Maybe that was a goal or thought of Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to William Canby, "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus." He described his own compilation to Charles Thomson as "a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen." He told John Adams that he was rescuing the Philosophy of Jesus and the "pure principles which he taught," from the "artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms as instruments of riches and power for themselves." After having selected from the evangelists "the very words only of Jesus," he believed "there will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."

This is what I'm talking about. What does that mean?

You need proof to disprove something as well. Otherwise, all we have is opinions.

Well then disprove that apples exist.......otherwise the existence of apples is just an opinion.

If one person has proof and another person comes along and doesn't have proof--it does not invalidate any proof the first person has had.

Arguing, "Well since I don't have their proof and it never happened to me then it doesn't exist" is actually kind of asinine.

I find math meticulous and aggravating to perform at length but there are mathematicians who swear it's a transportive experience for them.  If they fail to get me to understand math at their level of ability and fail to get me to try it, their experience isn't "disproved". They are simply experiencing something in a way I can't and don't understand.

And no...they don't have to "prove" their experience for it to be true.

apples have already been proven to exist - at least at a humans level of reasoning - so there is no point to disprove their existence. You need to try a little harder to find faults in my logic.

Not to someone who has never been exposed to apples or information about apples. They would believe apples do not exist.

Beliefs are dependent on what the individual has been exposed to so they vary from person to person.

Asking someone to disprove what they believe is illogical whether it is apples or oranges or God.

apples are common knowledge. with your reasoning this entire world might not exist, it could simply be the dream of a frog. Of course, that sounds ridiculous to human reasoning.

All I'm trying to say is you can't prove the existence of God, and you can't prove the nonexistence of God either. So believing in , or not believing in God is simply opinion.

Maybe I haven't thought hard enough, but it seems that you can only prove the existence of God, since I don't know how it is possible to prove the nonexistence of anything. For all we know, this could all be a dream of a frog. There could be a giant spaghetti monster flying around space. Since it is only possible to prove something exists, the only way God would become a fact, rather than an opinion is if he came down to Earth and demanded we worship him. Of course, he has already done that. Jesus showed countless times that he was God, but humans still refused to believe him.

I feel that it isn't, "Atheists don't believe in God," but that "Atheists don't want to believe in God." If God came down tomorrow, would you simply change your beliefs, or claim that he was a superhero, or some sort of anomaly from the cosmos? 

Actually you are talking about your own reasoning because what I stated makes perfect sense to me. Everyone reasons things very differently not only from others but also throughout their lifetimes. Mainly what I am saying is that beliefs are not always opinions simply because certain beliefs vary amongst individuals. Beliefs vary amongst individuals because we all have a different set of experiences which cause us to perceive things in different ways.

I assume that you feel that way because you do believe in God and want to and that is great. I can understand why you feel that way if that is the case. 

Can't ignore that.... as juxtapose 'theist' with 'atheist' and 'do' with 'don't' and you have the same irrelevancy.

'want' is redundant and thus meaningless.

It has more to do with the point of view....She says "feel"....I would express that as "believe".....Some people who believe "feel" what they believe. People who don't, "know" what they believe.

So If I try to put myself in the head of a believer: I might not understand why people could possibly not want to "feel" the same way. So I might think of it in terms of desire and express it as "want". Maybe not so meaningless?

More like the confusion of semantics.....the reason most 'arguments' exist is simple semantics....or rather the confusion of mis-interpretation.

The problem is simply the lack of simplicity in terminology.

Sad part is....at the end of the day, yes, that's yet another day you won't ever get back.

Life is short, whether there is a god or not... or that science has all the answers or not....chances are you will just be dead and none the wiser either way.

....and yet, here I am....on this little ink-blot on the literary globe of human cognitive reasoning wishing I didn't HAVE to be here policing it against flame and misfortune....

However that instance was not an argument. It is true misunderstanding at the core. It's an example of youth. Hint:"giant spaghetti monster flying around space" Wish I was still thinking that way. Kinda why I "ended" saying I understand why she feels that way.

Think it might have been just a Full moon or something over the weekend..

the Giant Spaghetti Monster is a book written by an Atheist. Saying the same thing I was just saying. No one has proved or disproved the existence of a Giant Spaghetti Monster, so it may or may not exist. The author was using to show my previous argument about you can't prove or disprove the existence of God.

So I didn't make that up off the top of my head, if that was what you were thinking.