Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
What I find strange is you and all your Atheist pal's come here and wage spiritual war.
Maybe you should gather all Atheist's in one place as you keep trying to boast of your numbers, summons all the fallen Angels too. Then you can hurl all yours slurs and put me to Death. You claim Death as non-existence, which is the same claim you make of the One True God. I know Death as separation.............
Folks use the term "afterlife" which is an improper term. The proper term is "after this life".
In so many of your posts you try to make yourself a victim.
Exactly. That we do have a choice infers the evidence for any god is not strong.
No, not really.
Asking for an evidence of God is like, if ask you, would you like to have a banana? And you reply, no, I don’t like oranges.
Belief in God is NOT based on evidence. And this is the premise you either don’t understand or don’t want to understand.
You can probably say, no Thanks. I don’t like bananas.
Quote:
Is that not what a loving god would want, that we all go to heaven and sing his praise? According to Genesis, the Abrahamic god did not create people to have a choice, they were simply a gardener and his wife.
Why would a god give us choice knowing many would fail and not go to heaven?
May be God DOES want you to go Heaven.
But the bigger question is, Do YOU?
Isn’t this the whole idea?
With all the life experiences, by now, you might have learned that almost nothing, that is good, is free. Everything has a price to pay.
And perhaps, the price of Heaven is to have a belief in God and trying to put an effort to live a life as per God’s guidance?
God knows that some people may end up in hell.
The question is, do you want to be among them?
Quote:
So we have a choice based on what you admit is insufficient evidence, and if we make the false choice, it leads to trouble for us? What sort of a god would do that?
Again, back you.
What sorta human will choose to follow the red line when the warning has been issued and rules of the game have been explained?
Belief in god is not based on evidence...for you. Everyone doesn't have to think like you do, or believe what you do. Other people can have different standards for judging belief systems.
yes on that they agree. But there is one line they agree was written by Josephus.
Josephus was a Jew and would have never written that Jesus was the Messiah.
Archeologists and historians agree that was inserted much later in history.
Do you discount that as well ?
You are referring to the brother reference in chapter 20, which based on good arguments is also probably a later insertion.
Now you are disagreeing with yourself. You said there is not sufficient evidence so we can have a choice. Now you are saying not really when I agree with you. And yes really, if you are choosing a god belief, there are around 2000 alleged gods, so without evidence, the chance you are correct will be 1 in 2000.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Asking for an evidence of God is like, if ask you, would you like to have a banana? And you reply, no, I don’t like oranges.
We know bananas and oranges exist, and your fruit salad recipe is a bizarre non sequitur.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Belief in God is NOT based on evidence. And this is the premise you either don’t understand or don’t want to understand.
You can probably say, no Thanks. I don’t like bananas.
Another non sequitur from you, especially when many theists DO make arguments for a god based on what they consider evidence (a premise you either don’t understand or don’t want to understand).
And if belief in gods is not based on evidence, and apparently there are around 2000 alleged gods, then any belief will probably be wrong. Which is why one needs to look at the evidence, a premise you either don’t understand or don’t want to understand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
May be God DOES want you to go Heaven.
But the bigger question is, Do YOU?
Isn’t this the whole idea?
With all the life experiences, by now, you might have learned that almost nothing, that is good, is free. Everything has a price to pay.
And perhaps, the price of Heaven is to have a belief in God and trying to put an effort to live a life as per God’s guidance?
God knows that some people may end up in hell.
The question is, do you want to be among them?
You could try answering the actual question instead of the usual theist trick of diverting by asking a different question. I do not play that game, so once again "Is that not what a loving god would want, that we all go to heaven and sing his praise? Why would a god give us choice knowing many would fail and not go to heaven? "
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Again, back you.
What sorta human will choose to follow the red line when the warning has been issued and rules of the game have been explained?
1, the usual evasion of my question.
2, so now a warning has been given, and the rules explained about something you admit has no evidence for. You do realize that is how insurance reinvestment scams work?
Ok, I thought about making this 2 different threads but I'm really trying to avoid creating multiple threads on this forum.
First topic: Evidence...
It seems obvious that atheists and Christians have different ideas of what "evidence" is. What a Christian accepts as evidence of God's existence, an atheist may reject. Example: A Christian will say "the bible is evidence that God exists" and an atheist will respond back saying "no, the bible is evidence that a person or a bunch of people creates a lot of stories, bundled it into a book, and promoted the idea of a religion".
So what do you guys, atheists and Christians, consider as evidence?
Is the Bible evidence? Sure. So is the Quran. And Dianetics. And the Epic of Gilgamesh. And the claims of those people who put on Nikes and asphixiated themselves so they could ride on the spaceship behind the comet. But none of that is evidence that's remotely compelling. It's just testimony.
Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiz02
If I saw a vision of Jesus one night and I was not under the influence of alcohol, took no drugs and medicine, and was completely lucid and sober and I can vow on my bank account (which currently doesn't have that much money at the moment but that's besides the point...) that I saw Jesus, no atheist would believe me. I would not be able to provide any proof or evidence that I saw Jesus. I could say "I saw Jesus. He came to me, said bla bla bla to me, then vanished" and atheists would just tell me I need to get my head checked. The only proof I could provide is to get a polygraph test that shows I am not making the story up.
How much weight would you give to someone who said 'I saw Jesus and he told me to kill Bob, and that's why I killed Bob, so you must find me not guilty'? How seriously would you consider that? And before you come back with 'Well, Jesus would never do that' - nope, any such claim inherently involves defining the nature of Jesua and thereby accepting his existence, and you can't expect your mere assumptions to be convincing to anyone who is not making the same assumptions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiz02
I can imagine many people on this planet have "experienced" something but were laughed at or told very few people about their experience.
What if there is evidence but it has not been revealed yet?
What if there's evidence that you're a murderer but it has not been revealed yet? What do you think we should do with that possibility?
Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiz02
Second topic: The bible...
My question is: how do you guys read and interpret it?
I say this because in literally every argument I've seen from both atheists and Christians, biblical scripture is used. A lot of people say the bible is filled with fantasy stories. Others say the bible is not aligned with science. Some say the bible could be legit but say "I refuse to worship a God that murders people".
The obvious heinous nature of the Bible deity has nothing to do with my lack of belief. The obviously incredibility of the Bible is the issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by compwiz02
I personally believe the bible should not be taken literally word-for-word. I do believe a real person (or persons) wrote the scripture (there's evidence that many scriptures were written by someone). What were they thinking while they were writing the scripture? I have no idea. Was the writer a genius? Did they write knowing that many people would not understand what they were writing?
It's fascinating because the interpretation of the bible has caused many people to become atheists and has divided the entirety of Christianity into several branches including Catholicism.
Christians bring these a priori assumptions that the Bible is worthy of minute scrutiny to make sure that every bit of obvious absurdity cannot somehow be explained away, a level of examination that they demand of no other text or claim. All other foundational sources are breezily dismissed as soon as they find anything that is ridiculous. Like a puzzle with a piece that obviously doesn't fit, they quickly reach the (obviously desired from the beginning) conclusion that the puzzle is inherently flawed. But the Bible? They will spend years and years on that puzzle piece. They'll look at it from every direction. They'll find excuses for why it doesn't fit. They'll get out a scissors and re-shape it. Many of them will just ignore it. And in the end, they'll pronounce the Biblical puzzle sound despite that problematic piece over which they spent an inordinate amount of time, while having blithely dismissed all other belief systems for similar reasons after spending no time at all trying to force that faith's round pegs into its square holes.
If someone tells me that leprechauns live in their garden, the onus is not on me to read their 678-paged treatise The Leprechauns in the Gardens, written centuries ago Larry the founder of Leprechaunism. It is not my job to attempt to reconcile all that text's contradictions, to interpret its wild claims, to deal with its sometimes downright evil prescriptions.
The Leprechaunist must bring me actual evidence of leprechauns. Introduce me to a leprechaun. Show me a green little corpse. Point out all the pots of gold at the end of rainbows. That would at least be a start.
But in the end, assertions about some guy two thousand years ago that was a deity are no more credible than stories about leprechauns. And they aren't any more worthy of my consideration than the leprechaun stories. I no more need to exhaustively pore over the New Testament than I do over Dianetics, or over those that claim that Prince Philip is/was a deity (yeah, that's a thing), or the writings of David Koresh or Jim Jones, or the assertions of neo-Druids or voodoo practitioners. And no, Christianity is no more inherently reasonable than any of those. It only appears that way to Christian apologists who have already made the assumptions about it that they haven't made about other religions and their other unverifiable claims.
There's actual physical evidence of about 90 people from the Old Testament.
BAS..Biblical Archeological Society does work on this.
And places mentioned in the Bible have been found.
So there must be some glimmer of truth to the stories.
There undoubtedly is.
The first novel I wrote was set in Minnesota. Minnesota actually exists. It prominently features Van Gogh's Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Van Gogh was a real painter. He painted that work. It is now displayed at that institute. The novel features a great many references to early 21st century technology and American popular culture that actually exist. The protagonist bears some unmistakable similarities to myself. Other characters were based in part on real people.
It is a work of fiction. That said, I suppose what I've noted above means that there's some 'glimmer of truth' to it, in the same way that there is to Moby-Dick. And think the term white whale an apt one to describe the quest for the historical basis for all these works - the Bible included.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
