A case for religion, and against AA.

[PingviN]

I think you totally missed the point of me saying that. Anyway...



Well, let start here: I see no evidence of an invisible teapot because there is no evidence to postulate that one could possibly exists. And why is that? Well of course, its arbitrary, and thus, cannot be a valid analogy to the existence of the [Christian] God....since this is the one we're referring to.

Yaweh/Jehovah isn't some 19th centrury imagined being as Russell's teapot is because those who wrote the Bible, according to the Bible anyway, didn't believe in God until some evidence of his existence was put forth, and then they believed, and wrote it down.

Why is this distinction important? Because we know Russell's teapot is a completely arbitrary, imagined...thing. However, I do not think the same thing can be factually said about the God of the Bible because we cannot say for certain that the miracles put forth to support the existence of God didn't happen.

We can speak to the improbablility of those things not happening, sure. But it's another thing to say "those things didn't happen". You simply don't believe them, and I however, do.

What does this boil down to? The Bible writers wrote down what they "allegedly" saw (for the sake of argument), whereas Russell didn't see anything, nor did the FSM creators...those are simply imagined enities put forth in a effort to say the Bible writers did exactly the same thing, but one thing is missing to make that conclusion true...and that's something called "evidence". (Yeah, you need that too)

We know Russell saw no evidence of a Teapot, but can we factually say that about the Bible writers?

I think that's the ultimate question, in my opinion.

If you argue God exist (or a teapot in orbit around the sun, or trolls or fairies) the burden of proof is not on the ones saying these do not exist. The stories in the Bible are not more believable than the stories in any other book. What someone believe in or what someone claim they saw is not proof. People claim they see aliens, angels and the Yeti, but their accounts of what they saw can hardly be called proof of the existence of aliens, fairies, angels or yetis.

Russel's Teapot is an analogy to illustrate this. We can't factually say there is no teapot in orbit around the sun, because it would be too small to observe. But the fact that you cannot factually prove something doesn't exist is not proof of it's existence.

Same goes for the authors accounts of the supposed miracles. The burden of proof is on the one who claims they might have seen it. Just like the burden of proof is on the one claiming there might be a teapot in orbit around the sun.

 

[Retro Rob]

If you argue God exist (or a teapot in orbit around the sun, or trolls or fairies) the burden of proof is not on the ones saying these do not exist. The stories in the Bible are not more believable than the stories in any other book. What someone believe in or what someone claim they saw is not proof. People claim they see aliens, angels and the Yeti, but their accounts of what they saw can hardly be called proof of the existence of aliens, fairies, angels or yetis.

Russel's Teapot is an analogy to illustrate this. We can't factually say there is no teapot in orbit around the sun, because it would be too small to observe. But the fact that you cannot factually prove something doesn't exist is not proof of it's existence.

Same goes for the authors accounts of the supposed miracles. The burden of proof is on the one who claims they might have seen it. Just like the burden of proof is on the one claiming there might be a teapot in orbit around the sun.

Who said the burden of proof is on then non-believer? I am saying that if you want to critique what's supposed history, saying that people claim to see aliens in no way falsifies what people claimed they saw according to the Bible.

Neither I or the Bible writers can prove anything (firstly because they're dead), and only God can recreate miracles, so you're in a position deciding whether or not those are believable.

If people claimed to see angels, hey, they can prove it since they're still alive. This analogy fails because no one who wrote the book are alive to provide testimony or evidence to substantiate what they saw.

This is precisely the reason why the teapot analogy is a non-sequitur.

 

[schmuckley]

What part of "there are no organisms that are not 'transitional'" was unclear you?



You were close -- I'm the type that HAS read that and heaps of tripe just like it, and realizes the author's fundamental misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the facts.



Garbage in, garbage out.




No, actually not. Most of the people I interact with have proper educations.



Did you mean to say "asset"? Because this word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

So where is some evidence of transition?



2 Peter 3:3-4

King James Version (KJV)

3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Wow,so you interact solely with MENSA members? No ordinary people whatsoever? D:

1at·tri·bute noun \ˈa-trə-ˌbyüt\ : a usually good quality or feature that someone or something has

 

[soulcougher73]

Who said the burden of proof is on then non-believer? I am saying that if you want to critique what's supposed history, saying that people claim to see aliens in no way falsifies what people claimed they saw according to the Bible.

Neither I or the Bible writers can prove anything (firstly because they're dead), and only God can recreate miracles, so you're in a position deciding whether or not those are believable.

If people claimed to see angels, hey, they can prove it since they're still alive. This analogy fails because no one who wrote the book are alive to provide testimony or evidence to substantiate what they saw.

This is precisely the reason why the teapot analogy is a non-sequitur.

So what in your eyes makes the miracles proclaimed in the bible believable? The people that wrote it are dead and we cant prove there is a god per your own words (which i agree with).

 

[Exophase]

I think you totally missed the point of me saying that. Anyway...



Well, let start here: I see no evidence of an invisible teapot because there is no evidence to postulate that one could possibly exists. And why is that? Well of course, its arbitrary, and thus, cannot be a valid analogy to the existence of the [Christian] God....since this is the one we're referring to.

Yaweh/Jehovah isn't some 19th centrury imagined being as Russell's teapot is because those who wrote the Bible, according to the Bible anyway, didn't believe in God until some evidence of his existence was put forth, and then they believed, and wrote it down.

Why is this distinction important? Because we know Russell's teapot is a completely arbitrary, imagined...thing. However, I do not think the same thing can be factually said about the God of the Bible because we cannot say for certain that the miracles put forth to support the existence of God didn't happen.

We can speak to the improbablility of those things not happening, sure. But it's another thing to say "those things didn't happen". You simply don't believe them, and I however, do.

What does this boil down to? The Bible writers wrote down what they "allegedly" saw (for the sake of argument), whereas Russell didn't see anything, nor did the FSM creators...those are simply imagined enities put forth in a effort to say the Bible writers did exactly the same thing, but one thing is missing to make that conclusion true...and that's something called "evidence". (Yeah, you need that too)

We know Russell saw no evidence of a Teapot, but can we factually say that about the Bible writers?

I think that's the ultimate question, in my opinion.

If you take the context outside of the analogy then yes, Russel's teapot is less credible than a religion like Christianity. Because if Russel were sincere about the belief it'd defeat the whole purpose of the argument.

But what about something like Scientology? You may suspect that L. Ron Hubbard was not sincere.. but how certain are you? Do you have particular reason to believe he was less sincere than the formative Christians?

And how much should sincerity sway our evaluation of a religious position, when we know people can so easily be mistaken or deceived? Even by their own senses, where they can not just misinterpret a legitimate sight or sound but actually have auditory and visual hallucinations?

Here's a question for you: if people knew what they know today about human psychology (and I think even few Biblical literalists will claim that dreams and hallucinations are necessarily spiritual occurrences and that neuroscience is completely wrong) - putting aside everything else known about physical sciences - would they be nearly as willing to accept the personal testimony of supernatural events by other people? How much chance would a religion like Christianity to thrive from nothing today instead of 2000 years ago? Honestly ask yourself that - would it weather the much higher level of scrutiny it'd be subject to? And if not, could a religion which can't be accepted really be God's message?

 

[dphantom]

So what in your eyes makes the miracles proclaimed in the bible believable? The people that wrote it are dead and we cant prove there is a god per your own words (which i agree with).

Faith of course.

 

[soulcougher73]

Faith of course.

Well i cant argue against that logic :'(

 

[Exophase]

1at·tri·bute noun \ˈa-trə-ˌbyüt\ : a usually good quality or feature that someone or something has

So you meant to say the person is a good quality to humanity? That still doesn't work. A good quality of humanity? But that would seem to describe a feature of humanity present a priori and not the relationship between someone's behavior and the rest of humanity, which seems to be what you're referring to..

I also don't know what dictionary you used but if there really is an implication of attribute referring to positive features then it'd be very weak at best. None of the listings in Google "define: attribute" claim that at all.

I think you really did just mean to say asset

 

[JD50]

I find that quite interesting, because if something doesn't have evidence or proof, then we conclude that that something doesn't exist.

It begs the question, then...why do you and other atheists spend much of your time in threads like these arguing about something that doesn't exist?

You have asked this countless times and it has been explained to you ever time. Are you honestly this forgetful?

 

[JD50]

So what in your eyes makes the miracles proclaimed in the bible believable? The people that wrote it are dead and we cant prove there is a god per your own words (which i agree with).

I think we need to be more specific. Let's start with Noah's ark and the global food. With the mountains of evidence against this ever occurring, how can anyone believe it?

 

[Agent11]

I think we need to be more specific. Let's start with Noah's ark and the global food. With the mountains of evidence against this ever occurring, how can anyone believe it?

See how easy that was everybody? Civil discourse.

 

[Retro Rob]

So what in your eyes makes the miracles proclaimed in the bible believable? The people that wrote it are dead and we cant prove there is a god per your own words (which i agree with).

Because I think the Bible is believable. The writers evidently hid nothing from the readers (David committed murder/fornication and was punished, Moses made errors that were recorded, Paul was a murderer before coming over to Christianity) and were very candid about their own personal failures and even wrote about the embarassing ones. I don't think fools or liars would do such a think if they're attempting to gain an audience and followers.

Secondly, the OT strictly condemns astrology, fortune-telling, good-luck, idolatry, so they were not allowed to be supersitious under penalty of death.

This was a stark contrast to the many religions around them.

These are just a couple of reason why, just fyi.

 

[Exophase]

Because I think the Bible is believable. The writers evidently hid nothing from the readers (David committed murder/fornication and was punished, Moses made errors that were recorded, Paul was a murderer before coming over to Christianity) and were very candid about their own personal failures and even wrote about the embarassing ones. I don't think fools or liars would do such a think if they're attempting to gain an audience and followers.

But those books in the Bible don't want you to worship those people. They outright use them as object lessons to warn people not to behave badly.

And it's odd that you use those examples as cases where the author of the book was admitting to unflattering behavior. The books of 2 Samuel and Acts never make the claim that they're written by David or Paul respectively, and there's no Jewish or Church tradition that asserts this. Exodus also doesn't claim authorship, and while Mosaic authorship is steeped in old tradition it's highly contested (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_authorship).

Secondly, the OT strictly condemns astrology, fortune-telling, good-luck, idolatry, so they were not allowed to be supersitious under penalty of death.

They were forbidden to hold those particular forms of superstition that gave credence to other religions (as Judaism was strictly exclusionary) but that doesn't necessarily line up with all you might consider superstitious today. Job and his peers believing God to be the cause of his suffering was superstitious, even if sort of true (within the context of the story of course). Actually, technically speaking superstition refers to any supernatural explanation for events which makes the religion superstitious by definition. If anything I would claim that the people in the Biblical narrative were not allowed to not be superstitious, under penalty of death.

 

[soulcougher73]

Because I think the Bible is believable. The writers evidently hid nothing from the readers (David committed murder/fornication and was punished, Moses made errors that were recorded, Paul was a murderer before coming over to Christianity) and were very candid about their own personal failures and even wrote about the embarassing ones. I don't think fools or liars would do such a think if they're attempting to gain an audience and followers.

Secondly, the OT strictly condemns astrology, fortune-telling, good-luck, idolatry, so they were not allowed to be supersitious under penalty of death.

This was a stark contrast to the many religions around them.

These are just a couple of reason why, just fyi.

See i think i would take those same stories you just mentioned and attribute them totally different. I would assume the writers who as you said wanted followers etc would add those in there to show that this religion will forgive man for his natural ways (or sinning in this case). Fornocation and making errors is human nature so most, if not all people fall under that. Murder would be hard to justify other than to say no sin is too great for God for example.

If you want followers and you know 99% of the people make errors and have fornicated before. Youd best to add them in

 

[dphantom]

Well i cant argue against that logic :'(

I know. And neither of us will change our position, but I have found this an enlightening thread and helps me better understand some at least of the atheist's tenets.

 

[jhbball]

Because I think the Bible is believable. The writers evidently hid nothing from the readers (David committed murder/fornication and was punished, Moses made errors that were recorded, Paul was a murderer before coming over to Christianity) and were very candid about their own personal failures and even wrote about the embarassing ones. I don't think fools or liars would do such a think if they're attempting to gain an audience and followers.

Secondly, the OT strictly condemns astrology, fortune-telling, good-luck, idolatry, so they were not allowed to be supersitious under penalty of death.

This was a stark contrast to the many religions around them.

These are just a couple of reason why, just fyi.

Have you witnessed anything miraculous?

 

[dphantom]

Have you witnessed anything miraculous?

I personally have not witnessed a miracle. But I believe miracles do and have occurred.

 

[Agent11]

I've experienced critical hits. Sometimes they tend to come during aberrantly high levels of critical fails.

 

[Retro Rob]

But those books in the Bible don't want you to worship those people. They outright use them as object lessons to warn people not to behave badly.

Okay, I guess.

And it's odd that you use those examples as cases where the author of the book was admitting to unflattering behavior. The books of 2 Samuel and Acts never make the claim that they're written by David or Paul respectively, and there's no Jewish or Church tradition that asserts this. Exodus also doesn't claim authorship, and while Mosaic authorship is steeped in old tradition it's highly contested (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_authorship).

Red-herring.

Authorship is a totally different discussion (and one I'm really not willing to have right now) and doesn't address my point. My point is that that sort of honestly is uncommon.

I believe God inspired the book, and He wanted those details written down. If that was completely a man's book, that sort of honesty, period, wouldn't be in there...in my opinion.

They were forbidden to hold those particular forms of superstition that gave credence to other religions (as Judaism was strictly exclusionary) but that doesn't necessarily line up with all you might consider superstitious today.

But why would God (granted, if real) allow his people to dabble into things he knows aren't true? That, to me anyway, is evidence that they were protected from things we know aren't true today by someone who discerned the falsness of said beliefs thousands of years ago.

Job and his peers believing God to be the cause of his suffering was superstitious, even if sort of true (within the context of the story of course).

If it was superstitious, so be it. It seems you are really gunning for that.

Actually, technically speaking superstition refers to any supernatural explanation for events which makes the religion superstitious by definition. If anything I would claim that the people in the Biblical narrative were not allowed to not be superstitious, under penalty of death.

I know what superstitious means. I was speaking in context of the Biblical record of Israel.

 

[Agent11]

I'd like to meet a statistician who is into Camus and absurdism. They have to be out there.

 

[jhbball]

I personally have not witnessed a miracle. But I believe miracles do and have occurred.

Thanks for the honest answer. Without seeing any miraculous occur, why do you think it is that your faith is so strong? Just learned at a young age?

 

[Retro Rob]

Thanks for the honest answer. Without seeing any miraculous occur, why do you think it is that your faith is so strong? Just learned at a young age?

Please, not this crap again.

 

[jhbball]

Please, not this crap again.

Relax dude. It's a legitimate question. I just wanted phantoms take on it.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Well i cant argue against that logic

no you cannot and as such you should not argue against faith!
It should be enough for the Atheists to agree that a Christian is entitled to his or her beliefs and as such faith is just that faith!
In fact the definition of faith is exactly geared towards Atheists or unbelievers -

Question: "What is the definition of faith?"

Answer: Thankfully, the Bible contains a clear definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Simply put, the biblical definition of faith is “trusting in something you cannot explicitly prove.”

This definition of faith contains two aspects: intellectual assent and trust. Intellectual assent is believing something to be true. Trust is actually relying on the fact that the something is true. A chair is often used to help illustrate this. Intellectual assent is recognizing that a chair is a chair and agreeing that it is designed to support a person who sits on it. Trust is actually sitting in the chair.

Understanding these two aspects of faith is crucial. Many people believe certain facts about Jesus Christ. Many people will intellectually agree with the facts the Bible declares about Jesus. But knowing those facts to be true is not what the Bible means by “faith.” The biblical definition of faith requires intellectual assent to the facts and trust in the facts.

Believing that Jesus is God incarnate who died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and was resurrected is not enough. Even the demons believe in God and in those facts (cf. James 2:19). We must personally and fully rely on the death of Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. We must “sit in the chair” of the salvation that Jesus Christ has provided. This is saving faith. The faith God requires of us for salvation is belief in what the Bible says about who Jesus is and what He accomplished and fully trusting in Jesus for that salvation (Acts 16:31). Biblical faith is always accompanied by repentance of sin (Matthew 21:32; Mark 1:15).

The biblical definition of faith does not apply only to salvation. It is equally applicable to the rest of the Christian life. We are to believe what the Bible says, and we are to obey it. We are to believe the promises of God, and we are to live accordingly. We are to agree with the truth of God’s Word, and we are to allow ourselves to be transformed by it (Romans 12:2).

Why is this definition of faith so important? Why must trust accompany agreeing with facts? Because “without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Without faith, we cannot be saved (John 3:16). Without faith, the Christian life cannot be what God intends it to be (John 10:10).



Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/definition-of-faith.html#ixzz2tKYedfYs

 

[Agent11]

When the God-forsaken worldliness of earthly life shuts itself in complacency, the confined air develops poison, the moment gets stuck and stands still, the prospect is lost, a need is felt for a refreshing, enlivening breeze to cleanse the air and dispel the poisonous vapors lest we suffocate in worldliness. ... Lovingly to hope all things is the opposite of despairingly to hope nothing at all. Love hopes all things – yet is never put to shame. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision.

Kierkegaard Works of Love p. 246-250

Kierkegaard is one of the founders of existentialism.