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| Posted by: elmo Dec 20 2004, 06:29 PM |
| Hi, I'm new to this but I've been reading a lot from your site and enjoying hearing other people's views. I am a Christian but I have come to the realisation recently, through a debate I've been having with an athiest for the past 12 months, that some of the things I accepted as "evidence" of Christianity wasn't actually evidence at all. I don't believe this proves that Jesus did not exist, but it has encouraged me to begin to search for truth. I decided that I was open to being proven wrong because above all, I want to make sure I am following the truth. I believe that many of the things the church has done throughout history in the name of "God" has been terrible and sometimes I am embarrassed that being a Christian puts me in the same stereotype as the hypocrisy that has gone on, but I don't believe that that in itself disproves the Bible. My question is this, and I'm hoping someone can help me: How, if the Jesus never existed, did the most incredibly fraud/fake/conspiracy (being Christianity) take place? How has it held for 2000 years? How has it fooled millions of people around the globe including scholars and intellectuals and scientists? So many sects and cults have fallen, but this one remains. It's very easy to say "it's not true", but if it's not true, then what really happened? This is not a challenge, it's an honest question. |
| Posted by: Rachelness Dec 20 2004, 06:42 PM |
| With its concepts of hell and sin juxtaposed with the fact it was spread via the sword, I would say fear is what has kept so many "in Christ". Sorry I can't expound further on this right now, but I'm sure many here will be happy to give you a fuller answer. Oh, and welcome to exChristian! Enjoy your stay! |
| Posted by: bob Dec 20 2004, 07:14 PM |
| Welcome elmo, Why has the Mormon faith been around since the mid 1800's and is growing? How about Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus, Muslims? If their God never existed, why has their faiths lasted so long? I don't know whether Jesus existed or not. That has nothing to do with my atheism. My atheism simply means that I do not have a belief in any gods. If Jesus did exist, I consider him to be just a man. A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth. -- Edward De Bono I contend that we are both atheists, I just believe in one less god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, then you will know why I dismiss yours. --Stephen F. Roberts |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 07:33 PM |
| I just wanted to make a comment that the Christian faith was NOT spread by the sword. Yes, the Crusades existed, but that wasn't about spreading Christianity, it (at least the first Crusade) was about retaking the homes of Christians that were taken by Muslims by force. My answer for you elmo is that it has survived because it is True. Yes, those other faiths have also survived, and all of them contain some Truth. But, from what I know, which is far from exhaustive, is that the Christian faith early on was spread by people who were threatened with death. That means either they were all crazy, or they knew something. Think of the Apostles. They just saw their Messiah killed. I know if I was there and I saw someone I just thought was the Messiah killed and then he did not come back from the dead, there's no way I would lay down my life in his name. But, if he DID come back, then I would KNOW he was whom he claimed he was, and death would no longer be something to fear. Also, just as a note, I am a practicing Catholic. Unlike many Churches, we accept sinners of all kinds and welcome them with open arms! |
| Posted by: Rachelness Dec 20 2004, 07:35 PM | ||
How about the slaughter of Native Americans? |
| Posted by: Rachelness Dec 20 2004, 07:37 PM | ||
What are you talking about? People die for their beliefs all the time. That doesn't make them right. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 07:54 PM |
| Rachel, Like I said, early on, there was not a spread by the sword. It was spread through witness, peaceful preaching, and sacrifice. Ancient Rome was none too friendly to the Christians and many died at the hands. Unfortunately, there were some that tried to spread the Gospel through force, and they were wrong for doing so. In their (VERY WEAK AND NOT PERSONALLY ACCEPTED) defence, they probably thought they were doing what God wanted... but I think they were misguided in their rationale. And, you are right, people die for their faith all the time. But, from my personal knowledge, people do not die for something they know is false. Why would they die if they knew that Jesus did NOT raise from the dead? He was not the Messiah in that case. The Jews did not think that the Messiah would be killed in such a way. To be hung on a tree was to be a criminal, the Messiah could not be a criminal... From the Apostles' point of view, his death had to be earth-shattering. They doubted, by their own reports in the Gospels. Most of them fled after Jesus was captured (except for John and the women). Why would they come back if they were not compelled to do so by something like a man coming back from the dead? I hope I've made my point better now. If not, please ask me to clarify more, but please be more specific so I can pinpoint better. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 20 2004, 07:54 PM | ||
It also could mean they were fictional or forged. Keep in mind that you are actually asserting that a belief that survives calamity is by that merit, true. You really don't want to make that assertion because it sets up a house of cards that is far too easy to blow down. Elmo: The only argument for christianity that survives logic and reason is 'I believe it because I choose to believe it on faith'. That is a message pounded in the scripture over and over again and to even try to subject faith to logic dooms it. If you are someone who needs what you believe in to make sense, then you are doomed to apostacy like most people here. Sorry. |
| Posted by: Zoe Grace Dec 20 2004, 07:57 PM | ||
welcome to the boards elmo! With history it's hard to tell exactly what really took place sometimes. There are several theories about what actually happened. Constantine certainly had a great deal to do with it. Until Constantine, Christianity was a minority sect that was seen as traitorous. Constantine made it the state religion and suddenly it could spread and gain ground unfettered. The theory I personally think is the most logical is expounded in a very readable way in the book: "The Jesus Mysteries" By Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy. You can find it on amazon.com In the end analysis we may never know EXACTLY what took place, but when all the stories and opinions and theories come in, you have to ask yourself what makes more sense: That a deity had his son (essentially himself if you believe in the trinity) put to death in a gory human sacrifice to appease him, and that he then died and rose again on the third day along with all the other supernatural stories in the bible, or you have to examine alternatives. To me, almost any alternative makes more sense. However the Jesus Mysteries theory makes the most sense IMO. If you are looking for information right now. There are a few sites on the web which might be of assistance. Namely the following: http://www.jesusneverexisted.com Hope this helps. Zoe =) p.s. If you DO come to discover that your current faith is built on sand, then don't freak out. YOu have lots of options from here. You could turn to a more symbolic form of liberal christianity (episcopalians rock!) or you could look into alternate spiritualities, or liberal branches of other faiths. Atheism isn't the only option, and even if you do choose atheism if you truly desire a spiritual practice, atheism won't prohibit that. |
| Posted by: Zoe Grace Dec 20 2004, 08:01 PM | ||
many different faiths have persisted through persecution. The muslims persist through persecution from Jews, Jews persist through persecution by muslims. Hindus persist through persecution from muslims. Pagans persisted for awhile before they were all killed through persecution by the christians, mormons persisted also through persecution and threats of death. I could go on and on. Many people die for lies. Believing something doesn't make it true. Sincerely believing something and being willing to die for it, doesn't make it true. Also saying someone who does such a thing is crazy, is a bit of a stretch, for if none of the religions turn out to be true, almost the entire world is crazy. Crazy is determined by what is normal and abnormal in certain situations, therefore the entire world cannot be crazy. Theoretically the entire world could be wrong, but not crazy. |
| Posted by: Zoe Grace Dec 20 2004, 08:10 PM | ||
Most scholars believe the gospels to have been written long after most biblical literalists believe them to have been written. But even if they were written within 30 years (the shortest time frame ANYONE is expounding) then that's 30 years, none of the writers were witnesses to the event. In fact we don't really know who the writers were. No one knows. The names on the books are not the authors of the books. These are essentially anonymous books. also, just because someone wrote something down doesn't mean it happened. No one knows anything about the "original apostles" or even if they existed. If all you get is a mythological story about some people who supposedly were put to death for what they saw, you don't have a whole hell of a lot. I've been told by christian fundamentalists (which I am not saying you are btw) that a legend could not come about that quickly...in 30 years. IN a superstitious age, oh yes it could. hate to tell you. In addition, TODAY in an age far less superstitious than that, urban legends can spread in a few weeks or shorter and many people believe them. (some of them insane) Until you have actual proof that not only jesus existed, but the apostles existed (where are the roman records of any of their deaths. the romans kept major records. YOu don't start seeing roman records of christian deaths until way after the apostles.) and until you have proof that the new testament is an accurate historical account and you have evidence that tells you who wrote the books, all you have is faith. period. I find Christianity fascinating. How it spread, how people believed it, all the crazy things that happened in order for it to get to us today...but from all that I've seen and researched I am convinced that Christianity was just another "Mystery cult" but with a jewish slant, and through accidents of history the outer mysteries got separated from the inner mysteries and were taught as literal fact to the masses. There are too many similarities in the Jesus stories and many other pagan myths/ mystery religions from around that time and before that time to discount the similarities. In fact, in the middle ages, even the christian church acknowledged the similarities were there. They never denied the similarities. They instead said one of two things: either: "the devil did it to lead people astray from the truth." Or "god put early echos of the truth into earlier religions hailing the arrival of jesus" Well both of these positions are very presumptive and can only thrive on cultural bias. The only thing that makes one think christianity is the true one and all the others are either deceptions or premonitions is exposure to christianity and that christianity eventually won out. If Christianity hadn't won out we might all be praying to mithras right now. |
| Posted by: redstar2000 Dec 20 2004, 08:23 PM | ||
A perfectly reasonable question and one which has many answers. First, you must recall that the centuries that saw the rise of Christianity were extraordinarily turbulent -- much like our own. The Roman Empire passed through a whole number of crises, including civil wars, plagues, rebellious provinces, even urban revolts. Such periods are "fertile" in terms of superstition; there were many "mystery" religions that competed with Christianity for adherents. Even Judaism recruited new believers among women and would probably have been more popular among men were it not for the rite of circumcision. One striking advantage that Christianity had was that it was an "easy" religion to convert to...one did not need to finance expensive conversion rituals, travel to distant "holy" places, or memorize elaborate ritual responses. Then there was the "accident" of Constantine; he was the first Roman emperor who saw Christianity as a faith that might strengthen and reunify a splintering empire. By that time, the Christian hierarchy was more than happy to acknowledge the emperor as "directly appointed by God". With state subsidies in hand, Christianity easily put its competitors out of business, partly through outright suppression but mostly because anyone with ambition "followed the money" into the church. Once Christianity became a partner with the Roman state, no one could challenge them without actually defeating a Roman army and conquering a Christian province...something no one was able to do prior to the rise of Islam. Had the Muslims won the Battle of Tours (c.750CE), Christianity would either not exist today or be a tiny and insignificant sect...as it actually is in the Muslim world. But what of the early days? How did Christianity "get off the ground" at all...especially if "Jesus" was a mythical figure? As far as we can tell, Christianity's first century was "parasitical"...it existed on the fringes of Judaism, attracting "gentiles" who were also attracted to Judaism as well as Jews who were, for one reason or another, discontented with the constraints of "pure" Judaism. Again, it was easier to be or to become a Christian than to be a Jew, much less become one. And we should be conscious of another factor that's often overlooked. In that era, women who did not die in childbirth often outlived their husbands. Christian widows would often leave their wealth to their favorite "bishop" or, as time passed, to early churches as soon as they became legal. Converting wealthy widows was almost certainly an early priority of Christians...and the widows were probably grateful that someone paid attention to them at all. Money is the "mother's milk" of religion even more than it is of politics. Finally, we should be aware of the social role of religion...any religion. It's purpose is to provide "cosmological justification" for earthly authority and "consolation" to those (most people) whom the social order has not favored. Which religion happens to dominate a given area or a given era is something of an accident -- but every ruling hierarchy wants a population of faithful servants. Whatever religion costs, they think it's worth it!  http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net http://www.che-lives.com/forum/ |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 08:40 PM |
| Yes, faith is the most important thing. I would never claim that I have scientific proof that it is True... but likewise, no one can claim that it is not true through science either. Not believing takes as much faith as believing. In fact, in my opinion, atheism (by which I mean claiming there is no God, not the belief there is no God) takes even more faith. Also, I'm not claiming that surviving travesty proves it true, but I'm suggesting that its added evidence. Now, my understanding is that most of those other faiths were not persecuted IMMEDIATELY after the faith was founded, where Christianity was. Its important to realize that "messiahs" were a dime a dozen in the time of Christ. I could imagine Peter saying to his brother, "You idiot, I can't believe you went off and followed another one of those nuts, and got me to go with you this time! Now he's dead, and we're wanted. What are we going to do now?" In those days, when a "messiah" was proven false or was killed, his followers moved on to another one. I would not be surprised if many of Christ's follower did not follow a different "messiah" prior to Jesus. But, what was different with Christ is that people continued to preach his message AFTER his death. But, the Talmud also mentions Christ and claims he was not God. This was written relatively early after He died. Zoe, What are these Roman records you refer to? Do you have a reference for me? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 20 2004, 09:15 PM | ||||||||||
Being openminded means being able to admit that you might be wrong.
Oh boy. It is a lot more complicated than just whether or not Jesus actually existed. From a non-Christian perspective, the question of whether or not Jesus actually exists is entirely different from the question of whether or not the gospels are true. It's actually not that important if he actually existed. Assuming that he did, his name was Yeshua, which is sort of like Joshua, and there are a lot of good reasons to suspect that the gospels were just myths constructed over time. In fact, if you put the gospels in the order in which they're thought to have been written, starting with Mark, and then moving on to Matthew, Luke, and John, then you start to see the pattern of myth-making. You start with practically no miraculous events, then you move onto to Matthew and you start seeing miracles here and there, and by the time you get to John, you find that the story is loaded with miracles. Plus it is widely accepted that none of these books were even written until decades after Jesus supposedly died, and given the average lifespan of people who lived in the first century, whick would have been around 40 years old, it's rather difficult to accept that any of these gospel writers could have been eye witnesses to Jesus' crucifiction. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is the virgin birth prophecy. This comes from Matthew, who quotes a line of verse from Isaiah, yet Isaiah didn't say anything about a virgin giving birth let alone anything about a prophecy that would take place some 700 years after the time he said it. The prophecy was supposed to be a sign for the king of Judah at the time, and the boy mentioned in the prophecy, Immanuel, is born in the very next chapter. Heck, the point that Jesus' name is clearly not Immanuel is an important one in itself. The prophecy even talks about the pregnant woman in present tense. It says (roughly) "Behold, the woman is with child". You don't use words such as "behold" if you're talking about something in the distant future. It would be like saying today, "Behold, the twenty-seventh century!" It makes no sense. The word Isaiah used for in reference to the woman was "almah", which has no connotation of being a virgin. But there actually is a Hebrew word for virgin, which is "bethula". Basically, if it was important to the story that the woman was to be a virgin, then Isaiah would have said "virgin". He didn't. Basically, that's the problem with Jesus. There's more. For now, I'll give you some references of mine, and anyone who wants to add to this may do so. In my opinion, there may have been a historical Jesus, but the Jesus character from the Bible simply never existed. http://www.ffrf.org/timely/rise.php http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1993/2/2virgi93.html http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/virginprophecy.shtml http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/syrophoenician.html http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/whybelievejesus.htm http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html
You're right. What it does, however, is humanize the Christians, and it shows that they're not better than anyone else. There's no moral higher ground held by being Christian.
Well, as I said, it's not important whether or not he existed. The question is whether or not the gospels are true, and the gospels certainly have some serious problems. If I had to guess, it's because of the persuasiveness of the Christian faith and how it impacts human psychology. As biological creatures, humans are very safety conscious. They want to avoid harm at all cost. And lo and behold, along comes the Christian religion which says, "You need to accept this godman or else you're going to spend eternity in this place of perpetual pain." It's also very appealing to one's sense of guilt. I'm not presupposing anything about you, but with overwhelming regularity, the people who are most attracted to religion are those who've lived very dubious lives of lying, cheating, drinking, etc. It's really appealing that you can live half your life and go to church one day and have all of your so-called "sin" erased. Just look at our own president. He was on the verge of divorce when he became a born again Christian. He was an alcoholic. To him, accepting Jesus was an attonement for him. It's an attractive idea, basically. Attractive ideas are easy to spread in society. Richard Dawkins calls this sort of idea a "meme" in his book "The Selfish Gene".
Well. who really knows? |
| Posted by: weedwacker Dec 20 2004, 09:22 PM |
| I believe the answer to the question is money, pride, and power. Christianity is a cash cow. It's followers have too much pride to admit being wrong. Those in power (with the money mentioned previously) keep the faith alive. Munari, as an atheist, I don't have faith that there is no god. I've never had to make profound leaps of logic and suspend reason to justify my atheism. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 09:24 PM | ||
You are absolutely right! When it comes to humans, we are not on a moral high ground. We are all sinners. We all deserve death. But, Christianity is not about us humans, it is about God and the sacrifice of Christ. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 20 2004, 09:28 PM | ||
If by 'death' you mean 'hell', I just have one thing to say: No we don't. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 20 2004, 09:36 PM |
| That right there is the single worst principle of Christian theology. In order to be saved, you need to convince yourself that you're in need of punishment in the first place. Behold the doctor that stabs you with a knife and then sells you the Band-Aid. |
| Posted by: elmo Dec 20 2004, 09:41 PM |
| Wow, thank you for everyone's reply, especially so quickly. The problem I have is that the further I go down the "it's all made up" path, the harder I find it to accept. I have yet to find any evidence that the gospels were definately NOT written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - I know there is suspicion but if anyone has any evidence I'd love to see it. The way I see it, it's kind of like the suspicion that Shakespeare did not write the plays attributed to him, but it cannot be proven (yet). So on that assumption, Jesus would have to have been manufactured by these people - now that leads me to a whole series of questions, specifically because Jesus fulfilled at least 300 Messianic prophesies from the Old Testament. So, either the Old Testament is also manufactured by some fraud or the gospels were incredibly carefully written to ensure that every one of those prophesies was addressed in the manufacture of Jesus. If the Old Testament is made up then that is an incredible feat, because not only have the authors deceived Christians but also Jews and Muslims (and perhaps others). That makes approximately 3,284,000,000 living currently that have been fooled, and easily that again during the last however many thousand years. However, if the Old Testament is true and Jesus has been manufactured to fit, then there's another problem. I've had a couple of people (atheists generally) point me to the discrepancies between the gospels and evidence of their falsity. What I don't understand is if they were written with that much care to line up with theological prophesies, why was the care not taken to take out some of the apparent contradictions. And why write four? And why write them over an extended period of time (50AD to 90AD for example)? Wouldn't it have been easier to put together 1 foolproof manuscript saying exactly, clearly, what they wanted to? So does it really come down to what I prefer to believe? A conspiracy or a supernatural occurence? Well, I believe there is definately some supernatural element in the world. I have a good friend, an athlete, whose left leg was shorter than her right one and tests had been done to prove it. This prevented her from competing. She was prayed for and those same tests now show her legs are the same length. She is now running again. That is a personal story from me but there are (i dare to say) thousands of them. I'm sure they are not all true, but I can't simply dismiss them as all being made up can I? This is my dilemma anyway. I'd love your thoughts. |
| Posted by: weedwacker Dec 20 2004, 09:42 PM | ||
Catholic are you?  |
| Posted by: Messi Dec 20 2004, 09:42 PM |
| The doctor would be charged with harming people if he wasn't above the law. If God say "Love thy neighbour" then he must be not above his law. He must not create a punishment,so on. Hell is not exactly a loving invention of God, isn't it? If the doctor present ya with band aid after cutting your arm, then it's no excuse. You will be angry at him and sue and put him in prison. If He is real, he must be punished. |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 20 2004, 09:44 PM | ||
*sigh* Great. Ever brought someone back from the dead with only the power of prayer? That would convert me. Show me a child you brought back from the dead with only the power of prayer and I will follow your God. Until then, forget about it. Stories of legs that are shorter then the other cured by the power of prayer are a dime a dozen and I can find them in every major religion. |
| Posted by: elmo Dec 20 2004, 09:59 PM |
| Does that mean they're made up? |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 10:10 PM |
| Weedwacker, Yes, I am Catholic. Lloyd, If you look at it from the Christian perspective, we most certainly do. Its all about perspective. Commiting a crime (sin) against a perfect and infinite being can only be repaid through complete and infinite punishment. Hence, to keep us all out of hell, something God does not want for us, He sent his Son (who willingly gave up His life, he was not forced to do so) to save us. Hell is the result of rejecting God. I believe hell is the absence of God. In life, someone says to God, "Leave me alone, I don't want you in my life," God obliges them and allows them to go to hell by their choice. For one such as that, I believe being forced into Heaven would be even more hellish than hell because they would not be allowed to exercise their free will. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 20 2004, 10:16 PM | ||
Why did god even bother to create a hell if he didn't want anyone to go there? In what twisted frame of mind does this make any sense at all? Do you even listen to the words you say? |
| Posted by: blue Dec 20 2004, 10:22 PM |
| for that matter......... why even go through all this fuss on earth? why not just make everyone be born in heaven? |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 10:24 PM |
| Yes, but are you listening to mine? It makes sense. God created man in His image, meaning with freewill among other things. God wants us to love Him and live with him forever. However, God wants us to do so by our own freewill, he does not want slaves that are forced to love him. How many of us would want our friends, spouses, etc., to love us because they have no choice but to do so? So, because of freewill, we can choose to reject God. If we choose to reject God, he will accept our choice, even though He wants us with Him. He respects our decision. As such, since some choose to not follow Him and reject Him, there must be a place that those who reject Him go without having to be in His presence. This is what is referred to as Hell. |
| Posted by: blue Dec 20 2004, 10:30 PM |
| ok then... is hell like earth(minus god)....meaning, do people still have free will there and have the possiblility of happiness? if yes, then hell, for some people would be no different than earth right now. |
| Posted by: Lanakila Dec 20 2004, 10:30 PM | ||
Munari you are speaking just like most of us did before we deconverted. Trouble is: NONE OF THIS IS PROVEN!! Its all just words on a page. You must prove God exists first to try to prove some type of accountablity to said God. You haven't done so, nor attempted to. We don't believe in the Christian Bible God at all!!.  |
| Posted by: blue Dec 20 2004, 10:35 PM |
| if you say that hell is a place full of misery and unhappiness, then the old arguement that god does not allow free will would apply...that being, "choose me or suffer the consequences" kind of like someone pointing a gun at your head and telling you to do something...but all the while saying you have free will. who in their right mind would disagree? considering the alternative. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 10:36 PM |
| Lana, If you're looking for scientific proof for the existence of God, you'll never find it. There's no sense in looking for proof of that kind. What do you believe in Lana? Not necessarily religious based, just what do you believe in? blue, Hmmm... well, I don't know for certain because I haven't been there or to heaven. But, what makes sense to me is that it depends on if you're speaking now or after the resurrection of the body. Now, for those who dead, heaven and hell are spiritual. After the resurrection, it is physical as well as spiritual. My understanding of our conditions in heaven and hell are permanent. Anything good in the world, ANYTHING, is the result of God. If you remove God, you remove all of the good. If you remove ALL of the good, can anyone be happy? Likewise, for heaven, complete life and full vision of and in God. Complete good, face to face with God. Nothing evil or bad. All happiness. How can anyone by unhappy? |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 10:39 PM |
| blue, the difference is that these people are choosing hell because they're rejecting God. But, you're living proof that there is free will. You're choosing to not accept God despite having some knowledge of the possibility of hell. |
| Posted by: blue Dec 20 2004, 10:44 PM |
| not sure if you read my last post, (it was on the previous page) basically what i was trying to say was....i'll just copy and paste it to save time. if you say that hell is a place full of misery and unhappiness, then the old arguement that god does not allow free will would apply...that being, "choose me or suffer the consequences" kind of like someone pointing a gun at your head and telling you to do something...but all the while saying you have free will. who in their right mind would disagree? considering the alternative. (there's probably going to be a bit of a lag in communication because we're posting and reading at the same time) |
| Posted by: munari Dec 20 2004, 10:46 PM |
I think you might have missed my most recent post in reply to that... but, I'm going to bed now... I have to work in the morning!  |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 20 2004, 10:49 PM | ||
Wrong. If there is such a thing as free will then all good in the world is created by humans. This is how someone completely opposed to god can still do good things in the world. Free will of course is also how someone who claims to know god can still do evil. |
| Posted by: blue Dec 20 2004, 10:51 PM |
| if i'm living proof that there is free will, then god is not all good. because if he created me, then he knows full well what would make me convert to christianity. there is only one thing that would convince me...ONLY ONE! and that is, to simply appear in front of me, not some vague sign, but to just appear in front of me.... don't blame me....he made me this way! surely that wouldn't be too much trouble for an omnipotent being right? if he doesn't appear, then that means he doesn't care, and there is no such thing as free will. i'm sure there are a lot of people (that he created) who share that same need for proof. does that mean he'll just allow them to go to hell? |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 20 2004, 11:10 PM | ||
If that is true, explain why Jesus only died for three days. Infinate punishment and three days of death do not mesh together. |
| Posted by: tombity Dec 20 2004, 11:26 PM |
| I suppose I am not a very good xian here, but I don't know if I buy the idea of "going to hell" when we die. That doesn't make the most sense to me. That idea presupposes that we are in a place (positionally so to speak) and when we die we have two roads, hell and heaven. I think that Jesus was not trying to convince us not to turn left, but to rescue us from a place of seperation. To me there are not three postions to the xian reality: here, heaven and hell. There are only two postions, separated and home. |
| Posted by: Lanakila Dec 20 2004, 11:40 PM | ||
I believe that life is short and that I need to be busy living it to the best of my ability. I don't believe in any gods or goddesses. I don't deny the possibility of some type of god existing, just not the Christian Bible God. I don't need to have faith in anything, but I am trying to have faith in humanity. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 21 2004, 02:10 AM | ||||
Welcome to the headquarters of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy™  and greetings from frosty Germany!Yes, a radical wandering preacher called Jesus may well have existed. Of course, this does not mean at all that he must have been the son of any deity.
You might want to check out http://www.jesusneverexisted.com for a wealth of information... (EDIT: Never mind, I see it has already been mentioned) |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 21 2004, 02:18 AM | ||||||||
Liar. Next time you dare to speak out here, check your facts.
Then you can present proof other than the book of lies you call "bible". Go ahead. Alternatively, admit that you have nothing but the babble and get lost.
The false dilemma fallacy will not help you.
Translation: "We are ready to sell you the cure of the disease we created ourselves". One can't get much more offensive than trying to proselytize in a thread like this one. Your babble is not literal truth, though it does contain some metaphorical truth. And it's damn good that the stories about the sociopathic mass-murdering monster called jehoover aren't real. Unfortunately this did not keep the unholy alliance of the christian death cult and secular dictators from murdering countless millions in the name of your idol... and I see that you are enough of a fanatic to be willing to continue the bloody tradition. You are an enemy of humanity and will be treated as such. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 21 2004, 02:21 AM | ||
By that reasoning, invisible pink unicorns exist because you can't prove their nonexistence. (YAAAAWN) Always the same long-debunked bullshit from the fundies... |
| Posted by: JasonLong Dec 21 2004, 02:58 AM | ||||||||||
Welcome, Elmo. It is good to see an open-minded Christian in the forum for a change. You say you have yet to find any evidence that the gospels weren't written by the individuals to whom they are attributed, but do you have any evidence that they are? it seems to me that you may be going about this the wrong way. One should look impartially at the matter, not set a burden of proof for one side while searching for the evidence. Who knows who wrote the Gospels? They don't identify themselves and don't claim to be eyewitnesses. Whoever Mark and Luke may be is irrelevant because neither has been claimed to be associated iwth Jesus. As for Matthew and John, it's really a mystery. One would suppose that if they are the characters depicted in the Gospels, they would have identified themselves. I recommend Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle for further reading on the matter.
Was Jesus manufactured? That also we do not know. The aformentioned Doherty book makes a good case for that. It shouldn't really be an issue though. The question should be this: did Jesus live the life of the Gospels? The answer to that is certainly, no. Perhaps I'll discuss that in a minute. As for the prophecies, I feel that you've received some misguided information. There are no prophecies of Jesus in the Old Testament. I deal with this in my book in great detail. Many of these so-called prophecies are stretched and twisted to make them fit with the purported arrival of Jesus.
The number of people who subscribe to a belief is independent of the belief itself. To suggest otherwise is to commit a logical fallacy based on number. The Old Testament has thrived because our parents believed in it, their parents believed in it, their parents believed in it, ad infinitum. The question should be why people believed in it in the first place. The answer to this lies within the era it was conceived: an era of great superstition. Christianity simply happened to be one of the hundreds of belief systems that survived the Dark Ages, thanks mainly to popularity in the expansive Roman Empire. I also deal with this topic briefly in my book, but there are several other sources that do a wider analysis.
Great question. It's highly doubtful that it was the conspiracy of one person. Look at as though several variations of a single rumor were being passed around late 1st century Jerusalem. If such a scenario is true, this would satisfactorally explain the different versions of the story (e.g. cock crowing once versus thrice). Each story may have simply been too popular to edit in a manner that would make them all consistent. As for the four Gospels, well, there aren't four! There are at least 12. One may consequently wonder how the four canonical Gospels ended up as such. The early church needed consistentcy within the religion because so many variant tales were popping up left and right. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas has Jesus killling his schoolmates and teachers for attempting to correct him. This story, of course, is not going to be acknowledged by the Church at any age in history. What reason would we have to consider, say, Luke inerrant, but not Thomas? We don't. Christian beliefs about what Jesus is and isn't were determined by the Church in the 3rd-5th centuries. If you do some research, you'll see how dishonest these characters were.
It doesn't really come down to what one prefers to believe, but rather what the most likely scenario is, given an impartial review of all available evidence. Is it more likely that these books were written in response to circulating rumours in a superstitious era, or that the universe's omnipotent creator sent a human being to die and resurrect on earth? When you're able to break the confines of Christian conditioning, the answer to that question is painfully obvious. While I don't personally believe in supernatural elements, I have no reason to state that they don't exist. There's actually some good reasons to believe that there's much more than what we perceive. However, the same is not true of the Gospels. You may also want to be careful with the non causa pro causa example of your friend's leg. As the body has many many ways of correcting abnormalities, isn't it far more likely that the body was able to rectify the problem (perhaps with the positive power of knowing that one is being prayed for)? The efficacy of prayer is also covered in my book (sorry to keep plugging, but it explains all this in more detail). Keep in mind that all these personal experiences are experienced across the religious spectrum, and that would inclue the non-religious as well. One final thought on the Gospels. If they are true and were in existence in the early 1st century, why did all the first century historians completely ignore them? |
| Posted by: JasonLong Dec 21 2004, 03:06 AM | ||
Wow, greatest paragraph ever. |
| Posted by: TexasFreethinker Dec 21 2004, 06:08 AM | ||
Welcome Elmo, This statement of yours is beautiful. That's my take on life too, and I think anyone who genuinely believes this is on the right path, no matter their current beliefs. I'm glad you're here - we need more people who think this way. |
| Posted by: Reach Dec 21 2004, 06:29 AM | ||||
Same here. As a Christian, I was after "the truth" most of all, if it could be had (and I thought it could). I recklessly pursued the truth and abandoned myself to the search of it. I was determined to pay the cost, whatever it was. I landed here; I think the newest terminology is, a negative atheist. It has cost me more than I wanted to pay but I have no regrets. I had to live honestly, most of all, and part of that knowledge is a complete admission that I cannot know what is, as of yet, unknowable to man. I have learned to embrace that position of a lack of knowledge. TF, on the previous Ex-C board you had two very meaningful quotes in your signature line, quotes we both lived by. Are those handy for you to post? Thanks in advance, Reach ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome, dear Elmo! I came out of Christianity this year and I can relate to where you are. Please make yourself at home here. You'll find you are among friends and we will treat you kindly. I wish I could wrap my arms around you and protect you from the pain of this season in your life because I know it hurts. The departure may be racked with grief, sorrow and pain but the journey will be... different. Expect good things!!! All the best, Reach |
| Posted by: TexasFreethinker Dec 21 2004, 06:58 AM | ||||
One of the quotes was from Arthur Schopenhauer...
The other quote on my old signature line was just my attempt to state where I'm coming from. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but it was something like "I don't want to believe or disbelieve - I want to know the truth." |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 21 2004, 10:50 AM | ||||
Correct. There is no such proof. The only thing Christians seem to have to support their belief in bible God is faith.
Really??? Perhaps you can explain how it’s possible to reject a being for which you said there is no proof? If you think about it, how can one choose to accept or reject something for which there is no proof? If faith is the belief in things for which there is no evidence or proofs, then your assertion that non-believers are rejecting the existence a being for which there is no proof makes them sound perfectly reasonable. After all, those people are only making reasonable decisions based on the evidence available to them. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 21 2004, 12:25 PM | ||||||||||||||
Again, not important. The people who wrote the gospels may have been named Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. It's really irrelevent. What's damning is that the average lifespan of people living in that particular area was around 40, and you have at least a 40 year gap between the alleged death of Christ and the writing of the first gospel Mark. These men may have existed. The problem is that it's very difficult to get any of them witnessing the crucifiction and resurrection. You might be able to make an exception for Mark, but you'd really be stretching it to get Matthew, Luke, and John there, too.
Wait wait wait!!! Did he? I gave one example of a prophecy that not only wasn't fulfilled by Jesus, but was actually fulfilled in the lifetime of the prophet who made it. In fact, it was an example of a prophecy where the author in the New Testament tried to retrofit his theology into something written by Isaiah. In other words, he tried to makeit fit. 300 prophecies sound like a lot, but I think what you're going to find is that as you examine them a little closer, this list of so-called "fulfilled prophecies" is padded at best if not blatantly exaggerated or false on nearly every point. Let's look at what was actually required of the Messiah, shall we? 1. He must be Jewish (see Deut. 17:15; Numb. 24:17) He was born of Mary, who was Jewish. Okay, no problem. Anyone could have fulfilled that prophecy at that particular time. 2. He must be descended from Judah (Gen. 49:10) and Solomon (I Chron 22:9-10) Okay... okay... We're doing good here so far. 3. With the coming of the Messiah will be the physical ingathering of Judah from the four corners of the earth (Isa. 11:12, 27:12-13) 4. Also with coming of the Messiah will be the reestablishment of the Holy Temple (Micah 4:1) 5. In addition the Messianic age will be one of world-wide peace (Isa. 2:4, 11:6, Micah 4:3) 6. In the Messianic age the entire world will believe in God (Isa. 11:9, 40:5; Zephaniah 3:9) Oops! When does any of this stuff happen?
Well, you're looking at this incorrectly. No one is saying that the Old Testament is either true or false. It's not that black-and-white. The Old Testament clearly points to some real events. It would be foolish to say that the whole thing is false. However, what you have in the Old Testament is a centuries and centuries of tradition. Sure, it's part historical narrative, but it's also part tradition. The Bible compiles stories which people used to believe were the real explanation of how the natural world worked. And a lot of these stories aren't even original. Noah's Ark, for example, is believed to a derrivative of The Epic of Gilgamesh. Even the Gospels borrowed from other myths. The last supper, the Sermon on the Mount, and resurrection after three days can be found in other stories which predate the gospels.
Because they were building a myth. They wrote and rewrote and borrowed and redacted. It's only natural that in this process mistakes would have been made. These couldn't be narratives of actual events, or else they wouldn't have these mistakes in them. Two accounts for the death of Judas. My goodness, the story of Easter morning is trouble in itself. There's difficulty making a coherent timeline of what happened in the days following Jesus' baptism. You're assuming that these gospels writers were all writing this stiff down together and comparing notes, but that's clearly not what happened, as they were all trying to tell the best story. In the rush, mistakes were made. They were only human.
Well, that is a huge problem for Christianity, because what we see is not that they wanted to construct a foolproof manuscript but that each gospel writer wanted to write what they thought was the truth, regardless of what the others were saying. In fact, what the later ones were doing was just expanding upon the gospel of Mark, but (this is an important detail) they never actually intended for the stories to be combined into one narrative. That was done later when the books were assembled by committee.
Well, not to sound insensative or anything, but that story is largely anecdotal. Perhaps it was shown that her legs were once different lengths but now they're not, but from our perspective, it's hard for any of us to put forth any input. It may be that she had one leg longer than the other and now she doesn't, but that doesn't show that prayer had any involvement in that happening. About the best any of us can say is that whatever happened is unknown. The problem with using this as evidence of prayer is that it's not repeatable. In fact, if there's one force in this world that overwhelmingly fails, it's prayer. Go to any third world country or walk into any child's hospital and look around, and you can see that prayer doesn't work.
Surely, there are parents of these children who have absolute faith in Jesus without question and are sincerely praying for their children to get better, but it doesn't happen. In fact, in contrast it seems fairly petty that God would answer the prayer of someone whose legs are different lengths but doesn't bother healing sick children. http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html http://judaism.about.com/library/uc/uc_bruce_a.htm http://gastrich.org/baptism.html http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/easter.html http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/m_m_mangasarian/truth_about_jesus.html |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 21 2004, 01:56 PM | ||||||
Everything said in the quote above should be disregarded. This person claims to know the truth here:
And then posts this in the same paragraph:
How does this person know this when the books of the bible were not written by the apostles? "Other cases are fundamentally different. When someone claims to have supernatural knowledge, or the ability to gain knowledge in a way that you are unable to, their claims cannot be considered valid. If someone claims to be able to speak to their god, and tells you what god demands, you have no reason to accept it as true. In fact, it should be rejected. If he claims to have knowledge which you are incapable of achieving, his beliefs must be rejected. If one has to accept the knowledge of others, he must use reason in order to decide which others to listen to. Again, if there is no evidence or contrary evidence for accepting a person's beliefs, it is not an act of reason. It is an act of faith. Faith is an act of mental destruction. If there is no evidence for a claim, then accepting it is irrational." |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 21 2004, 02:02 PM | ||
That is ludicrous... I suggest you study logic and philosophy. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 21 2004, 02:10 PM |
| Elmo, I would seriously encourage you to ignore Munari's head-in-the-cloud answers. It really bothers me that I can take about an hour and a half out of my day to give you some serious answers and yet he just comes in here and gives you the typical apologetic knee-jerk responses. I think it's a great disservice the nature of the questions which you've asked. And people wonder why I get angry with apologists. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 21 2004, 02:18 PM | ||
From reading your posts, it is obvious you have lost all the ability to think rationally, thereby, the absurd makes sense to you because you accept the absurd as truth. You cannot expect us to drop all logic and reason and accept your fantasy as truth can you? God creates man is his/their image - How do you know the image of god? God gave man freewill - Define freewill, do you have it? God wants love - God is in need? He is not omnipotent. God does not want slaves - You think he wants people that hate themselves? Please, THINK! I post the below for the benefit of the newcomers once again: "The result of using faith consistently is the complete inability to think. Without any criteria for accepting a statement as true, every random idea, whether true or false, would be just as likely to be accepted. Contradictions would exist. No higher level abstractions could be made. Faith nullifies the mind. To the degree ideas are taken on faith, the process of thinking is subverted." |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 21 2004, 02:21 PM | ||
I'm with you Neil. Reading this person's posts just has me bewildered. I cannot understand how one can live with no reasoning abilities. Then I remember...faith destroys the mind leaving one incapable of dealing with reality. Munari is a wonderful example of a mind without reason. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 21 2004, 02:33 PM | ||
Oh your god! It's been along time since I have 'seen' anyone's mind so messed up. You would probably thank god for saving your life right in the face of a paramedic wouldn't you? |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 02:48 PM |
| Wow, there's a ton of stuff posted since my last visit. But, I will answer this directly. Tocis, I've been nothing but polite and respectful. You might not agree with me, that's fine, but you can still be decent towards me. If you'd like to discuss something, please do so in a decent way, like you'd want to be treated. I will not respond to you if you will not at least show me respect for being a human being. The rest of the posts all seemed to surround proof of God and it being ludicrous to not believe in something for which you have no physical proof. However, there are many things that we believe and trust in. How many of you have seen $1 million? How many know the moon is not made of cheese, have you been there? How many have been to Jupiter? Can you be sure that its not just a drawing? How many people think that "love" is a real thing. Can that be proven impirically? People can say that someone loves them because of X, but love cannot be proven. If it could, there would be no divorce. If I missed something, which I'm sure I did, please let me know. |
| Posted by: Zoe Grace Dec 21 2004, 03:03 PM | ||
How many of you have seen $1 million? We have proof that that much money must exist. For example many people have at least hundreds of dollars, and there are more than 250 million people in america alone (i believe that's the number), so it is logical and statistically sound to posit the existence of 1 million dollars. How many know the moon is not made of cheese, have you been there? A man visited the moon. We have video, we have photographs. We have satellites, we have scientific studies, we have pieces of moon rock. How many have been to Jupiter? Can you be sure that its not just a drawing? We have satellite photos. We have scientific evidence. How many people think that "love" is a real thing. Can that be proven impirically? People can say that someone loves them because of X, but love cannot be proven. If it could, there would be no divorce. This is just so fallacious I don't know where to begin. The word "love" is a symbol for various feelings and concepts. Things we feel. It's not an empirical literal THING. Also even if love could be proven, it wouldn't end divorce, because you can love someone and later cease loving them. Or you can continue to love them but for whatever reason not be able to practically live with them. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 21 2004, 03:05 PM | ||
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I just love this...here we go! I have a little flying man in my pocket. Do you believe me? If you answer no, then I want to know why you just don't take it on faith that what I say is true. Do you need a reason to believe me? Do you need to know me a little? These are reasonable things you should ask yourself whenever anyone says something that sounds absurd. If you say yes, well then, you are beyond hope. When you answer that, you may be able to understand the difference between belief and faith. It's reason. I will paste this for you, then maybe you can understand. It might just open your eyes. "When accepting a statement as true, there are two basic methods. The first is reason. It is when the known evidence points to the statement being true, and when the truth of the statement doesn't contradict other knowledge. The second is faith. It is when one accepts a statement as true without evidence for it, or in the face of evidence against it. There's a lot of confusion about what exactly faith is. Many people confuse belief with faith. It's said that if you believe something, you must be taking it on faith. This is a denial of the fundamental distinction between reason and faith. It pretends that evidence for or against an idea is irrelevant. The result of using faith consistently is the complete inability to think. Without any criteria for accepting a statement as true, every random idea, whether true or false, would be just as likely to be accepted. Contradictions would exist. No higher level abstractions could be made. Faith nullifies the mind. To the degree ideas are taken on faith, the process of thinking is subverted. Are there any ideas we take on faith? As a friend once asked, if we've never been to Afghanistan, how do we know it actually exists? Even if we were to meet people from Afghanistan, they could always be lying. This is taken to be an act of faith, since we have no direct evidence for the existence of Afghanistan. This is mistaken, though. The evidence we have for accepting the existence of Afghanistan does exists. The evidence is based on the knowledge that other people have shared. First, there is universal acceptance of the fact that it exists. It is possible that everyone on the planet is lying, but there is no evidence for that claim. Also, there is reason to believe that if Afghanistan didn't exist, people from the bordering countries would say so. And since satellite imagery shows that there is land there, and the area around it is occupied, it is reasonable to assume that land is occupied as well. Furthermore, there is absolutely no known evidence that it doesn't exist. There is no known motive for the entire world to try to trick us. So in fact, the evidence we have suggest it does exist. Acceptance of it is an act of reason. There's an important distinction here, though. When we accept the evidence from others, we must have reason to believe that they know the truth. In the case of Afghanistan, I mentioned bordering countries. But there are people who claim to have been there, or that lived there. Other cases are fundamentally different. When someone claims to have supernatural knowledge, or the ability to gain knowledge in a way that you are unable to, their claims cannot be considered valid. If someone claims to be able to speak to their god, and tells you what god demands, you have no reason to accept it as true. In fact, it should be rejected. If he claims to have knowledge which you are incapable of achieving, his beliefs must be rejected. If one has to accept the knowledge of others, he must use reason in order to decide which others to listen to. Again, if there is no evidence or contrary evidence for accepting a person's beliefs, it is not an act of reason. It is an act of faith." |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 21 2004, 03:08 PM | ||||
*sigh* Okay, this is about the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen somebody bring up the short leg/long leg “miracle” on this forum. To me, this story hardly seems befitting of being placed under a supernatural heading. I posted this in the old forum. Here I go one more time. I actually witnessed this exact same thing first-hand with somebody I know personally. It was years ago. The person requested prayer for the same ailment of one leg being shorter than the other. When she stood, she stood uneven. When she sat in a chair and extended both legs in front of the people about to pray for her, one leg did indeed appear to be about shorter than the other. In fact, I had heard this person before hand complaining about it for a weeks as this person was my mother! Sure enough, when she sat in the chair and as others prayed, I watched her face contort in effort as she stretched her leg to even length with the other one. A miracle? I don’t think so: 1) The person was my mother. All of my life (and hers) both of her legs were of equal length. She never complained of the problem, neither was there such a problem until shortly before she requested prayer healing. I am doubtful there was a backwards miracle where God altered my memories of this, or supernaturally intervened to make one of her legs shorter, so he could make it longer in front of a prayer group. 2) I see no reason to insert a supernatural explanation into this event before first exhausting natural ones. For instance, I can sit in a chair and make one leg appear shorter than the other. More to the point, tendons and ligaments (especially with an athlete) can tighten up making a leg appear shorter than the opposite one. Was your friend born with one leg shorter? Was your friend, the athlete competing and running, all the while contending with one leg shorter than the other? Or is it possible the problem developed over time? Salient questions. I can say that I have never witnessed a miracle first hand. I suspect that neither have you. Ask yourself why you haven’t seen one? Of course I’ve heard hearsay testimony of them. We all have. Second-hand and third-hand accounts, and accounts further removed than that from the alleged miracles are not uncommon. History shows us that. Actual miracles are something skeptics would have to sit-up and take notice of if they occurred. It’s conspicuous that when skeptics appear to test a supernatural claim, the claims fail every time. If you read history, you'll find it replete with stories of miracles/supernatural events. There is virtually no conceivable supernatural absurdity that was not claimed in ancient history. Every law or every fact in nature was violated. Virgin births, Gods copulating with women, women giving birth to sons of those gods, men lived for hundreds of years, subsistence without food and without sleep, the sun and moon stopping in their tracks. Thousands have been possessed with spirits controlled by the supernatural and thousands of claims of impossible supernatural occurences. In religious courts, with the most solemn of form, impossibilities were substantiated by the oaths, affirmations, tortured confessions of men, women, and children. 11 witnesses attested to the miracle of the Joseph Smiths golden plates. What weight do such claims hold in reality based on what we know of the nature of reality? How do these fantastical claims fit in with what we know of the world how nature is known to operate? “We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.”- Jack Handy Before we had the benefit of science to test the veracity of ancient delusions, supernatural beliefs were not confined to peasants, but they took possession of nobles and kings, of people who were at that time called intelligent and educated. No one denied these wonders, for the reason that denial was a crime punishable generally with a hideous death. Societies and nations became deluded, as victims of ignorance, subjugation, of dreams, and, above all, of superstitious fears. Under these conditions human testimony is not and cannot be of the slightest value. “We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” – Werner Heisenberg. Every intelligent Christian is satisfied that the religions and eastern beliefs of India, of Egypt, of Greece and Rome, of the Aztecs, of Vikings and Celts were and are false, and that all the miracles on which they rest are mistakes. The Christian religion alone is excepted. Every intelligent Hindu discards all religions and all miracles except his own. The question is: When will people see the defects in their own theology as clearly as they perceive the same defects in every other? When will people take a look at their own methods of questioning? All religions and beliefs were substantiated by miracle, signs and wonders, by prophets and martyrs, precisely as Christianity’s. Christianity witnesses are no better than theirs and Christianity success is no greater. If their miracles were false, Christianity’s cannot be true. We have every reason to believe that Nature operates the same today as it did 2000 – 6000 years ago. We have no reason to think (aside from various ancient myths) that Nature wasn’t the same in India, in Greece and Italy, in Britain and Scandinavia, and in Palestine, and America as it is today. It is easy to understand how that which was natural became wonderful by accretion and it is easy to conceive how that which was wonderful became by accretion what was called supernatural. Thunder and lighting were made by the Gods after all. And it does not seem impossible that any intelligent, honest man ever wasn’t mistakenly deluded and endeavored to prove something by what appeared a miracle. At the end of the day, the testimony of man is insufficient to establish claims of supernatural. If a book sought to be proved by miracles is true, then it makes no difference whether it was inspired or not and if it is not true, inspiration cannot add to its value. It’s miracles cannot be tested or proved, and such claims that immune from disproof are veridically worthless. The questions of origin and destiny seem to be beyond the powers of the human mind. In the back of everyone’s mind lurks the knowledge that desires can never take the place of fact to alter reality. The greatest intellectual strides must be won in honest search in finding the truth, not in emotional hopes or desires. Just as Thomas allegedly doubted without first hand evidence, so do I, and the reasons are every bit as valid for me as they supposedly were for Thomas. Ask yourself if those reasons might hold true for you as well... |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 21 2004, 03:09 PM | ||||
Yeah. The point of discussion and rational thinking.
This is the typical argument from ignorance. All of these things are believed in because of conditional acceptance. In the abscense of being capable of having absolute knowledge, we have a system of checks and balances from which can infer things. That doesn't mean we have faith that the moon isn't made of cheese. In fact, we have reason to suspect that it doesn't. We believe in the existence of Jupitor because we recognize the authority of those who say that it's there. There's actually independent verification outside of NASA that it exists. In fact, I don't know if you've ever owned a telescope, but it's actually possible to see the planet yourself. Granted, you can't see its rings, but it's there for you to look at. It's one of the planets which we can actually see from our own backyards, dontcha know. And let's apply conditional acceptance one step further. From medical knowledge, we know that conditions such as brain damage or alzheimers disease can affect a person's personality or emotional capacity. From this, we can infer that a personal very being is contained within the physical existence of the human brain. Thus we can conclude that people cannot come back from the dead. When the brain dies, we disappear. Yet you have the completely untenable position of thinking that some guy came back to life three days after his death back in the year 30. Given the conditional acceptance of medical knowledge and the absolute abscence of evidence to the contrary, it is not reasonable to think that Jesus came back from the dead. |
| Posted by: weedwacker Dec 21 2004, 03:13 PM | ||
strawman n 1: a person used as a cover for some questionable activity [syn: front man, front, figurehead, nominal head, straw man] 2: a weak or sham argument set up to be easily refuted [syn: straw man] 3: an effigy in the shape of a man to frighten birds away from seeds [syn: scarecrow, straw man, bird-scarer, scarer] Point is, none of those arguments above require massive leaps of faith. A little faith in astronomers and bankers maybe, but nothing too seriously obtuse. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 03:26 PM |
| Notblinded, That was a very interesting post. Thank you for sharing that. I had not read a break down between the concepts of faith and belief like that before. By the way, I do not believe that you a little man in your pocket. So, by the admission of many people on this board, you have faith in some things. And, these are things that you do not have personal firsthand knowledge of, but you accept them because of bankers, astronomers, etc. But these things still have not been seen by you personally. Why trust them more than you trust a pastor, priest, parents, etc about another thing to which you do not have physical proof, something that you have not seen with your eyes? I must go right now. I do not have a degree in philosophy or logic, and I'm quite sure several, if not most, or even all of you are more intelligent that I. But, I am convinced that the Truth is in the Church, so I must try and share that... |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 21 2004, 03:31 PM |
| CONDITIONAL FUCKING ACCEPTANCE! NBBTB and I may not have absolute knowledge, but we have conditional acceptance, and that beats the shit out of faith any day. Notice what you're doing, Munari. Given the complete inability to provide a rational reason for believing what you believe, you have to try to tear down the very principles of logic and how we infer things. That's absolutely ludicrous to me. |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 21 2004, 03:45 PM | ||||
I would encourage you not to lock yourself into a position with statements like these, but to try and keep an open mind. An adage among skeptics is that nothing is certain…although we’re not sure about that. The point is the human mind is a funny thing, and most people will tend to argue until the cows come rather than retract or admit to possible errors they might have said or made in their thinking. If there is truth in what Christianity claims, then its claims should be able to stand against reasonable and logical scrutiny. On that note, I’d like to share the following bit of wisdom from Thomas Paine - http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/
|
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 03:57 PM |
| So, by conditional acceptance, do you mean, I will believe X until X has been disproven? I want to make sure that I understand what you mean. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 21 2004, 04:21 PM | ||||
No, it's not like that. It's more like saying 'hmm I can't touch the moon for myself, so maybe I should look at what the person saying he touched it says'. Yeah I've never been to the moon but Neil Armstrong has. He said so, his testimony is cross examinable and documented in a reliable fashion, and he also brought back other documentation like film and samples. Yes, there are people who don't believe him. They are flat out wrong, and that's not a faith statement, that's a reasonable statement, based on examination. There are ways to test your sources. The bible is one that does not stand up to scrutiny.
Dude, this was exactly the turning point in my loss of faith. |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 21 2004, 04:37 PM | ||
I'm just curious. I've always heard that it is hard to breath when you stick your head in the sand that deep. Is that true? chef |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 21 2004, 04:41 PM | ||
No. That's called irrational. Conditional acceptance means that you accept a proposition based on certain conditions of proof. If you don't have conditions of proof, then the proposition has no merit. By this principle, you can infer certain things as true based on things which you know which support the proposition. For example, you don't have to witness someone committing a crime to accept that he is guilty of the crime. All you need is evidence which corraborates his guilt. Let's say he murdered a woman. You can compile evidence which shows that he was in a relationship with the woman and that they had broken up recently, so you have motive. Upon examining the evidence, you find that the knife that was plunged into has his finger prints all over it. You have signs of a struggle, which include both his and her footprints. You have blood on the man's clothes. His foot prints are all around the outside of her house. There are signs of a break-in with his fingerprints. The proposition which we assemble from these facts is that this man killed this woman. All of the facts point in this direction. Now, it could be that there was a third person and our suspect was actually trying to intervene, but since there is no evidence of a third person even being there, we do not accept that proposition. Instead, we assume that the suspect killed the woman, because all of the evidence supports the proposition. Now, in the proposition that Jesus raised from the dead, you don't have that kind of evidence at all. In fact, the evidence which we have suggests that people cannot come back from the dead (see my previous post), therefore it would be illogical and untenable to assume that Jesus came back from the dead. |
| Posted by: crazy-tiger Dec 21 2004, 04:42 PM | ||||
It sounds like he's got it stuck somewhere, just not in sand... Why do Christians seem to like looking at the inside of their own colons? |
| Posted by: The Silent One Dec 21 2004, 04:54 PM | ||||||||
Not I. But I have seen up to 2,000. As I know others who have also had 2,000. and since 1,000,000 is simply five hundred 2-thousands, I can assume that if I had five hundred people with 2 thousand dollars each we would have 1 million, therefore 1 million can and does exist.
We have moon samples, moon photographs, confirmed moon landings, scientific data, on etc. All physical evidence which can be examined, sure the moon could have a creamy cheese center, but we can examine the data and conclude it does not. We could be wrong, but we're probably not.
Too stupid to even answer. You deserve to be smacked for even putting this one in.
The word love is often thrown around when it shouldn't be. However, we can study and prove physical reactions to emotional states, such as love. Which has been done. Love is simply a word, the emotional and physical states/reactions behind it however can and have been proven. None of these things are taken on 'faith'. They've all been studied, proven and tested. Now, try again, this time less stupidly. |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 21 2004, 05:00 PM | ||
Problems? 1. A few hours of torture and 3 days of being dead, as nasty as it may have been, if it happened, is not "complete and infinite punishment" 2. There is no moral reason for the punishment to be "complete and infinite punishment", and, I may, add permanent. Even the secular people that wrote the US constitution knew that cruel punishment is morally wrong. 3. According to Ezekiel 18 the remedy for sin, straight from the mouth of God, is to start being righteous. But you wouldn't know that of course, since it would be my guess that you haven't read it. 4. Yahweh is hardly perfect, a thing you would know if you you knew the OT. 5. Original sin: There is no justice in being punished for someone else's crime. 6. Original sin: If Adam's act make's it impossible for me by some supernatural genetic system, then I'm being condemned for being what I was made to be. 7. If God could see to Mary being born without sin, he could just as well see to the rest of us being born without sin. 8: I could go on but hey, 7 is a Holy Number. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 06:55 PM | ||||||||||||||
| Can we avoid the logical fallacies and stick to the discussion. Ad hominem attacks get us nowhere. I could claim you have your head in the sand and like to examine your own colon too... where does that get us? Its just silly. Chef,
I do not believe that the sacrifice ended at the crucifixion. I believe that Christ continues to offer Himself to God as the Lamb in the Eucharist. I don't think He still suffers since He has already died and has risen, but He still offers Himself for us. That's a whole other discussion that if its going to be discussed should probably be in its own thread.
Infinite punishment was not the best way to say that. What I meant is what I just stated in #1...
Could you please give the full verse. "Righteous" is not used in my version, and I don't want to make an assumption and speak on the wrong verse. But, I'm wondering, did I say anything that would contradict the need to be righteous?
He's not perfect by who's standards? Examples please. I think I know what you refer to, but again, I don't want to assume.
Original sin is not actual sin for us. Actual sin is what we actually do. Original sin is what leads us to be more likely to sin, our culpability.
I'm sorry, impossible to do what?
This is a mystery. My feeble understanding is as follows. God knew what His plan was and what was needed. He saw that Mary would be willing and suceed in completing this task, so He gave her the unique gift of being born without original sin. (None of us are born with actual sin). She was born in the same state that Adam and Eve were created in. |
| Posted by: JasonLong Dec 21 2004, 07:28 PM | ||
LOL. Dude, weren't you leaving? |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 08:05 PM |
Yes, I did leave, but I returned home and thought I would post some more. Aren't you glad to see me back?  |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 21 2004, 08:17 PM | ||
 I heard a good saying once. How did it go? "Believe those who are seeking the truth, doubt those who find it". |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 21 2004, 08:20 PM |
| Munari, I think you should take a look at what you are saying. You seem to think it is wrong to disbelieve something that has absolutely no proof. Is this right? |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 08:28 PM |
| No, I don't think that is right... Let me rephrase in order to make sure I understand what you said. Did you say that I believe that if something cannot be disproven, it should then be believed? If that statement is accurate, then no, that is not what I think. So, have you found truth? Will you know it when you find it? Will you ever be able to find it, because finding it would then mean, according to your quote, that you would not be able to trust yourself... |
| Posted by: Lanakila Dec 21 2004, 08:36 PM | ||
You asked me before if I thought I had found truth as well. The answer is I have found some things that are true, and some things are false, but that the Christian Bible God cannot exist because he as depicted in the scriptures, tradition, et al is a contractory evil god who orders the murder of innocents, delights in their deaths, and breaks his own laws and rules all the time. This God is condemns magic, and then commands it over and over of his people. The witchcraft alone in the OT, and even the NT is outrageous considering the commands to kill witches. Was discussing this with a friend last night. Consider the commands to Moses to create a graven image of a snake and hold it up and that the people wouldn't die if they looked at it. Talk about pagan witchcraft. Start studying the OT passages where things like this happened and be surprised. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 08:39 PM |
| Witchcraft and magic are the manipulation of the spiritual and possibly of God or goes in order to get a personal benefit. The "magic" you describe in the Bible is different because this was done not because they were trying to manipulate God, but acted in a manner that was obedient to God's commands. |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 21 2004, 08:40 PM | ||||
Ok good. My question is simple. What evidence led you to the conclusion that a particular god existed?
The quote is not about trusting your own conclusion but about doubting the conclusion of others. And no, I have not found the Truth ™. However I am open to all possibilities. |
| Posted by: Lanakila Dec 21 2004, 08:48 PM | ||
Actually I am not sure where you get your definition of magic but thats not accurate at all. The first answer that pops up in a google for defining magic is: any art that invokes supernatural powers |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 21 2004, 09:03 PM | ||
Actually don't bother. I read your watchmaker argument in the other thread. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 21 2004, 09:30 PM |
| Finding a watch on the beach is not the basis of my belief. Shall I continue? That was intended to be more of a logical (although some don't think it is) explanation, but not a personal testimony. |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 21 2004, 09:43 PM |
| Lets beat the dead horse again. I'm opening it in a new thread. Hope to see you there. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 21 2004, 10:42 PM | ||||||||||||||||||||
BULLSHIT!!!!!!!! That was pure and unadulterated PROPOGANDA.The Muslims NEVER attacked christian settlements until after the crusades STARTED. The whole reason of the crusades was to unite all of europe under Papal control,(The Dark Side of Christian History, page 64-65 in case you are interested) and the only way to do that was to give them a demon to fight, and who better than the more civilized and educated Muslims? Not to mention what our dear holy warriors did on the way to pillage the most advanced people in the world: They perpetuated the first-ever Holocaust!! Yes, they raided, pillaged, stole, raped, and generally slaughtered Jewish settlements on the way. After all, these are the people that killed our holy savior Jesus Chrsit! They DESERVE it! It'd GOD'S WILL! Before the crusades started Jewish and Christian relations were almost brotherly. In 1048 The Bishop of Spier issued a charter stating (quote): "Desiring to make a city of the town of Spier, I have admitted Jews, knowing they will multiply one thousand times the honor of our community." Contrast that with the crusaders laying the ground work for Hitler's Final Solution. We haven't even gotten to what they did when they got there. Let's just do a quick review of Antioch: 1) They catapulted the heads of the killed combatants(as well as firebombs, rocks and dead animals) into the city as a demoralizing act. Remember when the Orcs did this in Return of the King? Peter Jackson didn't get that idea from Satan, he got it from the Crusades. Christian Crusades mind you. 2) When Bohemond (the barbarian) learned that there were spies in his camp, he orders every suspected spy rounded up. He managed to find HUNDREDS of them. He then decides to mercifully cut their throuts, skin them, impale them on cooking spits and roast them in front of the Turkish inhabitants. 3) Once Bohemond finally got into Antioch, he had *every* inhabitant killed. The stench from the place was unberable. Oh yes, and the crusades also gave birth to the yellow patch marking the Jewish citizens in the town. The SS didn't invent that idea, they stole it from the masters. Another fine historical note(and another prime example of Christian Revisionist History at it's best): The Pied Piper of Hamlin? That's a fairy tail to cover up the lack of children in town. Seems their parents had sold all of them to fight, kill, and die in the crusades because the Bishop told them they would be forever blessed for it.
It survived because Christian officials did everything in their power to keep the masses uneducated, illeterate, and fearful of the demon inside them. The myth of monks preserving the wisdom of the ages? First, they were illeterate. The only book they copied was the bible, and that was by simple rote trandsfer of the lines that made up the letters. The church led a very effective campaign to annihalate every piece of greek learning, because it went against the bible and it was hethanistic learning. The only reason we got out of the dark ages was the Black Plague. People started catching on that blind faith didn't save anybody.
I'm with Not Blinded By the Blight and Tocis. This argument only serves to prove why we cannot, Will not, and DO not believe in God. EVERY item you listed has been verified through abstract scientific means. We have seen millionares, we have been to the moon(mind you, science got us there) we have sent probes to Jupiter and beyond. Also, IIRC, many divorce courts require proof of alienation of affection.
Veritas Vivus, Veritas Praevalebit
Speaking as a Born-Again Pagan, you got it dead wrong. "Magic," as I define the term is a manifestation of the sacredness inside and around every one of us. It does not come from God. It comes from our own soul. EDIT: Forgot to add this quote:
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche
--Trent Reznor
--Merlin |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 21 2004, 10:49 PM | ||||||||||||
Thank you Tocis. Thank you so much. Million thanks to you. Parting thoughts... "We are ready to sell you the cure of the disease we created ourselves"
--Trent Reznor I seem to be discovering the meaning of Heresy more and more from this thread. Merlin |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 21 2004, 10:56 PM | ||||
 Oh man... Just that opening line was well worth the read! What followed was a masterpiece as well. Bravo!  |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 21 2004, 11:42 PM | ||||||
A masterpiece? Are we talking about the same post? Ah well. It's like .I'm thrilled that you liked it Mr. Neil. I needed to hear that. Happy Reading! Merlin |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 12:13 AM | ||||||||||||
What you really have been is: Trying to catch an escapee and drag him back into the delusions and slavery of the christian death cult right before our eyes.
As long as you try to defend an entity that, if it existed, would have more blood on its You won't reply to me? Fine! How about you stop posting anything here until you develop some sense of honesty?
Why do you believe in light even though you never saw those funny "photons" dart across the room? Yep, because you see the effects and reason correctly that something must be going from light source to illuminated object. Have a look at, say, the Empire State Building and ask yourself how much it cost.
A moon of cheese would have observable traits that would not match the observations made in countless years. A drawing of a nonexistent planet would have no influence on the orbits of other objects. Your cheap strawmen will not help you.
Do I have to know the exact mechanism of "love" to know whether it exists? Maybe you never were in love because that would be sinful desire to da lawd, but I prefer to be a human.
You forgot to take your brain home from your cult temple. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 12:21 AM | ||
Try "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence", moron. What we theoretically "believe" in fits in with observed natural laws and the physical universe around us. What you "believe" in, on the other hand, spits in the face of all we know about the universe and is both illogical and immoral to the bone. Like it or not, the burden of proof is on you. Go ahead and try all your apologetical "proof" for our amusement. It's always nice to see a mindless cult zombie make a fool of itself. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 12:24 AM | ||
 |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 12:26 AM | ||
 |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 12:29 AM | ||
No problem. Always glad to help / entertain my fellow exchristians. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 22 2004, 12:39 AM | ||||||
I just about choked when he said that. And after so many people took the time to completely disect his posts to expose every flaw. I love that graphic. Brilliant!
That one, too!  |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 12:44 AM |
| You know, it's a pity that even though that page has been mentioned here (well, in the old forums) for several times, we keep forgetting it. I mean http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/pics/#pot_kettle of course. |
| Posted by: crazy-tiger Dec 22 2004, 01:31 AM | ||
Page saved in favs, address written down, arse laughed off. Thanks for that Tocis. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 09:45 AM | ||
My pleasure. Have fun! |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 22 2004, 09:48 AM | ||
I am afraid that you did not understand this part right here: "Other cases are fundamentally different. When someone claims to have supernatural knowledge, or the ability to gain knowledge in a way that you are unable to, their claims cannot be considered valid. If someone claims to be able to speak to their god, and tells you what god demands, you have no reason to accept it as true. In fact, it should be rejected. If he claims to have knowledge which you are incapable of achieving, his beliefs must be rejected. If one has to accept the knowledge of others, he must use reason in order to decide which others to listen to. Again, if there is no evidence or contrary evidence for accepting a person's beliefs, it is not an act of reason. It is an act of faith." Any one of us can become a banker, astromer, astronaunt or any other thing that brings forth knowledge. We have the ability to gain that knowledge first hand. One does not have that ability with supernatural claims. P.S. I'm glad you don't believe in my little flying man...I kind of want to keep him a secret. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 22 2004, 09:57 AM | ||||
Oh this hurts. This absolutely stings. I've been outdone by a kitchen utensil!! NOOOOO! |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 22 2004, 10:01 AM | ||||||
See...munari, there you go with that One Truth again. There is not just one truth. Something is either true or it is not. The truth is not an entity that directs people, although I know you feel it is becuase you have stated (I think) that god is the One Truth. That is like giving evolution a mind where there is no mind behind it. There is also no mind behind the 'Truth'. You are complicating things that do not need to be complicated. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 22 2004, 10:09 AM | ||||||
I second that! (It may be a third or fourth because I haven't finished with the thread yet ) |
| Posted by: Vixentrox Dec 22 2004, 10:57 AM | ||
Bhuddism has been around longer than Xtianity and has quite a following. Islam, although newer, is quickly catching up. Maybe it's the Xtians are fooled and one of these other religions got it right. Despite what you may think, the majority of the worlds population isn't Xtian. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 22 2004, 11:14 AM | ||||||||
Thank you. Thank you. I can't express how elated your posts have made me feel. Finally, I'm not alone. I'm home : Merlin |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 22 2004, 11:31 AM | ||||||||||
Yes, you are home my friend...  |
| Posted by: Slayer-2004 Dec 22 2004, 11:38 AM |
| Really , the only reason xianity got spread was because a few very important people ( like constantine ) were converted to christianity . And then they started a theocracy . Its also possible that christianity was purposely faked by paul and the leaders of england as means of controlling the masses . Note : Appeal to belief is a logical fallacy . Plenty of religions have survived even longer then christianity . |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 22 2004, 12:22 PM | ||||||||||||||||||
1. You could claim that I had my head in the sand, except I'm not the one ignoring the frightfully violent history of the church and its missionaries, as your statement to which the snide question was addressed seemed to indicate. I'm yet in doubt about where your information comes from. I have not constructed a straw man unless you are ignorant of church history. If you are not ignorant of church history then you have your head stuck in the sand. ************************************************************************ 2.  Oh that's right, I forgot that about Catholics. Y'all still have your god nailed to a cross, and you think that the crappy piece of bread is God's flesh, and the Morgan David is actually his blood. (Remember back to when the church was killing folks for thinking other wise?) Bear with me, I was always a protestant, and my grandmother assured me that if I married my Catholic girlfriend I would go to hell along with her.I sort of admire your ability to, like the White Queen said to Alice, believe a couple of impossible things everyday before breakfast. Nevertheless, how is it that God continually gives himself to himself? How can that be regarded as a sacrifice? And what is the point anyway, since god was able to make Mary sinless, why doesn't he just go ahead and do that for everyone? ************************************************************************* 3. Ok ********************************************************************* 4. The whole chapter is telling you how to remedy sin. Here God says a man dies for his own sin and not the sin of his father which certainly leaves out the idea of original sin. That may be why your version doesn't mention righteousness. http://bible.gospelcom.net/ No you didn't contradict a need for righteousness. I don't think that you are so much of a fool that you didn't notice I wrote "remedy for sin". Please argue against what has been written. The remedy according to old Zeke is not a savior, but your personal behavior, a thing that basically lines up pretty good with Matthew25:31ff. Example:
So you see people are not in the hopeless fix, you think they are without a savior. ********************************************************************* 5. By his own standards of course. I'm sure you know plenty of examples yourself. a. Screwing a woman betrothed to another man is adultery, I think. b. Commanding the murder of the Amalekites to the last cow. c. Making a bet with Satan that Job couldn't be tortured into being unrighteous. d. Drowning the whole world to get rid of the un-righteous and not succeeding. e. Having the power to help the needy and not doing it. f. punishing Israel for making a Golden Calf before he told them not to do it. g. etc. and so on and on. ********************************************************************* 6. Then see the next statement. ********************************************************************** 7. Sorry poor proof reading Impossible not to sin. If I am condemned for my own sin, I must have the choice not to sin. The nature inherited from Adam makes it impossible for me to be sinless. It is like condemning the paralyzed man for not being able to walk. If the Adam nature does not make it impossible for a human to be sinless then about half of the population of the world would be sinless. ************************************************************************ 8. The mystery argument holds no water here. If Adam's nature is the problem and God can remove it from one person, he can remove it from all. Instead he allows the whole of humankind to suffer here and then most of them to suffer someplace else, forever. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? |
| Posted by: blue Dec 22 2004, 03:47 PM |
| hey munari, not sure if you got a chance to read my earlier post, here it is again just in case you missed it. here's the gist of it. if he created me, then he knows full well what would make me convert to christianity. there is only one thing that would convince me...ONLY ONE! and that is, to simply appear in front of me, not some vague sign, but to just appear in front of me.... don't blame me....he made me this way! so why doesn't he appear? you'll probably say i got to have faith first, then he'll appear...right? but i know how i am...trust me! heck god knows how i am.............he wired me to REQUIRE proof first. again, don't blame me....he made me this way! so......why doesn't he appear? |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 22 2004, 05:06 PM |
| You are appealing to your sinful nature. God doesn't appear to you because the perverted bastard wants you to LOVE him out of your own FREEWILL. He wants you to do this even though he set up life in a way that will not allow for any proof of his existence and even though it goes against common sense to do so. See, it's part of his PERFECT plan. |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 22 2004, 05:08 PM |
| My apologies for my last post. I must be spreading more hate talking about a non existent being like that. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 22 2004, 05:53 PM | ||||
I stopped reading to post after I read this from Merlin:
Wow... I might be off on my conception of numbers and time... but in a quick search of the internet, the first crusade lasted from 1095-1100 while the Muslim invasion of Spain was in 711 (http://www.sunnahonline.com/ilm/seerah/0075_popup9.htm).... It seems the Muslims struck first, or at least before the first crusade, which was the basis of your retort... Here is what another source says:
from: http://www.cyberessays.com/History/74.htm Now mind you all, I'm citing this source JUST for this statement above. It does not mean that I endorse anything else on the page. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 22 2004, 06:09 PM |
| Thanks for your post blue. I pretty much skipped over the last few pages because it was nothing but ridicule and attacks on me. Despite what others think of my use of logic (or lack there of according to them), I have not attacked anyone on this site personally. I've discussed the issues, not made comments about the people. As I stated before, I will not respond to such things and I will stop reading from the point I notice its an attack and not conversation. So, if you have something you'd actually like for me to read, please do so politely or I probably won't read it. If your goal is to only ridicule and mock me, that's fine, I take it as a compliment. As for my explanation of magic vs. the "magic" that God ordained, it is an explanation that I heard when someone was talking about why the Eucharist was not magic. Just because other people on here haven't heard it and that it was not in the dictionary does not mean it isn't valid. But, back to your question blue. First off, I can't answer your question becuse I'm not God, only he knows why he does not appear before you. Explanations I have heard for this before is that if he did appear before you, you would be so overwhelmed, you'd lose your ability to not choose to follow him. I don't know if I buy that completely, but its one thing I've heard. One of my questions for you is have you tried "seeing" God through his creations? As I've stated before, in the universe. Do you know how exact the events of the big bang had to be for the universe to take place? Unfortunately, I do not remember the source or the exact numbers, but if you search, you could probably find it. Why has the evidence God has given you not good enough? The scientific mind... it was getting me to leave my faith while in college. My "Exploring Religions" class is where I started losing my faith. I'd like to suggest a book called "Handbook of Christian Apologetics." It starts with "Does God exist" and ends with death and other religions. I have not read it all yet, but what I have read is really good. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 22 2004, 07:06 PM | ||
| I was bragging to my mom(the author) about my "BULLSHIT" post and she saw the word "truth" used with the church. Do you remember that commercial, where it isn't nice to anger mother nature? Weeeeeeellll my mom is a lot like that when it comes to... truth and the church.
Sadly, I cannot take credit for that text. That goes to Catia Grace Villatorio. My post is coming, rest assured. Merlin |
| Posted by: Lanakila Dec 22 2004, 07:12 PM |
| Read your handbook, and then some. Those evidences well--they helped me as a fundy. Problem is: most arguments are entirely circular. Proving God by using creation and assuming a creator isn't working. Proving the resurrection by using the Bible--no go. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 22 2004, 07:32 PM |
| That's all great stuff that was posted, nothing cited. Please cite these things so they can be looked up. Now, since there are no sources for these and I will admit I had never heard these before, I would guess the stuff about those saints not existing is more a case of that perhaps these saints who were known by their actions only and not by name, were given names to be called. Or, perhaps, they were never "officialy" sainted. For the rest, I will make some comments when I have sources. What text is that St. Augustine quote from? As for the Hypatia incident, they were wrong for doing that. People of all groups do things wrong. I hope they repented and asked for forgiveness. As for the author of this being Catholc, I'm not so sure they should claim that. If you don't believe things that are taught by the Catholic Church, are you really Catholic? Besides, weren't we talking about the dates of the Muslim invasion and the First Crusade? |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 22 2004, 07:38 PM | ||||||||
| Let's see.. how shall I open this? BULLSHIT? Or is that telling the same joke twice? Probably. I'll just let the original stand and treat this as a sequal .
Why did you stop? Tocis' posts were far shorter, better articulatulated and more deserving of a reply. Did you perhaps think I was easier prey? Before I continue(and continue I will) I'm going to demand that you reply to Tocis' posts. Not replying to them is 1), insulting and 2) far far too revealing about your character.
First off, the idea and belief in a holy crusade did not begin with Urban II. The Doctrine was developed by St. Augustine at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire (410 C.E.). Also, the "invasion" of 711... If you wish to debate the whole of Christian History back to Alexandria and before, be my guest. What we are speaking of right now is the history of the Crusades. That "invasion" as you put it was long forgotten by the time the crusades rolled around. Also, if what you say is true and the invasion of spain was the reason for the crusades, can you see ANY pope waiting 300 YEARS to finally get the news and decide to take the land back?? Put it this way: 300 years ago we were still british colonies. Can you see the USA going to war with the UK any time soon? Let's roll it down to 200 years, can you see another civil war? Or another Mexican war? Certainly not because of a 300-year-old war. That "invasion" is Irrelivant, immaterial, and a cop-out. Interesting that you bring up the Muslim Invasion--oddly enought the best thing that ever happened to that country. Surely you recall the Inqusition--I should say, the SPANISH Inquisition? Queen Isabella started that beautiful organization up to cleanse Spain of all the infidels in the country. They succeeded, driving all the Muslims and jews out of the country under penalty of Death. So, now the country is nice and Homogonized, and... has no power left to assimilate. See, the Muslims and Jews were the craftsman, bankers, builders, scientists, inventors and (dare I say it?) freethinkers in the country. Remember that Spain had the upper hand in the Colonization of the New World, Columbus made landfall in 1492. The First ENGLISH landfall was 1620. Spain had PLENTY of time to colonize and claim land... why couldn't they? They drove out all the ambition. Did you ACTUALLY think that would shut me up? Or worse yet, convince me to believe your lies? There's an old saying from Safari Veterans... "It's the dead lion that jumps up and kills you." Merlin |
| Posted by: munari Dec 22 2004, 07:51 PM |
| No Merlin, I did not respond to you instead of Tocis because I thought you were easier prey, I did so for the reason I cited. He was being condescending to me, and it was not the first time. You can think it rude of me to not respond to him, but I think what he says about me is rude, and I do not have to read it if I do not want to. If Tocis and you really want me to reply to his statements, he can repost them in an edited manner that is not rude. And, as far as the history goes, I do not know that much about Christian history, or history in general. That is not so much my concern. I know that people have done horrible things in the name of Christianity, but that does not matter. They were wrong in doing so. Its a shame and embarrassment to see those things. The one thing that I did know, and as I showed, is that the Muslims invaded Spain prior to the First Crusade. I don't recall saying the first crusade was in direct response to that invasion. I also do not remember claiming that some good did not come out of the invasion. I also did not claim that's where the idea for a crusade originated either. That was not my point. |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 22 2004, 08:42 PM | ||||||
I must have missed the citations in the bible.
On that note, I think I'm going to go begin writing my own bible now... |
| Posted by: munari Dec 22 2004, 08:49 PM |
| What is that point of that post? Nothing, just to make childish jabs. Its quite silly. BTW, if an author writes something that is from his own mind, he doesn't have to cite it, he is the author of it. The Bible didn't quote any other source, and when one book quotes an OT book, or a NT book, they cite, for example, " It is written in Isaiah the prophet" (Mark 1:2). |
| Posted by: blue Dec 22 2004, 09:07 PM |
| hey munari, thanks for the response but a few of the things you mentioned don't jive. first, i don't buy the "you would be so overwhelmed" part one either. you also said "Why has the evidence God has given you not good enough? " well this goes back to the way i'm wired, i REQUIRE irrefutable proof. besides, how do i know it wasn't a god from another religion that created this universe? and lastly, you suggested a book, but that's just another piece of literature, you might as well have suggested the bible instead. it wouldn't prove anything to me. remember, i am one of those people that requires irrefutable proof. does that mean people like me are doomed? that's not fair, we can't help the fact that we require proof. and yes, if there is a heaven, i'm sure i would definately want to go considering the alternative. so where does that leave us logic minded people? |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 22 2004, 09:08 PM | ||
The point is that most Christians subscribe to the claim that the bible can be believed because it cites itself to be the Word of God – that really is just silly. The bible's claims of self-authentication have nothing special in them to displace my own supernatural claim of having personal revelation regarding the true Word of God. Especially when you consider the history of forgery and pious fraud in the bible's evolution. Neither does its claims hold any special or privileged position against the Qu’ran, The Book of Mormon, The Vedas, etc. At the end of the day, they are all just hearsay. An additional monkey wrench is that the supernatural claims in all those books run contrary to everything that we know and understand about the world and how nature operates. To believe requires an unreasonable suspension of disbelief. David Hume pointed out quite correctly that not only were Christianity’s origins founded on miraculous claims, they cannot be believed today by any reasonable person without one. Now, about the first chapter of my bible…I wonder where I should begin… |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 10:55 PM | ||
 |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 22 2004, 11:00 PM | ||
<christian> They were not. The babble expressly commands believers to do horrible things to unbelievers. </christian> Know your scripture, fundie boy. You may be proud of your willful ignorance, but that will not earn you any brownie points here. Live with it. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 22 2004, 11:37 PM | ||||
| By God you are STOMPING in it!!!! First you dishonor truth, THEN you come this close to calling her a LIAR?!?! Do NOT piss off a researching author, understand me?? Well, you can see the result here:
--Catia Grace Villatorio A few parting words(from Merlin): You're damn right. You don't have to read insulting(and true) remarks if you don't want to. As soon as you do that however, you forfeit your right to speak. If you can't take it, don't give it. Stay home in that rubber room where you feel right. Save your Prayers for those who ask, Save your lies for those who will listen. Also, you say your history is irrelevant to you. This statement boggles me. Why do you Kneel then, if the History of Jesus is irrelevant? Why do you go to church if it's past record is immaterial? What are we if not our history? Tell me, do you keep mementos of your children's youth? Anniversaries? Can't you look back on your life and see events that shaped who you are today? The church is no different. It is a product of it's own history; to deny that is to deny your faith. If History didn't matter, you would have no bible to read. It was WRITTEN DOWN so it could be REMEMBERED, as all history should be. Of course, history and the bible are two different things entirely, but we've covered that. May you be happy in the life you have chosen. How you could be I will never know. Merlin |
| Posted by: crazy-tiger Dec 23 2004, 12:00 AM | ||
It leaves us being sent to hell because of the way God made us. It means we get punished for what God did. Loving and Just, my arse! |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 23 2004, 12:05 AM | ||
Sorry for the second post, mum had some Carriage Wit .
ONCE AGAIN! LEARN FROM MUNARI'S MISTAKE!! Do NOT piss off a researching author!! Merlin |
| Posted by: munari Dec 23 2004, 09:48 AM | ||||||
| Merlin and researching author... I skimmed through about half of those citations. Thank you for those. At least now, if I'd like, I know where to go for those. But, as I said, the actions of men do not concern me. Killing is wrong, period. People were ignorant in those days. The Church today is not going around and murdering withces. We're not burning people at the stake. Merlin, if you no longer want to communicate with me due to my refusal to read strings of insults from you and your researching author, that is up to you, I'm not going to read it. There was nothing that either of you said that could not be said in a civil manner. I will admit, I will not get to those books. As you said, its a ton of stuff, but I can look at the websites.
from: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04592b.htm So, in regards to the killing of Hypatia, it says that Socrates did not blame Cyril for the killing. In regards to St. Catherine, from the source cited above, it does not say that she did not exist. It says "25 November; removed from the calendar and cultus suppressed in 1969." What this means is that she was removed from the calendar as an official memorial day, not that her sainthood was stripped or that she didn't exist. And aslo, as I surmized prior to the source being cited, she was canonized prior to the current process that they use today, "Pre-Congregation." A reason she was removed is as follows: "The cultus of the saint or blessed must exist in a significant number of dioceses throughout the country before the saint or blessed may be proposed for inclusion on the national calendar. This cultus must be broader than in a particular area or region of the country in order to demonstrate that the saint or blessed is of significance to the entire country" from: http://www.nccbuscc.org/liturgy/q&a/general/diocesancalendar.htm. As for Margaret, the site that you used for Catherine does not claim she's fictitious. Why change your sources like that? Women do not have an inferior place. Just because roles are different does not necessitate inferior. Without women, we would not have had our savior. There is no creature greater than Mary, who, as we all know, was a woman. The women did not run from Christ as he hung on the cross. Women, when properly seen in the Church, are not inferior at all. As for Chrysostom, that is not listed under his epistles at newadvent.com. They're pretty upfront about the good and bad these people have done. Its not listed. I guess I could easily dismiss it as a forgery or a hoax... Joan of Arc - what is there to explain? War is not forbidden by the Chruch if it is just. The inquisition and witch trials were wrong, what else do you want me to say? Blue, Once again, thank you for your curteous response.
I don't think this part requires any further disucssion.
Well, in my opinion, which has been gathered from the things that I've learned about the faith from other teachers and the Catechism, if you truely require such proof, then that would be an "impediment" to belief... at least until and if God were to give you what you required. Here is what the Catechism (1994, printed by Image/Doubleday) says: 847 This affirmation (referring to 846) is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience-those too may achieve eternal salvation." If this describes you, as from you posts I think it does (but I'm not the ultimate judge of that), then no, you're not completely outside the possibility of getting to heaven. Keep searching with an open heart and mind and live a good life. I'm confident God will see you through one way or another. As for the book I suggested, I think it would be right up your alley. Its very heady and is done by a teacher of philosophy. Each argument is broken done and arguments against are proposed. At least see if your library has it. |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 23 2004, 10:57 AM | ||
I personally think reciprocal altruism should be the basis of human morality. There is no need to bring unfounded and supportable superstitious dogma into the equation to instruct us on how to behave. The instructions in this quote you provided I deem an intellectual slippery slope that could lead to both good and ill. It seems more often, it leads towards ill, as the history of the church bears out. The intellectual danger lies in the spiritual pursuit of a supernatural being for which there is just no evidence. This pursuit is not without historical and psychological precedents, as I think one of the ways many humans have dealt with the Existential Crisis is to lean on a made-up beliefs strictly because it is consoling, not because it has any proof behind it. The drive to cling to this consoling belief is the probably the driving force to the cognitive dissonace to the challenges that threaten it. The difference for us is that we've found we can manage perfectly well without promises that religions offers its adherents, by developing means of consolation, and appreciation for life that is grounded in reality. As for trying to follow the actions of God’s will, I see that is potentially dangerous thinking. The example of the lady in Texas who cut her baby girls arms off is a prime example of that. She believed she was following God’s will, as did the lady who killed her children last year. Many of the ghastly episodes and pogroms of human history point back to the perpetrators claims that they were following God’s will. I have no evidence that would lead me to believe that God speaks to me through my conscience to guide my actions. All I have are my own memories of how things effect me. From these memories, I understand that which hurts me, and can logically assume that what hurts me would hurt others too. Humans are social animals. We have developed over time certain rules that help guide our actions. Some people say God helped us get here, but again, there is no evidence or any way to prove that. Evolution, Sociology and Anthropology have much better evidence behind them than the God of the Gaps approach claim that God did it. If what you believe does not lead you to harm others, then that's terrific. However, don’t expect your arguments aimed at trying to lead others back to our now abandoned religious beliefs to get much traction here. Most of the members here abandoned their former religious positions after and careful and thoughtful examination of the foundations of those beliefs…and found them to be lacking. It seems that one of your concerns for us is that we cannot be, or are not moral without a belief in the Christian (or other) God. Despite the emotionally charged exchanges you've encountered on this forum (which is understandable if you look at the title of this Web site), we are probably more moral than most theists thanks to our worldview. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 23 2004, 01:29 PM | ||
My thoughts exactly Merlin. That is the very reason they kneel - they don't know the history. |
| Posted by: blue Dec 23 2004, 01:59 PM |
| hey munari, thanks again for the response. you said: "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience-those too may achieve eternal salvation." if i understand you correctly, all good people are going to heaven no matter if they believe or not. here's why: those that did believe at one time became unconvinced through logic, which isn't really they're fault, because they're wired that way. that would make them "impediment" to belief, right? so if they're good and true in their hearts and actions, then they should be saved. and those that never believed, could not be faulted either because they are logical(see above), or never had the 'opportunity' to experience christianity. so as i understand it, we don't need to subscribe to christianity, then, as long as we're good in our hearts. and of course if our actions are also good, then we are saved. but if you mean that we still need to "seek God with a sincere heart" then we're all still screwed, because it's impossible to seek something that you don't believe exists. back to square one. wouldn't it just be easier to appear in front of me? |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 23 2004, 02:09 PM | ||
It would, but maybe you are one of those who god chose not to save, due to his perfect plan... Anyhoo, how many people did god appear to in the bible? What about doubting Thomas? |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 23 2004, 03:49 PM | ||||
Munari... This is Merlin speaking just to be clear. Catia gave up on you with the last post I gave. I heartily agree with her for doing so. She said that you're ignorant, lazy, and devoid of empathy. You seek neither Truth nor Wisdom, you seek the Comforts of the Damned. Continuing that thread, I will not debate that which I have already proven. If you don't want to read the websites thourghly and go through the books, the fact that your still ignorant is your fault. It isn't mine for not force-feeding you. She's too busy giving herself knowledge to concern herself with the blind. P.S., add two more books to the list: The End of Days: Fundamentalist and the Struggle for the Temple Mount - Gershom Gorenberg Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible and the Quran - Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer She keeps reading, while you decend further into darkness. Guess which one I'm going to believe? That being said, there was one statement you made that was so ignorant, so egregious, I had to kill it. Socrates's statement that "peter" killed Hypatia is only one account. As I'm sure you're aware, chrianity is remarkable adept at burying it's history, so there are going to be conflicting statements, but the majoraty of the evidence lies against Cyril.. If you had kept reading you would have seen another historian indict Cyril for the crime. The invention of St. Catherine is conciousnecss of Guilt--even your own church admits that if you woud just think. Why? Why do you cling to your beliefs so dearly? You have been shown(at the bare minimum) that you do not understand all 360 degrees of the story. If your belief was based in anything approtching rational thought you would at least WONDER. But you don't. You refuse to entertain any idea that thretans your belief, your seat in the center of the universe with God acting as your right hand. Your own empty mind and soul should terrify you Munari. Why? Because my dear you are not alone. There are Baptists, Muslims, Prodetants, Catholics, Jews, and the infinity of other dogmas in the world--each with devout believers who are just as certain of their flawed beliefs, just as deforemd and programmed to ignore Truth and Fact--just as willing to kill to inforce their Superior Religion. What on earth makes you think they won't come after you? They won't listen to your pleas of mercy, your version of the bible--they will kill you just because "God Wills It!" You're blind obediance won't save you--your murders will have even Stronger Ignorance than you. The Inqusition, the Crusades, the Buring Times, all these were started b ecause fundamentalists put Belief over Fact. It's not suprising at all that you are fighting the truth I give tooth and Nail. You're a born inqusitor. The woman Kramer Dreams of. You could see women tortured, burned, brutalized, sexualy abused before your eyes and never even think of mercy or look into their eyes offering help. You would avoid the eyes of the victim just as surely as you avoid the eyes of truth: With the same stupid devotion. Also, if you don't know your histoy, how do you know you don't come from Witches Blood? How do you know there isn't someone in your family tree that was burned by your church and is hating you now for giving money to their murderer? Another thought: Why do you think the crusades, the burning times, the inquisition is irrelivant? That was done to keep Christianity alive... why do you insist that it was a fair bargain? What makes your soul worth the suffering of millions? Merlin P.S.: Blue: I saw munari recommend a Catechism book to you. Speaking as a reletave (son) of a person who had that force-fed to her every day for quite some time, I cannot plead you strongly enough to stay away from it. It will sap all hope, all love, all joy from your life just as surely as a dementor from Hogwarts. My mother is still bearing the scars and the agony inflicted by that text. Stay away from it, it's dangerous because It's subtle. It's sole purpose is to drive a wedge between you and humanity itself. I beg you, stay away from it. I've seen the hurt my mother carries from that vile collection and I can't bear the thought of that pain being spread. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 23 2004, 04:00 PM | ||||||
Just found another source for you. quoting from it for the freethinkers among us:
Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, Chas S. Clifton, Barnes & Noble Books page 61-62. Please note the distinct lack of the killers confessing and begging forgiveness. Merlin |
| Posted by: tombity Dec 23 2004, 04:02 PM |
| Jeesh! Glad I am not in the middle of this one. However, I want to say that xianity misunderstood causes the bearer of the faith to seem very mean spirited. I have found it significantly difficult to not sound condesceding when debating with a non-xian. Munari, I hope that you are learning how hard it is to see ourseves from the other side and how valid the ex-christian thoughts are. You see friend, whether you want to own the crusades, catholic church, witch trials or not has very little to do with reality. In reality we own that stuff wrong or not becasue those things, although wrong and bad, are still part of the ideas we present. If the innocent people that suffered were not enough, the people that caused them to suffer so often did so with a theology that isstill present today. Even if the theology is not present and we diagree with our predecesors, it only proves that we should at least agree and get along with one another before we expect a non-xian to get along with us and agree with us. It is not so easy as dismissing the past. The non-xians are not wrong for holduing it in front of us. Better find a better way to deal with it. ps - it also doesn't do any good to tear down the position they hold. They are more valuable than that. - Good luck. |
| Posted by: Lokmer Dec 23 2004, 04:28 PM | ||
A very thorough documentation of how we know that the gospels were not written by the people to whom they were attributed can be found in Deconstructing Jesus by Robert M. Price. It is also worth noting that a "conspiracy" is just as far-fetched as the Gospels being true. There need have been no conspiracy for the gospels to be fictions and fabrications - in fact, it makes more sense that there was no conspiracy. -Lokmer |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 23 2004, 04:34 PM | ||
This is a very good point. Most christians think that we hold a position that has no basis in reality, is stubburn or just straight out wrong. This is not the case though. Nonbelievers exist because they look at things from a logical point of view and do not use faith or wishful thinking when making their conclusions. Heck even my girlfriend tells me I hold a more logical position that her. And she is Catholic. |
| Posted by: khdetw Dec 23 2004, 05:34 PM | ||
Elmo, That statement caught my eye, because it's exactly where I was at the turning point in my thinking. It took me a long time to get there, as I was pretty much indoctrinated from birth that Christianity was the only truth. They have an "answer" for every logical argument your mind may contrive. It's not until you reach the point where you are willing to throw it all out that you begin to really think clearly. But then, it's like an avalanche! People who weren't brought up that way can't understand, but I can definitely relate. And, I can tell you - you are in for the most marvelous liberating experience beyond anything you can imagine. The opening of your mind and discovery of your self. Become a free thinker. You will not regret it! |
| Posted by: khdetw Dec 23 2004, 05:49 PM | ||
I don't think it's necessary to say Jesus never existed. Whether he did or not, there's a lot of value in his teachings on ethics and morality. Thomas Jefferson had a nice outlook on this (and a few other things ;-) "A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen. It is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus" ... "The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained." ... "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." ... So, while he valued the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus, he rejected the false religion that had been built upon it. In short - he was a thinker. He accepted the parts of Christianity that made sense to him and rejected the ones that didn't. As for how Christianity survived and became popular, it's perfectly logical if you step back and look at it objectively in a historical perspective. I came across this today, which approaches Jesus and early Christianity from a secular, but not a derogatory perspective. It may clear up a few things for you - it did for me. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/ |
| Posted by: Lokmer Dec 23 2004, 06:10 PM | ||||
I will never understand the need for this sort of linguistic sleight-of-hand. How can not believing require more faith than believing, when faith means belief (or, alternately, trust)? If you don't believe, by definition you are not putting your trust in the thing which you don't believe in, therefore you have no faith by both definitions of the word.
Talmudic ref's to Jesus are 3rd Century. Far too late to be of any historical interest. -Lokmer |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 23 2004, 11:46 PM | ||||
 First, "the bible is true". Then, when gawd's commandments to kill the evil unbelievers are referred to, killing is wrong. Yeah sure.
Only declaring people like "mother" theresa to be holy ones... people who "cared" for the sick only inasmuch as they were easy prey for conversion before dying from the exact diseases that went all but untreated. Not mentioning that, whenever she got sick herself, she sought top-notch top-dollar medical aid. Aaah, the hypocrisy... |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 23 2004, 11:59 PM | ||||
Interesting. I wonder where those "ignorant" people in "those days" got the idea to kill witches and burn them at the stake. Ya know, I vaguely remember this one saying. How did it go? Oh yeah! I remember...
In other words, kill witches. Sounds like killing is pretty negotiable to the God of the Bible if you ask me. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 24 2004, 12:18 AM | ||||||||||
Need help Mr. Neil? Or shall I quote for you?
Aw, mutts. You remembered
I always felt(and Catia even more so) a strong connection to the victims of the Burning times. I'm frequently reminded of her asking for a burning stake to wear as a cross. Christians have a symbol for theyr martyr for ignorance, We want a symbol for those who died for truth. Any thoughts on where I could get one? Merlin |
| Posted by: Lokmer Dec 24 2004, 12:46 AM | ||
Munari - Unfortunately this is incorrect. While the Vatican does not officially conduct witch trials anymore, in the 1990s there were a series of catholic-conducted witch burnings in east-bloc countries (I'm citing from memory, which is why I'm fuzzy on details. Exact details of the latest witch burning, in 1999 - I think in Hungary - can be found in the book "Heretics" by W. Sumner Davis. It's one I read from the library and now is on the "to buy" list - my apologies for the lack of a page number citation, but the stats and details are in the final chapter). -Lokmer |
| Posted by: bdp Dec 24 2004, 01:51 AM |
| The modern church has its own 'witches' and 'witchkillers.' Does the name 'Paul Hill' ring a bell with anyone? bdp |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 24 2004, 10:55 AM | ||
Paul Hil... Paul Hill... Paul Hill..... No, nothing. Please link!! *goes off to google the name* Merlin |
| Posted by: AggieNostic Dec 24 2004, 04:00 PM | ||
Lots of pagans and non-believers paid for their "beliefs" by having their lives extinguished by those who thought they were doing God's work by exterminating the heathens. So, by your logic, I guess that means the non-believers owned the "Truth." |
| Posted by: AggieNostic Dec 24 2004, 04:03 PM | ||
No. But people die for what is false, whether they think it is false or not. Unless you believe Muslim and Christian beliefs are compatible. |
| Posted by: AggieNostic Dec 24 2004, 04:09 PM | ||
Really? So it takes as much faith for you to disbelieve the Muslim claim that Allah tore the Moon asunder followed by its reperation ... as it takes for a Muslim to believe that it did happen? And since science has not disproved that it ever happened, it could have happened. I have a few alien abduction stories to share with you. |
| Posted by: AggieNostic Dec 24 2004, 04:25 PM | ||||
It's divine arithmetic ... the same math that gives us 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 24 2004, 06:24 PM |
| I'm not doubting that the crusades, the witch trials, or the numerous other monstrous things that occurred in the name of God ever happened. What I am disagreeing with however is the depth to which the claims of corrupition are going. Just as many of you reject the Bible or other religious writings because you think they have a slant too far, so I reject many of those other authors because they go so far in the direction of showing how bad Christians were. Its just too much. I've never heard many of those claims from historians that were that extreme. The truth of the matter lies somewhere in between. People can look back at history and put it back together any way they wish to see. A Christian can put it back together and make it look like there's a rainbow on every page of Christian history. Non-Christians will take that same information and present it so that it depicts Christians beheading everyone and drinking blood from their still beating heats. You want to tell me there were bad bishops and bad popes and people who commited evil in the name of God, go right ahead, I believe it and will admit it as quickly as any of you. But the extent to which these things have been claimed, no. For one, the Catholic Church would not declare someone a saint if they did evil things because it will come back and bite the Church. Its self defeating. As for the modern day witch burnings, I don't believe it. I would definately need a VERY reliable source for that... and unfortunately, I don't think that book would suffice just from the title. I've never heard of such a thing, and that would have been plastered all over the news. Now, what MAY have happened... it might have been CLAIMED to have been done with Church sanction, but it would not have been truthful. As for me statement before, you caught me, I mispoke... killing is not wrong, murder is. My version of the bible says a sorceress should not be allowed to live. It written in the Bible, but I'm not going to go around and start killing Wicans. My Church tells me that we are not to kill under any condition, unless its in self-defence or in a just war. I don't claim to have a 100% sound understanding of all that's in the bible. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 24 2004, 06:29 PM |
| I did a search for Paul Hill and found a site with one of his articles, "Why Shoot and Abortionist?" Just from that, I'm going to say that I would reject just about anything this man has to say about morality. Not believing in Christ takes just as much faith as believing. I thought that should have been clear enough. The Islamic texts and the Christian texts do not jibe, so if one believes in one, they cannot accept the other. The difference in Islam and Christianity is that Islam was spread AT THE BEGINNING by the sword, Christianity was not... it was spread AT THE BEGINNING while is was UNDER the sword. |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 24 2004, 08:04 PM | ||
Not believing in a God seems pretty effortless to me, but lets check this out. Not believing in Zeus must take as much faith as believing in Zeus, so you may just as well believe in Zeus, right? Not believing in Thor must take as much faith as believing in Thor, so you may just as well believe in Thor, right? Not believing in Krisna must take as much faith as believing in Krishna, so you may just as well believe in Krisna, right? Not believing in Indra must take as much faith as believing in Indra, so you may just as well believe in Indra, right? Not believing in Vishnu must take as much faith as believing in Vishnu, so you may just as well believe in Vishnu, right? Boy this could go one all night and into tomorrow. There are 1000s of gods You must really work up a sweat with all that un-believing you have to do. And you must have a crapload of faith considering all the gods you have to disbelieve. Maybe that is why you don't get your prayers answered. You have to waste too much faith un-believing those other gods. If you need some extry you can have mine, I don't use it any more. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 24 2004, 08:34 PM | ||||
...and then Christianity put pagans to the sword and stake. Keep sewing those eyes of your shut Munari. It looks good on you. Serves as a warning to intelligent people too. Yes, I'm being condescending. You want it to stop, get a seam ripper.
ROTFLMAO chef! |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 24 2004, 08:35 PM |
| You know, that's really funny. I could have sworn that I wrote two extremely long posts in this very topic explaining in great detail why it it doesn't take faith to disbelieve in the story of Jesus. I vaguely recall explaining the concept of conditional acceptance as a principle that can be used to rationally judge whether or not a proposition is true. You see, I assume all claims as false by default, and the claim will have to meet certain conditions of proof before I'll accept it. There is no condition that the story of Jesus actually meets, therefore it is assumed false. In fact, there are other propositions that do meet the proper conditions of acceptance, and they work against the claim of Jesus being the son of God and rising from the dead. It doesn't take faith to disbelieve the story of Jesus. It takes logic and reason. It takes critical thinking. Just like it does with leprechauns, fairies, genies in bottles, bigfoot, Loch Ness, and alien autopsies. To imply that it takes faith to disbelieve a claim simply because the claim has been proposed is to seriously and disingenuously abuse the word "faith" to the degree where it's practically meaningless by such usage. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 24 2004, 09:29 PM |
| Again, I misspoke. What I usually say is that being Athiest takes as much faith as believing in God... I'm typing faster than I'm thinking I guess. Merlin, I'm glad that you realize you're being condescending... you're also being judgemental. Yes, some Christians have killed in God's name, Christianity did not. My eyes are not sewn shut, I've admitted to the wrongs that have been done. Must you keep insisting that I have not. Chef, My belief in Christ necessarily leads not to believing in those others. My lack of belief in those gods is because of my faith in Christ. And you assume my prayers haven't been answered. I've had many prayers answered. Can we continue to discuss things without being condescending or mocking? Does it make you feel smarter to attack someone that hasn't been fighting back? As I've said before, you're insults are a compliment. Mr. Neil, Is there a place where these conditions of proof are listed on the internet? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 24 2004, 10:55 PM | ||||||
The conditions of which I speak are grounded in the methodological principle of logic. That evidence must both support and suggest the proposition being made. For example, a warm engine suggests that the engine had been running recently and supports the proposition that someone had been driving the vehicle. However, when someone says that some 1st century teacher died and came back to life three days later, what they lack is the evidence that such an event occurred, and they lack any phenomenon that suggests that the human brain can even be revived after three days of death. In fact, everything we know about brain damage and loss of oxygen to the brain suggests just the opposite; that this event could not have happened. If you want some links in support of logical arguments, I suggest the following: http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html I also recommend picking up Carl Sagan's "Demon Haunted World" and reading the chapter entitled "The Baloney Detection Kit".
Really? Please tell me. What do atheists believe? What do we universally accept that is founded on the principle of godlessness? I really want to hear this.
I'm going to jump in on this one... How do you know that? Because you ask God to make things go your way, and they do? How do you know the difference between an answered prayer and extremely good fortune? What about the people who don't get their prayers answered? Do honestly think that your prayers are so special that God can answer you, but for some reason he doesn't seem to want to bother with other people? How do you explain that? How do you verify that a prayer has been answered as opposed to just having generally good fortune? Besides, what you're giving us is simply an anecdote. Surely you understand that we simply cannot possibly take this claim of yours seriously. From our perspective, it's basically useless. We've never experienced this phenomena, and you don't seem capable of demonstrating that it works. From our perspective, it is more likely misinterpretting good fortune or possibly making it up. I hope you don't take that personally. I'm simply saying that it's more reasonable to come to those conclusions from our position. |
| Posted by: IAm_Lucifer Dec 24 2004, 11:57 PM | ||
Munari, I don't get it. How does not believing something require faith? I do not see any logic what so ever in this statement. Not believing something requires absolutely no faith at all. Or do you mean that faith is required to disbelieve in Jesus specifically? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 25 2004, 12:17 AM |
| Notice the first two definitions of faith... Faith, n. 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. Neither one of those definitions meet the criteria of atheistic principle, because first and formost, atheists simply don't believe. You don't need faith to not believe. Besides, I've already demonstrated the principle of conditional acceptance, which I've used to clearly establish that I do not have confident belief in the validity of ideas. On the contrary, I lack confidence in the validity of ideas, which is why I (as I stated) assume that all propositions are false until evidence can be established to directly validate it. In other words, I want to know something. Knowing and believing are two different things. Definition 2 makes your case fatal, Munari, because it directly contradicts everything I've been saying. My conditional acceptance is contingent on logical proof and materialistic evidence. The word faith has to mean something, Munari. By accusing us of having faith, you give the word such a broad context that it's utterly meaningless in light of the case you're trying to establish, which is false anyway. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 26 2004, 09:14 PM |
| Well, for the phrase you both quoted me on, I guess that depends on the brand of athiest one professes to be. I've heard of two kinds. One is that they say, "I cannot prove that God exists, so I do not believe God exists" (which sounds more like agnosticism to me... which is the definition dictionary.com gives). The other kind is the one that says, "There is no God." Period. I say the second kind takes as much faith as believing because in order to say there is no God, the person making the claim would have to be God because in order to know He did not exist, one would have to know everything there is to know. Now, whether or not that applies to any of you depends upon which kind of athiest you are. Thanks for the site. I haven't looked at it yet, but I did bookmark it. I'll have to take a look at it. Mr. Neil, I think that God does fit that formula, the support and suggest. The fact that the human body and the universe are so complex and if there had been the minutest of change in the first few seconds at the beginning of the universe, we would not be here, that there was some kind of design to the body (just look at the eye only!) which suggests that there was a creator. If that design had a creator before the universe was, there could be no one else other than God. As for prayers, this is going to sound like a cop out if I stopped here, but all prayers are answered, God just sometimes says "No." Now, God says no because he knows what is and is not good for us. There have been times when I know I got a resounding no from God. An example of when God did answer my prayer was when I was young and in grade school. I was NOT prepared for a test, my mother can confirm that. I prayed "through" St. Thomas Aquinas (patron of students) and told him that if I passed the test, I would take his name as my confirmation name. (Now, this is getting into intercessory prayer and prayer's to/through saints... if we get on that topic, lets start a new thread). Well, I passed the test and my mother was shocked and I took Thomas as my confirmation name. Another time I had a prayer answered, I was very interested in a girl at college. I asked him and begged him for something to happen between she and I. Well, I asked her out, twice, and she rejected me twice. Now, that was before I reconverted to Catholicism. I now know that if I had not have been rejected, I would not have reconverted (which some of you may think as a curse I understand...) My prayers have made me stronger and more courageous. As for why I'm "special," I'm not. I guess the prayers you've asked for were considered by God as to what was not best for you (not necessarily the best thing physically, psychologically, or emotionally, but could lead to a spiritual awakening, which is what is most important). Well, I can here it now, "That didn't work for me!" My only response to that could be is that you're not dead yet. I will try and remember more prayers that have been answered for me. |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 26 2004, 10:16 PM |
| munari, God not answering my prayer eventually led to me being harmed both physically and emotionally. It also led to deconversion, so I guess it must have harmed me spiritually as well. Can you think of any good reason for your God to not answer this prayer, knowing it would lead me to reject him? Also, the way I see it, God does not exist in the same way a square circle does not exist. The very definition is conflicted, which makes it impossible. Unless you give me another definition of God to go by, I'm afraid I am quite capable of saying that there is no God. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 26 2004, 10:18 PM | ||||||||||||||||
You know, every theist plays this little game, and it's simply a matter of knowing the difference between metaphysical claims and epistemological claims. Metaphysics deals with theoretical claims while epistemology deals directly with knowledge. You gave two definitions of atheism. Actually, those aren't quite correct, and I'll explain why in a minute. But basically if you examine both of them, they both have a common attribute. Neither version believes in a God. When an atheist says, "I don't believe in God," he or she is making a metaphysical claim based on what is known about their environment. But a so-called "agnostic" is someone who is making a completely different claim. The agnostic is saying "I don't know if there is a God", which is a claim relative to that person's knowledge. Atheism and agnosticism are actually compatible in this way. Now, the reason why the definitions you provided are wrong is based on a couple of principles. One is English etymology. The word theism literally means God belief. The prefix "a" means without, so when you put them together it becomes atheism, without god belief. A negative metaphysical claim. The second reason deals directly with your definition of agnosticism from dictionary.com. I find it interesting that you didn't also look up atheism. I'll be happy to share it with you.
As you can see, dictionary.com lays out a dual definition akin to the point I was making a few paragraphs up. However, even the dictionary has its biases, and you can see that in definition #2. I'm appalled that they would use the word "immorality" as a definition for atheism, since disbelief has nothing to do with moral principle. This is a typical phenomenon among dictionaries, but I must say that I'm a little surprised that dictionary.com is so up-front about it. Usually you have to follow the synonyms a couple of times before you start running into "immorality" and "evil". This is blatant biggotry. So, as much as you were brought up to believe that the dictionary is a good source for defining words, you can see that the dictionary can be blatantly wrong at times. That's certainly not how the word "atheist" is used in every day speech. Certainly you don't believe that I beat my cat or that I kill people. I'm perfectly willing to compare my morality to that of any Christian's any time. If you want to save yourself a big headache, never call an atheist an agnostic. In my opinion, and agnostic is an atheist who failed his philosophy class. Either you believe a proposition or you don't. There is not in-between. Saying "I don't know" has nothing do with whether or not something is believed.
Ahem. I already pointed out that faith is trust in a proposition, and I have no faith in any proposition. I accept propositions if they have evidence. Negative statements are not proposition. If I say I don't accept something, I am literally saying that I am rejecting a proposition. A negation cannot be a proposition, because negations don't make sense on their own. The statement "There are no wubbleplums" makes absolutely no sense, because there is no proposition that such a being exists, and there are no definitions explaining what a "wubbleplum" even is. And it's something you can't have faith in, because there's no positive statement on which you can put trust. Faith can only be put in propositions, and propositions are statements which are trying to establish an affirmative. Not a negative.
You don't honestly think that I haven't heard this argument before, have you? There's a problem with design inference, and the problem is called infinite regression. The theist seems to have the mentality that if something displays complexity, then that thing must be designed. But the problem is that you have God now, and God is also a complex thing. He has to be. If he's the creator of all, then he's the most complex entity in existence. By the logic of the design argument, then God would also require a designer. And a designer for the designer for the designer, ad nauseum. But the theist automatically stops with the principle that only a single God must exist, therefore the theist concludes that something that is complex can exist without creation. Well, this is inconsistent with the design argument, and it falls into the realm of special pleading. Basically, if God can exist without creation, then why not the universe?
With all due respect, I can't help but point out how clearly self-conscious you were by making that statement that you admitted that it sounds like a cop-out. I don't think I have to tell you that I'm pretty much inclined to draw that conclusion. I think it's a cop-out. Just my opinion. Now, when God says "No", does he say it in English? Does he say "No". Does he give you a sign indicating that your prayer is unanswered, or does his negative answer become apparent when the prayer isn't granted?
Again, this is anecdotal, and there's simply no way I can examine this story and be amazed by this at all. I've pulled off many amazing test scores by the seat of my pants. I didn't study. I barely paid attention in class. And I never prayed. Yet somehow I passed. It happens. The problem is that you're trying to present a situation where event A preceeded event B, so I'm supposed to conclude that event A caused event B. That's one of the logical fallacies in that link I gave you earlier. You should try reading that page before you continue, please.
Again, this is largely anecdotal, and there's nothing to suggest divine intervention. It's as if you're suggesting that God hardened her heart so that you would become catholic, but then you have God interfering with free will, and that's kind of a sticky mess you're getting yourself into. I mean, what about the girl? Are you suggesting that she's not catholic? Correct me if I'm wrong, that's simply the implication I get from the story. Why does God do nothing for that girl? And again, I have to draw your attention back to dying children in hospitals and parents praying for their children to overcome these horrible diseases. You might think that God is allowing these children to die for a greater good, but why do God's lessons always have to come at the expense of other people? Are we to believe that thousands of children die every year for the sake of teaching valuable lessons to their parents? You're assuming that God's choice in granting a prayer will always be for the better of the person, but all I have to do is find one person where this is simply not the case. Cerise's testamony above is a good example.
Well, it's a shame that if I die an atheist, I'll not have the opportunity to say "I told you so". I say "if" because being open-minded means that I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong. I recognize that there's always a distinct possibility that I could always be wrong. But the foundation of my atheism is based on a conditional acceptance in certain claims which have a basis in the known universe, and theism has never been able to raise itself to that bar. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 26 2004, 10:28 PM |
| The thing that irritates me the most about the 'greater good' argument is that it's the ONLY way your belief system holds up. 'There must have been a greater purpose that we just don't understand'. Well guess what? There are actually situations in this world that do nobody any good. At all. It's a lie to make sense out of the nonsensical. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 27 2004, 09:51 AM | ||||||
And how much of a difference exactly is there between a Divine force that chooses not to interfere with the workings of this known universe, and no Divine force at all, hmmm?
Oh really? So what? Take a deck of cards, deal some 13 to me (13 crossing my mind because I played "Romme" with my beloved and her mom at "christmas" evening - you need 13 cards per player), and I'll tell you "that's ludicrous! The chances to get exactly this deck are (insert astronomical number here)! You gotta be cheating!". What does this mean, hmmm?
Yeah sure. You fundies commonly claim that all prayers are answered with one out of the three "yes", "no", "not yet". Now try to imagine any result that could not seemingly be covered with one of these three results. Yep - there is none. Think about it - if you still can. |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 27 2004, 10:57 AM | ||
1
No, your belief in God does not necessarily lead to not believing in those other. There are cultures wherein Christ is believed in -- as another god. These people, like the Norsk, did/do not stop believing in Odin/Whoever, simply because they believe/d in Jesus. The church had/has to force or persuade them to stop believing in the other gods. The same was the case for Israel. You simply have no experience with this from a personal perspective, for that reason you have no need to have faith that other gods doesn’t exist. I have no need for faith to not believe in your God. By "not believe" I mean a passive state, that is, the same passive state you have in not believing in Zeus. I am not actively disbelieving in the manner you are in your believing. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` I am smarter. I don't have to "feel" smarter. However, I'm sorry that you find my style offensive. It appears though, that will have to be your problem, since I am not about to change my style for you. When a Christian says something absurd, like "you need faith to not believe," I do my best to make the absurdity glaringly obvious. Perhaps you are offended because you recognize the smell of your own poop, when your nose is rubbed in it. If you choose to use sarcasm to reply to my absurdities, feel free. I won't call you on it, and may even admire it when it is well done. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 27 2004, 12:37 PM | ||||
The amazing thing about these so-called "answered prayers" is that results you get are no different than any other situation where there is no divine activity going on at all. If all prayers were answered in ways that were always good for the person, then no TrueChristian® should ever die an agonizing death. It's like that old question... What's the difference between an invisible God and something that doesn't exist? |
| Posted by: bob Dec 27 2004, 01:00 PM | ||
Munari, just a quick question and perhaps a comment. Do you KNOW that the God of the bible is real, or do you BELIEVE he is real? I have talked to some Christians who will say they KNOW. You just made the comment that the atheist who claims to KNOW that there is no God, would have to have all knowledge, in essence, be a god himself. So if I ask you if your God is real, will you answer "YES", or will you answer, "I believe so"? If your answer is "YES", are you not claiming God-status for your self, just like you say the strong atheist claims, by admitting to an all-knowing capacity? In other words, if the atheist has to be a god in order to know that there is no god, doesn't the Christian have to be a god in order to know that there is a god? If your answer is "I believe so", then should you even be trying to convince others to believe as you, since you don't know for sure if what you believe in is real? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 27 2004, 01:25 PM |
| Oh yes! Thank you for reminding me, Bob. I completely forgot to pont that out while defining epistemological claims and metaphysical claims. The thing about the whole agnostic thing, Munari, is that agnosticism is compatible with both atheism and theism. If you claim to have faith, then you are also claiming that you have something less than knowledge. Therefore, you are also an agnostic, because faith is also an epistemological claim. Now you see why I regard this word as useless. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 27 2004, 05:27 PM | ||||||
| Cerise, As I said in another post, you're not dead yet. You may still come around and believe in God. Or, you may not. Let me temper the "greater good" statement. Part of the greater good coming about requires the cooperation of the person that's being effected because of free will. God will not force something on someone. Mr. Neil, I don't know what you're heard and what you have not heard, I'm just proposing things as I think of them. You say infinite regression is the problem, but the funny thing is that (and I assume) that the atheist believes that matter is, has always been, and will always be. He also believes that this matter just happened to bond and form in the proper manner to create the elements, the planets, the suns, all the way to humans. I heard someone say that the odds of the universe just happening to come into existence by chance would be kind of like taking a disassembled jet into an open field, have a tornado tear through the field, and then have a fully functional jet after the tornado has past. Now, is that scientifically stated? No, just an anecdote, but its a good analogy. Now, as for the complexity issue, God is not complex in a mechanical sense. God does not have a body, he is formless (except Jesus in his humanity). At the creation though, he was formless.
That's not necessarily true. I don't know what else to say about it, I've said just about everything I can think on prayer already... Lloyd, One of the events that I think shows this principle in effect is slaver in the US. If it were not for slavery, many of the black people that now live here in the US would probably still be in Africa, if they existed at all. Slavery was a terrible thing, but from it, we have had many influential black men and women who contributed greatly to this country, and they have benefitted by living in a properous country. Tocis, Good post up to the last line. I can tell you tried hard this time to be respectful, so I'll respond to you.
The truth is what is at stake. Does He exist or not. Whether or not he interferes is secondary to the truth of that matter.
Its an interesting argument, but I don't find it too convincing. It demonstrates luck. Now, if you were able to break those cards down into their constituent parts and then reform them into different cards or create a universe based on only those elements, then you've got something going there. Chef, I apologize for getting uppity with you. I just find it frustrating that people continue to berate me when its uncalled for. Its not productive for discussion and critical thinking, two things that the people on the board pride themselves on. When insults are thrown around, it brings discussion more into the realm of emotion, something that does not mix well with reasoned thought. Now, if you believe in Christ in the manner he presents himself in the Bible and you still hold on to old beliefs in other gods, then you missed the message and must learn more about it. If you believe in what Christ taught in the Bible, then not believing in those other gods is mandatory. Bob, Very interesting. My answer is that I believe God exists and I hope in the promises of Christ. I know that God exists as much as I can say that my mother loves me. She says she does and she acts as if she does, but I do not know her heart. |
| Posted by: bob Dec 27 2004, 05:47 PM | ||||
Fair enough.
I find this confusing. Your mother can tell you to your face that she loves you, and you can then tell by the way she treats you. The evidence you have are her words and her actions. What do you have outside of a 2,000 year old book that would cause you to have this faith in a god, even as strong or stronger than this faith in your mother? What if your mother said that you had better accept her as the creator of the universe or she would send you to hell for all eternity? My guess is you would write it off as mental defficioncy. Why? Why would you believe stories from an ancient book, and not believe your mother? Perplexing! |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 27 2004, 08:46 PM | ||||||
Hold on. I never said that. That's your idea of what an atheist believes. An atheist is only a person who disbelieves in God. Now, an atheist may believe in other things, but there are some, like myself, who simply shrug our shoulders at origins and don't give it a lot of thought. I never made a proposition about origins. I'm not saying I have an alternate theory of how the universe began. I was simply criticizing theism.
No it's not. It's a horrible analogy, and it's a strawman at that! The problem with the tornado in the junkyard analogy is that you're arguing that stuff can't assemble themselves into a functioning system in a single event, but no scientifically literate person thinks that. You don't shake up molecules in a bag and a get butterfly. People like me believe in small successes over a large period of time. Another error you're making is that big bang cosmology (I assume that's what you're arguing against) is founded on the principle of godlessness. It's not. What I believe in terms of science and origins has nothing to do with my atheism. I accepted evolution and big bang cosmology way before I was an atheist.
It's not? You gave an example of God supposedly denying one of your prayers to meet a girl in order to bring you closer to him. So it seems that God answers your prayers in a way that's always going to be beneficial. So if there are sincere, Bible-believing Christians out there, and they pray to God a lot, then they're always going to have God guiding their lives in a way that improves their lives, if what you're saying is true. And if that's the case, then there should never be a true Christian who ever dies a horrible death. Of course, I don't actually believe that. In fact, that's not what the Bible says either. The Bible doesn't say that God arbitrarily decides which prayers he will answer. It says that anything your ask for in prayer shall be given. |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 27 2004, 10:48 PM | ||
I'd die first. I know a woman who died last year. She had rejected your God years ago due to the unanswered prayer to save her child, who was born with a heart murmur that eventually killed him at about six weeks. What, do you suppose, was the greater spiritual good in that? She didn't come around, her child is dead, and her deconversion led to the doubt and eventually deconversion of several of her family members. Your excuses, like your hideous God's, are paltry. They do not satisfy. |
| Posted by: erik the awful Dec 27 2004, 11:37 PM | ||
It is facinating to me that a Christian school managed to focus my natural skeptism on government for a time. Yet Christianity can not abide skeptism when applied to the Bible, or to Christian dogma...
I certianly agree that the truth is at stake. But it is a profound oversimplification to state "whether or not he interferes is secondary to the truth of that matter." You claim a god, one who interferes *in a constructive and moral manner*. For your claim to stand, all portions of your conjunction must be true. If God does not exist, your claim is false. If God exists but does not interfere, your claim is false. If God exists, interferes, and does so badly, your claim is false. Your claims have been investigated by people who care deeply and passionatly about the Truth. People that care about the truth don't stay Christian. When I was a Christian, I believed that God was the embodiment of Truth. But there were nagging questions that would not go away, that no bible scholar could explain. If the God invented by the Hebrews wasn't such an immoral mudering tyrant, I would probably have believed in what I was "taught" as a boy. Fortunatly, humans invent poor Gods. Poor Gods always bring up questions for those who care about the truth. Those that don't keep selling the lies. Irony of Irnoies, You God was mostly Invented by Jews. The appreciation Christians have shown Jews throughout history leaves a little something to be desired. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 28 2004, 12:02 AM | ||||
And this "truth", where the supernatural is concerned, you cannot know. No one really knows that his deities are real. The closest you can come is subjective evidence ("I saw Jeezuz in my dreams"), but unless you can prove that this was more than just your very personal perceptions, it's not proof. Aside from this subjective "evidence", all you have is the babble... which is about as trustworthy as Mein Kampf.
Wrong. No matter how likely or unlikely the result that is our universe, it happened. Period. Just like the chance to get exactly these 13 cards out of 110 is ludicrously small, but it happens in every game you play. Whether it's a good or even a winning combination is another question altogether, which I didn't even try to discuss. That's just what you made up to change the topic as subtle as possible. By the way, you have much to learn where subtlety is concerned. The only reason for saying "It's way too unlikely" is personal incredulity. If you absolutely need to retreat to this fallback position, go ahead. But don't claim that your personal lack of comprehension is "proof" for anything. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 28 2004, 02:42 PM | ||
And yet you believe the bible...  Why don't you apply the reasoning you posted above to the bible? See, you can be rational when it comes to other things and this book doesn't even claim anything miraculous. Wow... You say you would need a VERY reliable source to believe it, but yet you believe the bible without any reliable sources. You say the book would not suffice just from the title, but it does if it says BIBLE. You say you never heard of such a thing and that it would have been plastered all over the news, yet you believe the miracles of the bible without any sources ever reporting such things. You think it may have been CLAIMED to have been done with Church sanction, but that is just what the bible is....church santioned claiming to be truthful. This is exactly why I keep pasting this: "Like all misbegotten notions, most irrational epistemological theories or assumptions are not practiced consistently. The result would be an inability to deal with the world. Instead, an irrational epistemology is practiced inconsistently. It impairs the mind when it is used, but it is often ignored allowing limited real use of one's mind." Faith is an irrational epistemology. Wow again...how true is that. You have just proven it. Thank you. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 28 2004, 03:09 PM | ||||
Neil, Munari does not believe that god interferes with humans free will. I wonder what he meant? |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 28 2004, 03:12 PM | ||||
OH yeah! |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 28 2004, 03:13 PM | ||
You know what they say about assuming don't you? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 28 2004, 05:35 PM | ||||||
Beats me, becuse it certainly sounds like the implication of his story is that God did interfere with the free will of this girl, to make her reject him, just so he could be saved and become a Catholic. Hmm... |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 28 2004, 06:40 PM | ||||||||
I doubt this will be answered. Munari has yet to answer many many other valid questions posed to her. I guess she's deaf as well as blind. Well, at least deaf and blind to the truth. Doctrine and Dogma have no trouble getting through and finding a home. (psst. Yes, that's 1) mean, 2) judgmental, 3) condesending, and[worst of all] 4) True.. Just thought I'd let you know so you don't have to struggle over it.) |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 28 2004, 06:44 PM | ||
You know... We need some sort of indicator next to our avatars or something that indicate gender. I've been assuming all this time that Munari was a guy. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 28 2004, 06:44 PM |
| I stand corrected, which isn't the first time, won't be the last. So, what do you think about the creation of the universe and where it all came from? And, by the way, I do think that the big bang could have happened, but I think if it did, God caused that and guided the creation of the universe. I'll even accept evolution under the same condition. Before I answer any of you directly, I just want to tell you all that I don't believe in God because life's a garden of roses and things are always just dandy for me. In fact, lately, my faith life has been rather dry. But, I hold on to the those hopes, believing and hoping in Christ so that when I die, I may live forever with him and be happy forever. If I die and I'm wrong, then I won't know the better and neither will any of you. And, if some think that would just be a wasted life then... then I say there isn't much to waste to begin with. But, when everything is added up, I'm happy for the most part and wouldn't hope for things much different than they are, even if I didn't believe in God. Prayer is a tricky thing to think about. Prayer does not change God's mind. In praying, we should learn to allow ourselves to be changed. Why did God not answer the prayer of that mother? I don't know. Perhaps she loved the child more than she loved God. I've heard my father say that if God told him to kill me (like in the Isaac story), he would not do it. Now, assuming that he KNOWS it God, I hope he would take my life because we should love God beyond anyone and anything else because without him, we would not have our own life, our spouses, our children, our family. Everything there is is his. How many people love a photo more than the person it is of? Did God interfere with that girl will? No, of course not. She's happily married now to a wonderful guy with whom I am friends. And yes, they are not Catholic. bob, I would not believe my mother if she told me she created the universe because she's a human. I trust the Bible because it was handed down by the Catholic Church. There is a line of succession of popes and bishops that can be traced all the way back to Christ. Tocis, So, do you think that this all just happened to come together on the first shot? Or, do you believe in a universe that recycles itself in an infinite expansion and collapse? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 28 2004, 07:07 PM | ||||
Well, I accept the Big Bang model, because I've done a lot of reading about I recognize the experience and reputations of those who came up with the theory. It makes sense to me, as far as I can understand it. I'm not concerned about being absolutely right about origins. If I'm wrong, it's no big deal. If a better theory comes along, then I'll probably evaluate it for myself and, providing that it has a better model, I may accept it. That's the essense of openmindedness; the ability to admit that you might be wrong.
Well, if that's what you think, then you got a big problem, because the big bang is a theory of both space and time. If you have a causation of the big bang, then you have something happening in time before the big bang brought time into existence. It's a problem of incoherency. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 28 2004, 07:14 PM |
| But, as I've said, God exists outside of time. And, even though its a theory of space and time, it is only a theory of OUR SPACE and OUR TIME. What was time before the big bang? Can't say there wasn't time before because there was no one there to observe it. On the other hand, I can say that God was before the big bang because I'm not relying on direct observation for my belief. I believe Hawking said in either "A Brief History of Time" or "The Universe in a Nutshell" that no one can make any scientific theories about what there was before the bang because it is not observable, it was a completely foreign reality. Given that, the time before the big bang is the realm of theology and philosophy. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 28 2004, 07:38 PM | ||||
If God exists outside of time, then he is inert and he can't interact with the temporal world. Taking God outside of time doesn't solve the problem. It makes it worse.
"...because there was no one there to observe it". I am really getting tired of that saying. You're missing the point. Even if there is a multiverse in the cosmos and each multiverse has an independant time of its own, it doesn't change the fact that the big bang model itself is a theory which is meant to explain how time came into existence in each of those systems. It's not a matter of what we can and cannot observe. It's a matter of what the big bang model actually shows us. There is no "before the big bang" in the big bang model. What Hawking actually said was, "to ask what is before time is to ask what is three miles north of the north pole." The beginning of time is not a beginning in the traditional sense, such as the beginning of a video cassette. In the big bang model, it's a reference point.
God of the gaps. |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 28 2004, 07:43 PM | ||
God being outside of time is not even a theory. Just an assertion based on nothing observable or testable. It is in the catagory of Kiplings just so stories. |
| Posted by: Reality Amplifier Dec 28 2004, 07:46 PM | ||
Perhaps you can exlain how you came by this knowledge? For you see, this is not about what you've said, it's about what you can prove... |
| Posted by: munari Dec 28 2004, 08:00 PM |
| I can prove it about as much as the big bang can be proven. As all have been said, its a model, a theory, it has not been proven, it cannot be proven. There are things that can be tested that lead to it LOOKS like this is what occurred, but it can't be proven. And, if I believe that God caused the Big Bang, who can say he didn't. God does exist outside of time. If the assertion of God is true in all things except him being outside of time, we'd be able to point at him. Now, is God inert? Well, he actually may be since it appears in the definitions given that inertness is a property of matter, and God does not consist of any matter. And, again, I will say more clearly that he exists outside of OUR time. Is there time where God is, there maybe, but I cannot fathom what that is like. So, I don't really think inertness can be attributed to God. So, what caused the big bang? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 28 2004, 08:16 PM | ||||||||||
Oh for crying out loud... In science, the word "theory" is not synonymous with the word "guess". It's an informed, conditional assessment based on other observed phenomena.
Because it shows that you don't understand the big bang. As I said in my last post, the big bang is not the kind of beginning that you think it is. It's a point of reference. You really, really need to do some reading. Saying that something caused the big bang is a contradiction to what the big bang model actually says.
You get points for possibly the single most creative answer to that I've ever seen. Your responses are utterly meaningless, and they exhibit the kind of responses one would expect from someone who has to strain to make the God concept work. If time is a property of matter and God is not made of matter, then why are we giving him attributes of matter? We have him as an existing being who controls the universe. He makes decisions and interacts with the world. Besides, time is more than just that. Time is the potential to do work. In order to do anything, you need a period of potential, which is the very definition of time. If God lacks time, then he can't do anything. It's a fairly simple thing to understand.
Saying something may be outside our time is completely irrelevent. Cosmologists already consider that there may be other universes which have their own time. This has nothing to do with this God which YOU SAID was outside of time. And consider what you're now saying. If God has his own time, then God has his own big bang. Who started that big bang? Behold the problem of infinite regression, the monkeywrench in the gears of theism.
Again, the big bang is not the kind of beginning that you think it is. You seem to be misunderstanding this point. |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 28 2004, 09:46 PM | ||
Disgusting. I applaud your father and truly hope you have no children. Any parent who claims to love God more then their own children and who say they would gladly murder their children if God asked them to deserves to be locked up in a mental institution and have their children taken away from them. What separates you from Andrea Yates? Nothing. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 29 2004, 12:44 AM | ||||
ZING! Cerise, I have a whole new level of respect for you. Not only for being insightful enough to see that, but being brave enough to stand up and say it. Also, please don't let her bile trouble you. It's just the Church's hate(plus her own ignorance) taken form. I hope her father isn't around to see what she turned into. Also, Munari, I'm DREADFULLY curious as to how you will explain the background radiation radio astronomers discovered. Or the fact that the galaxies area all moving away from each other. Let me guess, God uses the universe as a microwave? Mum just got a WHOLE SLEW of new books for her research too. Shall I list them for you to ignore and rationalize? Merlin P.S. Yes, I'm being 1) Condescending, 2) Judgmental, 3) Insulting 4), demeaning, and(worst of all!) 5) true to fact. Care for a seam ripper? No, didn't think so. Offer's still open if you decide to take the red pill . |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 29 2004, 05:53 AM | ||
Don't know, don't care. We live in this universe. Whether there were others before this one is a question of only theoretical importance - fun to speculate about, but of no use. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 29 2004, 07:59 AM | ||
Merlin, Munari's a guy. Or a lesbian. Or a woman who went through an 'experimental' phase in college:
|
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 29 2004, 10:59 AM | ||||
 I'll certainly have fun speculating which one... Odd, she always struck me as the worst kind of woman... the kind mum used to warn be about constantly... Option B sounds interesting though... Merlin |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 29 2004, 12:37 PM | ||
And that is just evil isn't it? What is evil is to love anyone you love more than the other one. That is like saying I love my father more than my daughter. See how christianity causes harm...even by 'true' christians such as yourself? |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 29 2004, 12:40 PM | ||
Munari, Myself and others have explained this to you and I personally have posted links for you to investigate. You are now wasting our time making us repeat over and over what we have already explained. If you don't understand it, research more on the meaning of time and space. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 29 2004, 01:20 PM |
| I hope you do opt to do a little reading before you post again, Munari. What NBBTB just posted is true. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. I get really offended when I know that I'm in an argument where the other person is clearly just trying to win. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 29 2004, 01:31 PM |
| Add to that the insult of reverting to and repeating previously debunked assertions rather than acknowledging the need to study more, and/or doing so. |
| Posted by: SOIL-ITU Dec 29 2004, 01:42 PM | ||||
I apologize in advance for not having read the last few pages of this thread before making this brief post, but .... Doesn't the use of the name "I AM" indicate (in some sense) that the "God of the Bible" has (self-defined) declared Himself to be "outside of time" (at least as far as existing without reference to a limited time span?) (from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=john%208:58&version=47) :
-Dennis |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 29 2004, 01:49 PM | ||||||
I also will post before I finish reading the thread Dennis. But, you might want to go back and finish reading the thread. And, here are a few links that deal with the time issue. http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/big-bang.html http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/daybegan.html http://www.qsmithwmu.com/time_began_with_a_timeless_point.htm |
| Posted by: SOIL-ITU Dec 29 2004, 02:00 PM | ||
OK NotBlind, I will try to do that before spouting off again! btw, Thanks for being so gentle <wink> ! -Dennis |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 29 2004, 02:13 PM | ||||
No, I didn't mean that you need to do that, I don't (but probably should!). I just meant that this time there is some info that deals with it. I get lucky a lot of times and not so lucky other times when I do that. I just can't seem to wait when I run across a post that I want to address. I am afraid I will forget what I want to say. I went back and put a few links in there for you. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 29 2004, 06:00 PM | ||
YOU NOTICED IT TOO? Damn, I thought I was losing it. Standard christian tactic though. If it doesn't agree with you, put it down and correct the bible of that flaw, if you can't correct the bible, destroy the theory, if you can't destroy the theory, destroy the man, if you can't do either, ignore it. Pleasure being here with you Lloyd, Merlin |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 29 2004, 06:10 PM | ||||
Yeah. That sort of argument gets me more angry than I can safely say in public. It's malevolent, manipulative, deceitful, destructive, and entirely premeditated. Merlin |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 29 2004, 08:07 PM | ||||||
I understand that this is why the Chinese call their children stupid and unworthy. If they talked the children up the gods would notice and get jelous and do something bad. That mother should have told god that she needed a slave to clean house so she could go to church more. Maybe she did and god killed the kid anyway, he's like that, yes he is. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 29 2004, 08:26 PM | ||||||||
You know, even if you take this at face value, it still doesn't outdo the line munari spat up. |
| Posted by: spamandham Dec 29 2004, 08:44 PM | ||
First, Chrsitianity was insignificant until Constantine came along. ANY religion adopted by the Roman empire would have been equally successful. There is nothing remarkable in that sense. Second, it is not necessary for the Jesus stories to be fraud, or conspiratorial, or even knowingly false. As has already been mentioned, urban legend is more than enough to explain it. Combine that with an atmosphere in the first century that fully expected a messiah, and the numerous professional itinerate preachers running around claiming to be the messiah, and it would be more incredible if such stories had not formed. There are numerous competing texts that survive even today, though most were intentionally destroyed by Christians after Constantine came on the scene. Why has it held for 2000 years? Because it was legislated for most of that time. Now that such legislation has been removed in the West, we are witnessing the rapid decline of Christianity. There's nothing miraculous about forcing people to claim they believe something at sword/gunpoint. They will do it. They will even come to really believe it if they are sufficiently brainwashed, and will pass it on to their children out of fear and a sense of utilitarianism. There's nothing amazing about scholars and intellectuals embracing it either. What's more interesting is that now that it is socially acceptable to reject it, the vast majority of intellectuals and scientists have done exactly that. Finally, very few sects have actually fallen. Most have survived in one form or another by being incorporated into other religions. Christianity has virtually nothing in common with ancient Judaism, but much in common with pagan/eastern cultures swallowed up by the Roman empire. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 30 2004, 07:09 AM | ||
Indeed. Well, Mr (or Ms?) Munari, are you aware of the true origin of christmas (Yuletide) and easter (Ostara)? Hmmm? |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 12:02 PM | ||||
Indeed. Tell Him/Her/It that we are practicing the same religion, only without the nice "Do no harm" bit .Merlin |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 01:38 PM |
| I read "What Happened Before the Big Bang" and got no answers. Here is one quote: "In short, it [the big bang] need not have been a supernatural event." This does not say that it WAS NOT, juat that it need not. Also, here's a great quote: "The essence of the Hartle-Hawking idea is that the big bang was not the abrupt switching on of time at some singular first moment, but the emergence of time from space in an ultrarapid but nevertheless continuous manner. On a human time scale, the big bang was very much a sudden, explosive origin of space, time, and matter. But look very, very closely at that first tiny fraction of a second and you find that there was no precise and sudden beginning at all. So here we have a theory of the origin of the universe that seems to say two contradictory things: First, time did not always exist; and second, there was no first moment of time. Such are the oddities of quantum physics." So, explain that one? Contradictions in a theory? Doesn't that mean the theory is bogus if you were to use the same critiical thought you apply to the Bible? You mean these things just happen to pop in and out of existence? Just because? Sounds like people are trying to fill in the gaps to me. Another quote: "Even with these further details thrown in, many people feel cheated. They want to ask why these weird things happened, why there is a universe, and why this universe. Perhaps science cannot answer such questions. Science is good at telling us how, but not so good on the why. Maybe there isn't a why. To wonder why is very human, but perhaps there is no answer in human terms to such deep questions of existence. Or perhaps there is, but we are looking at the problem in the wrong way." Science may not have the answer? Imagine that. I've never claimed to have hard physical evidence for my faith in God because I don't have it. Faith is a gift. And, I don't care what I read, my faith will not be shaken. Give me all of the science you want me to read because at some point, it will hit a wall, just like this big bang theory did, and it will be unexplained. My explanation is God. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 01:40 PM |
| Yes, I know of the pagan origins of the Christmas holidays. I don't care. If God can make the point in timeless time from which time came into existence, I think he can make a pagan holiday into a Christian one. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 01:45 PM |
| I'm not some mindless idiot like most of you think. I've been to college and I've earned a Master's Degree in Counseling. I've done studies, I've been taught the scientific method and how to think critically. But, that does not mean that there aren't things which I can't just take on faith. I don't know why God allows evil. I don't know why God allowed that tidal wave to kill thousands. I don't know why he allows innocents to be harmed. I don't know why people choose to harm innocents! But, I can know God because he came to us as the second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. To know him is to know God. I can learn about him from the Church and from the Bible. In those two things I have faith. I do not have faith in men, either within or from without the Church, but I do have faith in the offices of those men (ie, Bishops and Popes). Faith is a gift that must be accepted. I believe God gives that gift to all, but not all accept it. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 01:51 PM |
| Oooh goody! I counted at least 2 "I don't care's" in your repy munari. If you dismiss the facts we present to you, no matter how many degree's you thump around we are going to dismiss you. Until you start looking at the facts we present to you and actually START USING the scientific method your poor science teacher drilled into you, we are going to assume you are a dullard. Your replies are only proving us right, dear. That being settled, I need to move on to brighter things . If you ever see your error munari, let me know. Until then, don't wait by the phone.Merlin |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 01:55 PM | ||
Well, thing is, he didn't!. Christ was born in September. The church moved it to December to make conversions more palatable to pagans, since they already celebrated the rebirth of the sun. Merlin |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 30 2004, 01:56 PM | ||
But you did notice it saying, "such is the oddities of quantum physics." didn't you? I think I also included another link which is accessible from the page you just read. You just click on TIME BEGAN and it will take you http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/daybegan.html where it goes deeper into quantum mechanics. "'Time does not switch on in Hartle and Hawking's theory, it emerges continuously from space. There is no first moment at which time starts, but neither does it extend backwards for all eternity' Impossible predictions For example, take a collection of uranium atoms suffering radioactive decay due to quantum processes in their nuclei. There will be a definite time period, the half-life, after which half of the nuclei present should have decayed. But according to Heisenberg it is not possible, even in principle, to predict when a given nucleus will decay. If you ask, having seen a particular nucleus decay, why the decay event happened at that moment rather than some other, there is no deeper reason, no underlying set of causes, that explains it. It just happens. The key step for cosmogenesis is to apply this same idea not just to matter, but to space and time as well. Because space-time is an aspect of gravitation, this entails applying quantum theory to the gravitational field of the Universe. The application of quantum mechanics to a field is fairly routine for physicists, though it has to be said that there are special technical problems associated with the gravitational case that have yet to be satisfactorily resolved ("Can gravity take a quantum leap?", 10 September 1994, p 28). The quantum theory of the origin of the Universe therefore rests on shaky ground. In spite of these technical obstacles, one may say quite generally that once space and time are made subject to quantum principles, the possibility immediately arises of space and time "switching on", or popping into existence, without the need for prior causation, entirely in accordance with the laws of quantum physics. The details of this process remain both subtle and contentious, and depend to some extent on the interrelationship between space and time. Einstein showed that space and time are closely interwoven, but in the theory of relativity they are still distinct. Quantum physics introduces the new feature that the separate identities of space and time can be "smeared" or "blurred" on an ultramicroscopic scale. In a theory proposed in 1982 by Hawking and American physicist Jim Hartle, this smearing implies that, closer and closer to the origin, time is more and more likely to adopt the properties of a space dimension, and less and less likely to have the properties of time. This transition is not sudden, but blurred by the uncertainty of quantum physics. Thus time does not switch on abruptly in Hartle and Hawking's theory, but it emerges continuously from space. There is no specific first moment at which time starts, but neither does time extend backwards for all eternity..." Contradictions exist, but one should only dismiss it if they can't be resolved. So, although your attempt to use logic is commedable, it really just shows your lack of understanding. Read more... I missed where it said that Science may not have the answer? |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 30 2004, 01:57 PM | ||
Oh yes...the emeny of humanity. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 30 2004, 01:59 PM | ||
Faith is a curse, not a gift. It robs mankind of reason and progress and compassion. It creates laziness and pride and hate. You may not actually BE a mindless idiot, and you may BE trained in critical thinking, but you are voluntarily choosing to throw out the critical thinking and assume the attributes of a mindless idiot. I actually respected you up to your last 3 posts. You really blew it, at least in my eyes. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Dec 30 2004, 02:01 PM | ||
Being taught is different than application. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 02:43 PM |
| Let me clarify what I meant by "Faith is a gift that must be accepted." I dind't mean that someone must accept it, but that in order to have it and use it, it must be accepted. And also, let me clarify "I don't care what I read, my faith will not be shaken." IF, and its a HUGE if, someone can prove to me that there is no God, then I would stop believing in him because at that point, its no longer faith and reason (which are completely compatible), but plain ignorance and hard headedness. The only problem with that is that God cannot be disproven, just like he cannot be proven in a scientific sense. When it gets to that point, my reason for faith may be made more so on selfish reasons. You see, I know I'm human, I know I make mistakes, and my mistakes may enter into my logic. Unless my logic is 100% accurate and without flaw, I can make a mistake. If I make the slightest mistake, or look at something in the wrong way, my entire conclusion can be wrong. If my entire conclusion is wrong based on my flawed use of logic, then I will reject something that is true as false. When it comes to God, I do not want to take that chance because if I am wrong, the consequences could be eternal. Does that make sense and help you understand where I'm coming from? I would suggest reading something called "Faith and Reason" by Pope John Paul II. Again, I have not read it myself, but I have heard many good things about it. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 02:44 PM |
| Oh! Here it is online... I thought it was an entire book, but its an encylcial. I will have to read it. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 02:54 PM | ||
And what could be valid proof, pray tell? Nothing. God is unprovable. Therefore(if you started applying that scientific method you claim to have learned) the burden of proof is on you to prove it. Facts are assumed false until proven true. If you try to change that you will only get contempt and shown the door. And then you WONDER why we keep bowing you off?? Merlin |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 30 2004, 03:16 PM | ||||||||
You know, with logic there are ways to test if you are or not. That's one of the best things about logic, it removes uncertainty.
You're doing it already.
No, it's called Pascal's wager and it makes just as little sense as it did when Pascal said it.
Is my criticism of you being a lazy thinker sinking in yet? I would suggest you don't suggest reading anything that you have not read yourself. It's really quite condescending. |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 30 2004, 03:50 PM | ||||||||||||||||||
Any way you can squeaze God in there will do, huh? What you've done here is regressed to the point of where you're protecting God from being disproven rather than making a good argument in favor of his existence. Arguments need to have positive verification in it's favor. Not this sort of wishful thinking nonsense. Sorry, but this isn't an argument in favor of anything.
NBBTB handled this wonderfully, so I'll only make a brief point on this. What you've done is quoted one small part of a larger work to make it seem as though there was a problem in quantum physics. Yet upon reading the entire work, we find that there is really no problem at all. This is what is commonly known as "quote-mining", and it's a dastardly technique that Christians (usually creationists) use all the time. We're quite familiar with it, and we're prepared for it when it comes up. There's a http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html which goes to great lengths to attack such techniques.
This is utterly ignorant and the usual contempt for science that Christians display all the time. Science was never meant to answer everything. It never said it could. There are always going to be more mysteries in our universe. Just when we think we have everything figured out, nature throws us a curve. This is normal, and it would be unreasable to put such lofty expectations on science. But the reason why we trust science is because it works. It's the only system of discovery that we have that is reliable.
I'll paraphrase Dan Barker some more here. Faith is a cop-out. When you use the word faith, you are admitting that the assertions you take as true cannot be trusted on their own merit. You need this unreasonable commitment in order to accept religion as true. Faith is a form of agnosticism, because if you knew it was true, you wouldn't need faith.
You've just admitted that you have a closed mind. In other words, even if we could show you that your faith is just a wacky cult off-shoot of the Jewish religion (which it is!), you would still have faith in it. Open-mindedness is not necessarily the acceptance in someone else's ideas, but it's the admission that any one of us could be wrong. You've breached this very principle.
But the problem is that your position is already ignorant, because you're accepting a concept without a shred of verification. That is utterly illogical. Logic is not that in which you believe something until it is disproven. If you do that, then all assertions are valid until they are proven false. We can give credence of other deities and leprechauns and fairies, because none of those can be disproven either. True logic relies on proof or at least some form of conditional acceptance in order to have belief. That is the only way it can be done.
Yeah. You're admitting that your faith is irrational, because it's based on fear. You're afraid of the consequence. You're looking out for yourself. Read your own words and consider to yourself if you think any deity would consider that kind of faith sincere. I don't think it's sincere at all. It's cowardly. Those of us who are regulars on this site have the bravery to face this so-called danger. We're not bothered by it. We've escaped the trap that you're in right now.
Only because you don't understand the Big Bang, despite having it explained to you over and over... Despite pulling a quote from an article that, had you read, would have answered a few of your questions.
That's no an explanation. Explanations are mechanistic. Your solution to the mysteries of the universe is that some magic being can willfully break the laws of physics, and this is your explanation for whatever you can't explain. That's pathetic. |
| Posted by: GreyGirl Dec 30 2004, 03:55 PM | ||
The Invisible Pink Unicorn holds up the moon so it doesn't fall to the earth and kill us all. Clearly, this is true, because the moon *hasn't* fallen to the earth and killed us. The Invisible Pink Unicorn loves us and wants to protect us from the moon, but we have to love and worship her in order for that to happen. If we don't love and worship her, she'll cry, and then she might drop the moon (not because she wants to, mind you, but because she had to to teach us the consequences of not loving and worshipping her), and it will fall to the earth and kill us all. So I guess you'll be worshipping the Invisible Pink Unicorn now, huh? Because I can't prove that she's holding up the moon, but you can't prove that she's not. And I know you don't want to take the chance of the moon falling to the earth and killing us all. The consequences could be eternal if you're wrong. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 03:59 PM | ||||
[sarcastic]ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY CONFLICTED PINK UNICORN![/sarcastic] Or better yet, all hail GreyGirl for nailing it in one. Merlin |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 30 2004, 04:09 PM |
| GreyGirl |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 30 2004, 04:25 PM | ||
Guess what munari, the pope is a man. No matter what goofy hat he's sporting. A very frail old man suffering from Parkinson's who will soon be dead. A fallible, weakening, man. You can't distrust man while trusting the titles that men give to other men. That's like saying I wouldn't eat poison but if it's mixed with cookie dough then it's a-okay. |
| Posted by: MrSpooky Dec 30 2004, 05:20 PM |
| I cackled like the bitter, loveless heathen I am, Cerise. I really did. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 05:29 PM | ||
| wow, the hate towards me is seething now. So is the emotion. Emotion renders logic useless, and most of you seem quite emotional in regards to the existence of God. "Logic" is no different than any theologians theory. Why is that? Because, there are logisians out there that say, "Hey, God exists and here's why" claiming that his logic is sound. And then, on the other side, a logician is saying. "No, you're wrong, your logic is faulty and here's why." Both logicians are calling the other's logic false. It does not matter. One will follow what they believe is true or logical, and if a claim does not follow your point of view, it will be considered illogical and by some, considered idiotic. For example, I found this site: http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/02/17/4031d9166ab57 Greygirl, If you're story of the pink unicorn myth survives two thousand years and has billions of followers, then perhaps I'll believe you a little more. Its ridiculous. Mr. Neil, I didn't quote that line about, "In short, it [the big bang] need not have been a supernatural event," to be a proof for God, I quoted it to point out that even the author of this article is completely annihilating God from even having a chance at existing.
That kind of sounds like what most of the people on this board do with the Bible... I have no contempt for science because science will only prove God more than disprove him. I do not fear any scientific explanation. But I know where science ends and faith begins. Despite what people think, stating things like "time just began" or that time seeped forth slowly from a timeless time or something else like that makes as much sense as a statement of faith. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 05:51 PM | ||||||||||||||||
That's a laugh. You get publicly eviscerated by the members, you can't disprove their points, so your only recourse is to make a groundless ad hominem attack.
That's comic. Simple(and obvious) answer is both are wrong, by your very definition. Logic cannot once and for all disprove the existence of a god, no more than it can prove it. What it CAN do, and why many of the members here are not christian, is say that there is no solid proof for the existence of god. All the miracles and holy events you can list can be easily explained by either modern science or an exaggerated story.
So your belief is based entirely in mob mantality? A simple popularity vote? That's IT?! Also, Christianity doesn't have "billions" of believers.
Is that supposed to invalidate the point that line made?
Again with the context rant. This was slaughtered two threads ago. Quantum Physics is ONE body of work, not a frankenstein hoge-podge of various prophets that have nothing to do with each other. It's moot and invalid. Try again...
And when it disproves his believers?
If you show me an accepted scientist saying "time just began" I'll eat my hat. What Scientists DO say is that they don't know exactly how time began, but they have several ideas. You're confusing scientists with theologians. Merlin |
| Posted by: Cerise Dec 30 2004, 05:52 PM | ||
You're right, that is ridiculous. You're saying majority makes truth? A lot of people used to believe that black people were inferior to white people for a very long time munari. Does that make it true? |
| Posted by: Mr. Neil Dec 30 2004, 06:19 PM | ||||||||||||||
You can dispense with the ad hominems. They won't work here. If the responses seem heated to you, consider the fact that a lot of us put a lot of time into answering your posts, and what we get in return are evasive answers, and what we get in return are evasive answers. It's a little offensive when we can sense that you're not taking our arguments seriously.
You know, it was funny enough that you decided to attack the big bang the second you discovered that it doesn't jive with your theology. You went and found a quick quote so you can attempt to throw it out. Now you're attacking the very principle of logic, and I find it equally hilarious. This is a very desperate and naive argument that you're attempting to use here. With no other alternative, you have to come up with these absurd rationalizations to make every argument stand on equal ground. Well, they don't. The difference between you and everyone else here is that we can explain why our logic follows. For example, I can explain why fear of eternal punishment is irrational, because fear has no bearing one whether or not something is true. And the reason why that's a valid argument is because it's based on something that is true. But you don't explain anything at all. You just fit God in wherever there's a gap. We're getting tired of reading this shit, Munari.
You know what? I shouldn't even respond to this. I should make you reread my original post and respond to it again. I didn't say that you were trying to use the quote as a proof for God. I was pointing out your backpedaling. This is what happens when you debate a Christian long enough. They always fall back on, "You can't disprove God". Every single fucking time. I specifically said that you were falling back on defending God rather than making a positive argument. Unless my memory deceives me, that's exactly what I said. I also said that it was not a valid argument for anything. What you did was nothing short of an act of desperation.
Nice attempt to change the subject, Kent. They typical knee-jerk response. Provide us with some examples of Bible verses being taken out of context by the members of this forum.
Unless, of course, it's something like the big bang theory, which works against your theology. Then you don't like it.
You can dispense with the strawman attacks as well. They're not doing you credit at all. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 06:56 PM |
| I started a post on the big bang if any would like to join. Some of you may have by now... |
| Posted by: MrSpooky Dec 30 2004, 06:59 PM |
| Munari, I'm very skeptical as to how well you've studied logic. Laws of logic are established in two ways: a reduction to absurdity (a pretty elegant little shortcut, really. And is self-supporting) or by demonstrating that the law is of such necessity that its logical denial would also entail its verification. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 07:24 PM |
| I have not study logic. Its a course that I wanted to take in college, but I was unable to do so and meet my other requirements due to class scheduling and time restraints. Do you know of a "online course" that would be unbiased in all directions? My knowledge of logic comes from beginning geometry, a smattering of calculus, mathematics. Pretty basic stuff. However, I still stand by my statement that there are logicians that would disagree upon the logicalness of a position. To state otherwise would be illogical. |
| Posted by: LloydDobler Dec 30 2004, 07:46 PM | ||||
That's rich coming from you. You rather flippantly dismiss as figurative any part of the bible that doesn't jibe with your understanding of catholic doctrine. At very least, we presume the bible to be attempting to say what it means. And at least several of us here have read the bible all the way through. Regarding your other posts: Are you really suggesting that logic is subjective? |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 07:51 PM | ||
Bull. If logic is not universal, logic is meaningless. But that's exactly what you want. TROUBLE IS..... Logic has stood the test of wiser men and women than you. Also, if there are two logicians who disagree on a point where all the facts are illuminated.... No, it can't happen. Sorry. Logicians disagree where the facts are not incomplete, where they don't have the complete picture. Other than that, if there are two mutually exclusive arguments to one basic set of complete facts that are both true, we are in big trouble. That's like saying both 2+2=3 and 2+2=5 are true. Perfect for doublethink. Laughable for freethinkers. Merlin |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 30 2004, 08:47 PM | ||
I know why. A non-existent being can't stop anything. What happened is consistent with the non-existence of a perfectly good god. A preponderance of the evidence points to its non-existent state. |
| Posted by: Castleberry Dec 30 2004, 08:54 PM |
| Munari, sweetheart! My heart hurts for you! Situations like yours are certainly more difficult. When I was still a Christian and worked in the Academic field with Biblical Exegesis driven Theology (as opposed to Systematic Theology), it was amazing to watch theories that had existed in peoples minds for years crumble. It wasn't so much that they had this balancing scale they weighed things on, it's that for a while they decided to entertain the new notion or theology that was given them. They let it "sink in" and they worked it with their other thoughts and other possibilities. Many times it caused a gigantic paradigm shift if their mind, but they felt they had found the truth. I know you will never de-convert based on seeming "facts" and "clear" and "logical" points that disprove your faith. This is especially difficult because you have a "filter" between you and the "Trinity," (the Catholic church) that you constantly align yourself with. Instead of trying to "disprove" anything to you, I just want you to try and live in our shoes. Have you not ever thought of leaving the faith? If so, for what reasons did you return? When you have the "hard questions" that pop up, do you just "take it on faith," or consult some "higher" Catholic source that tells you what to believe? I know we often seem harsh, but Munari you are frustrating! I know you probably try to be "open minded" to us, and I understand it's hard! I often feel it's an impossibility for me to be "open minded" to things that most Christians have to say (at least theologically, not necessarily archeologically in certain cases). I just want you to know that I have a deep burden for the saved, just as most of the saved have deep burdens for the un-saved! Instead of looking for "facts" to disprove your faith, why don't you try living with the possibility that there is no God, that "he's" merely the "opium of the masses," or that he's merely an anthropological development of an ordinary man that claimed extraordinary things. Try entertaining the assertion that those in the Vatican, and the Bishops, etc. have no "direct line" or perfect ability to interpret scripture (the pope included). Just keep an open mind! If I were a christian this is where I'd say, "i'll be praying for you." haha... so I'll be thinking about you. |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 09:22 PM | ||
| Castleberry, Thank you for the post. It was quite nice.
Yes, I have thought about it. When I was in college, I took an exploring religions class and started leaving my faith. I was taught about many different religions can all lead to God. I started questioning whether or not God was the Christian God. However, my belief all leaned towards Christianity more so than any other due to my upbringing, which was only nominally Catholic. While in college, I had some questions that I posed to a Christian friend about why Jesus over these other faiths and what was important about Christ and other such things. Now, it didn't take much to bring me back as I didn't move away for too long. He brought me wholly back into Christianity. Then, I spoke with my friend who is now a priest. I was thinking that the Eucharist was a tool that was used by the Church to keep the ignorant masses in line and that it was made up. We talked about it and he sent me a book called "The Lamb's Supper" by Scott Hahn and had me read John 6 from the Bible. That convinced me of the Eucharist and brought me back into the Catholic faith and I've been learning since. When I think about the world without God, its seems like I can feel myself shrinking, like the weight of the world starts to crush me. It makes me feel hollow, like there's nothing inside of me. The hard questions that I have had, I have gone to apologists and books for answers. The stuff makes sense. It fits, it is reasonable. But, the important step is faith. Once that step is taken, the rest becomes possible, but not easy. |
| Posted by: spamandham Dec 30 2004, 09:36 PM | ||||||||
I don't know about the other posters, but I don't feel any hate toward you at all. I find your recent posts follow a predictable pattern of those who start by implying that their faith is rooted in reason, and get called to task for it. Don't confuse disrespect with hate.
The logicians can not arrive at different conclusions no matter which system of logic they use, if they start with the same premises and follow the rules of logic. If it is possible for them to arrive at different conclusions given the same premises using a sound set of logical axioms, then contradictions can exist in reality, and all contradictions can be reality. To the extent they disagree, they are disagreeing with the premises, which are outside the systems of logic.
Uhg. Two fallacies in such a short time. It doesn't matter if everyone on earth but you believed this story and had done so since the dawn of man. You should still reject it because it is totally baseless. There is no bound to the number of possible ridiculous unprovable statements.
Double uhg. Science is not in the business of proving or disproving anything supernatural. It is a process for understanding the natural. Even if it could be shown that the universe came into existence instantly 6000 years ago, that would still not prove anything regarding the existence of god from a scientific perspective, as no mechanism can be identified by which the supernatural can create the natural. You still have to resort to "it's magic". |
| Posted by: munari Dec 30 2004, 10:12 PM | ||||
| spamandham, I completely respect your post. You were right on many many points. I didn't ever think you were pushing any hate my way. However, I felt it from others. Now, I could have felt so incorrectly.
THANK YOU for saying that. And, I think you better summed up what I meant to say. The premise must be agreed with. I think in a lot of these cases where people have been getting upset with me is because, from what I can recall without reviewing all of my posts, I was thrown a whole set of logic with a conclusion, which I rejected because I didn't agree with the first premise. If the opening premise is called into question, that must be settled first before you can move forward. Something that I've tried to do on the "Argument for God based on Conscience" thread. We're still trying to clear up the premise. As for my pink unicorn remark... yes, I don't believe that, and I know its not going to be around for 2000 years. However, if something lasts so long, it must be given some creedence, at least enough to debunk it... which is why I ended the post with saying its rediculous.
I can accept this 100%! I agree. However, I have seen some people on here say flat out, "There is no God" and claim they have logical proofs for it. No, that can't be done. Also, people have said the Big Bang removes God, but as you just said, no, it does not. Its not designed for that. It describes nature, not theology. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Dec 30 2004, 10:59 PM | ||||||||||
Ditto. I also wholely agree with munari on one point: Once you accept faith it's downhill(comparatively) from there. Taking something on faith is a big sign though... that you are willing to believe in something that has no proof. An Inherently Illogical belief. |
| Posted by: spamandham Dec 30 2004, 11:09 PM | ||||||||
I'm glad we can continue to have a cordial discussion.
I don't know why you seem to think that the existence of a pink unicorn society for 2000 years would have any relevance to whether or not the unicorn actually exists. For thousands of years, people truly believed that the seven non-"fixed" celestial bodies (sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars, saturn and jupiter) were the eyes of conscious beings they called gods. Does that fact give any creedence to that belief? Of course not. For 1300 years Muslims have believed in their version of a god of works that is at complete odds with the Christian concept. Are they wrong simply because they only have 1300 years under their belts and 2000 years is the cutoff? What about Judaism? It's been around for ~2700 years or more. Pantheism, which originated with Egyptian mythology (if not earlier) still survives today in various forms. It is >5000 years old. It seems that you are implicitly assuming that increased breadth enhances the odds it is true because god would not allow a false religion to become so wide spread and over such a long time period. But this is a post hoc argument. You must first show that it is true that god would not allow this before you can use it as any form of evidence. Of course, that would involve first proving the existence of god. |
| Posted by: Tocis Dec 31 2004, 03:09 AM | ||
There are no "christian" holidays. Live with it, it's true anyway. Your entire "faith's" doctrine is built on lies. |
| Posted by: ChefRanden Dec 31 2004, 10:51 AM | ||||||
As I recall you made the assumption that everyone agreed with your premise. (Chef consults Mr. Peabody's way back machine) Ah yes, here it is
I replied to your post as if your assumption was true, as I usually do to your posts, with the formula if x is true then y must necessarily be the case, if y is absurd then x is absurd. However, in this case I actually agree with the premise. However, I didn't agree that Kreeft and Tacelli's conclusions followed from the premise, which I made clear in my reply. Which reply you ignored. I assumed, that my post was too brilliant and too far over your head for you to refute in your naturally limited time. |
| Posted by: Castleberry Dec 31 2004, 12:46 PM | ||||||||
This is a good thing, some Xtians have argued it takes "more" faith to attempt to leave and disprove the existence of your current faith than it does to just "sit there" in a sense.
So you naturally gravitated back towards it? I hope that's not the reason why you went back. It looks like when you were thinking (taking classes) you started to question your religion, but when you started talking to your friend and stopped critically arguing against your religion, you gravitated back towards what was comfortable for you? How accurate am I on this?
You've got to move beyond reading scriptures and being convinced. You've got to question the authority of those scriptures, don't just take it blindly on faith, have a reason for why you believe the scriptures are inerrant, not just b/c the holy spirit makes you feel they are correct, or b/c the Catholic Church has deemed them as such.
The modern day definition of "faith" is the response of the Catholic church to the scientific revolution. St. Augustine, who was platonic in his theories said, "you can learn science if you want to, but God can change it at any moment so there's no point." Then when Thomas aquinas came into the picture (he was largely aristotelian in his philosophies) said, "Get to know Science! Because ultimately, it can only lead you back to God!" Well the Scientific Revolution started to seemingly "disprove" that science led you back to God. So the church started this whole theory of the "faith bridge" To make it all the way you have to "cross the bridge of faith." I"m not sure what the original New Testament meaning of "faith" was, but it went through a sort of semantic alteration around the time of the Scientific Revolution So I'm just hoping that you use faith for something more than an excuse for all the parts you can't explain. Christians will argue things they have answers to, and then when answers fail them or they see a seeming contradiction they pull the "faith" card. You don't think this is bad? |
| Posted by: munari Jan 2 2005, 05:10 PM | ||
| Spam, I think you may be taking my talk on the pink unicorn too far or as being more important than it is. Let me try and clarify myself a little more. Have you heard this saying. If one person tells you you have a tail, don't worry about it. If two people tell you you have a tail, laugh nervously and try not to let it bother you. If three people tell you you have a tail, you better check in the mirror. Same type of thing here. If three people are claiming they know the Truth of a matter like religion, its not as convincing as is 300 tell you the same thing. Likewise, if a faith has been around for 3 weeks, it won't be as convincing as one that's been around 300 years. I'm just speaking numerically here, not about the actual message. Once the message has been heard and digested, that's when you decide whether or not the faith is correct. As for Judaism, I like to think of Catholicism as the fulfilment of Judaism. After all, all Christianity worships the Jewish Messiah! And, as I've heard from many Jewish converts, the Mass is VERY similar to the temple services. So, Catholicism is the fulfillment and continuation of the Jewish faith. Chef, What you were referring to is on another thread. If you'd like to discuss that more, let's move it back to the other thread to keep this one a little clearner.... its already diluted and messy as is. Castleberry,
I think at first, yes. I was kind of going through the motions... especially because that girl I mentioned before, and my friend were Christian. However, when I spoke with my friend who is now a priest and gave me the scripture and the Scott Hahn book, it clicked and made sense to me. I trust the Church because Christ said that the Church would not be defeated by Satan. And, I believe that. The Church has survived some hard times... most of which were brought about by their own people and leaders! I like to joke, but being halfway serious, that one of the reasons I believe the Catholic Church is THE Church is because if it was not being protect by the Holy Spirit, men would have destroyed it a LONG time ago. |
| Posted by: Merlinfmct87 Jan 2 2005, 07:23 PM | ||||||||
In that case, why aren't yo a Wiccan? That's been around for a LOT longer. Your point is moot, invalid, and idiotic.
First, it's your words. You don't want them used against you, don't say them. Second, this debate is messy because we keep hearing the same old illogical and false arguments. Face it, Goddidit isn't going to work.
ugh. I could use the same lies to defend Islam, Wicca, Buddhism, or any other ancient religion being practiced today. Also, your church survived because it was state sponsored and because the Inquisition destroyed all other religions and scientists that threatened it. Best defense is a good offense. Merlin |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Jan 3 2005, 02:14 PM | ||
What if someone were to prove that he does exist? Would you stop believing because it no longer would require faith, but belief (with proof)? Faith and reason are not compatable. If you take something on faith, you are pretending the fundamental difference between faith and reason does not exist...evidence. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Jan 3 2005, 02:33 PM | ||
Look at that munari...really look at that. Once you take the step to faith, the rest becomes possible. Why? Is it because you have just acted against your logic? Once you do that, all is possible. REALLY think about that. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Jan 3 2005, 02:40 PM | ||||
Speaking of tails.... |
| Posted by: munari Jan 3 2005, 08:30 PM |
| notblinded, God cannot be proven to exist either... The key to this whole thing is Judaism. What do you think of the Jewish faith. Forget Christ and Christianity, just Judaism. |
| Posted by: notblindedbytheblight Jan 4 2005, 08:05 AM | ||
I don't really know enough about it to base a judgement on it. It appears they (most?) knew their scripture enough to reject Christ and to recognize a false messiah for what one was. Most of the conclusions I arrived at (other than the OT) came from http://www.messiahtruth.com/isaiah53a.html site. This site does deal directly with Christ, so that really doesn't answer your question. Once again, I don't know that much about Judaism, because I would have to dismiss the OT, which is (re)written with Christianity in mind. |