at least you are sober enough to recognize that it was not an argument intended to *show* the truth of Christianity.

actually no, I have made a few topics here at rationalresponders, and no one ever understands my point hte first time. You did miss my point, and the question was why should I give up *my* faith in God. I had no intention of convincing an atheist to believe in God.

*Looks up from full-color Raelian brochure*

Huh?

Atheism isn't a denial or belief that god does not exists, but a lack of belief in a deity.  No positive assertion of knowledge.

Are you saying that without a belief in a deity you wouldn't live your life any differently? 

[Edit: fixed some spelling and forgot to add this:  Which is commendable, and would be similar to my situation, nothing changed about my life after I acknowledged the fact that I didn't have any evidence to suppose a deities existence.  ]

Well since you asked. There is a secret group of atheist scientist that are working on the technology to resurrect people from the dead. These scientists are real hard asses, but we love and worship them anyway. They demand that everyone that is resurrected should should love and worship them. For this the will put us into a state of constant bliss for time eternal.

If you refuse to renounce religion and don't force yourself to not believe in God, you will be tortured with the continually pain for an interminable existence. It would be like a combination electrodes on your testicles, waterboarding, watching Pauly Shore movies and having bamboo shove up your fingernails all at the same time, only a trillion times worse.

I know it may be difficult to love these scientists and believe this story, but they are all good and perfect and must never be questioned. You must force yourself to love them. And they can't be fooled cause they can read every thought you have. Only a few of us have ever heard from these scientists, but fortunately we have a book describing their experiences.

Hope that clears things up.

 

I'm sorry was that supposed to be insulting?  I'm honored!  Not just because I think tektonics is the biggest proprietor of horse manure in apologetics, but that you would do me justice as to suggest I stand in opposition to such horse manure really makes me swell with pride.  I am happy to accept your nomination as the person you feel most likely contradicts the values laid out at Tektonics!  I hope I am nominated so I can feel even more like your intellectual superior.  In fact, I hope I am nominated so that I can flaunt the fact that you're such an idiot, you actually feel this is some sort of insult! 

I told you already.  It would be beneficial as it would be removing your deluded, ignorant perception of reality and replacing it instead with actual, verifiable data.

Because it is clearly causing your brain to lack functionality in critical thought.

That's really irrelevant, since you give power to the people who do cause horrible things.  They can say, "Look, 98% of american theists are Christians" giving authority to their already deluded perspectives.  You are a factor in the crimes against humanity committed by your fellow Christians.   Just as every Nazi was a part of the strength that party held, you are a part of the strength that fundamentalist bigots use against government.  You give them power by accepting that these crimes, although not your fault, are a part of the dogma you adhere to.  You are as much responsible for these crimes as those who committed them precisely because by accepting the label you have accepted the possibility that such crimes can happen again in the future. 

Because right now you look like a babbling nimrod. 

It was relevant.  You just don't like the fact that I can give you an actual, credible reason why your belief in God is harmful to everyone around you and to yourself.

Fine, but that doesn't change my point.  If we assume from the outset that God does not exist, that would mean that especially *in this argument* you are accepting something without evidence.  Are you really this dense?

Right.  We're assuming God does not exist.  Therefore you are believing in something without evidence.  The benefit for being an atheist is you no longer have to accept something based off of your complete ignorance of the world.  Henceforth, you would cease believing in things without evidence.  Capice?  Or do I have to spell it out for you monosyllabically?

Translation:  "Holy shit, he asked me to back up my baseless assertion!"

So what you're saying is that because a scientific journal hasn't published a paper refuting or accepting the possibility of fairies, then fairies might indeed exist because Science is so anti-fairy (due to its limitations and the philosophy of science) that it just cannot examine the "supernatural" realm that fairies live in.  This is great news!  Lets all go to the local Ward and have them release all those fairy-seeing individuals, because obviously they might be right! 

You are so brainwashed, friend. 

No, because God would not necessarily play into a resurrection.  If resurrections happen that would not prove God.  It would only prove the validity of resurrections.  You are making an extreme logical leap by assuming that one would prove the other.  More specifically, if another test were done to prove a link between resurrections and personal gods, it would not mean that YOUR god is the personal god doing the resurrecting.  It could be any one of a million of gods believed in since man invented the concept.

Try to publish a paper with a peer-reviewed scientific journal that fairies do not exist.  Because in your twisted world of logic, we should just assume the existence of everything until science proves it otherwise.  Why not just believe in all Gods and all mythical creatures?  After all, they all have the exact same amount of evidence for their existence.  Zero.  Yet, no published study has ever been written on unicorns and their nonexistence, so you should really not be a hypocrite here and believe in them as well.

Wow are your sources one-sided.

Perhaps you're missing the original dodge of yours that I was responding to?  I had to console you after I seemed to have disrupted your barrier of incredibly thin skin.  You're the one who got all emotional and changed the subject.  I'm sorry if insulting your delusions makes you hurt inside.  Here, have a tissue.

So far asking you to present an argument is like pulling teeth from a lion.  You seem extremely offended when I ask you for evidence (which is scholarly and scientific) after labeling the RRS as a group which doesn't uphold standards of scholarly and scientific debate!  You're a complete tool.  And you're not fooling anybody here.

Says the kettle to his LSD-altered perspective, labeling a spoon a pot and calling it black.  Look here. I did not assert the inherent improbability of miracles you fool, I asked you for evidence to back up a baseless assertion.  You probably do not grasp the sheer basics of logic, but you can't have an "argument" without evidence.  You certainly have a lot of complaints, a lot of assertions, but nothing substantial.  So far in this discussion you're not but an ant who dreams of becoming a Myrmidon.  

You don't even understand the basic concepts of logical argumentation, you aren't informed enough to be lecturing anybody on the "concept" of debate - whatever that means.

Sure, lie some more.

You must have a pretty sore ass by now.

In other words you have done nothing but project your insecurities onto others who are more intellectual, more rationally motivated than you could ever be.

But yet you'll still believe in ridiculous concepts like the resurrection of the body?  Again I have to ask, who the hell do you think you're fooling?  Only brainwashed individuals believe in irrational, mythical fodder like that.  Just because you managed to give up some of the mythical bits does not mean you're any less brainwashed, especially if you believe in more mythical bullshit that comes with the same package. 

You're argument here is like a Tolkien enthusiast who was brought up his whole life believing that Elves, Dwarves and Wizards are real.  They might give up the fact that Elves taught the trees to talk and man language, but if they still believe that Elves and men launched a battle against a mace-wielding wing-holder with immeasurable power, they're still nutters, regardless of how you try to gloss over the fact.  And so are you.

Examples? 

Once more I'm responding to your original dodge. 

Seriously?  Pick up any academic book on catacomb art, sarcophagi inscriptions and sculptures, early paintings, etc...  Here's one for your benefit.

Catacomb art depicting Jesus raising Lazarus with a wand.  2nd Cent. CE

Another one, Byzantine.

Depicted scene of the raising of Lazarus from a Roman sarcophagus, 3rd Cent. CE.

There are many, many others. 

FALSE!  Gymnasiums and Hellenistic places of worship have been uncovered all over Palestine.  Additionally, new studies in socio-cultural jewishness during the Hellenistic period refute this position.  Even if Hellenism had somehow remained aloof in Jewish culture during the third century BCE (even with the huge Hellenistic sites, including many metropoleis), it was most certainly instilled in society by the 2nd century BCE.  No scholar that I have read or know would ever make such a claim as you have.  You need to read recent studies done by Louis Feldman, John J. G. Barclay, Lester Grabbe, Erich Gruen, Philip R. Davies and many others. 

Nope, you're right.  Still doesn't change the fact that some Christians thought of Jesus as a wand-wielding magician. 

{fixed-aiia}

I agree with the other posters. Why do you need to gain something? If it's the truth, it's the truth.

No, we understood it perfectly. You didn't like our answers, so you want to think that we were mistaken.

Again, why does it matter? If the only thing that you care about is the amount of emotional stimulation you get, then you shouldn't choose unbelief. Go join a cult or something.

It's not even an honest question to begin with. You're starting with a flawed assumption. How do you know that theism will help you more than atheism? Because Jesus said so?

If you know anything about religion at all and make this statement, chances are you're an idiot.

Because you're a fundamentalist Creationist?

You're the guy who would rather stay inside the matrix? The answer is: I prefer reality.

 

 

 

I would have thought that you would choose to believe what is true regardless of its happy-making properties.   Truth doesn’t necessarily provide happiness and sometimes the reverse.  But it does provide the quiet satisfaction of personal integrity .       

Your whole argument, such as it is has overtones of Pascal’s Wager, i.e. choose to believe that which gives you most.  I trust you are aware that Pascal’s Wager is totally discredited and that a little close scrutiny reveals the flawed logic and reasoning behind it.  It is actually one of the weakest arguments a theist could come up with.

 

 

 

 

 

Rook, perhaps when I have the energy to deal with you endless string of red herrings, strawmen, and appeals to authority I will do so, but your arguments for pagan influence on Christianity are probably a lot more worthwhile.

and these are where? oh, right, not 1st century palestine palestine but in pagan areas like Byzantium, Rome, Greece, and post 2nd-temple palestine amirite?

given that Christians would compete with art, this should hardly strike you as a surprise.

none of them (places of worship) 1st century BCE or CE. again, my point was Jews became more conservative in their beliefs after the maccabean revolt.

perhaps you should the work of Jonathan Reed. 1st century palestine was extremely conservative. ever wonder why there are no coins minted in 1st century palestine showing a human face? it's because of Roman sensativity to the Jews' observance of the 2nd commandment. have you also wondered why there are so few pork bones found in the excavation sites from 1st century palestine?

the belief of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th century christians is of no relavence. you remind me of the zeitgeist movie touting "born on Dec. 25th" as a parallel.

your civility made me almost feel obligated to respond.

Nordmann, here is the problem, this is not an argument for the truth value of God's existence, but rather is merely an inquiry as to why *I* personally should stop believing in God. Don't forget, I assumed from the outset that God does not exist. Rook Hawkins has failed miserably in demonstrating how my own belief in God does harm to myself and others. Simply put, Atheism, even if true, even if proven beyond doubt, is useless to me. Theism, even if proven to be bullshit (and to this day, no one has accomplished such an endeavor), is useful to me.

Now if you say that I have no critical thinking capacities, perhaps you can check out my responses to Rook Hawkins over at the Jesus mythicist campaign.

 

This is more or less what I had deduced from your earlier contributions. What it says in black and white is that you derive a "use" (whatever that might actually mean) from your subscription to a belief even when and if that belief is proven to be irrational. On that basis alone I would suggest your ability to ever adopt an atheistic view is impaired beyond repair, making your question at the start so hypothetical to be meaningless. Even more impaired, by your own admission, is your ability to become a person who prioritises rationality. So that answers your first question anyway.

 

Your responses to Rook Hawkins regarding the more historical aspects to the development of christian theology would be interesting if they were not always so rooted in (and phrased in) archaic superstitious terms themselves. Rook's approach to theists is normally to take their totems and, through verifiable research, show them up for what they are, which is almost invariably at odds with the theist's assumptions. Personally, as a method of convincing a theist they are wrong I have never found it to be effective since it encourages a lot of arguments conducted using the terminologies and imagery concocted by religionists themselves. Conducted as they are within the theist's "comfort zone" they are therefore prone to become circular arguments of assertion and counter-assertion. Rook has the intelligence, experience and research behind him to at least back his assertions up with convincing fact, but when did fact ever mean much to a deluded person? There are very interesting discussions to be had regarding the origins and development of christianity but they are not to be found in a theist/atheist debate and most certainly do not encourage the theist to employ critical thinking. The opposite in fact.

 

But as I said, good luck with whatever you get up to in the future. Despite your avowals to the contrary I suspect you are doing so with an impediment that I wouldn't care to bear, but hey - that's something christian theists are told to wear as a badge of honour, isn't it? So I'm sure you'll do ok.

 

You haven't given nearly enough information in this one post the determine in which ways your belief in God might be detrimental to your own well-being, the well-being of your friends and family, the development of your neighbourhood or your country, or the further development of society as a whole.

In essence, your responses to the perfectly valid answers have been predicated on this lack of information. In essence, you have said, "Ah, that might work in general, but that does not apply to me!" without indicating exactly what you believe, or in which ways you practice that belief.

So, there is no actual answers except those given, which you have failed to either address directly (relying instead on derision and insufferable arrogance) or to address indirectly, by providing data on your actual beliefs.

The general answer relies entirely on the answer to these questions:

1. Would you rather live in self-delusion, or understand the nature of reality?

2. Does your belief cause you to behave in a way that is detrimental to others?

3. If so, do you mind behaving in a way that is detrimental to others?

4. Does cognitive dissonance cause you physical discomfort?

As long as you don't mind your own self-delusion, you don't care how your self-delusion affects others, and the cognitive dissonance caused by the conflict of your self-delusion and reality does not cause you mental discomfort, you stand nothing to gain subjectively. Objectively, however, incorrect beliefs cause artificial obstacles when confronting reality, which may make certain decisions seem easier, when in fact your blinkered view of reality obscures the correct decision.