Some thoughts on religion/christianity

(Oh, he's there alright, but, only I can see him )


The problem with this whole thing is, supplying evidence to a nonbeliever for something like this is impossible. You can't show them god, and they have clearly taken this to a concrete level, what you and others see as proof on this, wont work. I am not going to sit here and say your wrong, just that in this instance, what works for you, isn't going to work for them.

Don't get me wrong, I can see your feelings on the matter are clearly in place for a reason. It's just they are on a personal level.........

 

GREAT!! on that we agree. now show me where the theologists closet is and i'll start looking around! you can't make a claim like that without some firm standing or atleast somewhere to look. religion is designed to operate outside of logic for a reason.

1) Why? because religion has to be learned, has to be taught and imposed on young maliable children. Atheisim doesn't have to be taught or celebrated, theisim does. anything that contradicts the laws of nature, physics, and operates outside of coherent logical thought, YES, i'd say that needs to be proved.
2) you asked me to prove i wasn't a dream, thats a crackpot claim.

3) again, you're the one with illogical unjustified beliefs, you're the one with the burden of proof. So i'll ask you again, in hopes that you don't dodge me this time, provide some evidence that there is an invisable undetectable cloud dwelling creator actively interfering with the worlds affairs. or atleast that its even plausible to believe so. if not, then simply admit that there is no evidence. but i bet you already knew that.

 

Only? I'd say 'most' but necessarily only?

So you're using Ockham's Razor here.
Mysticism isn't necessary.

Hmmm...
Seems I got it mixed up with something.
Still only applies to logical arguments though.

Anysway, I'm still early in my looking into this.
I'll talk again in a few months when I've looked over it more.

 

well then, tell me how to go about detecting him.
really, i'm open to any ideas at this point, if you don't claim hes undetectable, then tell me how you propose to go about detecting hi

 

we have? i don't think we've had a discussion about the direct detectability of god.

 

Perhaps you could explain what it is about the big bang theory that you find inaccurate. You must be very gifted scientifically if you think you know cosmology better than the cosmologists.

Also, could you tell me what you mean when you say everything is due to random chance? Are you specifically referring to evolution by any chance? If so, where did you hear/read that it was based on pure random chance?

The assumption that atheists start with is perfectly reasonable - accept only those propositions for which there is sufficient evidence to warrant belief If I said I could fly, surely you'd want to see me soaring through the skies, and you'd want to take a couple precautions to ensure I wasn't doing a magic trick before you accepted my claim, no? We all apply this assumption every to everything, but curiously when it comes to religious beliefs this simple rule is discarded and unsupported propositions are accepted quite easily. The difference between many atheists and theists, not all, but most, is that the atheist consistently applies this premise, while the theist uses special pleading to hold onto their religious beliefs in spite of a tremendous/absolute lack of evidence.

 

If you want to look in our closet, perhaps you could start by reading the Bible?

1) You ignore that enormous numbers of people start to believe in God as adults. Yet somehow militant atheists want to prevent any child from knowing anything about God, thus trying to force them into an atheist view.

2) No crackpot claim at all. How can you logically and substantially prove that you are not a dream or hallucination? Many atheists try to say that any religious experience is a dream or hallucination. Surely, you should be able to prove that you exist, can't you? Yet you would find it difficult if not impossible. You know that.

3) I will admit that my proving that there is a God will be as difficult as you proving there is not one. But you keep trying to dodge that. You want to put onus on everyone else and refuse to accept that it is a two sided issue. But you already knew that. That is why you won't try. Same reason I am not going for it. It would be almost impossible to prove either way.

 

I certainly wouldn't say that I am extremely gifted scientifically nor would I say that know more than the cosmologists.

However, when has any explosion every generated a more complex object than what existed before? When you look at the universe as a whole, things should constantly becoming less ordered and complex than at the point of the big bang. Yet, subscribing to the big bang theory says just the opposite. I would expect that the universe would be almost all simple hydrogen gas floating a very long ways from the center of the explosion.

When I say random chance, I mean what is the likelihood that the right materials will combine in the specific sequences to produce life? In our own solar system, we have other planets that could produce life but there is no evidence of it. The orbits are supposedly wrong, or the size, or wrong concentration of chemicals to produce life. That seems pretty random to me.

The Bible has examples of people that didn't believe until it was proven to them. Joseph was not inclined to believe Mary about a virgin birth until the angel told him. Thomas did no accept the resurrection until he saw the Risen Christ. Paul was not buying any of the Jesus being the Messiah until he had an encounter on the way to Damascus. That doesn't sound like people just turn off their reason just for religion, although I am sure that some probably do. That sounds like they wanted a rational explation until they got shown a religious one that fit better and proved it to them. In my case, I see things that don't make sense to me based on a purely physical and natural explanation. That is why I seek a supernatural one.

 

sorry, the bible doesn't hold any physical proof of anything, just a book thats been translated and changed more times than i can count.
1) not at all. i've had this discussion. i think you should look into the "childrens freedom" thread. i would never force my child into an atheistic, point of view. i would provide both sides, and explain the pros and cons as best i could. and let the kid decide for themselves, i just think you should do your best to wait until your child can comprehend the concept of rational thought, which studies suggest isn't until about 13.
2)telling me that i need to validate that my existance isn't a hallucination is a crackpot claim, and its easy to do. it it was, i wouldn't be able to meaningfully communicate via the internet/phone/verbally physically, nor would anyone around me have any substantial memory or proof of my existance.
3) there, thats all you had to say "its almost impossible either way" But because you're the one making the claim the burden of proof is on you, always will be. i'm not making a claim. as i said, religion was designed to operate outside of logical dissection for a reason. the concept of god is not logical in that sense. i think maybe you should apply ockham's razor here my friend. its like asking you to disprove the idea that theres an invisable undetectable elephant orbiting jupiter injecting cocaine into his eyeballs while arm-wrestling an astral projection of randy couture. you can't prove it isn't true, but your ability to operate and use inductive reasoning should tell you it sounds like a bunch of crap, same applies to religion.

 

1) I participated in that thread. I know your side of it. I do have a hard time conceiving one of the two biggest evangelists of atheism on this forum would provide both sides of the debate in a reasonable manner when you routinely say that people that hold the opposite view are irrational and try to make fun of them.
2) How exactly would you prove that you are not merely part of a dream? If you can't grasp the basics of this exercise, you can't grasp the difficulty in proving anything. As was mentioned by another person, proving anything has to start with assumptions.
3) You still fail to realize that you are making a claim. I claim that I believe the claims of the Bible. You claim there is no God. If we did not have contradictory claims, there would be no debate but rather agreement. Thus you are making claims and refuse to admit it. I can't decide whether you are being dishonest or you just can't grasp the concept.

Your stating Occam's Razor in that paragraph really didn't make sense.

 

i am not the one making a claim, saying you believe in the incompatible stories in the bible, thats a claim, saying, i believe in gravity isn't a claim, its common sense, its a conclusion based on observation, as is atheisim, a conclusion based on observation. if you don't understand ockams razor, then i give up, theres no possible way to continue this discussion if you don't understand that. the point i was making was that just because you can't find a way to DISPROVE it, doesn't mean that it isn't ridiculous. thats the point. and since you want to play the reverse question game, i ask you to prove that I AM a dream,. you see, your unwillingness to accept a few basic premises, and even attempt to defend your cause rationally with physical evidence is making this a very circular and pointless conversation.

 

Tekken, I am the one that admitted long ago that proving something is very difficult ( I may have been the first to say so in this thread, I don't remember though). Yet you consistently want me and others to prove stuff yet you are totally unwilling to try and prove anything.

Newton made claims about gravity and about how the universe works. You are making a claim when you say there is no god. If you can't grasp that, there really can't be much of a discussion.

I do understand Occam's Razor. I am not sure you do though based on how you referred to it in the paragraph. Or it could be just that your paragraph is poorly written or maybe I am too tired to read it tonight. But it didn't seem to make sense for you to refer to it the way you did.

 

you're not asking me to prove anything, you're asking me to disprove something that is immune to logic (the concept of god)

as for proving that i'm not a hallucination, i think thats already been covered, and its a moot point.

if you understand occams razor, then that analogy illustrates it perfectly.
the razor implies that you study the simplist explination, and in retrospect, what is easier to understand, that there simply is no crack addict arm-wrestling jupiter inhabiting elephant at all, it doesn't exist, or to spend the next 1000 years assigning attributes and limitations to an unknowable entity?

 

No. That’s called updating knowledge in line with new evidence.

Scientists claims were/are rational and logical, based on they evidence and knowledge they had available. When they get new/additional evidence that requireds the original idea(s) to be amended or change, it would be irrational to stick with the original idea, hence they update their theories and hypothesis.

The big bang wasn’t an “explosion”

Do you not see the contradiction in that statement?

 

:woo: HAHAHAH!!! lmao So true.

 

I am asking you to prove your claim that there is no god.

You can't prove that you are not an hallucination or dream just as proving anything is extremely difficult. So why demand that others prove something to you?

Actually, that is not Occam's Razor, although it is close. Occam's razor is really that you should make the mimimum number of assumptions that are possible and then eliminate ones that have no bearing. While it is often stated as the simplest answer is Usually the best, that is not correct. And in the analogy that you gave, what amount of assumptions can I make that are less? That is why I asked how it applies.

 

The hypothesis with the mimimum number of assumptions IS the simplist hypothesis, which is exactly what TG said!

Right. But who here said it was? So what relevant is it in bringing it up?