Do you believe in God? Why or why not?

[Salome]

Does God have a gender?

Maybe humans are still like children, and they need a God to guide them, to hang onto. We are not responsible yet, or at least we dont act so.

[JD06]

Originally Posted by Nayla H

hehe
No, I didn't look behind a tree or whatever else

You used to believe? How? and how did ur faith showed up around you?

When I say God, I'm not talking about religions, dear, or some religious rituals we used to do cz that's what we've been taught.. I'm talking about a certain way of life where we should try to be humans and act as humans with each others.
It's a certain way of life where we try to accept others as they are without trying to hurt them cz they're different, and without trying to make them a photocopy of ours..

God isn't reachable by your eyes or by your hands, he's reachable by your heart and your mind when you'll use them in the right way.
I can find Him when I decide to find him.. and I'll never find Him when I've already decided to deny Him.

I've written in my post that everyone has his own way to God cz everyone is different and everyone has his own reactions and his own feelings towards the life and it's experiences.

i used to believe because my parents are Christian and they told me that theirs a place full of fire and a monster with huge horns called mr devil(they didnt tell me he was this cute) will poke you for all eternity if you dont believe. so i believed. when i started growing up i started to push my beliefs alittle by asking questions and no one had any real answers so little by little i realised tht thrs no easter bunny, no santa claus no tooth fairy no devil and last but not least no god.
im still a very spirtual person, u could say im religous without having a religion.. i dont judge people i dont harm anyone, i try to help others as much as possible, but i dont believe in god as an invisible man living in the clouds and watching everything im doing and taking notes about when i break one of his 10 rules...

[General my General!]

Originally Posted by I_Am_LebanoN

Nobody can prove the existence or nonexistence of what never existed. The fact that their existence cannot be proven or disproven itself proves they never existed. Just like you cannot prove bigfoot, or the toothfairy or santa don't exist. Is there a 50/50 chance that they may or may not exist ? No, they just don't and never did.

You have no perspective, you have no logic, that's blatant nonsense.

I_Am_LebanoN, you may say what I wrote has no logic, but its obvious enough to see we both have perspectives, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

When I say regarding god's existence it comes down to 50/50, I am assuming ignorance of anything I can add to either side of the argument. If you ask any person that, faith aside, what are the odds god exists, you'd probably get 50/50.

Originally Posted by I_Am_LebanoN

It's not 50/50, it's 100/null.
And in your poor reasoning you forgot that Christianity or Islam or whichever fairytale you worship is not the only religion on the market, there are hundreds of thousands of religions and each wants you to believe in its respective deities.

Still feeling lucky punk ? You got 1 in a million chance following your "logical" reasoning, at best. Hold on to it as hard as you can.

Now when you factor in other religions, you could make the claim that its 1 in a million. Expand more and you could factor in all the good and evil events in the world, etc.

But in this case, I don't believe we can factor in anything accurately, so the chance is as good as 50/50 from our limited perspective.

Where factors are known, such as a lottery, you can't argue that either you'd win, or not, (50/50), since it would be ignoring that let's say there are 100,000 other possible numbers that could be drawn.

I am not having this discussion with you to philosophicaly or statistically prove or give odds to god's existance, and I won't be pretentious to claim that this is my field, nor do I see myself as a smarta**. But rather to say that from a lay person's perspective, that is how people see it. There are many persons who have delved deeper into this issue and offered differing and more knowledgeable perspectives than either you or I can come up with. But the bottom-line is most people still would take it as 50/50. You can't prove it either way I agree, but that is how they'd take their odds.

Personaly, I am certain of god's existance, call it faith.
Cheers!

[Nayla]

Originally Posted by JD06

i used to believe because my parents are Christian and they told me that theirs a place full of fire and a monster with huge horns called mr devil (they didnt tell me he was this cute) will poke you for all eternity if you dont believe. so i believed. when i started growing up i started to push my beliefs a little by asking questions and no one had any real answers so little by little i realised tht thrs no easter bunny, no santa claus no tooth fairy no devil and last but not least no god.
im still a very spirtual person, u could say im religous without having a religion.. i dont judge people i dont harm anyone, i try to help others as much as possible, but i dont believe in god as an invisible man living in the clouds and watching everything im doing and taking notes about when i break one of his 10 rules...

ma hek dakhlak? hehe

The highlighted part is the essence of the human behavior and the most important message of any religion.

You know something? I've always been deeply convinced that the religious men aren't the right persons to carry the religions cz all they did all over the centuries was pushing the nations to kill each others in the name of God while God is Peace.

[I_Am_LebanoN]

Originally Posted by General my General!

I_Am_LebanoN, you may say what I wrote has no logic, but its obvious enough to see we both have perspectives, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

When I say regarding god's existence it comes down to 50/50, I am assuming ignorance of anything I can add to either side of the argument. If you ask any person that, faith aside, what are the odds god exists, you'd probably get 50/50.



Now when you factor in other religions, you could make the claim that its 1 in a million. Expand more and you could factor in all the good and evil events in the world, etc.

But in this case, I don't believe we can factor in anything accurately, so the chance is as good as 50/50 from our limited perspective.

Where factors are known, such as a lottery, you can't argue that either you'd win, or not, (50/50), since it would be ignoring that let's say there are 100,000 other possible numbers that could be drawn.

I am not having this discussion with you to philosophicaly or statistically prove or give odds to god's existance, and I won't be pretentious to claim that this is my field, nor do I see myself as a smarta**. But rather to say that from a lay person's perspective, that is how people see it. There are many persons who have delved deeper into this issue and offered differing and more knowledgeable perspectives than either you or I can come up with. But the bottom-line is most people still would take it as 50/50. You can't prove it either way I agree, but that is how they'd take their odds.

Personaly, I am certain of god's existance, call it faith.
Cheers!

Rubbish. I'm done with you.

[TripolySunni]

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

Even if I want to take that into account, I don't

understand how you're still talking about it. If you want to take their words into

account, why don't you take their disbelief in organized religion ( including

Islam) into account as well ? This doesn't work.

I Didn't take thier Evolution theory into Account and it turned out Wrong. And The Only Organized religion they knew was the Christianity Which is Very UnScientific and that is the truth. But They had some people fooled with this evolution theory You know with all the illustrations of monkeys turning slowly to humans.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

Lol fellow atheists created ID ? LOL For one to be an

atheist first and foremost he realizes that just because something is

inexplainable doesn't mean it is attributed to the God of Gaps. So what you just

said is the most illogical thing I have heard in this thread.

Yes They were Athiests, You Making fun of it doesn't mean it's not a FACT. Trust me, check out Who came up with this Idea and U'll be surprized.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

Complexity here can turn against you. Once you say

something is very complex you are opening questions for every person on why it

should be very complex when the world could have been much simpler and smaller and

restricted and done with a snap of a hand since if it was only done for a purpose

then it could have been in any other shape serving that purpose. That's one thing,

the other thing is complexity is a necessity in the evolution process and in the

adaptation process. You are, once again, referring to the God of gaps.
In short, If I was debating you a thousand( or more) years back, you would be

defending your point that God exists by telling me that thunder is unexplainable.

It's Complex for you as a human with Limited mind and understanding as for God it may not be complex, and it's Complexity and beauty and Perfection of all phenomenon Reflects the Glory of its creator.
As for me Debating you a thousand yrs ago, well That remains to be seen. Anyway
Can you tell me that Thunder is explainable that you have mentionned it? Why does the Electron react the way it does In Relation to the Neutrone and Protons? You Realise that scientists Still havn't dived deep enough to know why the small bodies act the way they do and the more the microscopes and the science evolves The More they discover Other Smaller bodies which they cannot See But they can feel.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

To me these refutations are just more proof on how human

all these are. The fact that people want to argue about which divine religion out

of THREE is right puts the organized religion out of logical proportion. An all-

knowing God would not need to bring a religion and then bring another. It's a

matter of perspective on this, I know, but I don't see any sense in it, just more

proof that these were human creations to mass control. I am surprised that for the

first time someone tells me not all religions are true, and only Islam is. (

ofcourse in a debate about Does God Exist).Inside, they will think their religion

is only true, but they won't bring it up maybe for more logic.

God did not bring One religion then another, These are all the same Religion
from the same source and the similarities are there if you study the Old Testament (which is nowhere near the copy of the copy of the copy of the copy.... of the original Written words of Isa), For example we Muslims believe that Jesus(PBUH) Is Our Saviour (Sounds similar doesn't it?). But God is Making the message a bit more complex as the time goes by so that people can understand it, So in the time of Moses (PBUH) He sent 10commandments, in the Time of Jesus(PBUH) He expanded on those and in the Time of Mohammad(PBUH) He finalized it for them in a much more detailed way because they were ready to understand the message more than thier predecessors.So each one completes the other until the Final testament, Which God said would be the final one and the same one jesus had Foretold his people would come after his. Although previous Texts were Altered and several Falsehoods were attributed to God thus the Main Purpose of the Quran is to Correctify those and Finalize the Message clearly.

Here's a verse from the Quran:

O Prophet! Why do you prohibit [yourself from] what God has made lawful for you,

seeking the approval of your wives? And God is Forgiving and Merciful.(Quran

66:1)
while you concealed within yourself that which God is to disclose and you feared the people, while God has more right that you fear Him.. (Quran 33:43)

I'm Asking if Mohammad(PBUH) was the Author of the book would he Blame himself and Critisize himself eventhough that could lead to him losing the respect of the peoplefor example? what kind of author Does this? Secondly everything you write in arabic can be classified into 3 categories of peotry or of... The Quran Does Not fall in Any of the three Categories Thus it is not a Normal peice of Literature and this is one of the main reasons that None of the Shakespears at the time could come up with something similar.

Aside from the Fact that Mohammad(PBUH) was known to be unLettered and UnEducated,

How could he have written this for example:

The expanding universe (Qur'an 51:47)

By studying the galactic spectrum, scientists have recently established that the universe is expanding. In the Qur’an (51:47), we read: “The firmament, We have built it with power. Verily, We are expanding it.” The word “samaa‘a” means firmament or heaven in the sense of the extra-terrestrial world, and the word “musi‘un” is the present plural participle of the verb “awsa‘a”, which means “to widen, to extend, to expand.” This fact is confirmed in Stephen Hawking's classic book “A Brief History of Time” [62].

Now there was a Theory recently that the world will stop expanding and will
retract or Close back to return to a single molecule But it turns out The theory is Wrong in fact they recently Discovered that The Speed in which the univerese is expanding is increasing to an extent that the world will be Inglufed in Darkness (but we humans don't need to worry about that because we won't last that long it seems).

Another example:

Worker bees being female (Qur'an 16:68)

A subtle yet extraordinary precision in describing a natural phenomenon occurs in

Q.16:68: “And your Lord inspired the bee, (saying), 'Take for yourself dwellings in hills, on trees and in what they (mankind) build.’” The imperative “take” above is the translation of the Arabic word “ittakhidhi”, which is a feminine form (for Arabic verbs, unlike English ones, differentiate between the sexes). In Arabic, the female form is used when all those it refers to are female, whereas the masculine is used when a group contains at least one male. Therefore the Qur’an is in fact saying: “Take for yourself, you female bees, dwellings…”A swarm of bees comprises three types: a queen, the worker bees who collect honey and build the hive, and the male drones, whose sole purpose is to impregnate the queen and are then killed off by the worker bees. These worker bees are all females with underdeveloped sex organs. Thus the phrasing of this command in the Qur’an is in perfect correspondence with the fact that male bees do not participate in the construction of the hive or “dwelling”, which is the sole work of the females.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

I don't know about the religious leanings of each of them.

But since you are putting them in one column, I have to tell you that for example

Albert Einstein did not believe in Islam or any organized religion. Actually he

didn't even believe in God the way you think he did. His God was special and the

characterizations of him were similar to the formula the Greek did. he always had

difficulty attributing anything to him and to me it seemed like he was just acting

philosophical and from an agnostic point of view. Also As you recalled early

scientists, it is definitely more likely ( despite their disbelief in organized

religion) that they believe in God in some form of it. If anything, this proves

how that even in 1564, a person like Galileo was defying the ignorant teachings

yet only maintained his bond with the catholic church for the spiritual effect it

had on him probably. If you look at our more opened and progressed and informed

societies now, you can see that scientists are maintaining their disbelief in God

and organized religion and some of them even dropping it completely off since they

do not find it anymore important to have a spiritual bond with some God which they

don't even know how to characterize.

They are pretty famous people and BTW I told you they didn't believe in Organized religion then you reply to me by repeating what i said, Brilliant. I told you that these guys Only Had access to certain religions which they found Conflicting with thier discoveries so they Left them and Created thier Own Concept of God. As for Gallileo He was trying to correctify the teachings of the Church for thier own good.and I thought i already explained God to you but you seem not to understand. I told you GOD means an Object of Worship which people put thier hopes, Faith and aspirations in, Like Money or Science or Physical Strength or Communism. Let me give you an example: The Army generals most of them have a very famous God Called Sun Tzu, They believe that if you follow his teachings you will succeed in battle and if you Go against it you will lose and they even Belive that he Foretld the defeat of the Nazis and the defeat of the confederates in America, So this is a Man which they put all thier hopes and faith and aspirations in In order to get Victory in Return THUS A GOD.
and i already told you that most humans have more than one God...So the simple message of Islam is just worship One God and be thankful to him without associating anyone. For example: If you Succeed in an Exam Thank God then Thank the teacher who taught you, or If you Win a War Thank God Then thank the Generals and the Whether conditions and the Weapons... So Just Put all your Hopes and ur aspirations and Faith in one God and not hundreds.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

You still didn't answer the question. I said why the

universe was created and not why Humans were. Actually that was my main point in

the question. Humans were created after the universe was. So there weren't any

humans so that God would say : Let's create the universe to be able to judge the

humans. In other words as I said two or three times before in this thread: He

created a problem to fix and a concept to solve. This is why I referred to you as

thinking backwards. You are loving in the moment and not being inclusive.

The Universe existed before the Humans did and there are other creations before Humanity and that is common knowlege in islam and the universe will continue after Humanity until the day of Judgement, so I really don't know what ur on about. In Fact this Whole thing Started by a being which is Not Human, a Being who is not an angel But of the Jinn called "3azazil", After this being Used the power alloted to him to Act as an Arrogant Racist Then he was Cursed and called "Iblis" or Satan as they say in english and he caused Adam to commit Sin so Adam and his progency were Placed on earth were they are to prove that they are worthy of God's Mercy.
Allah Created everything, and he is an all knowing and almighty God. For him this is not a problem but it is one for his creation so he offered a solution and he is an expert on his creations.

If Allah Knows ur Future that Shouldn't affect you in anyway, If the teacher Knows The answers and has setup the questions and Has a solid Idea of who will Fail and who will pass, That does not affect The students taking the test Because they don't know. So Nothing is really Controling you, you can either Go to heaven or Hell based on what you do ragrdless of all else.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

He ignored everyone who came before him. Millions of

people. So as Jesus did.

Each Prophet is responsible for his own people and not the ones before him, it is written in ur Bible that the father shall not bare the eniquity of the son nor shall the sone bare that of the father, So in Islam you do not go to heaven and Tell god to Charge ur Sins to jesus(PBUH). Prophet Elias(PBUH) was responsible for his people, Prophet Yusuf(PBUH) orJoseph Was responsible for his people and so on and there are litterally Thousands of them Both messengers and prophets. For anyone on the face of the planet which did not receive clear guidance the judgement Criteria will be different from those who did depending on how they lived and what they believed.

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

I know this. I would kill myself if I didn't. This type of

ignorance is present everywhere. People will call you Kaffer and even a satanist

just because you don't believe in God although technically it's the most

contradictory anyone can say.

No One can Judge you of being a Kaffer Until you recieve Proper guidance then reject it, you can be called a Non-Believer simply. (and no one knows who is kaffer and who isn't unless he is Living inside the brain of that person and knows what he thinks and believes)

Originally Posted by Ataraxia

It's unfair, and unequal, and you are disregarding a

human's soul ( which is the main point of religion : evaluating a human soul).

Also you ran away from the answer by preaching, which is a common method for

religious people. I'm talking about the "what if". A person is a murderer... when

? Maybe he could have killed after he died. Does that make him any better to go to

heaven ? you are only giving regard to his body and not for his feelings and

emotions and thinking and most importantly soul ? This is a huge flaw in the

heaven and hell equation.
If you will answer me that God knows (lol), well that all-knowing God had very

much time (and illogic) on his hand because even that he knows everyone's thinking

he still created everything and made the whole process work. Which is why religion

contradicts itself with the concept of "free thinking".

Listen i try to answer as best as i could and sometimes I can't even express properly and that is simply because I'm not a Scholar nor english Nor do I have a Conversation about religion with Athiests usually anyway... So If a Person Didn't Die he could have repented? well It seems he died without repenting, seems he didn't take this seriously when he had the chance and It seems that he is Gonna take Responsibility for what He does Just Like Ariel Sharon or George bush will be responsible for what they did. Don't Sound too unfair to me.

[TripolySunni]

Originally Posted by JD06

i used to believe because my parents are Christian and they told me that theirs a place full of fire and a monster with huge horns called mr devil(they didnt tell me he was this cute) will poke you for all eternity if you dont believe. so i believed. when i started growing up i started to push my beliefs alittle by asking questions and no one had any real answers so little by little i realised tht thrs no easter bunny, no santa claus no tooth fairy no devil and last but not least no god.
im still a very spirtual person, u could say im religous without having a religion.. i dont judge people i dont harm anyone, i try to help others as much as possible, but i dont believe in god as an invisible man living in the clouds and watching everything im doing and taking notes about when i break one of his 10 rules...

Isn't It One of the Main Commandments of Christianity Not to tell Falsehoods? So I really don't undertand how they Lie to thier Children about Santa Claus and Easter Bunnies... Any Lie is Damaging to a Child.

[General my General!]

Originally Posted by I_Am_LebanoN

Rubbish. I'm done with you.

Quite convincing.

Like I said, there are different perspectives to this, and one of them is that when you have no idea, you assume an even probability distribution. Some have started off with Bayesian inferencing and subsequently included factors that are either positive or negative for god's existence. For starters, Stephen D. Unwin | Probability of God | Religion | Humor | Bayes | Physics | Existence | Is There a God? and the below.

That aside, I believe the most common one once faith is set aside is 50/50, that is my bit to this. I gladly acknowledge your perspective and it has been held by others, but you did not bother to acknowledge a differing perspective.

Cheers!

---------

A review of The Probability of God
by Stephen Unwin, Crown Forum, 2003

I was at a talk given by the esteemed expert on fertility, Lord Winston, about Judaism and science. Lord Winston is a devout Jew and views the old nostrums about science and religion being necessarily in conflict as garbage. However, he started his talk with a light hearted joke about the book under review that very much implied he did not take it very seriously. This is actually a most unusual and very interesting book. It does exactly what it says on the tin and calculates the probability that God exists. But, I suppose the first question to consider is whether Unwin himself is even being serious. The book is full of skits, (quite good) jokes and is written in a sometimes slightly flippant way which does not enhance any pleas for earnestness. My own conclusion is that Unwin has his tongue in his cheek to a great extent but is doing so to make a number of very serious points. The subject matter is necessarily obtuse and humour is as good a way as any to approach it.

So how do you set about calculating the probability that God exists? Unwin says that we should use something called Bayesian probability theory to do so. His exposition of how this works is within reach of even the most mathematically averse reader and he constructs an equation that allows him to handle lots of different kinds of evidence. His methodology is clear and hard to fault. The controversy arises when he has to decide how he is going to fit the evidence into his equation. It is at this point that the process ceases to be objective as we all interpret different evidence in different ways. While you often here the more stupid kind of atheist claim there is no evidence that God exists, what they really mean is that they are not convinced by the evidence there is. The fact is that the hard core atheist is not going to play Unwin’s game. So what sort of evidence do we have at hand? Unwin suggests six categories: morality, providence, miracles, natural evil, moral evil and religious experience. Immediately we notice that not all of this is going to help the theistic case. But what about other kinds of evidence that are available? Perhaps Unwin is drawing the boundaries a little too tightly. It is here that I face my strongest disagreement with his work because Unwin utterly rejects the fine tuning argument for the existence of God. He claims that this is because if the universe were not fine tuned we should not be here to ask why it is. This makes the fine tuning argument viciously circular and so invalid. Beyond pointing out that this argument has been refuted by Richard Swinburne, John Polkinghorne and Keith Ward among others, I will not do more than note our disagreement here. That is why some atheist scientists now have felt the need to postulate an infinite array of universes to explain fine tuning.

In a more general sense, the way that Unwin’s method works means that how one divides up the evidence and how long we make our list is extremely important to the end result. So is the extent to which we bring our own preconceptions to the table. Whether we actually have religious experiences will inform how much weight we give that question. Likewise, if we feel our prayers have been answered we will attach a lot of importance to divine providence. And if, like Unwin and I, a true miracle has never occurred before our eyes, we would them give less credence to them than those who have seen one. However, in the way he handles the evidence, Unwin also makes the most important conceptual point in his book. Each set of data is evaluated under both possibilities – either God exists or he doesn’t. Thus it is not sufficient to dismiss morality as a possible result of evolution. We have to ask if morality is more likely in a God created world than otherwise. And here we must admit that it is – morality is a near certainty in a world where God exists but in a purely material world it is easy to imagine intelligent life evolving without it. A point to God. On the flip side, it is far easier to comprehend diseases being prevalent in a blind amoral universe than one guided by a loving creator. The atheist wins out on this point. I will not give away where Unwin ends up himself, but suffice to say, his result is his alone and others will get different answers. Actually doing the exercise is valuable in itself as it forces us to face up to differences between our instincts and what we can rationally justify.

Unwin finds that his instinctive faith in God is a good deal greater than the result of his calculations shows as justified. The last section of the book is a discussion of how this can come about and why our gut feelings do not always match our considered conclusions. While I found the discussion illuminating it lacked the rigour that would have made it really useful.

Overall this book is a good deal deeper than it purports to be. Unwin is using Bayesian probability theory to set a stage on which to ask serious questions and to force himself to reconsider his own internalised dialogue between faith and reason. The way that these interact is an important topic which Unwin has laid out in an original and interesting way that cannot fail to widen the debate. As for the probability calculations, these really take the form of a private meditation, but one so clearly explained, that we can partake in the same experience ourselves. Like the beads of a rosary, the different kinds of evidence provide distinct nodes for considering the action or otherwise of God in the world. Alas, as I mentioned above, I cannot see many atheists even being willing to play the game.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© James Hannam 2004.
Last revised: 20 Mai, 2005

(Source: The Probability of God)

[Learned]

I forgot that I had made this thread! Anyways, I'm glad the mods have decided to allow it.

In reading through some of the posts made so far, a number of individuals have started to delve into the specifics of different organized religions in their discussion, and I would like to remind that this destracts from the purpose of the thread.


Anyway, I have some questions for those who have posted in regards to their belief in a Diety or lack thereof.

For those of you who believe in God, if you believe that God is truly sublime, without any wants or needs, then why did He create you in the first place? In other words, why would a self-sufficient Being have the desire to create?

For those of you who don't believe in God, what do you think the purpose of life is? Is your life simply the product of an unlikely chain of events, on the cosmic scale, that eventually lead to your birth?

[Learned]

Originally Posted by I_Am_LebanoN

Nobody can prove the existence or nonexistence of what never existed. The fact that their existence cannot be proven or disproven itself proves they never existed. Just like you cannot prove bigfoot, or the toothfairy or santa don't exist. Is there a 50/50 chance that they may or may not exist ? No, they just don't and never did.

You have no perspective, you have no logic, that's blatant nonsense.

This isn't accurate. If you'd like, I can write out a rigorous proof for you that demonstrates how any system of logic and rationality (such as arithmetic, algebra, calculus, etc) is ultimately incomplete in the sense that there will always be truths within that system of logic that cannot be demonstrated to be true, and falsehoods within that system of logic that cannot be demonstrated to be false. In other words, any rigidly logical system is incomplete. Furthermore, it is possible to prove that any logical system is also inconsistent, meaning that its consistency cannot be demonstrated within the system itself.

What this tell us is that, we can only be certain of what we can be certain of as long as we can demonstrate the consistency and viability of our methods exhaustively and rigorously within the system(s) of logic that we are utilizing, and that there will always be truths and falsehoods that we will never be able to identify as such. Essentially, the tools at our disposal (logic, rationality, mathematics, science, etc) will never be able to uncover all truths and expose all falsehoods, and in some cases, when it comes to some of the things we demonstrate to be true, the inconsistency of our methods will always cast doubt on the validity of our findings.