowing people to avoid Hell (premise)
3) Therefore, God wants to let people know he exists (from 1and 2)
4) God, being all-powerful, can do #3 (definition)
5) If a being both could and wanted to do something, it would (premise)
6) God has proved his existence to all (from 3,4, and 5)
7) God has not proved his existence to all (premise)
8) Contradiction; God does not exist (from 6 and 8)

Look more rigorous now?

Quote by: Epistemologist To the first question, I say that faith is more valuable because we can't ever have absolute evidence to use with our reason and arrive at Knowledge i.e. the absolute truth. For instance, if we adopt a more empirical approach and only believe what we can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste by sense perception, then we wouldn't have absolute evidence since our sense perception might be flawed. Think about the Matrix, for instance, where the people were made to believe in a pseudo-reality created by machines. Also, if we adopt pure skepticism of all beliefs (n.b see William Clifford), even then we are employing faith in our method of belief formation, even though some would say that this method employs pure reason.

Granted, we have to accept some things on faith. But God's existence need not be one of them, and we ought to keep that number as low as possible (Occam's Razor).

Quote by: Epistemologist To the second question, I say that faith leads us to certain religions depending on our cultures. In fact, the presence of these religious beliefs within established cultures adds more credibility to the concept of faith. Some have argued that if we are fideists, then what's to stop us from believing in something as supposedly absurd as the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Well, such a concept has not been firmly rooted in a culture, which is, in a sense, the fundamental fiber of our being and behavior. So, many Westerners exercising faith would be drawn to Christianity, and many Arabs and Persians exercising faith would be drawn to Islam.

And it's OK to condemn all those Middle Eastern people to Hell because of their culture?:eek:

Quote by: Epistemologist To the third question, we have evidence because it suits gnostic theists and gnostic atheists. However, I wouldn't say that the Bible and such are sufficient evidence, as Clifford puts it, of the existence of God. Neither is the Big Bang sufficient evidence of the non-existence of God. Faith is belief without evidence

You miss the point. Why the level of evidence available? Why not more, so that it could be proven, or less, so that more faith could be exercised?

Quote by: Epistemologist and that's what agnostic theists such as myself and agnostic atheists employ

As an agnostic atheist (categorically, that is, not about the Christian God), I would like to point out that "agnostic" implies uncertainty, not faith.

Quote by: Epistemologist I suppose when we're on Earth and must make our decision calculus, if we see the existence of both heaven and hell, then we would be more inclined to choose heaven.

Would it not serve the same purpose (and save billions eternal torment) to lie about Hell?

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary We choose infinite punishment, every sane person knows well enough right from wrong.

That's complete and utter idiocy. First of all, even if we to assume (and we shouldn't) that everyone knows right from wrong, not everyone knows about the eternal punishment thing.
Second of all, not everyone agrees with God on what "wrong" is. Not everyone believes that not being Christian is wrong, or that blasphemy is wrong, or that ,say, coveting things is wrong (myself, I think ambition is a good thing)