Hi. I'm a fan of your website, and since I have recently ran into a bit of a predicament, I was hoping I could ask you for advice.
I have some friends which are religious, and since there's pretty much nothing that could break our friendship (at least in the foreseeable future), we like to sometimes argue about the existence of God, with me on the "he does not exist" side. I was hoping you could help me figure out a way to make a valid point against some of their "spirituality is something that cannot be measured but just felt" "how could you have a spirit/soul without god giving it to you, etc" ?
While I realize that I could answer some of these myself, it becomes hard to discuss if they fall back to the same old tricks. So I am asking you for a bit of help, since it seems I cant make an argument without having to correct myself.
Thanks in advance!
I have some friends which are religious, and since there's pretty much nothing that could break our friendship (at least in the foreseeable future), we like to sometimes argue about the existence of God, with me on the "he does not exist" side. I was hoping you could help me figure out a way to make a valid point against some of their "spirituality is something that cannot be measured but just felt" "how could you have a spirit/soul without god giving it to you, etc" ?
While I realize that I could answer some of these myself, it becomes hard to discuss if they fall back to the same old tricks. So I am asking you for a bit of help, since it seems I cant make an argument without having to correct myself.
Thanks in advance!
I'm not sure what you think you could accomplish here. They haven't provided any falsifiable claim that you could use to latch an argument on to. Their case is bullet-proof in that it cannot be refuted, mostly because they haven't made any verifiable claims. But much like it cannot be refuted, it also cannot be used to demonstrate to anybody else that their claim is true, again because they haven't made any claims. They've constructed their own little fantasy world which doesn't have to answer to reality.
But there are some points/questions which I'd make. I'm making some assumptions here, because you didn't specifically say that they were Christian, and also didn't explain exactly what it is that they claim they can feel, but here goes:
1. What does 'spirituality' mean anyway?
2. Why do Hindus and Buddhists claim to feel spiritual but not feel Jesus or the Christian god? Are they sure they don't feel Vishnu? How can they tell?
3. Feelings don't teach anything about the reality of the Universe.
4. What is the difference between your friends and a mentally-ill person who hears voices? What about those who claim they hear their god telling them to do bad things?
5. Even if we do have souls, is it not possible that they are a quality of the Universe and not of their god? Why do they think we can't have souls without gods, but can have gods without anything else?
6. What would they accept as proof that their feelings are deceiving them, or they're just fooling themselves? We have real proof that the brain is deceptive (see related example in my last post), but no proof at all of the existence of the supernatural.
Sorry it wasn't much help, but it sounds like your friends are not giving you anything to use here.