If the God of the bible does not exist, then why debate it?

Jimenezj
Theist
Posts: 344
Joined: 2011-12-16
User is offlineOffline
If the God of the bible does not exist, then why debate it?

In attacking Jesus Christ , Atheism might render itself a disservice. 

Do you lead an attack on a non existent being? 

Atheism to the logistician seems unreasonable. 

 

 

At night we see many stars in the sky. But when the sun rises, they disappear. Can we claim, therefore, that during the day there are no stars in the sky? If we fail to see God, perhaps it is because we pass through the night of ignorance in this matter. it is premature to claim He does not exist. 

Richard Wurmbrand

appeal to ignorance is an argument for or against a proposition on the basis of a lack of evidence against or for it. If there is positive evidence for the conclusion, then of course we have other reasons for accepting it, but a lack of evidence by itself is no evidence for a no God. 


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:...which

caposkia wrote:
...which doesn't necessarily qualify him to be a scholar credible enough to discuss a theologic topic.

Once again, irrelevant. He wasn't criticising the fools theology, he was criticising the fools physics and understanding of language, which he was quite capable of doing and quite qualified to do.

caposkia wrote:
Any idiot can publish books as you say, but publishers don't typically buy rights to texts from idiots... and if they do, they typically don't make the same mistake twice, let alone 250 times.

Bullshit. Publishers care about money, not facts. If a book will sell, they don't give a rats ass what it says. If publishers cared about facts then all religious texts would have been discontinued.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:Well

Beyond Saving wrote:

Well apparently I don't have a security level high enough to see it.

referring to the research out there...

I suggest going into settings and changing your levels to "accept cookies from visited" then.

I know what you meant, but I'm stating the obvious here that it has nothing to do with access

Beyond Saving wrote:

No. There are two ways a scientist can prove that a hypothesis is wrong. Yes, they can prove one hypothesis is wrong by finding positive evidence that another hypothesis is true. However, it is quite routine in the scientific world to come up with a hypothesis, test it and discover that the results do not match the prediction. This means that the prediction produced by the hypothesis is wrong, which means the hypothesis is wrong. The scientist will then modify the hypothesis, or throw it out altogether and test others. You can eliminate many hypotheses by proving that they are not possible without ever finding one that works. IOW, often we can proven what didn't happen, even if we don't really know what did happen.

That's modifying hypotheses, not proving something wrong... e.g. When they find that trying A and B to produce C doesn't work, they don't conclude that C is impossible, only that A and B don't work to produce C.  Though there may be 24 other ways of going about it, they may not know of those other ways yet or don't consider them  possible yet so they throw it out vs. continuing to figure it out.  Or in the case of certain research like cancers, they keep beating their head against a wall until an idea comes to mind to try... why?  because there must be a way, we just haven't found it yet. 

Beyond Saving wrote:

I read books written by a few missionaries. I linked to one about the Pirahã earlier in this thread.

yea, it wasn't them... I don't believe these missionaries wrote a book about it... likely didn't think it was that significant of an event other than discovering their existence... which they may not have done.  I'm not sure how they were originally found. 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Sounds nice, but that isn't at all how the institution of slavery happened. Classical slavery was in place long before the Bible was written, and it stayed in place in several variations for another 1,000 years. Then chattel (or neo) slavery started which eventually led to the American style institution before the complete elimination of legal slavery in the modern world.

of course it's not how it happened.  It's why laws had to be put in place for it.  If slavery didn't exist, I'm sure God wouldn't have needed to make laws about it except maybe to say it should never happen.  (just a guess)


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Vastet wrote:caposkia

Vastet wrote:
caposkia wrote:
...which doesn't necessarily qualify him to be a scholar credible enough to discuss a theologic topic.
Once again, irrelevant. He wasn't criticising the fools theology, he was criticising the fools physics and understanding of language, which he was quite capable of doing and quite qualified to do.

I can criticize someone's understanding of physics, language comprehension etc. too, but it doesn't necessarily make me qualified as a scholar in the field.  Also with that angle, I saw nothing that he said that truly refuted anything stated.  Unless you want to quote some things. 

Vastet wrote:

caposkia wrote:
Any idiot can publish books as you say, but publishers don't typically buy rights to texts from idiots... and if they do, they typically don't make the same mistake twice, let alone 250 times.
Bullshit. Publishers care about money, not facts. If a book will sell, they don't give a rats ass what it says. If publishers cared about facts then all religious texts would have been discontinued.

Sure if a book will sell, but if they truly didn't give a rat's sphincter about it, then why do publishers put disclaimers on some books washing their hands of any responsibility of what is said in the book?  Sounds to me as if they do care about their reputation.  AND if they get a reputation of publishing idiot's work, people will stop buying from that publisher because few want to buy into false claims of truth.  Thus it comes back to money and them not making it. 

Publishers typically accept certain types of writing... e.g. if I write a book of fiction and try to sell it to a publisher that publishes factual science books, they're going to turn my writing down... why?  because it doesn't coenside with what they represent.  Now if I take that same book of fiction and try to sell it to a fiction/fantasy publisher, as long as I wrote a captivating piece, they'll likely publish it. 

If you look around, the only publishers that publish true garbage are the ones that take a royalty first and charge the author for the copies... They also leave it in the author's responsibility for distribution.  in other words, they are looking for suckers becasue regardless they'll make money off both the author and the consumers. 

I love how you assume religious texts aren't fact.  BTW, who are the publishing companies that distribute religious texts?  I'm willing to bet it's not the same company you read for other texts.  Your assumption about publishers is right, they care about money, but money comes with reputation. 


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5526
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Beyond Saving

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

Well apparently I don't have a security level high enough to see it.

referring to the research out there...

I suggest going into settings and changing your levels to "accept cookies from visited" then.

I know what you meant, but I'm stating the obvious here that it has nothing to do with access

Where "out there" is it? I read scientific journals as a hobby and I have never seen it. Link me to it.

 

caposkia wrote:

That's modifying hypotheses, not proving something wrong... e.g. When they find that trying A and B to produce C doesn't work, they don't conclude that C is impossible, only that A and B don't work to produce C.  Though there may be 24 other ways of going about it, they may not know of those other ways yet or don't consider them  possible yet so they throw it out vs. continuing to figure it out.  Or in the case of certain research like cancers, they keep beating their head against a wall until an idea comes to mind to try... why?  because there must be a way, we just haven't found it yet. 

You proved that A and B don't produce C- so when a theist says that A and B produce C you know they are wrong.

 

caposkia wrote:

yea, it wasn't them... I don't believe these missionaries wrote a book about it... likely didn't think it was that significant of an event other than discovering their existence... which they may not have done.  I'm not sure how they were originally found. 

So I should trust third hand hearsay claims that apparently no one bothered to even write down over the dozens of well documented journal articles and books I have read? It is completely unbelievable that an African tribe has a god belief that "parallels" Christianity and no one bothered to write about it.

 

caposkia wrote:

of course it's not how it happened.  It's why laws had to be put in place for it.  If slavery didn't exist, I'm sure God wouldn't have needed to make laws about it except maybe to say it should never happen.  (just a guess)

You are full of guesses, and not particularly good ones.

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:I can

caposkia wrote:
I can criticize someone's understanding of physics, language comprehension etc. too

You could try, but noone would care because you aren't qualified.

caposkia wrote:
but it doesn't necessarily make me qualified as a scholar in the field

He was qualified to criticise before he criticised. He actually has degrees from respected universities in those subjects. Neither you nor the fool who wrote the flawed equation can claim the same.

caposkia wrote:
Also with that angle, I saw nothing that he said that truly refuted anything stated.

I love how theists can read proof their religion is a lie and immediately turn around and say it wasn't proof. You guys are so masterful at brainwashing that you can brainwash yourselves within seconds of being proved wrong.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Sure if a

caposkia wrote:
Sure if a book will sell, but if they truly didn't give a rat's sphincter about it, then why do publishers put disclaimers on some books washing their hands of any responsibility of what is said in the book?

So they don't get sued. Basic Economics 101.

caposkia wrote:
AND if they get a reputation of publishing idiot's work, people will stop buying from that publisher because few want to buy into false claims of truth.

Funny how all the publishers who were behind the 2012 craze are still around despite the fact that the world is still here. Things just don't work the way you think.

caposkia wrote:
Iff you look around, the only publishers that publish true garbage are the ones that take a royalty first and charge the author for the copies... They also leave it in the author's responsibility for distribution.

You live in fantasy land. Noone uses a publisher who doesn't distribute. There's no point.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:I love how

caposkia wrote:
I love how you assume religious texts aren't fact.

It's not an assumption.

caposkia wrote:
BTW, who are the publishing companies that distribute religious texts?  I'm willing to bet it's not the same company you read for other texts.

Because it makes money. Duh.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:Where

Beyond Saving wrote:

Where "out there" is it? I read scientific journals as a hobby and I have never seen it. Link me to it.

You speak as if it's one definitive thing.  Where do you want to start? 

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

You proved that A and B don't produce C- so when a theist says that A and B produce C you know they are wrong.

of course I do.  Any Christian knows that you need more than A and B to produce C.  You're missing the bigger picture. 

Science says A and B don't produce C.  The community concludes;  There is no C

Christians say, There's a C, but A and B aren't the way to go about understanding C. 

Science says, how can we empirically prove C?

Christians say, I don't know, but here's how we know C is out there.... F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, T, Alpha, Omega, Z... Does it empirically prove C?  no, does it give probable cause to give it more consideration?  We think it should..

Beyond Saving wrote:

So I should trust third hand hearsay claims that apparently no one bothered to even write down over the dozens of well documented journal articles and books I have read? It is completely unbelievable that an African tribe has a god belief that "parallels" Christianity and no one bothered to write about it.

it is quite unbelievable what history has forgotten as well.  If the missionaries who went there didn't have an adjenda to write a book about their discovery, the scientific/other community aware of the culture doesn't focus on paralleling belief systems necessarily, who's going to write about the connection?  Also, you act as if a parallel is an unusual thing... as if the non-believing community on this site doesn't try to use the parallels throughout history to discredit one belief system.

Beyond Saving wrote:

You are full of guesses, and not particularly good ones.

 

and yet the point remains doesn't it.  The guesses are based on something that didn't happen so of course how can one have a good guess about what could have been without it happening in the past?  Think about what you're saying.  You are full of conclusions, and not particularly good ones.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Vastet wrote:caposkia

Vastet wrote:
caposkia wrote:
I can criticize someone's understanding of physics, language comprehension etc. too
You could try, but noone would care because you aren't qualified.

same with you, but you haven't given up yet

Vastet wrote:

caposkia wrote:
but it doesn't necessarily make me qualified as a scholar in the field
He was qualified to criticise before he criticised. He actually has degrees from respected universities in those subjects. Neither you nor the fool who wrote the flawed equation can claim the same.

the Dr. in the field can't claim to have degrees from respected universities.... interesting...

Vastet wrote:

caposkia wrote:
Also with that angle, I saw nothing that he said that truly refuted anything stated.
I love how theists can read proof their religion is a lie and immediately turn around and say it wasn't proof. You guys are so masterful at brainwashing that you can brainwash yourselves within seconds of being proved wrong.

I love how non-believers can read proof that their perception is wrong and immediately turn around and say it wasn't proof.  You guys are so masterful at being close minded that you can brainwash yourselves within seconds of being proved wrong. 

See I can make irrational statements too.  Now let's get back to facts....


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Vastet wrote:caposkia

Vastet wrote:
caposkia wrote:
Sure if a book will sell, but if they truly didn't give a rat's sphincter about it, then why do publishers put disclaimers on some books washing their hands of any responsibility of what is said in the book?
So they don't get sued. Basic Economics 101.

the question was rhetorical, but that's for stating the obvious for everyone.  notice they don't do it with every book.  Wonder why that is?  (just in case your'e not sure.  Rhetorical again)

 


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Vastet wrote:caposkia

Vastet wrote:
caposkia wrote:
I love how you assume religious texts aren't fact.
It's not an assumption.

...... *crickets*

caposkia wrote:
BTW, who are the publishing companies that distribute religious texts?  I'm willing to bet it's not the same company you read for other texts.
Because it makes money. Duh.

oh... I've never heard of that company. Seems like kind of a long name.  They should try to turn it into an acronym or something. BIMMD.  How about just Duh, it makes money.  Acronym DIMM... yea that works.

Way to miss the context on this one.


danatemporary
danatemporary's picture
Posts: 1951
Joined: 2011-01-12
User is offlineOffline
"Humilitus Occideit Superbium"

 
=============================================================================================================================================

 These texts can be notoriously difficult to understand, due many to a cursory approach, will often make a common flaw of reading them in isolation. Be warned, if you're confused because you're looking at the text in isolation. It's endlessly interesting to find how details illuminate your reading and help in genuine understanding. 

  A lady who was having some difficulty in understanding alternative Gnostic texts brought up an interesting problem she was facing (in Gnosticism). That is after the long discourse about the religious power mongers and her own apparent feelings of being ostracized by society as a Wiccan. I inappropriately laughed at her difficulty with the texts.

    Lance S. Owen speaks of some eerily similar parallels in much later independent systems of Gnosticism, in this remark of his online :  "Not only was the Divine plural in Kabbalistic theosophy, but in its first subtle emanation from unknowable unity God had taken on a dual form as Male and Female; a supernal Father and Mother, Hokhmah and Binah, were God's first emanated forms. Kabbalists used frankly sexual metaphors to explain how the creative intercourse of Hokhmah and Binah generated further creation. Indeed, sexual motifs'' ¬ Lance S. Owens

 

 

For many who have never bothered to even look at a Gnostic text, I will provide one (in this post):

Apocryphon Of Jn (ApocJn)



{Jude 1:6-7} And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire'' {Jude 1:6-7}

 





"When I, John, heard these things I turned away from the temple to a desert place. And I grieved greatly in my heart, saying, "How then was the savior appointed, and why was he sent into the world by his Father, and who is his Father who sent him, and of what sort is that aeon to which we shall go? For what did he mean when he said to us, 'This aeon to which you will go is of the type of the imperishable aeon, but he did not teach us concerning the latter, of what sort it is."

 



 The Apocryphon of John (ApocJn)
 The Hypostasis of the Archons (HArch)

"Straightway, while I was contemplating these things, behold, the heavens opened and the whole creation which is below heaven shone, and the world was shaken. I was afraid, and behold I saw in the light a youth who stood by me. While I looked at him, he became like an old man. And he changed his likeness (again), becoming like a servant. There was not a plurality before me, but there was a likeness with multiple forms in the light, and the likenesses appeared through each other, and the likeness had three forms.

"He said to me, "John, John, why do you doubt, or why are you afraid? You are not unfamiliar with this image, are you? - that is, do not be timid! - I am the one who is with you (pl.) always. I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son. I am the undefiled and incorruptible one. Now I have come to teach you what is and what was and what will come to pass, that you may know the things which are not revealed and those which are revealed, and to teach you concerning the unwavering race of the perfect Man. Now, therefore, lift up your face, that you may receive the things that I shall teach you today, and may tell them to your fellow spirits who are from the unwavering race of the perfect Man."

"And I asked to know it, and he said to me, "The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. It is he who exists as God and Father of everything, the invisible One who is above everything, who exists as incorruption, which is in the pure light into which no eye can look.

"He is the invisible Spirit, of whom it is not right to think of him as a god, or something similar. For he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him, for no one lords it over him. For he does not exist in something inferior to him, since everything exists in him. For it is he who establishes himself. He is eternal, since he does not need anything. For he is total perfection. He did not lack anything, that he might be completed by it; rather he is always completely perfect in light. He is illimitable, since there is no one prior to him to set limits to him. He is unsearchable, since there exists no one prior to him to examine him. He is immeasurable, since there was no one prior to him to measure him. He is invisible, since no one saw him. He is eternal, since he exists eternally. He is ineffable, since no one was able to comprehend him to speak about him. He is unnameable, since there is no one prior to him to give him a name.

"He is immeasurable light, which is pure, holy (and) immaculate. He is ineffable, being perfect in incorruptibility. (He is) not in perfection, nor in blessedness, nor in divinity, but he is far superior. He is not corporeal nor is he incorporeal. He is neither large nor is he small. There is no way to say, 'What is his quantity?' or, 'What is his quality?', for no one can know him. He is not someone among (other) beings, rather he is far superior. Not that he is (simply) superior, but his essence does not partake in the aeons nor in time. For he who partakes in an aeon was prepared beforehand. Time was not apportioned to him, since he does not receive anything from another, for it would be received on loan. For he who precedes someone does not lack, that he may receive from him. For rather, it is the latter that looks expectantly at him in his light.

"For the perfection is majestic. He is pure, immeasurable mind. He is an aeon-giving aeon. He is life-giving life. He is a blessedness-giving blessed one. He is knowledge-giving knowledge. He is goodness-giving goodness. He is mercy and redemption-giving mercy. He is grace-giving grace, not because he possesses it, but because he gives the immeasurable, incomprehensible light.

"How am I to speak with you about him? His aeon is indestructible, at rest and existing in silence, reposing (and) being prior to everything. For he is the head of all the aeons, and it is he who gives them strength in his goodness. For we know not the ineffable things, and we do not understand what is immeasurable, except for him who came forth from him, namely (from) the Father. For it is he who told it to us alone. For it is he who looks at himself in his light which surrounds him, namely the spring of the water of life. And it is he who gives to all the aeons and in every way, (and) who gazes upon his image which he sees in the spring of the Spirit. It is he who puts his desire in his water-light which is in the spring of the pure light-water which surrounds him.

"And his thought performed a deed and she came forth, namely she who had appeared before him in the shine of his light. This is the first power which was before all of them (and) which came forth from his mind, She is the forethought of the All - her light shines like his light - the perfect power which is the image of the invisible, virginal Spirit who is perfect. The first power, the glory of Barbelo, the perfect glory in the aeons, the glory of the revelation, she glorified the virginal Spirit and it was she who praised him, because thanks to him she had come forth. This is the first thought, his image; she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first man, the holy Spirit, the thrice-male, the thrice-powerful, the thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and the first to come forth.

"<She> requested from the invisible, virginal Spirit - that is Barbelo - to give her foreknowledge. And the Spirit consented. And when he had consented, the foreknowledge came forth, and it stood by the forethought; it originates from the thought of the invisible, virginal Spirit. It glorified him and his perfect power, Barbelo, for it was for her sake that it had come into being.

"And she requested again to grant her indestructibility, and he consented. When he had consented, indestructibility came forth, and it stood by the thought and the foreknowledge. It glorified the invisible One and Barbelo, the one for whose sake they had come into being.

"And Barbelo requested to grant her eternal life. And the invisible Spirit consented. And when he had consented, eternal life came forth, and they attended and glorified the invisible Spirit and Barbelo, the one for whose sake they had come into being.

"And she requested again to grant her truth. And the invisible Spirit consented. And when he had consented, truth came forth, and they attended and glorified the invisible, excellent Spirit and his Barbelo, the one for whose sake they had come into being.

"This is the pentad of the aeons of the Father ..the image of the invisible Spirit; it is the forethought, which Barbelo, and the thought, and the foreknowledge, and the indestructibility, and the eternal life, and the truth. This is the androgynous pentad of the aeons, which is the decad of the aeons, which is the Father.

"And he looked at Barbelo with the pure light which surrounds the invisible Spirit, and (with) his spark, and she conceived from him. He begot a spark of light with a light resembling blessedness. But it does not equal his greatness. This was an only-begotten child of the Mother-Father which had come forth; it is the only offspring, the only-begotten one of the Father, the pure Light.

"And the invisible, virginal Spirit rejoiced over the light which came forth, that which was brought forth first by the first power of his forethought, which is Barbelo. And he anointed it with his goodness until it became perfect, not lacking in any goodness, because he had anointed it with the goodness of the invisible Spirit. And it attended him as he poured upon it. And immediately when it had received from the Spirit, it glorified the holy Spirit and the perfect forethought, for whose sake it had come forth.

"And it requested to give it a fellow worker, which is the mind, and he consented gladly. And when the invisible Spirit had consented, the mind came forth, and it attended Christ, glorifying him and Barbelo. And all these came into being in silence.

"And the mind wanted to perform a deed through the word of the invisible Spirit. And his will became a deed and it appeared with the mind; and the light glorified it. And the word followed the will. For because of the word, Christ the divine Autogenes created everything. And the eternal life <and> his will and the mind and the foreknowledge attended and glorified the invisible Spirit and Barbelo, for whose sake they had come into being.

"And the holy Spirit completed the divine Autogenes, his son, together with Barbelo, that he may attend the mighty and invisible, virginal Spirit as the divine Autogenes, the Christ whom he had honored with a mighty voice. He came forth through the forethought. And the invisible, virginal Spirit placed the divine Autogenes of truth over everything. And he subjected to him every authority.. He expected that they might attend him. And the three (are) will, thought, and life. And the four powers (are) understanding, grace, perception, and prudence. And grace belongs to the light-aeon Armozel, which is the first angel. And there are three other aeons with this aeon: grace, truth, and form. And the second light (is) Oriel, who has been placed over the second aeon. And there are three other aeons with him: conception, perception, and memory. And the third light is Daveithai, who has been placed over the third aeon. And there are three other aeons with him: understanding, love, and idea. And the fourth aeon was placed over the fourth light Eleleth. And there are three other aeons with him: perfection, peace, and wisdom. These are the four lights which attend the divine Autogenes, (and) these are the twelve aeons which attend the son of the mighty one, the Autogenes, the Christ, through the will and the gift of the invisible Spirit. And the twelve aeons belong to the son of the Autogenes. And all things were established by the will of the holy Spirit through the Autogenes.

"And from the foreknowledge of the perfect mind, through the revelation of the will of the invisible Spirit and the will of the Autogenes, <the> perfect Man (appeared), the first revelation, and the truth. It is he whom the virginal Spirit called Pigera-Adamas, and he placed him over the first aeon with the mighty one, the Autogenes, the Christ, by the first light Armozel; and with him are his powers. And the invisible one gave him a spiritual, invincible power. And he spoke and glorified and praised the invisible Spirit, saying, 'It is for thy sake that everything has come into being and everything will return to thee. I shall praise and glorify thee and the Autogenes and the aeons, the three: the Father, the Mother, and the Son, the perfect power.'

"And he placed his son Seth over the second aeon in the presence of the second light Oriel. And in the third aeon the seed of Seth was placed over the third light Daveithai. And the souls of the saints were placed (there). And in the fourth aeon the souls were placed of those who do not know the Pleroma and who did not repent at once, but who persisted for a while and repented afterwards; they are by the fourth light Eleleth. These are creatures which glorify the invisible Spirit.
{Gos of the Egyptians} .. Yoel, who presides over the name of him to whom it will be granted to baptize with the holy baptism that surpasses the heaven, the incorruptible one. the ministers of the four lights, the great Gamaliel, the great Gabriel, the great Samblo, and the great Abrasax, and they who preside over the sun, its rising, Olses and Hypneus and Heurumaious, and they who preside over the entrance into the rest of eternal life, the rulers Mixanther and Michanor, and they who guard the souls of the elect, ..  {Gos of the Egyptians}
"And the Sophia of the Epinoia, being an aeon, conceived a thought from herself and the conception of the invisible Spirit and foreknowledge. She wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit, - he had not approved - and without her consort, and without his consideration. Self-constructed Father, and is full of shining, ineffable light. In the beginning, he decided to have his likeness become a great power. Immediately, the principle (or beginning) of that Light appeared as Immortal Androgynous Man. His male name is 'Begotten, Perfect Mind'. And his female name is 'All-wise Begettress Sophia'. It is also said that she resembles her brother and her consort. And though the person of her maleness had not approved, and she had not found her agreement, and she had thought without the consent of the Spirit and the knowledge of her agreement, (yet) she brought forth. And because of the invincible power which is in her, her thought did not remain idle, and something came out of her which was imperfect and different from her appearance, because she had created it without her consort. And it was dissimilar to the likeness of its mother, for it has another form.

"And when she saw (the consequences of) her desire, it changed into a form of a lion-faced serpent. And its eyes were like lightning fires which flash. She cast it away from her, outside that place, that no one of the immortal ones might see it, for she had created it in ignorance. And she surrounded it with a luminous cloud, and she placed a throne in the middle of the cloud that no one might see it except the holy Spirit who is called the mother of the living. And she called his name Yaltabaoth.

"This is the first archon who took a great power from his mother. And he removed himself from her and moved away from the places in which he was born. He became strong and created for himself other aeons with a flame of luminous fire which (still) exists now. And he joined with his arrogance which is in him and begot authorities for himself. The name of the first one is Athoth, whom the generations call the reaper. The second one is Harmas, who is the eye of envy. The third one is Kalila-Oumbri. The fourth one is Yabel. The fifth one is Adonaiou, who is called Sabaoth. The sixth one is Cain, whom the generations of men call the sun. The seventh is Abel. The eighth is Abrisene. The ninth is Yobel. The tenth is Armoupieel. The eleventh is Melceir-Adonein. The twelfth is Belias, it is he who is over the depth of Hades. And he placed seven kings - each corresponding to the firmaments of heaven - over the seven heavens, and five over the depth of the abyss, that they may reign. And he shared his fire with them, but he did not send forth from the power of the light which he had taken from his mother, for he is ignorant darkness.

"And when the light had mixed with the darkness, it caused the darkness to shine. And when the darkness had mixed with the light, it darkened the light and it became neither light nor dark, but it became dim.

"Now the archon who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.

"And the archons created seven powers for themselves, and the powers created for themselves six angels for each one until they became 365 angels. And these are the bodies belonging with the names: the first is Athoth, a he has a sheep's face; the second is Eloaiou, he has a donkey's face; the third is Astaphaios, he has a hyena's face; the fourth is Yao, he has a serpent's face with seven heads; the fifth is Sabaoth, he has a dragon's face; the sixth is Adonin, he had a monkey's face; the seventh is Sabbede, he has a shining fire-face. This is the sevenness of the week.

"But Yaltabaoth had a multitude of faces, more than all of them, so that he could put a face before all of them, according to his desire, when he is in the midst of seraphs. He shared his fire with them; therefore he became lord over them. Because of the power of the glory he possessed of his mother's light, he called himself God. And he did not obey the place from which he came. And he united the seven powers in his thought with the authorities which were with him. And when he spoke it happened. And he named each power beginning with the highest: the first is goodness with the first (authority), Athoth; the second is foreknowledge with the second one, Eloaio; and the third is divinity with the third one, Astraphaio); the fourth is lordship with the fourth one, Yao; the fifth is kingdom with the fifth one, Sabaoth; the sixth is envy with the sixth one, Adonein; the seventh is understanding with the seventh one, Sabbateon. And these have a firmament corresponding to each aeon-heaven. They were given names according to the glory which belongs to heaven for the destruction of the powers. And in the names which were given to them by their Originator there was power. But the names which were given them according to the glory which belongs to heaven mean for them destruction and powerlessness. Thus they have two names.

"And having created [...] everything, he organized according to the model of the first aeons which had come into being, so that he might create them like the indestructible ones. Not because he had seen the indestructible ones, but the power in him, which he had taken from his mother, produced in him the likeness of the cosmos. And when he saw the creation which surrounds him, and the multitude of the angels around him which had come forth from him, he said to them, 'I am a jealous God, and there is no other God beside me.' But by announcing this he indicated to the angels who attended him that there exists another God. For if there were no other one, of whom would he be jealous? And for his part, he was delighted and continually boasted, saying to them, "I have no need of anyone."
''Then when Pistis-Sophia saw the impiety of the chief ruler, she was filled with anger. She was invisible. She said, "You are mistaken, Samael," (that is, "blind god" ). "There is an immortal man of light who has been in existence before you, and who will appear among your modelled forms; he will trample you to scorn, just as potter's clay is pounded. And you will descend to your mother, the abyss, along with those that belong to you. For at the consummation of your (pl.) works, the entire defect that has become visible out of the truth will be abolished, and it will cease to be, and will be like what has never been." Saying this, Pistis revealed her likeness of her greatness in the waters. And so doing, she withdrew up to her light. Now when Sabaoth, the son of Yaldabaoth, heard the voice of Pistis, he sang praises to her, and he condemned the father (On the Origin of the World) 
"Then the mother began to move to and fro. She became aware of the deficiency when the brightness of her light diminished. And she became dark because her consort had not agreed with her."

"And I said, "Lord, what does it mean that she moved to and fro?" But he smiled and said, "Do not think it is, as Moses said, 'above the waters.' No, but when she had seen the wickedness which had happened, and the theft which her son had committed, she repented. And she was overcome by forgetfulness in the darkness of ignorance and she began to be ashamed. And she did not dare to return, but she was moving about. And the moving is the going to and fro.

"And the arrogant one took a power from his mother. For he was ignorant, thinking that there existed no other except his mother alone. And when he saw the multitude of the angels which he had created, then he exalted himself above them.

"And when the mother recognized that the garment of darkness was imperfect, then she knew that her consort had not agreed with her. She repented with much weeping. And the whole pleroma heard the prayer of her repentance, and they praised on her behalf the invisible, virginal Spirit. And he consented; and when the invisible Spirit had consented, the holy Spirit poured over her from their whole pleroma. For it was not her consort who came to her, but he came to her through the pleroma in order that he might correct her deficiency. And she was taken up not to her own aeon but above her son, that she might be in the ninth until she has corrected her deficiency.

"And a voice came forth from the exalted aeon-heaven: 'The Man exists and the son of Man.' And the chief archon, Yaltabaoth, heard (it) and thought that the voice had come from his mother. And he did not know from where it came. And he taught them, the holy and perfect Mother-Father, the complete foreknowledge, the image of the invisible one who is the Father of the all (and) through whom everything came into being, the first Man. For he revealed his likeness in a human form.

"And the whole aeon of the chief archon trembled, and the foundations of the abyss shook. And of the waters which are above matter, the underside was illuminated by the appearance of his image which had been revealed. And when all the authorities and the chief archon looked, they saw the whole region of the underside which was illuminated.

"Seven have power over all of these: Michael, Ouriel, Asmenedas, Saphasatoel, Aarmouriam, Richram, Amiorps. And the ones who are in charge over the senses (are) Archendekta; and he who is in charge over the receptions (is) Deitharbathas; and he who is in charge over the imagination (is) Oummaa; and he who is over the composition Aachiaram, and he who is over the whole impulse Riaramnacho.

"And the origin of the demons which are in the whole body is determined to be four: heat, cold, wetness, and dryness. And the mother of all of them is matter. And he who reigns over the heat (is) Phloxopha; and he who reigns over the cold is Oroorrothos; and he who reigns over what is dry (is) Erimacho; and he who reigns over the wetness (is) Athuro. And the mother of all of these, Onorthochrasaei, stands in their midst, since she is illimitable, and she mixes with all of them. And she is truly matter, for they are nourished by her.

"The four chief demons are: Ephememphi, who belongs to pleasure, Yoko, who belongs to desire, Nenentophni, who belongs to grief, Blaomen, who belongs to fear. And the mother of them all is Aesthesis-Ouch-Epi-Ptoe. And from the four demons passions came forth. And from grief (came) envy, jealousy, distress, trouble, pain, callousness, anxiety, mourning, etc. And from pleasure much wickedness arises, and empty pride, and similar things. And from desire (comes) anger, wrath, and bitterness, and bitter passion, and unsatedness, and similar things. And from fear (comes) dread, fretting, fawning, agony, and shame. All of these are like useful things as well as evil things. But the insight into their true (character) is Anaro, who is the head of the material soul, for it belongs with the seven senses, Ouch-Epi-Ptoe.

"This is the number of the angels: together they are 365. They all worked on it until, limb for limb, the natural and the material body was completed by them. Now there are other ones in charge over the remaining passions whom I did not mention to you. But if you wish to know them, it is written in the book of Zoroaster. And all the angels and demons worked until they had constructed the natural body. And their product was completely inactive and motionless for a long time.
"And he said to the authorities which attend him, 'Come, let us create a man according to the image of God and according to our likeness, that his image may become a light for us.' And they created by means of their respective powers in correspondence with the characteristics which were given. And each authority supplied a characteristic in the form of the image which he had seen in its natural (form). He created a being according to the likeness of the first, perfect Man. And they said, 'Let us call him Adam, that his name may become a power of light for us.'

"And the powers began: the first one, goodness, created a bone-soul; and the second, foreknowledge, created a sinew-soul; the third, divinity, created a flesh-soul; and the fourth, the lordship, created a marrow; the fifth, kingdom created a blood-soul; the sixth, envy, created a skin-soul; the seventh, understanding, created a hair-soul. And the multitude of the angels attended him and they received from the powers the seven substances of the natural (form) in order to create the proportions of the limbs and the proportion of the rump and the proper working together of each of the parts.

"The first one began to create the head. Eteraphaope-Abron created his head; Meniggesstroeth created the brain; Asterechme (created) the right eye; Thaspomocha, the left eye; Yeronumos, the right ear; Bissoum, the left ear; Akioreim, the nose; Banen-Ephroum, the lips; .. Phthave, the navel; Senaphim, the abdomen; Arachethopi, the right ribs; Zabedo, the left ribs; Barias, the right hip; Phnouth the left hip; Abenlenarchei, the marrow; Chnoumeninorin, the bones; Gesole, the stomach; Agromauna, the heart; Bano, the lungs; Sostrapal, the liver; Biblo, the kidneys; .. etc.

"At a later time  he  planned to bring a flood upon the work of man. But the greatness of the light of the foreknowledge informed Noah, and he proclaimed (it) to all the offspring which are the sons of men. But those who were strangers to him did not listen to him. It is not as Moses said, 'They hid themselves in an ark' (Gn 7: 7), but they hid themselves in a place, not only Noah, but also many other people from the immovable race. They went into a place and hid themselves in a luminous cloud. And he (Noah) recognized his authority, and she who belongs to the light was with him, having shone on them because he (the chief archon) had brought darkness upon the whole earth.

"And he made a plan with his powers. He sent his angels to the daughters of men, that they might take some of them for themselves and raise offspring for their enjoyment. And at first they did not succeed. When they had no success, they gathered together again and they made a plan together. They created a counterfeit spirit, who resembles the Spirit who had descended, so as to pollute the souls through it. And the angels changed themselves in their likeness into the likeness of their mates (the daughters of men), filling them with the spirit of darkness, which they had mixed for them, and with evil. They brought gold and silver and a gift and copper and iron and metal and all kinds of things. And they steered the people who had followed them into great troubles, by leading them astray with many deceptions. They (the people) became old without having enjoyment, with mankind..''
"And when the mother wanted to retrieve the power which she had given to the chief archon, she petitioned the Mother-Father of the All, who is most merciful. He sent, by means of the holy decree, the five lights down upon the place of the angels of the chief archon. They advised him that they should bring forth the power of the mother. And they said to Yaltabaoth, 'Blow into his face something of your spirit and his body will arise.' And he blew into his face the spirit which is the power of his mother; he did not know (this), for he exists in ignorance. And the power of the mother went out of Yaltabaoth into the natural body, which they had fashioned after the image of the one who exists from the beginning. The body moved and gained strength, and it was luminous.

"And in that moment the rest of the powers became jealous, because he had come into being through all of them and they had given their power to the man, and his intelligence was greater than that of those who had made him, and greater than that of the chief archon. And when they recognized that he was luminous, and that he could think better than they, and that he was free from wickedness, they took him and threw him into the lowest region of all matter.

"But the blessed One, the Mother-Father, the beneficent and merciful One, had mercy on the power of the mother which had been brought forth out of the chief archon, for they (the archons) might gain power over the natural and perceptible body. And he sent, through his beneficent Spirit and his great mercy, a helper to Adam, luminous Epinoia which comes out of him, who is called Life. And she assists the whole creature, by toiling with him and by restoring him to his fullness and by teaching him about the descent of his seed (and) by teaching him about the way of ascent, (which is) the way he came down. And the luminous Epinoia was hidden in Adam, in order that the archons might not know her, but that the Epinoia might be a correction of the deficiency of the mother.

"And the man came forth because of the shadow of the light which is in him. And his thinking was superior to all those who had made him. When they looked up, they saw that his thinking was superior. And they took counsel with the whole array of archons and angels. They took fire and earth and water and mixed them together with the four fiery winds. And they wrought them together and caused a great disturbance. And they brought him (Adam) into the shadow of death, in order that they might form (him) again from earth and water and fire and the spirit which originates in matter, which is the ignorance of darkness and desire, and their counterfeit spirit. This is the tomb of the newly-formed body with which the robbers had clothed the man, the bond of forgetfulness; and he became a mortal man. This is the first one who came down, and the first separation. But the Epinoia of the light which was in him, she is the one who was to awaken his thinking.

"And the archons took him and placed him in paradise. And they said to him, 'Eat, that is at leisure,' for their luxury is bitter and their beauty is depraved. And their luxury is deception and their trees are godlessness and their fruit is deadly poison and their promise is death. And the tree of their life they had placed in the midst of paradise.

"And I shall teach you (pl.) what is the mystery of their life, which is the plan which they made together, which is the likeness of their spirit. The root of this (tree) is bitter and its branches are death, its shadow is hate and deception is in its leaves, and its blossom is the ointment of evil, and its fruit is death and desire is its seed, and it sprouts in darkness. The dwelling place of those who taste from it is Hades, and the darkness is their place of rest.

"But what they call the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the Epinoia of the light, they stayed in front of it in order that he (Adam) might not look up to his fullness and recognize the nakedness of his shamefulness. But it was I who brought about that they ate."

"And to I said to the savior, "Lord, was it not the serpent that taught Adam to eat?" The savior smiled and said, "The serpent taught them to eat from wickedness of begetting, lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might be useful to him. And he (Adam) knew that he was disobedient to him (the chief archon) due to light of the Epinoia which is in him, which made him more correct in his thinking than the chief archon. And (the latter) wanted to bring about the power which he himself had given him. And he brought a forgetfulness over Adam."

"And I said to the savior, "What is the forgetfulness?" And he said "It is not the way Moses wrote (and) you heard. For he said in his first book, 'He put him to sleep' (Gn 2:21), but (it was) in his perception. For also he said through the prophet, 'I will make their hearts heavy, that they may not pay attention and may not see' (Is 6:10).

"Then the Epinoia of the light hid herself in him (Adam). And the chief archon wanted to bring her out of his rib. But the Epinoia of the light cannot be grasped. Although darkness pursued her, it did not catch her. And he brought a part of his power out of him. And he made another creature, in the form of a woman, according to the likeness of the Epinoia which had appeared to him. And he brought the part which he had taken from the power of the man into the female creature, and not as Moses said, 'his rib-bone.'

"And he (Adam) saw the woman beside him. And in that moment the luminous Epinoia appeared, and she lifted the veil which lay over his mind. And he became sober from the drunkenness of darkness. And he recognized his counter-image, and he said, 'This is indeed bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.' Therefore the man will leave his father and his mother, and he will cleave to his wife, and they will both be one flesh. For they will send him his consort, and he will leave his father and his mother ... (3 lines unreadable). After those days, the eternal knowledge of the God of truth withdrew from Adam and his consort Eve. Since that time, we (Adam and Eve) learned about dead things, like men. Then we recognized the god who had created us.  For we were not strangers to his powers. And we served him in fear and slavery. ... (3 lines unreadable)
"And the chief archon saw the virgin who stood by Adam, and that the luminous Epinoia of life had appeared in her. And Yaltabaoth was full of ignorance. And when the foreknowledge of the All noticed (it), she sent some and they snatched life out of Eve.

"And the chief archon seduced her and he begot in her two children, as a result; the first and the second (are) Eloim and Yave. Eloim has a bear-face and Yave has a cat-face. The one is righteous but the other is unrighteous. (Yave is righteous but Eloim is unrighteous.) Yave he set over the fire and the wind, and Eloim he set over the water and the earth..''
"And our sister Sophia (is) she who came down in innocence in order to rectify her deficiency. Therefore she was called Life, which is the mother of the living, by the foreknowledge of the sovereignty of heaven. And through her they have tasted the perfect Knowledge. I appeared in the form of an eagle on the tree of knowledge, which is the Epinoia from the foreknowledge of the pure light ..
"Now these things I have presented to you - I am Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, who is exalted above the heavens - O perfect and incorruptible ones, because of the incorruptible and perfect mystery and the ineffable one. But they think that we decreed them before the foundation of the world, in order that, when we emerge from the places of the world, we may present there the symbols of incorruption from the spiritual union unto knowledge. You do not know it, because the fleshly cloud overshadows you. But I alone am the friend of Sophia.''



  ..every act of sexual intercourse which has occurred between those unlike one another is adultery! (cross-ref. Jude 1:6-7 )
  ''..[With his multitude of faces] he pursued her. And she laughed at them for their witlessness and their blindness; and in his clutches she became a tree, and left before them her shadowy reflection resembling herself; and they defiled it foully ..  And Adam knew his female counterpart Eve, and she became pregnant, and bore Seth to Adam. And she said, "I have borne another man through God, in place of Abel." Again Eve became pregnant, and she bore Norea. And she said, "He has begotten on me a virgin as an assistance for many generations of mankind." She is the virgin whom the forces did not defile.''
                                                              ¬ The Hypostasis of the Archons (HArch)




 



"Those who have gone astray, whom the spirit begets, usually go astray also because of the Spirit. Thus, by one and the same breath, the fire blazes and is put out'' .. ''When Eve was still with Adam, death did not exist. When she was separated from him, death came into being. If he enters again and attains his former self, death will be no more.  If the woman had not separated from the man, she would not die  with the man. His separation became the beginning of death .. Christ came to repair .. and unite them."
                                                              ¬ The Gospel according to Philip
 

 




 In a Canonical Gospel, found in the holy bible, it says in *The Gospel of Saint Mark Chapter  4 :  '' ..so that “they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand,.."

 Anglican Priest Pete Owen Jones, for BBCFour, presented a documentary of 2nd Century Gnostic texts wrote: "I wanted to know about the promise of eternal life held in these enigmatic teachings, from the 2nd Century; and about the historical context to the people who believed in them. So I (the Anglican) joined Bart Ehrman about a mere glimpse of the almost forgotten world that allowed the Gospel of Thomas in which to flourish."
Bart Ehrman (pictured): ''About one of the finds from the Nag Hammadi codex(ices) In this 'Lost' Gospel's emphases is that of 'secret knowledge' found in the pages of the Gospel of Thomas; the key to salvation lies in the secret knowledge, it is by learning the secret teachings found according Gnostic Gospel and by learning the secret teachings of Jesus. And knowing what they meant. In the early church there were groups of early christians known as Gnostics. The Greek word for knowledge was Gnosis, they were in the know. In my opinion the Gospel of Thomas is a Gnostic Gospel propounding a set of beliefs, if people *understand and internalize ? They will have eternal life. The reason the early church fathers found such objection to this, in part; Is because the way of salvation stood at odds with the way of salvation, says Ehrman.  According to these church fathers,  salvation was open to high and low; intelligent and unintelligent; rich and poor. But, according to these texts, it's only people in the know, those in the inside group, those with esoteric knowledge who could have salvation.(end quote)''

____
On art,  Michelangelo Merisi di Caravaggio MOST famous painting,  recall the sword is inscribed "Humilitus Occideit Superbium", that is, humility conquers pride.


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:of course I

caposkia wrote:

of course I do.  Any Christian knows that you need more than A and B to produce C.  You're missing the bigger picture. 

Science says A and B don't produce C.  The community concludes;  There is no C

Christians say, There's a C, but A and B aren't the way to go about understanding C. 

Science says, how can we empirically prove C?

Christians say, I don't know, but here's how we know C is out there.... F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, T, Alpha, Omega, Z... Does it empirically prove C?  no, does it give probable cause to give it more consideration?  We think it should..

Arguments to attempt to prove the divine are always very convoluted by nature. When someone takes F l m and Alpha, they find it means A. Then they take J, n, p Q, S, T, Omega and Z, they find it means B. The arguments are deliberately vague. You see Cap, if it does take F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, t, Alpha, Omega and Z to show that we know C is out there, then start a new thread and SHOW us! Write it very concisely, no matter how long it may be. Make sure all of your points are concise and that they make sense. Your inability to do that would mean that your thoughts on the matter are incoherent, and you attach yourself to vague arguments in order to continue to believe, because you WANT to believe. I mean, right now, that's how you seem to me. Prove me wrong.

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:caposkia

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

of course I do.  Any Christian knows that you need more than A and B to produce C.  You're missing the bigger picture. 

Science says A and B don't produce C.  The community concludes;  There is no C

Christians say, There's a C, but A and B aren't the way to go about understanding C. 

Science says, how can we empirically prove C?

Christians say, I don't know, but here's how we know C is out there.... F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, T, Alpha, Omega, Z... Does it empirically prove C?  no, does it give probable cause to give it more consideration?  We think it should..

Arguments to attempt to prove the divine are always very convoluted by nature. When someone takes F l m and Alpha, they find it means A. Then they take J, n, p Q, S, T, Omega and Z, they find it means B. The arguments are deliberately vague. You see Cap, if it does take F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, t, Alpha, Omega and Z to show that we know C is out there, then start a new thread and SHOW us! Write it very concisely, no matter how long it may be. Make sure all of your points are concise and that they make sense. Your inability to do that would mean that your thoughts on the matter are incoherent, and you attach yourself to vague arguments in order to continue to believe, because you WANT to believe. I mean, right now, that's how you seem to me. Prove me wrong.

If I wanted to write something that extensive, i would have had it published by now.  I get why you see me as you do...

You assume they are convoluted because when someone like you asks someone like me to "show you" how all of the above proves C you're expecting a one post answer.  Instead of meeting you at coffee shops for the next few years day after day or writing you 1000 + pages on the subject, we try to summarize so that at least there'd be interest on your part to pull out something from the mass information to discuss further.  Usually it's not "all the information" that can prove to one person that C is out there, rather it is a particular set of points.  E.g.

I could explain the science behind God till I'm blue in the face, but for certain people that will never work.  Some think science is flawed by nature because it is determined by human minds.  Others feel that if it's not able to be sampled and studied it does not exist.  So going on, we try other avenues.  

Statistics.. but some say they mean nothing.... mass audiences of claims don't make C true.

experiences... but personal experiences can be fabricated and thus cannot be trusted no matter how many reoccurances with unrelated people... 

History... that's good in all, but many fictional writings use real history and real events, thus the Bible must have done the same... 

Geology... same lines as history... they may prove that the people group existed,and even beleived in the Biblical God, but that doesn't prove C actually exists because there's no God DNA left behind... 

How about religious progression... sure, everything stemmed off of something else.. there of course had to be an origin for it somewhere... it doesn't matter that most major religions can be traced back to a Judeo/Christian origin, that just further proves they are made up...

How about trying to seek out God yourself and experiencing first hand what millions around the world are claiming... Either they've tried it or couldn't care to take the effort for something they already know is a waste of time. 

How about metaphysics?  well it's a science that cannot be taken seriously according to some.  Others who do take it seriously base it all on theory and thus it still cannot prove C because it's all theory. 

All the concepts are good, but in the end, if you really believe C does not exist, you will find a reason not to accept it.  The above are all excuses I've heard over the years discussing the subject. so I ask you... To what avenue would you be interested in me starting a whole new thread about and writing all I know so that we can discuss the possibility of C? 


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5526
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Beyond Saving

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

Where "out there" is it? I read scientific journals as a hobby and I have never seen it. Link me to it.

You speak as if it's one definitive thing.  Where do you want to start? 

You are the one claiming that all this research exists. Pick one bit at random.

 

caposkia wrote:

Christians say, I don't know, but here's how we know C is out there.... F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, T, Alpha, Omega, Z... Does it empirically prove C?  no, does it give probable cause to give it more consideration?  We think it should..

All I have asked for is one tiny bit of evidence that makes God a plausible hypothesis. 

 

 

caposkia wrote:

it is quite unbelievable what history has forgotten as well.  If the missionaries who went there didn't have an adjenda to write a book about their discovery, the scientific/other community aware of the culture doesn't focus on paralleling belief systems necessarily, who's going to write about the connection?  Also, you act as if a parallel is an unusual thing... as if the non-believing community on this site doesn't try to use the parallels throughout history to discredit one belief system.

The scientific community has written quite extensively on the belief systems of many primitive cultures and has recorded in agonizing detail how those religious beliefs are similar and diverge from Abrahamic religions. Name any known tribe and in 5 minutes on JSTOR I can pull up at least a couple of in depth articles on the religious beliefs of that tribe. This is an area of study that has interested anthropologists for centuries since religion tends to play a central role in any society and greatly influences how a society is organized. 

 

caposkia wrote:

and yet the point remains doesn't it.  The guesses are based on something that didn't happen so of course how can one have a good guess about what could have been without it happening in the past?  Think about what you're saying.  You are full of conclusions, and not particularly good ones.

You can have really good guesses about what happened in the past if you study the archeological  evidence and arrive at your conclusion based on what you find rather than start by assuming you know what happened and try to fit the evidence into the preconceived story.

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote: You are

Beyond Saving wrote:

You are the one claiming that all this research exists. Pick one bit at random.

I've tried that so many times... the typical expectation when I do that is shooting it down without proper research... so I like to reach out to your expertise so you can't use the ignorance excuse. 

To put one out there, Quantum physics. 

Beyond Saving wrote:

All I have asked for is one tiny bit of evidence that makes God a plausible hypothesis. 

right, but unless that tiny bit of evidence is congruent with what the individual accepts as plausible, it makes no matter.  So much evidence has been put on this thread and others.  History is going in depth on another thread.  Science, statistics, geology etc has been discussed on other threads.  All those "tiny bits of evidence" lead to excuses as to why those tiny bits of evidence could have another explanation and thus don't necessarily point to God.  Do they make God plausible?  Sure, but only to those who would consider God as a factor.   Otherwise, I can replace the word "God" with any nonsense word and I'd get the same reaction. 

Just so there's no excuses not to address this above statement, i'll give you a tiny bit of evidence. 

There is a landbridge in the Reed sea that is in the vacinity of where it is understood that Moses and his people crossed to escape the pharaoh's army.  There's a lot more to that story and a lot more into the investigation, but that right there would be a tiny bit of evidence to put that story in plausible territory and put God in plausible light.  We can go on to discuss how water could have pulled off that land bridge, then rushed back... there are many natural explanations... some that can be backed up with geological history.  But of course then we get into the discussion that if it can be explained by natural occurances, God is not needed for the event despite how ironic it is that the water left in time for Moses' people to escape and rushed back in time to wipe out the army. 

your turn.  You wanted a tiny bit of evidence, there's one of many.  Now I'm waiting to hear why this isn't evidence.  I hope I"m wrong with my assumption

Beyond Saving wrote:

The scientific community has written quite extensively on the belief systems of many primitive cultures and has recorded in agonizing detail how those religious beliefs are similar and diverge from Abrahamic religions. Name any known tribe and in 5 minutes on JSTOR I can pull up at least a couple of in depth articles on the religious beliefs of that tribe. This is an area of study that has interested anthropologists for centuries since religion tends to play a central role in any society and greatly influences how a society is organized. 

I'm not sure if you realize it, but that only further confirms what I'm claiming... not only that, but it also would not be unusual to find a tribe, now secluded that might have Abrahamic roots based on what you just wrote.  Case closed

Beyond Saving wrote:

You can have really good guesses about what happened in the past if you study the archeological  evidence and arrive at your conclusion based on what you find rather than start by assuming you know what happened and try to fit the evidence into the preconceived story.

 

exactly.  oh wait... you're claiming that archaeologists and theists who have doctoral degrees in such fields arrived at their own conclusion and tried to fit the evidence into the preconceived story? 

Hate to say this, but i've seen that on both sides.  Cant' use that against scripture.


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5526
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Beyond Saving

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

You are the one claiming that all this research exists. Pick one bit at random.

I've tried that so many times... the typical expectation when I do that is shooting it down without proper research... so I like to reach out to your expertise so you can't use the ignorance excuse. 

To put one out there, Quantum physics. 

I am not familiar with any quantum physics research that supports the existence of a deity. Could you please link me to it? I would be extremely interested in reading it and now would be a great time because I have started studying quantum physics due to another thread on this site that illuminated my ignorance of the subject. So please post a link, pretty please with a cherry on top.

 

caposkia wrote:

There is a landbridge in the Reed sea that is in the vacinity of where it is understood that Moses and his people crossed to escape the pharaoh's army.  There's a lot more to that story and a lot more into the investigation, but that right there would be a tiny bit of evidence to put that story in plausible territory and put God in plausible light.  We can go on to discuss how water could have pulled off that land bridge, then rushed back... there are many natural explanations... some that can be backed up with geological history.  But of course then we get into the discussion that if it can be explained by natural occurances, God is not needed for the event despite how ironic it is that the water left in time for Moses' people to escape and rushed back in time to wipe out the army. 

So you admit that your evidence isn't evidence of God. You have evidence that it is plausible that humans might have been able to cross the sea. Anything beyond that (like magic, god, unicorns etc.) is not supported by that evidence. Since them crossing the sea is not something I have disputed, it is irrelevant. I want evidence that directly supports the existence of a deity.

 

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

The scientific community has written quite extensively on the belief systems of many primitive cultures and has recorded in agonizing detail how those religious beliefs are similar and diverge from Abrahamic religions. Name any known tribe and in 5 minutes on JSTOR I can pull up at least a couple of in depth articles on the religious beliefs of that tribe. This is an area of study that has interested anthropologists for centuries since religion tends to play a central role in any society and greatly influences how a society is organized. 

I'm not sure if you realize it, but that only further confirms what I'm claiming... not only that, but it also would not be unusual to find a tribe, now secluded that might have Abrahamic roots based on what you just wrote.  Case closed

What?!? Name ONE tribe that has an Abrahamic deity or one that is substantially similar. It would be extraordinarily unusual, which is why I doubted your claim that one exists.

 

caposkia wrote:

exactly.  oh wait... you're claiming that archaeologists and theists who have doctoral degrees in such fields arrived at their own conclusion and tried to fit the evidence into the preconceived story? 

Hate to say this, but i've seen that on both sides.  Cant' use that against scripture.

No, good archaeologists ask questions and then look for answers creating explanations that explain all of the evidence found. When evidence is found that doesn't mesh with an explanation, the belief is discarded. Those who try to force evidence to fit an explanation that isn't plausible are quickly revealed for the frauds they are through the peer review process.

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


iwbiek
atheistSuperfan
iwbiek's picture
Posts: 4298
Joined: 2008-03-23
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:Name ONE

Beyond Saving wrote:
Name ONE tribe that has an Abrahamic deity or one that is substantially similar. It would be extraordinarily unusual, which is why I doubted your claim that one exists.

one of the reasons why the "abrahamic religions" are so often grouped together as such is precisely because they are so anomalous. the "abrahamic" idea of revelation alone can be found practically nowhere else. we can say, very loosely, that almost all religions--certainly the so-called "high" religions--have their "scriptures," but pretty much none of them, particularly those that predate rabbinical judaism and christianity like the indian and chinese religions, would ever say those scriptures were delivered, either directly or indirectly, by some god. the buddhist and jain scriptures by definition cannot be of divine origin and the vedas, while considered by orthodox brahmins a repository of perfect knowledge, were not given forth as a revelation of any god. there is no such god in those traditions. come to think of it, the whole "abrahamic" notion of god is pretty anomalous too...

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

of course I do.  Any Christian knows that you need more than A and B to produce C.  You're missing the bigger picture. 

Science says A and B don't produce C.  The community concludes;  There is no C

Christians say, There's a C, but A and B aren't the way to go about understanding C. 

Science says, how can we empirically prove C?

Christians say, I don't know, but here's how we know C is out there.... F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, T, Alpha, Omega, Z... Does it empirically prove C?  no, does it give probable cause to give it more consideration?  We think it should..

Arguments to attempt to prove the divine are always very convoluted by nature. When someone takes F l m and Alpha, they find it means A. Then they take J, n, p Q, S, T, Omega and Z, they find it means B. The arguments are deliberately vague. You see Cap, if it does take F, J, l, m, n, p Q, S, t, Alpha, Omega and Z to show that we know C is out there, then start a new thread and SHOW us! Write it very concisely, no matter how long it may be. Make sure all of your points are concise and that they make sense. Your inability to do that would mean that your thoughts on the matter are incoherent, and you attach yourself to vague arguments in order to continue to believe, because you WANT to believe. I mean, right now, that's how you seem to me. Prove me wrong.

If I wanted to write something that extensive, i would have had it published by now.  I get why you see me as you do...

One of two possibilities

1. You have proven Christianity true, but decided not to publish it for some reason, or

2. You've convinced yourself of its truth and your thoughts are incoherent to the ponit that you've confused yourself.

Your inability to even point any one of us to a path to understanding this incredible thing that you apparently do understand makes #2 far more likely.

caposkia wrote:

You assume they are convoluted because when someone like you asks someone like me to "show you" how all of the above proves C you're expecting a one post answer.  Instead of meeting you at coffee shops for the next few years day after day or writing you 1000 + pages on the subject, we try to summarize so that at least there'd be interest on your part to pull out something from the mass information to discuss further.  Usually it's not "all the information" that can prove to one person that C is out there, rather it is a particular set of points.  E.g.

Bullshit. Utter utter bullshit. A few years of coffee shop meetings or 1000+ pages? Iiii don't think so. Even if it was 10 000 pages, don't you think that every single Christian school, Sunday school, priest, pastor, preacher, etc. would have put together such a lesson plan so that their students, followers etc. have no doubt, and don't merely believe, but KNOW that it's true? I can't buy that, sorry.

caposkia wrote:

I could explain the science behind God till I'm blue in the face, but for certain people that will never work.  Some think science is flawed by nature because it is determined by human minds.  Others feel that if it's not able to be sampled and studied it does not exist.  So going on, we try other avenues.  

Science is not flawed due to being determined by human minds. It is examined to a sense by human minds, but an important part of science is that we record the results of our experiments. We then make predictions based on what we believe we have discovered. The accuracy of our predictions validates our findings. Our inability to sample or test something does not mean it doesn't exist. However, many of the claims made by Christianity are ones that we can examine, and have found that there is either no evidence for them, or actual evidence that the claims are erroneous.

caposkia wrote:

Statistics.. but some say they mean nothing.... mass audiences of claims don't make C true.

Yep. 1.75 billion Christians or whatever CAN be wrong.

caposkia wrote:

experiences... but personal experiences can be fabricated and thus cannot be trusted no matter how many reoccurances with unrelated people... 

Yep. People could be lying, or delusional.

caposkia wrote:

History... that's good in all, but many fictional writings use real history and real events, thus the Bible must have done the same... 

You're right there, but that's not the whole story.

caposkia wrote:

Geology... same lines as history... they may prove that the people group existed,and even beleived in the Biblical God, but that doesn't prove C actually exists because there's no God DNA left behind... 

I never said that god DNA is required here. Religions both before and after the Abrahamic faiths have shown that religions arise all the time and independantly of each other. You have not once, in any thread here, justified why your religion is true, and other ones are not.

caposkia wrote:

How about religious progression... sure, everything stemmed off of something else.. there of course had to be an origin for it somewhere... it doesn't matter that most major religions can be traced back to a Judeo/Christian origin, that just further proves they are made up...

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

caposkia wrote:

How about trying to seek out God yourself and experiencing first hand what millions around the world are claiming... Either they've tried it or couldn't care to take the effort for something they already know is a waste of time. 

Practicing Catholic until my late teens. Very devout in my early to mid-teens as well. It was that which drove me away eventually. Learning more about it, and examining my faith.

As far as the millions, I find that most religious people are reluctant to discuss religion with someone who they see is certain that it's a crock. It's as if they're afraid to take a critical look at it. Funny how that is.

caposkia wrote:

How about metaphysics?  well it's a science that cannot be taken seriously according to some.  Others who do take it seriously base it all on theory and thus it still cannot prove C because it's all theory. 

Base it all on theory? What the hell do you mean here? Don't use science and theory in the same paragraph if you're going to imply that "theory" is merely a guess. Can you examine metaphysics? If not, then it's not a science, no matter how serious someone is about it.

caposkia wrote:

All the concepts are good, but in the end, if you really believe C does not exist, you will find a reason not to accept it.  The above are all excuses I've heard over the years discussing the subject. so I ask you... To what avenue would you be interested in me starting a whole new thread about and writing all I know so that we can discuss the possibility of C? 

I would be very interested in a thread about this. As I said in this thread and the other one, I would like you to lay out why you are certain that the bible (and by extension, Christianity) is true. It is what you seem to imply with your constant assertion that you believe the bible because history and science support it in some sense. I would like you to start a new thread (preferably by getting a mod to start a one-on-one with us, however a free-for-all is ok by me as well). In that thread, I would like you to begin proving important parts of the bible as either highly plausible or undeniably true. From there, I would like you to show me why that verifies other parts of the bible, and proves the truth of important doctrines of Christianity. I would like this to be written in rather small chunks in order for me to be allowed to understand what you mean, or scrutinize your words where I feel applicable. I would like us to not proceed further until the disagreements are settled, or at least I agree to drop an issue for the moment. Is that something that you'd be interested in?

 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:same with

caposkia wrote:
same with you, but you haven't given up yet

Pure classic projection.

caposkia wrote:
he Dr. in the field can't claim to have degrees from respected universities.... interesting...

Red herring or strawman? Maybe both. Either way, you continue to fail.

caposkia wrote:
I love how non-believers can read proof that their perception is wrong and immediately turn around and say it wasn't proof.

I love how deluded theists claim there is proof when it's been proved there isn't. Meanwhile the rational people just laugh at them. You can mimic me all you like, but every post you make digs a bigger grave as I prove you wrong over and over again. You're jumping topics because you still can't refute my first obliteration of your claims just means I'm making you a laughingstock in dozens of subjects. You'd be further ahead if you'd given up months ago.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:the question

caposkia wrote:
the question was rhetorical, but that's for stating the obvious for everyone.  notice they don't do it with every book.  Wonder why that is?  (just in case your'e not sure.  Rhetorical again)

Because there are too many theists in power to successfully sue over a religious text. But it won't be that way forever.

caposkia wrote:
...... *crickets*

If you hear crickets then you should get your head checked out.

caposkia wrote:
oh... I've never heard of that company.

Sure you have. Every company does it. You're hilariously outclassed here.

caposkia wrote:
Way to miss the context on this one.

Way to miss everything about everything. Cool

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


danatemporary
danatemporary's picture
Posts: 1951
Joined: 2011-01-12
User is offlineOffline
Time is Short (But .. thought I should mention this though)

  Re :: Time is Short

Nu 812

 
    ''For the scriptures are like a grain of wheat; when someone had sown it, when it had sprouted, fore if he or she loves it, seen many grains in place of one''  ¬ ApocJm (naghamm)
___  __  ___  

 
Sumero¬Babylonian Epic ::


''At the Lord of the sweet waters,  “power of waters”,  at the front of the boat snapped all
 around like a  infertile wolf, at Enki being at the back of the boat it flailed like a murderous lion.  'At that time there was a solitary tree, growing nearest the banks of the holy Euphrates, drinking water from the river Euphrates. The might of the south wind tore it out at the roots and snapped off its branches, the water of the Euphrates washed over it.  I, the woman who respects the words of the original Father of the god(s)
And I, the woman who respects the words of Enlil, I picked up the tree in my hand and took it into the city Uruk, took it into the 'garden' of Inanna, (Inanna's huluppu TREE, which is in the midst of the Paradise) . I (Inanna), the woman, did not plant the tree with my hand, I watered it with my foot..
 After five yrs. had gone by, then after ten years had gone by, the tree had grown stout, its' bark had not split, in the huluppu tree's base a Serpent that-Knows-no-Charm had made its' nest, in its' branches the AnZu (See: Tablets of Destiny) had hatched its' brood, in its' trunk; a she-wolf Demoness maid (the Mesopotamian demoness 'lilitu')  had built her home. The Divine maiden, someone whose destiny was decided by the gods, who laughs with a happy heart, the sacred [both sexually-exploited and simultaneously true "Bad Girl", honored by temple prostitution/ temple sex profession] Inanna was weeping.  Inanna received (?) ……, the kindling of fire, the extinguishing of fire,. "No, but I shall go to the place from whence I came. If you wish to come with me, come!" His sister having thus spoken to Gilgamesh, her brother Gilgamesh helped her in this matter .. Stood firm, therefore, he girded his loins .. Carrying his bronze axe for expeditions,  .. And In its' base the Serpent that Knows-no-Charm he slew.''
-- --
   Basic knowledge is a valuable place to start with just about anything. Although a large number of very important genres are expressed. I feel it my duty to not allow anyone to mischaracterize belief systems, unless they are so ear-piercingly strident in their manner they aren't worth ever bothering with. Focus on this truism, which is always the case. Various gods are always distinguishable. Usage or lifting of religio¬mythic motifs (and images) does not necessitate a guaranteed continuity, in light of the individuality of each one's personal distinct character, nature, biography, traits, and particular uniqueness conveyed, universally speaking from culture to culture!! Nor are ANY blank sheets to write whatever you'd like to upon or project on to either,. A type doesnt mean they are ever exactly the same, by any means! Parallels do, I'm afraid, breakdown, rightly so in the light of closer examination. Many understandably continue to deny, challenge, and outright refute this notion sacred marriage rites would be interchangable from within regional culture to culture, and across millennia, for instance. And even if there were an except to the rule, such as assimilation; it does not change the fact, each are NOT interchangable under any circumstances for the most part, understandably so.
 

{Eliz. Kunningham wrote}
 

''Well  we'll tell an old old story of how .. well we'll  tell us this story, the assertion "I am the whore and the holy one" would not have been a paradox at all. As Sophia cohabited with Samael's separate darkness. In ancient Sumer and Old Babylon, temple priestess/prostitutes of the goddess received the god-bearing stranger. Their sexual union was, for both participants, was annual reenactment and to an extent a communion with the divine. In many ancient cultures, in order for the land to prosper and for a king to have legitimacy in the eyes of the people, he had to celebrate the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) with a priestess, as a structure of society  In Sumer, the people sang ecstatic, erotic hymns to encourage and celebrate the marriage of the ill-fated shepherd-king Dumuzi with the goddess Inanna,  Embraces the Hierdoule. Here’s a passage from the Sacred Marriage Rite, at least in their ancient society, translated by an Ancient Near East Scholar:
 

The King goes with lifted head to the holy lap
He goes with lifted head to the holy lap of Inanna,
The King coming with lifted head,
Coming to my queen with lifted head'"
                                                                           ¬  Eliz. Kunningham (Novelist)
______________________________
                                   
   ''I produced thought about the Ennoias which came out of the undefiled Spirit, about the descent upon the water . .  the world had been prepared by the will of our sister Sophia - she who is a whore - because of the innocence which has not been uttered. And she did not ask anything from the All, nor from the greatness of the Assembly, nor from the Pleroma. Since she was first, she came forth to.. places for the Son of Light Gnostic"
                                                                          ¬ The Second Treatise of the Great Seth
**  **
  Further elaborated on the  Lower Sophia .. found throughout the codex(ices) from the text as 'the Holy Spirit' who 'is called the Mother of All' ..
     ''Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
    Do not be ignorant of me.

  For I am she, the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am <the mother> and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
    and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
    and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
    and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the sister of my husband
    and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me ..
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
                                                              ¬ The Thunder, Perfect Mind (naghamm)
**  **

 


 


danatemporary
danatemporary's picture
Posts: 1951
Joined: 2011-01-12
User is offlineOffline
Is there something else, we dont need something else ? No then!?

 Re :: Disdain the rejection when you hear it, but when you hear the promise, rejoice (ApocJm)

  Re :: Time is Short

Nu 812


[IMG] http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3ZYPKu2sf-o/Twp-OMwzS4I/AAAAAAAAC5s/6geTur9iXG4/s1600/Jos%25C3%25A9_de_Ribera_040.jpg [/IMG]


  Re :: Disdain the rejection when you hear it, but when you hear the promise, rejoice (ApocJm)


  ''Truly I say to you that you have stirred up great anger and wrath against yourself. But (this has happened) so that these others might come to be."  
                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                           ¬  The First Apocalypse of James   

      Although this would clearly fails to do much more than cite the texts cited from the Nag Hammadi. They at least can be pointed  to generate an interesting point to further exploration, I'd imagine.  I fear  no dread of discouragement  at all!!

                      
  Now on this fire  this water, wine and blood, of the Great Christ Look away ((gnosis.org)) gnosis.org


38.13-25 ''  .. [since] indeed the head Demon is one [of] the divine beings. He removed himself and seized the entire [..] of the gates and he expelled his own root from that place [in the body] and the carcasses of flesh, for [he enveloped] by [the man], of God. And sowed him (Adam). Therefore he acquired what he sowed who [...] Cain slew Abel his brother''


                                                                                                                                            ¬ Valentinian Exposition (naghamm)


 ''..Those who are united in the friendship of friends forever, who neither know hostility at all, nor evil, but who are united by My knowledge in word and peace . . Then from before the foundation of the world, when the whole multitude of the Assembly came together upon the places of the Ogdoad, when they had taken counsel about a spiritual wedding which is in union, and thus he being perfected in the ineffable places by a living word, the undefiled wedding was consummated through the Mesotes of Jesus, .. who abides in an undivided love of power. And surrounding him, he appears to him as a Monad of all these, a thought and a father, since he is one. And he stands by them all, since he as a whole came forth alone. And he is life, since he came from the Father of ineffable and perfect Truth, (the father) of those who are there, the union of Peace and a friend of good things, and .. etc.''


                                                                                                                                             ¬ The Second Treatise of the Great Seth


Additionally, in the Gospel of the Egyptians we read the following ::
  ''Then the thrice-male child of the great Christ, whom the great invisible Spirit  (gave praise to Youel)   ..

 
  ''For this one, Adamas, ..For this is the first man,  ..Then the great Logos, the divine Autogenes, and the incorruptible man Adamas .. A Logos of man came into being. However, the man came into being through a word.  He gave praise to the great, invisible, incomprehensible, virginal Spirit, and the male virgin, and the thrice-male child, and the male virgin Youel  [His male name, which she also has a female name] ..  the child of the child and the crown of his glory''
                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                ¬ Gospel of the Egyptians


   Within the Revelations of Adam, something apart from the divine totality took place, and without the receipt of divine consent within the Godhead. In this abortive act of separate creation, she [Heavenly Sophia] gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, described as being ashamed of her act, she wrapped him in a cloud, and she was what enveloped that Great Angel and created a throne for him within it.
 ______________________


 ''And shortly after My Father sent unto Me the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove''
"The fire, the water, and the wine are for cleansing all the sins of the world; the blood I had as a sign of the body of human kind, and I received it in the region of Barbēlō, the great power of the Divine Invisible [? the Thirteenth Æon]; while the Spirit draweth all souls and bringeth them into the region of Light."
"This is the "fire" He came to "cast on the earth" according to a former saying; this the "living water" the Samaritan woman should have asked for; this the "cup of wine" in the eucharist; this the "water" that came from His side.''
"These are the mysteries of the light ..''
                                                                                                                                                  ¬   Askew Codex
 - -  --  - -
 ''Jesus said unto his disciples: "Draw near unto me." And they drew near unto him. He turned himself towards the four corners of the world, said the great name over their heads, blessed them and breathed into their eyes.

Jesus said unto them: "Look up and see what ye may see."  Many things are for other eyes. But, Their eyes are opened. And they raised their eyes and saw a  great, exceedingly mighty light, which no man in the world can describe.

He said unto them anew: "Look away out of the light and see what ye may see."

They said: "We see fire, water, wine and blood."

Jesus explaineth the vision of fire and water, and wine and blood.Jesus,--that is Aberamenthō,--said unto his disciples: "Amēn, I say unto you: I have brought nothing into the world when I came, save this fire, this water, this wine and this blood. I have brought the water and the fire out of the region of the Light of the lights of the Treasury of the Light; and I have brought the wine and the blood out of the region of Barbēlō. And after a little while my father sent me the holy spirit in the type of a dove.
"And the fire, the water and the wine are for the purification of all the sins of the world. The blood on the other hand was for a sign unto me because of the human body which I received in the region of Barbēlō  
    "What is the power of this man who is higher than we [the Archons]?" ..And the glory will withdraw and dwell in holy houses which it has chosen for itself. And the powers will not see it with their eyes, nor will they see the illuminator either. Then they will punish the flesh of the man upon whom the holy spirit came. "But we [the People/the 'church'] have done every deed of the powers senselessly. We have boasted in the transgression of all our works. We have cried against the God of truth because all his works [...] is eternal. These are against our spirits. For now we have known that our souls will die the death."
  "Then the seed ..will fight against the powers  .. "Then the peoples will cry out with a great voice, saying, "Blessed is the soul of those men because they have known God with a knowledge of the truth! They shall live forever, because they have not been corrupted nor have they accomplished the works of the powers, but they have stood in his presence in a knowledge of God like light that has come forth from fire and blood.                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            ¬Apocalypse of Adam

 ** [In] the secret of the holy plan, the Savior appeared - not in his previous form, .. And His likeness resembles a great angel of light.


                                                                                                                                                            ¬ Sophia of Jesus Christ (naghamm)

''The savior smiled and said, "The serpent taught them (Adam and Eve) to eat from wickedness of begetting, lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might be useful to him.''


                                                                                                                                                           ¬ (ApocJn)
__  __


   Then there's what is referred to as Simonianism, of a Simon Magus, Gnosticism, his statements are difficult to match to other texts within the library of works re-discovered back in 1945 ::


  ''..Since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross..''


                                                                                                                                                           ¬ The Second Treatise of the Great Seth

 


     In the 2nd Century texts, it's these Anthropomorphites seeming were seeking to give forth a vision of the eternal, divine body of Christ (that is, a pre-incarnate body belonging to the Son’s unique divinity, and not merely to the assumed humanity). Comparison with certain writings discovered at Nag Hammadi ( The Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of the Egyptians, Eugnostos the Blessed, The Sophia of Jesus Christ, On the Origin of the World, The Apocryphon of John and The Teachings of Silvanus), along with the works of Philo, reveals the background of **anthropomorphite Christology, the bodily line put to death on a cross,. Taking into account the highly ambiguous, though plain distinction being made within the language compared in various texts, (that is).

 

Saw me He had  . .

 

   At the risk of great miscommunication, At no point should anyone of us be governed by the fear that the understanding of the development of thought is somehow EVER a bad thing nor dogmatical(-ly) adherence to a position, however natural, make us defensive and unwilling to find out about where the evidence is leading (,OT included, alluded to in upper portion)! All to get a better picture by the  eventuality of doing so.  You and I need to draw more meaningful(-ly) sophisticated conclusions.

 

"Eventuality", we live in hope.
__  _  __


Definition(s) ::


 Mesotes (region)
(μεσότης, mesótēs: ‘middle’, ‘mean’, understood in the positive sense). Key concept of a Greek ethical (and resulting political) maxim, which - according to the classical definition of Aristotle (see below) - postulates an orientation toward the mean between ‘too much’ (hyperbolḗ) and ‘too little’ (élleipsis). A diffuse mesótēs ideal is perceptible since the Archaic period, and was already propagated by Hesiodus (Op. 694) and ascribed primarily to the Delphic oracle or the Seven Sages (mēdén ágan: ‘nothing too much’, supporting documents in [1. 11f.]). About 600/590 BC


Note  -- Duel like distinction between the Ennoia ''who went down to him from her sister Sophia'', and "their (the Archons')'' Ennoias .

 

 

  Oh, Glossaries  are available OnLine.
 


___________


  '' If you consider how long the world existed <before> you, and how long it will exist after you, you will find that your life is one single day, and your sufferings one single hour.. ''  ¬ Apocryphon of James


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:I am not

Beyond Saving wrote:

I am not familiar with any quantum physics research that supports the existence of a deity. Could you please link me to it? I would be extremely interested in reading it and now would be a great time because I have started studying quantum physics due to another thread on this site that illuminated my ignorance of the subject. So please post a link, pretty please with a cherry on top.

Are you familiar with Quantum mechanics?  Remember, I said I want to use what you are familiar with and what you understand. 

As far as a link, I've only read books on the subject and haven't done much online Quantum based research.  With a quick google search I find random sites that don't really discuss the link but suggest that God is in everything.  Thank you Dali Lama.  For starters, see if you can get your hands on "God is not Dead" by Amit Goswami, PHD.  He goes into great detail using Quantum mechanics and about "Quantum signatures of the Divine".  If you can't get your hands on it, we can try taking exerpts and discussing them. 

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

caposkia wrote:

There is a landbridge in the Reed sea that is in the vacinity of where it is understood that Moses and his people crossed to escape the pharaoh's army.  There's a lot more to that story and a lot more into the investigation, but that right there would be a tiny bit of evidence to put that story in plausible territory and put God in plausible light.  We can go on to discuss how water could have pulled off that land bridge, then rushed back... there are many natural explanations... some that can be backed up with geological history.  But of course then we get into the discussion that if it can be explained by natural occurances, God is not needed for the event despite how ironic it is that the water left in time for Moses' people to escape and rushed back in time to wipe out the army. 

So you admit that your evidence isn't evidence of God. You have evidence that it is plausible that humans might have been able to cross the sea. Anything beyond that (like magic, god, unicorns etc.) is not supported by that evidence. Since them crossing the sea is not something I have disputed, it is irrelevant. I want evidence that directly supports the existence of a deity.

... is that what I admitted?  Consider the details of the story.  That would be once piece of the puzzle yet you dismiss it as even a possibility to look into the story further.  I feel like we're not going to get far in Quantum Mechanics if this is your approach.

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

What?!? Name ONE tribe that has an Abrahamic deity or one that is substantially similar. It would be extraordinarily unusual, which is why I doubted your claim that one exists.

With what you had written you just claimed it... how about looking back in your research that you based your last quote on and you name for me one of them mentioned.  I've already told you I don't remember the name of the one in question and it's not really my focus of research.

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

caposkia wrote:

exactly.  oh wait... you're claiming that archaeologists and theists who have doctoral degrees in such fields arrived at their own conclusion and tried to fit the evidence into the preconceived story? 

Hate to say this, but i've seen that on both sides.  Cant' use that against scripture.

No, good archaeologists ask questions and then look for answers creating explanations that explain all of the evidence found. When evidence is found that doesn't mesh with an explanation, the belief is discarded. Those who try to force evidence to fit an explanation that isn't plausible are quickly revealed for the frauds they are through the peer review process.

I agree with you completely here... I've still seen it on both sides and so it cannot be used against scripture.  Sorry.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:One of two

Jabberwocky wrote:

One of two possibilities

1. You have proven Christianity true, but decided not to publish it for some reason, or

2. You've convinced yourself of its truth and your thoughts are incoherent to the ponit that you've confused yourself.

Your inability to even point any one of us to a path to understanding this incredible thing that you apparently do understand makes #2 far more likely.

haven't i now?  I've kind of left the path carving in your territory so can't blame me for that.  I have however tried to start many paths, but you're so eager to throw junk in the path you forget to consider whether the path was actually going somewhere. 

Despite what you seem to want to base your belief on, the Truth isn't answered in a simple statement or paragraph.  It's a process of discussion and self discovery.  It could take years if you do the homework properly.  I have a feeling you're not willing to put that much effort into this topic.

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

You assume they are convoluted because when someone like you asks someone like me to "show you" how all of the above proves C you're expecting a one post answer.  Instead of meeting you at coffee shops for the next few years day after day or writing you 1000 + pages on the subject, we try to summarize so that at least there'd be interest on your part to pull out something from the mass information to discuss further.  Usually it's not "all the information" that can prove to one person that C is out there, rather it is a particular set of points.  E.g.

Bullshit. Utter utter bullshit. A few years of coffee shop meetings or 1000+ pages? Iiii don't think so. Even if it was 10 000 pages, don't you think that every single Christian school, Sunday school, priest, pastor, preacher, etc. would have put together such a lesson plan so that their students, followers etc. have no doubt, and don't merely believe, but KNOW that it's true? I can't buy that, sorry.

aaaaand I rest my case...

Jabberwocky wrote:

Science is not flawed due to being determined by human minds. It is examined to a sense by human minds, but an important part of science is that we record the results of our experiments. We then make predictions based on what we believe we have discovered. The accuracy of our predictions validates our findings. Our inability to sample or test something does not mean it doesn't exist. However, many of the claims made by Christianity are ones that we can examine, and have found that there is either no evidence for them, or actual evidence that the claims are erroneous.

if you actually do the homework, you'll find that the Vatican dates and records acts of God.  You may not have full access to their library, but many have been released publicly.  If you do further homework, there are a few sites out there that discuss the process of determining an act of God. (though they believe it's an act of a Saint) and it includes cross referencing with doctors as to the possibility of the outcome as seen and discussed with neutral non-believing parties as to the rationality of the miracle as being something truly miraculous. 

If you want to make the effort, it's out there... if you don't, I'll expect your next post to have the word "bullshit" in it somewhere.  Just remember, I'm here asking you why I shouldn't believe... It's not my job to convince you that my God is real

Jabberwocky wrote:

I never said that god DNA is required here. Religions both before and after the Abrahamic faiths have shown that religions arise all the time and independantly of each other. You have not once, in any thread here, justified why your religion is true, and other ones are not.

I see you haven't read all threads.  That's also not the focus of this thread.  I'd also rather take the time to discuss that with someone who wants to rationally discuss the concepts, beliefs, history and progression of religions as well as church history (as a subject, not as a religion) and is willing to look at the bigger picture of world belief systems. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

Jews weren't called Jews until much later in history.  Abraham wasn't Jewish because that tribe did not exist.  Judaism was not a religion but a people group that followed their own traditions and history.  When the Bible talks about the 12 tribes, they're talking about Judaism as a people group, not a religious sect.  Not all pre-dated religions can be connected, but I know you'll find some that link to the history of Jews.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Practicing Catholic until my late teens. Very devout in my early to mid-teens as well. It was that which drove me away eventually. Learning more about it, and examining my faith.

As far as the millions, I find that most religious people are reluctant to discuss religion with someone who they see is certain that it's a crock. It's as if they're afraid to take a critical look at it. Funny how that is.

I grew up Catholic too... it took me rejecting that religion to find God.

Most religious people are reluctant to discuss religion with someone like you... mainly because they just don't understand what they're following.  Just to pick a random number, out of 1 Billion claimed "Christians", I would say maybe a few million of them are True followers, which means they actually understand who they follow and why... and can back up their reasoning in some logical and educated way.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Base it all on theory? What the hell do you mean here? Don't use science and theory in the same paragraph if you're going to imply that "theory" is merely a guess. Can you examine metaphysics? If not, then it's not a science, no matter how serious someone is about it.

you can examine metaphysics, which is why it is a science... May I remind you that what I was saying in the last post was quote from other non-believers and not my own opinions. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

I would be very interested in a thread about this. As I said in this thread and the other one, I would like you to lay out why you are certain that the bible (and by extension, Christianity) is true. It is what you seem to imply with your constant assertion that you believe the bible because history and science support it in some sense. I would like you to start a new thread (preferably by getting a mod to start a one-on-one with us, however a free-for-all is ok by me as well). In that thread, I would like you to begin proving important parts of the bible as either highly plausible or undeniably true. From there, I would like you to show me why that verifies other parts of the bible, and proves the truth of important doctrines of Christianity. I would like this to be written in rather small chunks in order for me to be allowed to understand what you mean, or scrutinize your words where I feel applicable. I would like us to not proceed further until the disagreements are settled, or at least I agree to drop an issue for the moment. Is that something that you'd be interested in?

 

Ok... I'm wondering if you're looking for something like a historical runthrough like what I'm already doing with pjts here: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17279.  If that's not what you're saying here, then please clarify exactly what you might be looking for from me. 

I would prefer starting with the plausibility of God in general because that typically is the stumbling block for anyone discussing the Bible and its validity in reality.   We could start by discussing Quantum signatures and fossil gaps.  What we'll find however is that science doesn't by any means show that God does not exist, rather it shows only that things happened as they did, but cannot explain how except for an ideal mixture of certain gasses and chemicals.  That at least would be in reference to origin.  Quantum Mechanics goes a bit deeper and discusses more alleged supernatural possibilities and downward causation.


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

One of two possibilities

1. You have proven Christianity true, but decided not to publish it for some reason, or

2. You've convinced yourself of its truth and your thoughts are incoherent to the ponit that you've confused yourself.

Your inability to even point any one of us to a path to understanding this incredible thing that you apparently do understand makes #2 far more likely.

haven't i now?  I've kind of left the path carving in your territory so can't blame me for that.  I have however tried to start many paths, but you're so eager to throw junk in the path you forget to consider whether the path was actually going somewhere. 

Despite what you seem to want to base your belief on, the Truth isn't answered in a simple statement or paragraph.  It's a process of discussion and self discovery.  It could take years if you do the homework properly.  I have a feeling you're not willing to put that much effort into this topic.

Were there a compelling reason to embark on that path, then I would. You said in another thread something along the lines of "If I were trying to demonstrate the truth of the bible, I would not begin with the flood". What would you begin with? Where would you start? Your other thread with PJTS is sort of going in order of the bible and going point by point (in a thread where you are not holding your own IMO). So I'm asking again, where would you start?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

You assume they are convoluted because when someone like you asks someone like me to "show you" how all of the above proves C you're expecting a one post answer.  Instead of meeting you at coffee shops for the next few years day after day or writing you 1000 + pages on the subject, we try to summarize so that at least there'd be interest on your part to pull out something from the mass information to discuss further.  Usually it's not "all the information" that can prove to one person that C is out there, rather it is a particular set of points.  E.g.

Bullshit. Utter utter bullshit. A few years of coffee shop meetings or 1000+ pages? Iiii don't think so. Even if it was 10 000 pages, don't you think that every single Christian school, Sunday school, priest, pastor, preacher, etc. would have put together such a lesson plan so that their students, followers etc. have no doubt, and don't merely believe, but KNOW that it's true? I can't buy that, sorry.

aaaaand I rest my case...

Prematurely. My point here is this. You claim to have a concise and logical reason to believe this. You claim that it would take years or several thousand pages of print to explain it. Has anybody ever published this sort of concise explanation? If not, then you are claiming that you can. If Christianity is true, then this is obviously an extraordinarily important thing. Even if it were to take a long time to do, this should be of the utmost importance. However, you haven't written such a thing. Either you deem it not important to save us heathens, or you don't have such a concise and logical reason to believe in your religion. Judging by your posts, I'm leaning heavily towards the latter as a reason. Your responses in this thread, the flood thread, and in the PJTS bible thread are almost all 100% insufficient to make your case. They're mostly very bad counter-arguments, erroneous accusations of logical fallacies, or one sentence answers where they don't even apply (such as the one I'm responding to). You may think "I rest my case" is sufficient when I say that I won't buy that. I don't think it is. My post quoted here is saying, in short, IF it were possible to write an indisputable case for Christianity being true, no matter how long, it would have been done. Once it had been done, it would have been spread to all other Christian institutions immediately in order to innoculate their followers 100% from apostasy. It would then have been spread to the non-Christians in order to convert them once in for all. No such thing has ever happened. You seem to imply that you could write such a thing (but won't). If I'm wrong and that's not what you're implying, then the only thing left is "well you can't prove it, so you have to have faith". In that scenario, I will rest my case, as faith is always divorced from evidence. Since evidence has proven time and time again to be the BEST way to know anything, I will take it every single time over faith.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Science is not flawed due to being determined by human minds. It is examined to a sense by human minds, but an important part of science is that we record the results of our experiments. We then make predictions based on what we believe we have discovered. The accuracy of our predictions validates our findings. Our inability to sample or test something does not mean it doesn't exist. However, many of the claims made by Christianity are ones that we can examine, and have found that there is either no evidence for them, or actual evidence that the claims are erroneous.

if you actually do the homework, you'll find that the Vatican dates and records acts of God.  You may not have full access to their library, but many have been released publicly.  If you do further homework, there are a few sites out there that discuss the process of determining an act of God. (though they believe it's an act of a Saint) and it includes cross referencing with doctors as to the possibility of the outcome as seen and discussed with neutral non-believing parties as to the rationality of the miracle as being something truly miraculous. 

If you want to make the effort, it's out there... if you don't, I'll expect your next post to have the word "bullshit" in it somewhere.  Just remember, I'm here asking you why I shouldn't believe... It's not my job to convince you that my God is real

Yes, the Vatican are great at this you're right (uh oh, this might be sarcasm). In the case of Mother Teresa, where they claim she posthumously cured a cancerous tumour, it's documented quite well that what cured the woman was not a divine intercession, but an intervention by a real doctor, who can tell you what the growth was (not cancerous to my recollection) and what it was that made the growth go away.

Since that one is a widely scrutinized and mentioned case, I decided to look at those canonized in the last decade and pick one. I ended up finding Marianne Cope. Her first miracle was apparently to cure someone experiening multiple organ system failure some time after having had a tumour removed (hence the miracle was curing the multiple OSF, not the cancer). While the doctors don't know what caused the positive turn around, it does not mean that there wasn't an earthly reason for it. I did a quick search regarding organ system failure and found this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2370825

Considering that Katherine Dehlia Mahoney (the patient) had 3 or more organs failing or improperly functioning, it does indeed seem to be that the outlook was bleak at the time, with a probability of mortality clocking in at above 90%. However, note that the probability is not 100%. Now, if you were able to take all the <10% situations...ALL of them, and attribute your god to them, that would be incredible.  Since we know that such spontaneous recoveries, albeit rare, do happen, then chalking it up to intercession is an erroneous application of causality. Also, consider how many people are Catholics and would ask for intercession of this sort.  What I have never seen recorded by the church EVER is the duds. I wonder how many people prayed to Mother Teresa (more than most potential saints I'm sure due to her world-wide fame) and didn't get cured. I would venture quite a lot. The Catholic church's abstension from recording that means that they DON'T do a good job of documenting miracles, and are appealing to nothing but confirmation bias when it comes to these miracles. I would venture that far more people have prayed to Mother Teresa world-wide than Marianne Cope, but the latter has already been sainted. The former has not, yet people still keep on trying, and the second that 2nd miracle comes about, she will be sainted, despite all of the times praying to her didn't work.

On your second point there, it's not your job to convince me that your god is real. That is correct. However, atheism is the default position. If you are unable to provide good evidence of your god existing, then you have no good reason to believe in that god. That is all. The burden of proof when it comes to Christianity vs. not, will always sit on the shoulders of the Christian. Now if you don't care to provide proof, that's fine. However you are at this forum, hence you seem to have some interest in it, hence why we keep pressing you here.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

I never said that god DNA is required here. Religions both before and after the Abrahamic faiths have shown that religions arise all the time and independantly of each other. You have not once, in any thread here, justified why your religion is true, and other ones are not.

I see you haven't read all threads.  That's also not the focus of this thread.  I'd also rather take the time to discuss that with someone who wants to rationally discuss the concepts, beliefs, history and progression of religions as well as church history (as a subject, not as a religion) and is willing to look at the bigger picture of world belief systems. 

Ok. Do you believe that religions experienced a progression througout the years in human culture to eventually change into what they are now? Or do you believe that 2000 years ago a Jew who was god was born of a virgin, told us we required saving, was correct, then died (which somehow saved us) then came back from the dead, and the only documentation to support this is a book compiled with obvious bias which we are expected to take at face value without questioning, and our failure to do so will result in our eternal torture after we die?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

Jews weren't called Jews until much later in history.  Abraham wasn't Jewish because that tribe did not exist.  Judaism was not a religion but a people group that followed their own traditions and history.  When the Bible talks about the 12 tribes, they're talking about Judaism as a people group, not a religious sect.  Not all pre-dated religions can be connected, but I know you'll find some that link to the history of Jews.

What the hell does that even mean? So which religions?

Also, Abraham wasn't Jewish because the Abraham of the old testament is a wholly fictional character. The non-existence of the tribe is only half the worries there.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Practicing Catholic until my late teens. Very devout in my early to mid-teens as well. It was that which drove me away eventually. Learning more about it, and examining my faith.

As far as the millions, I find that most religious people are reluctant to discuss religion with someone who they see is certain that it's a crock. It's as if they're afraid to take a critical look at it. Funny how that is.

I grew up Catholic too... it took me rejecting that religion to find God.

Oh I tried that too. You can tell me all you want that I did it wrong, but let me assure you that there was a time when I was lost, and wanted nothing more than to find god. My inability to find him falls squarely on his shoulders if he exists.

caposkia wrote:

Most religious people are reluctant to discuss religion with someone like you... mainly because they just don't understand what they're following.  Just to pick a random number, out of 1 Billion claimed "Christians", I would say maybe a few million of them are True followers, which means they actually understand who they follow and why... and can back up their reasoning in some logical and educated way.

I'd multiply that few million by 0. I agree that the percentage that have some education regarding their faith is far lower. I just think that it's completely incoherent in the end.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Base it all on theory? What the hell do you mean here? Don't use science and theory in the same paragraph if you're going to imply that "theory" is merely a guess. Can you examine metaphysics? If not, then it's not a science, no matter how serious someone is about it.

you can examine metaphysics, which is why it is a science... May I remind you that what I was saying in the last post was quote from other non-believers and not my own opinions. 

How does one begin to examine the metaphysical? I'm honestly curious, because I didn't know that this was a real thing.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

I would be very interested in a thread about this. As I said in this thread and the other one, I would like you to lay out why you are certain that the bible (and by extension, Christianity) is true. It is what you seem to imply with your constant assertion that you believe the bible because history and science support it in some sense. I would like you to start a new thread (preferably by getting a mod to start a one-on-one with us, however a free-for-all is ok by me as well). In that thread, I would like you to begin proving important parts of the bible as either highly plausible or undeniably true. From there, I would like you to show me why that verifies other parts of the bible, and proves the truth of important doctrines of Christianity. I would like this to be written in rather small chunks in order for me to be allowed to understand what you mean, or scrutinize your words where I feel applicable. I would like us to not proceed further until the disagreements are settled, or at least I agree to drop an issue for the moment. Is that something that you'd be interested in?

 

Ok... I'm wondering if you're looking for something like a historical runthrough like what I'm already doing with pjts here: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17279.  If that's not what you're saying here, then please clarify exactly what you might be looking for from me. 

I would prefer starting with the plausibility of God in general because that typically is the stumbling block for anyone discussing the Bible and its validity in reality.   We could start by discussing Quantum signatures and fossil gaps.  What we'll find however is that science doesn't by any means show that God does not exist, rather it shows only that things happened as they did, but cannot explain how except for an ideal mixture of certain gasses and chemicals.  That at least would be in reference to origin.  Quantum Mechanics goes a bit deeper and discusses more alleged supernatural possibilities and downward causation.

Your runthrough is a chronological one. As mentioned above, I want you to start what you feel is a position of strength in validating some important bits of the bible. Pick whichever one is the absolute easiest for you to prove (and something that actually has implications, not "Israel is a country" or something easy like many people try to do).

That's an awful starting point, because the plausibility of god is very vague. Is this god the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god that many Christians claim he is? If you just say "start with god being possible, then read the bible" then of course it might sound a little more sensible if you don't actually attach any attributes to this god. Anything that happens in the bible that doesn't seemingly make sense, that seems to contradict another part, that seems to be abhorrent, that seems to contradict what we know for certain of science or history, can be explained away in two words if you start with that. The words? Because, god! If your god is able to wipe away the concerns I just listed (contradictions, historical and scientific inaccuracies) then we live in a world where science and logic are actually completely worthless.

Quantum signatures? What is that? Googling it has shown me a quantum digital signature (which can't apply to this argument) and a link to the Star Trek wiki...please explain what you mean and provide some reading material I'll gladly take in.

Fossil gaps...your bringing up of fossil gaps at all shows the straws you are grasping at. The reason we have fossil gaps? Because nobody was causing things to fossilize for humans to later find them and fill out a chart showing the tree of life. Fossilization just happens. It's also important to note that it doesn't happen very often. We are extremely fortunate to have the fossils that we do. It takes a very specific set of circumstances for fossilization to occur. The existence of these gaps is not troubling at all. Let's go back to some basics here. Biologists know and can tell you that when a sexually reproducing species reproduce, they get have the genetic info from each parent. The sperm or egg can (to my knowledge, someone correct me if I'm wrong here) be bad copies (also known as, contain mutations) so you could have an odd trait that doesn't match that of either parent. Also, after the sperm and egg form the zygote, other mutations can occur afterwards as well. A biologist can tell you the % rate of change that is possible (and what is most common, what is plausible, etc) from generation to generation. Then we can take the DNA of something like a human and a bonobo chimpanzee. From looking at the % of difference, we can therefore infer, with a reasonable level of accuracy, how many generations had to have elapsed for some common ancestor of both primates to had eventually yielded the 2 specimens being tested. There may be fossil gaps that make it harder for us to deduce exactly what order some of these genetic changes occurred, but the homology of organs, bone structure, and the similarity in the DNA, is more than enough proof that life has evolved on its own requiring no assistance. Kenneth Miller (Catholic) and Francis Collins (Christian) are both very well known biologists. I'm not sure if they think that evolution was guided or not, or if it was pushed along in some way. I don't think I've ever heard them say it, but if they did, they both are intellectually honest enough to tell you that the science works just fine without that assumption.

Now as far as science not proving that there is no god, you are correct. However, Christianity is a religion that can not be divorced from the scriptures that posit its truth. Those scriptures are largely incompatible with science (and history for that matter), and to my satisfaction, Christianity is renedered untrue. I'm an atheist. An agnostic atheist, but only just. I can't prove that there is no god. However, I am not agnostic about my aChristianity. I am 100% certain that Christianity is not true. There could be something similar to Christianity that is true (if the bible was written to allude to real events, but distorted by its keepers in order to control a populace). However, the differences to what is considered Christianity would be, to me, significant enough that calling it Christianity wouldn't make sense.

Also, what quantum mechanics goes into supernatural possibilities and downward causation? Just because quantum mechanics is highly mysterious, doesn't mean anything except for our inability to grasp why it works. Don't go throwing it into the mix just because of how hard it is for humans to understand. That's Deepak Chopra territory of.....bullshit. (hey, you asked for it...just wanted to finish strong)

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13253
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
*Wins*

*Wins*

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5526
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Beyond Saving

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

I am not familiar with any quantum physics research that supports the existence of a deity. Could you please link me to it? I would be extremely interested in reading it and now would be a great time because I have started studying quantum physics due to another thread on this site that illuminated my ignorance of the subject. So please post a link, pretty please with a cherry on top.

Are you familiar with Quantum mechanics?  Remember, I said I want to use what you are familiar with and what you understand.

Like I said, I have been ignorant of the subject previously. An ignorance that I am currently working to correct.

 

caposkia wrote:

As far as a link, I've only read books on the subject and haven't done much online Quantum based research.  With a quick google search I find random sites that don't really discuss the link but suggest that God is in everything.  Thank you Dali Lama.  For starters, see if you can get your hands on "God is not Dead" by Amit Goswami, PHD.  He goes into great detail using Quantum mechanics and about "Quantum signatures of the Divine".  If you can't get your hands on it, we can try taking exerpts and discussing them. 

From what I know of Dr. Goswami, the god he hypothesizes is absolutely nothing like the Christian concept of god. He also believes in reincarnation and several other ideas stemming from Buddhism. Are you now a Buddhist? If you are a Christian you must consider Dr. Goswami to be a quack, his hypothesis are not consistent with Christianity. The only Abrahamic god they have any consistency with is Allah, and even that is a stretch.

 

caposkia wrote:

... is that what I admitted?  Consider the details of the story.  That would be once piece of the puzzle yet you dismiss it as even a possibility to look into the story further.  I feel like we're not going to get far in Quantum Mechanics if this is your approach.

I doubt we will get far in quantum mechanics at all. I suspect that your knowledge of quantum mechanics is even more limited than your knowledge of archaeology. The only reason we will get anywhere at all is that my knowledge of quantum mechanics is far more limited than my knowledge of archaeology, so it will take me longer to point out your bullshit as bullshit. I did get quite a laugh that the first authority you appeal to is anti-christian, even though I agree with Christians that the guy is a complete quack. He relies on his audience being ignorant. Meanwhile, scientists move well past Goswami and find evidence that his mystic bullshit is indeed bullshit.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bringing-schrodingers-quantum-cat-to-life

http://www.nature.com/news/a-boost-for-quantum-reality-1.10602

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-function-reality.html

http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3328

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/measure-of-things/4418902/Quantum-wave-functions-come-alive–May-the-Bohr-Model-rest-in-peace

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

 

What?!? Name ONE tribe that has an Abrahamic deity or one that is substantially similar. It would be extraordinarily unusual, which is why I doubted your claim that one exists.

caposkia wrote:

With what you had written you just claimed it... how about looking back in your research that you based your last quote on and you name for me one of them mentioned.  I've already told you I don't remember the name of the one in question and it's not really my focus of research.

Berber, Dahomey, Waaq, Bantu, Mbuti, Odinani and Egyptian are the African mythologies I am most knowledgeable of.

 

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

caposkia wrote:

exactly.  oh wait... you're claiming that archaeologists and theists who have doctoral degrees in such fields arrived at their own conclusion and tried to fit the evidence into the preconceived story? 

Hate to say this, but i've seen that on both sides.  Cant' use that against scripture.

No, good archaeologists ask questions and then look for answers creating explanations that explain all of the evidence found. When evidence is found that doesn't mesh with an explanation, the belief is discarded. Those who try to force evidence to fit an explanation that isn't plausible are quickly revealed for the frauds they are through the peer review process.

I agree with you completely here... I've still seen it on both sides and so it cannot be used against scripture.  Sorry.

It can be used against anyone who uses the tactic and you use it a lot. This entire thread is based upon you attempting to force reality to fit a preconceived story that you decided is true.

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:Were there

Jabberwocky wrote:

Were there a compelling reason to embark on that path, then I would. You said in another thread something along the lines of "If I were trying to demonstrate the truth of the bible, I would not begin with the flood". What would you begin with? Where would you start? Your other thread with PJTS is sort of going in order of the bible and going point by point (in a thread where you are not holding your own IMO). So I'm asking again, where would you start?

I would start with whether a metaphysical existence is possible.... Once that's established, then discuss (if determined that it is possible) different religions around the world, their history, origins, progressions and intentions/views.  This would help answer the question, why the Bible...  Only then would it be reasonable to discuss the Bible and its place in Truth.  I would the probably start with NT stories and issues and associate them with OT claims and occurances as well as issues between the 2 Testiments which would go into why Jews aren't Chrsitians and why Chrsitians aren't Jews and why Jesus had to die. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Prematurely. My point here is this. You claim to have a concise and logical reason to believe this. You claim that it would take years or several thousand pages of print to explain it. Has anybody ever published this sort of concise explanation? If not, then you are claiming that you can. If Christianity is true, then this is obviously an extraordinarily important thing. Even if it were to take a long time to do, this should be of the utmost importance. However, you haven't written such a thing. Either you deem it not important to save us heathens, or you don't have such a concise and logical reason to believe in your religion. Judging by your posts, I'm leaning heavily towards the latter as a reason. Your responses in this thread, the flood thread, and in the PJTS bible thread are almost all 100% insufficient to make your case. They're mostly very bad counter-arguments, erroneous accusations of logical fallacies, or one sentence answers where they don't even apply (such as the one I'm responding to). You may think "I rest my case" is sufficient when I say that I won't buy that. I don't think it is. My post quoted here is saying, in short, IF it were possible to write an indisputable case for Christianity being true, no matter how long, it would have been done. Once it had been done, it would have been spread to all other Christian institutions immediately in order to innoculate their followers 100% from apostasy. It would then have been spread to the non-Christians in order to convert them once in for all. No such thing has ever happened. You seem to imply that you could write such a thing (but won't). If I'm wrong and that's not what you're implying, then the only thing left is "well you can't prove it, so you have to have faith". In that scenario, I will rest my case, as faith is always divorced from evidence. Since evidence has proven time and time again to be the BEST way to know anything, I will take it every single time over faith.

To go through your paragraph point by point, Most people would not publish all the information in one book because to reach individuals as i said, it's typically a specific set of points and not all the information... all the information is typically overwhelming and a searching soul would be lost in the process rather than understanding the following.  Let's just say no matter how long you've been a Christian, you're still learning all of it.  There's a reason why commentaries are multi-volume sets, sometimes upwards of 20-30 thick books. If you're so interested in all the information... I'm not sure who a good commentary is now, but they're out there... usually cost a few hundred... Even then though usually the commentaries are focused on something specific e.g. preaching pulpit etc and they tend to still add opinion which is why I'm not naming a specific one.  A lot of people would recommend Matthew Henry's, but I'm not a fan.  It's not bad, but opinionated more than I think it should be. 

I have not written one because i haven't the time or motivation to write one book on the subject let alone a whole volume.

If I didn't think it important for you to be saved I would not be here.

You claim 100% insufficient but then PJTS and I have come to agreement on a lot of what is discussed in that thread... a lot of what recently has been discussed is insufficient because there's insufficient information out there on those particular books.

i rest my case is simply the point I made earlier was verified by you.  It's in no way a sufficient defense to the subject at hand, rather that our conversation likely will not make progress.

I get your point and it has been done many many many times... the catch is you have to find the focus that speaks to you because again usually a specific set of points will reach you, not all the facts...  As you've proven, one can come up with 1000 excuses as to why they don't want to accept something as true, but it only takes one fact to take all that away... not just any fact, but the right fact.  Sadly for humanity today it is a visual presentation of (here's the thing you claimed didn't exist, take it, hold it, look at it... case closed)  with the subject at hand, we can't do that so we're forced to accept other means of reasoning, which is a bit more challenging and yet will stick with you more once discovered. 

You are right to say you have to have faith, but you go onto say "faith is always divorced from evidence"... not true... without evidence, you have nothing to have faith in.  The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer.  This is not to say a lot of people out there do have 'faith in nothing' as I call it, but that should not determine what you're going to accept as truth. 

The thing with faith is we use it all the time... if you accept something as true, you're taking faith in a lot of different things... e.g. to accept that the pen is on the table you have to have faith that your brain and eyes are not playing tricks on you ( you typically have no reason to believe they are so you blindly accept it because you see it)  you also are taking faith that your first impression of the object is true, that it is in fact a pen and not a pencil or a stick... with closer examination, you can confirm those questions without faith, but again, it comes down to accepting your ability to see what is real by faith that what you think you see really is.  The real clincher here is what if that pen on the table that you can observe is in a place that you will never be able to touch it... then what?  Do you doubt the pen's existence or do you still have faith that what you're seeing is real and not a figment of your imagniation or a movie trick if it's on tv or even just a case of mistaken identity. 

my point is, faith is always an aspect of evidence... unlike your claim, they always have to go hand in hand. 

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Yes, the Vatican are great at this you're right (uh oh, this might be sarcasm). In the case of Mother Teresa, where they claim she posthumously cured a cancerous tumour, it's documented quite well that what cured the woman was not a divine intercession, but an intervention by a real doctor, who can tell you what the growth was (not cancerous to my recollection) and what it was that made the growth go away.

Since that one is a widely scrutinized and mentioned case, I decided to look at those canonized in the last decade and pick one. I ended up finding Marianne Cope. Her first miracle was apparently to cure someone experiening multiple organ system failure some time after having had a tumour removed (hence the miracle was curing the multiple OSF, not the cancer). While the doctors don't know what caused the positive turn around, it does not mean that there wasn't an earthly reason for it. I did a quick search regarding organ system failure and found this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2370825

Considering that Katherine Dehlia Mahoney (the patient) had 3 or more organs failing or improperly functioning, it does indeed seem to be that the outlook was bleak at the time, with a probability of mortality clocking in at above 90%. However, note that the probability is not 100%. Now, if you were able to take all the <10% situations...ALL of them, and attribute your god to them, that would be incredible.  Since we know that such spontaneous recoveries, albeit rare, do happen, then chalking it up to intercession is an erroneous application of causality. Also, consider how many people are Catholics and would ask for intercession of this sort.  What I have never seen recorded by the church EVER is the duds. I wonder how many people prayed to Mother Teresa (more than most potential saints I'm sure due to her world-wide fame) and didn't get cured. I would venture quite a lot. The Catholic church's abstension from recording that means that they DON'T do a good job of documenting miracles, and are appealing to nothing but confirmation bias when it comes to these miracles. I would venture that far more people have prayed to Mother Teresa world-wide than Marianne Cope, but the latter has already been sainted. The former has not, yet people still keep on trying, and the second that 2nd miracle comes about, she will be sainted, despite all of the times praying to her didn't work.

In the studies I've looked at, they've always cross referenced not only with the doctors involved, but also checked with unbias unassociated doctors to confirm that nothing that was medically done had cured the issue... also before fully confirming a situation as a miracle of God, they double check with a neutral non-believing entity to see if there is any other explanation for such occurance... if all tests are passed, it is deemed, by faith that God interceeded... but usually in the case of the vatican, there had to be a believing catholic behind the cure which would deem them a Saint.   There are other factors too and the whole process currently takes years to confirm... 

Jabberwocky wrote:

On your second point there, it's not your job to convince me that your god is real. That is correct. However, atheism is the default position. If you are unable to provide good evidence of your god existing, then you have no good reason to believe in that god. That is all. The burden of proof when it comes to Christianity vs. not, will always sit on the shoulders of the Christian. Now if you don't care to provide proof, that's fine. However you are at this forum, hence you seem to have some interest in it, hence why we keep pressing you here.

I've been trying to find that avenue to discuss with you, but you're more preocupied with trying to downplay all of it rather than find common ground.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok. Do you believe that religions experienced a progression througout the years in human culture to eventually change into what they are now? Or do you believe that 2000 years ago a Jew who was god was born of a virgin, told us we required saving, was correct, then died (which somehow saved us) then came back from the dead, and the only documentation to support this is a book compiled with obvious bias which we are expected to take at face value without questioning, and our failure to do so will result in our eternal torture after we die?

I believe in neither as worded.

of course religion experiences progression throughout the years and the followers are completely different people than they were 2000 years ago, however some of the progression at least in Chrsitianity is reformation back to the roots of the faith so as to not stray from the truth.  The issues of our past were only corrected by taking steps back to our roots for faith.  Strangely enough it is nothing like what people think it should be... if you really read the NT. 

As far as Jesus, i believe He is the son of God, born of a virgin, taught of the New way of life for Gods followers, suffered and died for our sins.  Jesus taught that you should NEVER take what is told to you at face value and that questioning the authorities will reveil the truth where it is absent... He also warned that doing so can lead to the same fate that He had.

Jabberwocky wrote:

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

Jews weren't called Jews until much later in history.  Abraham wasn't Jewish because that tribe did not exist.  Judaism was not a religion but a people group that followed their own traditions and history.  When the Bible talks about the 12 tribes, they're talking about Judaism as a people group, not a religious sect.  Not all pre-dated religions can be connected, but I know you'll find some that link to the history of Jews.

What the hell does that even mean? So which religions?

Also, Abraham wasn't Jewish because the Abraham of the old testament is a wholly fictional character. The non-existence of the tribe is only half the worries there.

really???? you're asking what that means???? it means the same thing as Native Americans weren't called Indians until Eurpeans came over.  That seems pretty strait forward to me.  Its history... without using Biblical references, just look up the Tribes of Israel. 

So your conclusion based on evidence is that "Abraham wasn't Jewish becasue the Abraham of the old testament is a wholly fictional character".... I thought you accepted evidence over faith. 

You'll now ask, what evidence is there?  I'll answer other than later generations claiming to be Abrahamic decent and inscriptions with the Abrahamic name there isn't any... which makes your claim that much more incredible be it that it couldn't possibly be based on evidence, but rather lack thereof.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Oh I tried that too. You can tell me all you want that I did it wrong, but let me assure you that there was a time when I was lost, and wanted nothing more than to find god. My inability to find him falls squarely on his shoulders if he exists.

why would I tell you you did it wrong?  You just haven't seen His work in your life yet... I can't begin to assume on that.  I don't know you.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I'd multiply that few million by 0. I agree that the percentage that have some education regarding their faith is far lower. I just think that it's completely incoherent in the end.

I get that

Jabberwocky wrote:

How does one begin to examine the metaphysical? I'm honestly curious, because I didn't know that this was a real thing.

I like this description the best.

http://www.wikihow.com/Study-Metaphysics

note: this is the most basic understanding..

Jabberwocky wrote:

I would be very interested in a thread about this. As I said in this thread and the other one, I would like you to lay out why you are certain that the bible (and by extension, Christianity) is true. It is what you seem to imply with your constant assertion that you believe the bible because history and science support it in some sense. I would like you to start a new thread (preferably by getting a mod to start a one-on-one with us, however a free-for-all is ok by me as well). In that thread, I would like you to begin proving important parts of the bible as either highly plausible or undeniably true. From there, I would like you to show me why that verifies other parts of the bible, and proves the truth of important doctrines of Christianity. I would like this to be written in rather small chunks in order for me to be allowed to understand what you mean, or scrutinize your words where I feel applicable. I would like us to not proceed further until the disagreements are settled, or at least I agree to drop an issue for the moment. Is that something that you'd be interested in?

Jabberwocky wrote:

Your runthrough is a chronological one. As mentioned above, I want you to start what you feel is a position of strength in validating some important bits of the bible. Pick whichever one is the absolute easiest for you to prove (and something that actually has implications, not "Israel is a country" or something easy like many people try to do).

That's an awful starting point, because the plausibility of god is very vague. Is this god the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god that many Christians claim he is? If you just say "start with god being possible, then read the bible" then of course it might sound a little more sensible if you don't actually attach any attributes to this god. Anything that happens in the bible that doesn't seemingly make sense, that seems to contradict another part, that seems to be abhorrent, that seems to contradict what we know for certain of science or history, can be explained away in two words if you start with that. The words? Because, god! If your god is able to wipe away the concerns I just listed (contradictions, historical and scientific inaccuracies) then we live in a world where science and logic are actually completely worthless.

Quantum signatures? What is that? Googling it has shown me a quantum digital signature (which can't apply to this argument) and a link to the Star Trek wiki...please explain what you mean and provide some reading material I'll gladly take in.

Fossil gaps...your bringing up of fossil gaps at all shows the straws you are grasping at. The reason we have fossil gaps? Because nobody was causing things to fossilize for humans to later find them and fill out a chart showing the tree of life. Fossilization just happens. It's also important to note that it doesn't happen very often. We are extremely fortunate to have the fossils that we do. It takes a very specific set of circumstances for fossilization to occur. The existence of these gaps is not troubling at all. Let's go back to some basics here. Biologists know and can tell you that when a sexually reproducing species reproduce, they get have the genetic info from each parent. The sperm or egg can (to my knowledge, someone correct me if I'm wrong here) be bad copies (also known as, contain mutations) so you could have an odd trait that doesn't match that of either parent. Also, after the sperm and egg form the zygote, other mutations can occur afterwards as well. A biologist can tell you the % rate of change that is possible (and what is most common, what is plausible, etc) from generation to generation. Then we can take the DNA of something like a human and a bonobo chimpanzee. From looking at the % of difference, we can therefore infer, with a reasonable level of accuracy, how many generations had to have elapsed for some common ancestor of both primates to had eventually yielded the 2 specimens being tested. There may be fossil gaps that make it harder for us to deduce exactly what order some of these genetic changes occurred, but the homology of organs, bone structure, and the similarity in the DNA, is more than enough proof that life has evolved on its own requiring no assistance. Kenneth Miller (Catholic) and Francis Collins (Christian) are both very well known biologists. I'm not sure if they think that evolution was guided or not, or if it was pushed along in some way. I don't think I've ever heard them say it, but if they did, they both are intellectually honest enough to tell you that the science works just fine without that assumption.

Now as far as science not proving that there is no god, you are correct. However, Christianity is a religion that can not be divorced from the scriptures that posit its truth. Those scriptures are largely incompatible with science (and history for that matter), and to my satisfaction, Christianity is renedered untrue. I'm an atheist. An agnostic atheist, but only just. I can't prove that there is no god. However, I am not agnostic about my aChristianity. I am 100% certain that Christianity is not true. There could be something similar to Christianity that is true (if the bible was written to allude to real events, but distorted by its keepers in order to control a populace). However, the differences to what is considered Christianity would be, to me, significant enough that calling it Christianity wouldn't make sense.

Also, what quantum mechanics goes into supernatural possibilities and downward causation? Just because quantum mechanics is highly mysterious, doesn't mean anything except for our inability to grasp why it works. Don't go throwing it into the mix just because of how hard it is for humans to understand. That's Deepak Chopra territory of.....bullshit. (hey, you asked for it...just wanted to finish strong)

downward causation is the study that things are caused by a higher power and not by upward causation which is us doing something then it having a result... not to say that doesn't happen on a day to day basis, but that there is a downward causation for events, not that the upward causation doesn't happen... it is complicated, but if we were unable to grasp how it works, then we wouldn't be able to label it. 

it seems that we've at least weeded out a few points that would obviously not work for you... though it seems you'd accept at least a logical converation about a being detached from scripture yet existing metaphysically.  is that true?


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:It can

Beyond Saving wrote:

It can be used against anyone who uses the tactic and you use it a lot. This entire thread is based upon you attempting to force reality to fit a preconceived story that you decided is true.

 

I never claimed to be an expert in Archaeology, but I would say do to your claims of knowledge as well, this would apply to you more than me.


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
To preface this, it feels to

To preface this, it feels to be good posting here in the browser I use for everything else. Thanks to Brian, and all donors responsible for this! Thanks all. I just made a large purchase, but once that financial fun is over, I'll be glad to help myself! Moving on...

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Were there a compelling reason to embark on that path, then I would. You said in another thread something along the lines of "If I were trying to demonstrate the truth of the bible, I would not begin with the flood". What would you begin with? Where would you start? Your other thread with PJTS is sort of going in order of the bible and going point by point (in a thread where you are not holding your own IMO). So I'm asking again, where would you start?

I would start with whether a metaphysical existence is possible....

How would you do that? 

caposkia wrote:

Once that's established,

It's not

caposkia wrote:
then discuss (if determined that it is possible) different religions around the world, their history, origins, progressions and intentions/views. 

So you're saying that it's appropriate to compare world religions to one another logically based on their history, origins, progressions and intentions/views (a weird way to put it, but ok, let's roll with that!)

caposkia wrote:

This would help answer the question, why the Bible... 

Great! This is what I'm looking for! Of course your presupposition that ONE of them MUST be true is absurd. You attempted to do that by merely suggesting that a metaphysical existence is possible. Of course you did this without quantifying whether or not it actually is, let alone whether it's even plausible, or has a reasonable basis for believing in. You then leapfrogged (in the very next sentence!) to that being an established fact without even saying why YOU feel it the case, let alone actually providing any evidence for believing it as plausible. Wow! Ok. But the fact that you implied that means that you immediately put that one pawn forward in this chess game. You believe this to be in the realm of plausible metaphysics, and are open to the fact that ANY religion could be true. Awesome! I love nothing more than a religious person who is willing to take their holy book and pit it in a battle royale against the other ones, and produce a futile attempt at proving it as a more legitimate source of truth (or as I prefer to word it, in a far less ambiguous way, a model of reality). Because it is always futile. So your question "why the Bible..." to be continued below. Let's keep going!

caposkia wrote:

Only then would it be reasonable to discuss the Bible and its place in Truth.  I would the probably start with NT stories and issues and associate them with OT claims and occurances as well as issues between the 2 Testiments which would go into why Jews aren't Chrsitians and why Chrsitians aren't Jews and why Jesus had to die. 

So if you can't establish that such metaphysics are indeed plausible, don't you lose by default? I'll leave that point alone for the moment just to continue the discussion. Urgh...WHICH ONES? Which stories? I asked for specifics, and you literally took the biggest divide you could come up with! It would be the equivalent of me asking you "where do you live on this planet?" and your answer being "the western hemisphere. It's opposite the eastern one. The locations in the western hemisphere don't coincide with those from the east, but because it's in the western hemisphere, you know where it is in relative to the eastern hemisphere you've heard so much about! The topography is completely different, not merely a mirror image of the Eastern hemisphere, so it would take a while to describe. This would go into why Easterners are not Westerners, and why Westerners are not Easterners, and why the North Pole had to die!" I'm sorry to caricature what you said, but what you said is seriously no less absurd than my caricature. I asked you for specifics, and you gave me a whole fucking testament! Frankly, I know that my dreams are just my own random-ass thoughts, but they are more insightful (and oddly enough, preditctive) than the bible ever is, or was. You have to do better than that. If you can't provide a specific example, it either means that you are inept in your knowledge of the bible (which makes you a terrible spokesman for Christianity) or that you know the bible damn well enough that you keep it vague to make your belief a harder target to hit. 

caposkyah wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Prematurely. My point here is this. You claim to have a concise and logical reason to believe this. You claim that it would take years or several thousand pages of print to explain it. Has anybody ever published this sort of concise explanation? If not, then you are claiming that you can. If Christianity is true, then this is obviously an extraordinarily important thing. Even if it were to take a long time to do, this should be of the utmost importance. However, you haven't written such a thing. Either you deem it not important to save us heathens, or you don't have such a concise and logical reason to believe in your religion. Judging by your posts, I'm leaning heavily towards the latter as a reason. Your responses in this thread, the flood thread, and in the PJTS bible thread are almost all 100% insufficient to make your case. They're mostly very bad counter-arguments, erroneous accusations of logical fallacies, or one sentence answers where they don't even apply (such as the one I'm responding to). You may think "I rest my case" is sufficient when I say that I won't buy that. I don't think it is. My post quoted here is saying, in short, IF it were possible to write an indisputable case for Christianity being true, no matter how long, it would have been done. Once it had been done, it would have been spread to all other Christian institutions immediately in order to innoculate their followers 100% from apostasy. It would then have been spread to the non-Christians in order to convert them once in for all. No such thing has ever happened. You seem to imply that you could write such a thing (but won't). If I'm wrong and that's not what you're implying, then the only thing left is "well you can't prove it, so you have to have faith". In that scenario, I will rest my case, as faith is always divorced from evidence. Since evidence has proven time and time again to be the BEST way to know anything, I will take it every single time over faith.

To go through your paragraph point by point, Most people would not publish all the information in one book because to reach individuals as i said, it's typically a specific set of points and not all the information... all the information is typically overwhelming and a searching soul would be lost in the process rather than understanding the following.  Let's just say no matter how long you've been a Christian, you're still learning all of it.  There's a reason why commentaries are multi-volume sets, sometimes upwards of 20-30 thick books. If you're so interested in all the information... I'm not sure who a good commentary is now, but they're out there... usually cost a few hundred... Even then though usually the commentaries are focused on something specific e.g. preaching pulpit etc and they tend to still add opinion which is why I'm not naming a specific one.  A lot of people would recommend Matthew Henry's, but I'm not a fan.  It's not bad, but opinionated more than I think it should be. 

Cost a few hundred??? Ok. So you're saying that people that have done the best job at proving Christianity true are charging a few hundred for this (real money in the real world) but they believe that the actual important world is beyond the one we know? I can't and won't buy that. If people are able to scrimp and save for years to benefit themselves later (such as to buy a car, or a house, or otherwise invest), then certainly somebody that honestly believes that the next 50...60...hell even 100 years of their life here (should they be so fortunate to live out...if it's pleasant) is a literally infinitely small fraction of their eternal existence, wouldn't give a flying fack about the money they make on this planet if they believed that this afterlife was actually undoubtedly true. By the way, the fact that you can't even identify one such text by name is telling that you don't fully agree with any of them either, supporting my position that the theology is incohrerent.

caaaap wrote:

I have not written one because i haven't the time or motivation to write one book on the subject let alone a whole volume.

If I didn't think it important for you to be saved I would not be here.

So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site? Surely your great completely coherent thoughts on why Christianity MUST be true should be shared with the whole world? And your certainty that you're right will convince everyone will save the whole world if you were able to transmit it? Nah, that's not worth writing about. Nevermind. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot!

kaposKYAHHH!! wrote:

You claim 100% insufficient but then PJTS and I have come to agreement on a lot of what is discussed in that thread... a lot of what recently has been discussed is insufficient because there's insufficient information out there on those particular books.

The insufficient information means that it can't be verified in the same way that it can't be disproven. Just saying. 

capOHHHHHskiaMyClipboardIsn'tWorking wrote:

i rest my case is simply the point I made earlier was verified by you.  It's in no way a sufficient defense to the subject at hand, rather that our conversation likely will not make progress.

I get your point and it has been done many many many times... the catch is you have to find the focus that speaks to you because again usually a specific set of points will reach you, not all the facts...  As you've proven, one can come up with 1000 excuses as to why they don't want to accept something as true, but it only takes one fact to take all that away... not just any fact, but the right fact.  Sadly for humanity today it is a visual presentation of (here's the thing you claimed didn't exist, take it, hold it, look at it... case closed)  with the subject at hand, we can't do that so we're forced to accept other means of reasoning, which is a bit more challenging and yet will stick with you more once discovered. 

What is it that I claimed didn't exist? If it's hard evidence of the truth of Christianity, I'm still right, and have outlined why above. 

Kaposhkah! wrote:

You are right to say you have to have faith, but you go onto say "faith is always divorced from evidence"... not true... without evidence, you have nothing to have faith in. 

Wrong. Don't attempt to imply that belief and faith are one and the same. Faith is a belief in a proposition that is without evidence, or in the face of contrary evidence.

CaposkiaImTiredOfInventingNewNames wrote:

The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer.  This is not to say a lot of people out there do have 'faith in nothing' as I call it, but that should not determine what you're going to accept as truth. 

Wrong again! The things that we can't answer are vast. This is an incredible amount of things. But we can make judgements on which of two propositions is more likely. Sometimes, one proposition is slightly more likely thatn the other. Sometimes, one is extraordinarily more likely than the other. The bible is most probably not true. Anyhow, moving on...

Cehpehshkeh wrote:

The thing with faith is we use it all the time... if you accept something as true, you're taking faith in a lot of different things... e.g. to accept that the pen is on the table you have to have faith that your brain and eyes are not playing tricks on you ( you typically have no reason to believe they are so you blindly accept it because you see it)  you also are taking faith that your first impression of the object is true, that it is in fact a pen and not a pencil or a stick... with closer examination, you can confirm those questions without faith, but again, it comes down to accepting your ability to see what is real by faith that what you think you see really is.  The real clincher here is what if that pen on the table that you can observe is in a place that you will never be able to touch it... then what?  Do you doubt the pen's existence or do you still have faith that what you're seeing is real and not a figment of your imagniation or a movie trick if it's on tv or even just a case of mistaken identity. 

Holy bullshit alert! So you start by saying we can't know that our brain and eyes aren't fucking with us, and that a pen we see is may not be a pen, but then if we examine it (accepting that our brain and eyes could indeed be fucking with us at any given point) we conclude that it is a pen and not a stick or a pencil? Wow. Seriously...wow! 

I can't verify with 100% certainty that I'm even typing this right now. However, I have good reason to think that I am. If I were able to convince you to accept a bet, and force you to accept it, I would bet you that I am indeed typing this, and seeing what I think I see (providing evidence by way of photography with my own description), I would bet you money that it is the case every day, and have a jury corroborate what I say. What you're explaining we can't know with 100% certainty (then explaining that we can if we look closer, in a hilarious display of inconsistency), we can know as well as humanly possible! 

Also, if it's on TV, of course I'm open to reality being more malleable. It's what TV does.

deluded wrote:

my point is, faith is always an aspect of evidence... unlike your claim, they always have to go hand in hand. 

 

That's gibberish. 

Belief doesn't require evidence, but if you have evidence that convinces you that a particular belief is impossible, then it forces you to disbelieve in the proposition, because you've been shown (to your own satisfaction) that it is not possible. Faith is not synonymous to belief. If you would like to rephrease that using the correct terminology, feel free.

awujnaeogunae wrote:

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Yes, the Vatican are great at this you're right (uh oh, this might be sarcasm). In the case of Mother Teresa, where they claim she posthumously cured a cancerous tumour, it's documented quite well that what cured the woman was not a divine intercession, but an intervention by a real doctor, who can tell you what the growth was (not cancerous to my recollection) and what it was that made the growth go away.

Since that one is a widely scrutinized and mentioned case, I decided to look at those canonized in the last decade and pick one. I ended up finding Marianne Cope. Her first miracle was apparently to cure someone experiening multiple organ system failure some time after having had a tumour removed (hence the miracle was curing the multiple OSF, not the cancer). While the doctors don't know what caused the positive turn around, it does not mean that there wasn't an earthly reason for it. I did a quick search regarding organ system failure and found this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2370825

Considering that Katherine Dehlia Mahoney (the patient) had 3 or more organs failing or improperly functioning, it does indeed seem to be that the outlook was bleak at the time, with a probability of mortality clocking in at above 90%. However, note that the probability is not 100%. Now, if you were able to take all the <10% situations...ALL of them, and attribute your god to them, that would be incredible.  Since we know that such spontaneous recoveries, albeit rare, do happen, then chalking it up to intercession is an erroneous application of causality. Also, consider how many people are Catholics and would ask for intercession of this sort.  What I have never seen recorded by the church EVER is the duds. I wonder how many people prayed to Mother Teresa (more than most potential saints I'm sure due to her world-wide fame) and didn't get cured. I would venture quite a lot. The Catholic church's abstension from recording that means that they DON'T do a good job of documenting miracles, and are appealing to nothing but confirmation bias when it comes to these miracles. I would venture that far more people have prayed to Mother Teresa world-wide than Marianne Cope, but the latter has already been sainted. The former has not, yet people still keep on trying, and the second that 2nd miracle comes about, she will be sainted, despite all of the times praying to her didn't work.

In the studies I've looked at, they've always cross referenced not only with the doctors involved, but also checked with unbias unassociated doctors to confirm that nothing that was medically done had cured the issue... also before fully confirming a situation as a miracle of God, they double check with a neutral non-believing entity to see if there is any other explanation for such occurance... if all tests are passed, it is deemed, by faith that God interceeded... but usually in the case of the vatican, there had to be a believing catholic behind the cure which would deem them a Saint.   There are other factors too and the whole process currently takes years to confirm... 

You have not addressed my point. They don't address misses. The church has never said "X person contacted me that they prayed to Agnes and were not cured". I refuse to believe (given Mother Teresa's popularity) that it has never happened that prayers for her to intercede went unfulfilled.

Did you read a single fucking word of what I said regarding the woman with a growth who prayed to Mother Teresa? Clearly not. Or you chose to ignore it while you adddressed it. Dishonesty in support of Christianity. Very typical. The church clearly did NOT consult the doctor who treated her (or maybe they did, and put under wraps what was said, which would be an even BIGGER lie. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1443320/Medicine-cured-miracle-woman-not-Mother-Teresa-say-doctors.html Here are some details regarding that. I wonder whether the husband was convinced to change his tune by niceness, money, or whether he was coerced by threats. The whole thing stinks. 

Also, double checking with a non-believer (the devli's advocate) to my knowledge has been repealed, and no longer goes on. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Capinmyass wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

On your second point there, it's not your job to convince me that your god is real. That is correct. However, atheism is the default position. If you are unable to provide good evidence of your god existing, then you have no good reason to believe in that god. That is all. The burden of proof when it comes to Christianity vs. not, will always sit on the shoulders of the Christian. Now if you don't care to provide proof, that's fine. However you are at this forum, hence you seem to have some interest in it, hence why we keep pressing you here.

I've been trying to find that avenue to discuss with you, but you're more preocupied with trying to downplay all of it rather than find common ground.

Not if I am provided with compelling evidence. Scroll up. Pick the most compelling part of the new testament (as I have challenged you, MULTIPLE TIMES IN MULTIPLE THREADS) and let's go from there!

Paposhmear wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok. Do you believe that religions experienced a progression througout the years in human culture to eventually change into what they are now? Or do you believe that 2000 years ago a Jew who was god was born of a virgin, told us we required saving, was correct, then died (which somehow saved us) then came back from the dead, and the only documentation to support this is a book compiled with obvious bias which we are expected to take at face value without questioning, and our failure to do so will result in our eternal torture after we die?

I believe in neither as worded.

of course religion experiences progression throughout the years and the followers are completely different people than they were 2000 years ago, however some of the progression at least in Chrsitianity is reformation back to the roots of the faith so as to not stray from the truth.  The issues of our past were only corrected by taking steps back to our roots for faith.  Strangely enough it is nothing like what people think it should be... if you really read the NT. 

As far as Jesus, i believe He is the son of God, born of a virgin, taught of the New way of life for Gods followers, suffered and died for our sins.  Jesus taught that you should NEVER take what is told to you at face value and that questioning the authorities will reveil the truth where it is absent... He also warned that doing so can lead to the same fate that He had.

Ok, so you believe in the Jesus parts of the bible literally. Now provide proof. Also, if you take the word of authorities (which he allegdly said not to do at face value....which verse?) wouldn't that tell people that Christianity is true in the case of Christian theocracies?

Tired wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

Jews weren't called Jews until much later in history.  Abraham wasn't Jewish because that tribe did not exist.  Judaism was not a religion but a people group that followed their own traditions and history.  When the Bible talks about the 12 tribes, they're talking about Judaism as a people group, not a religious sect.  Not all pre-dated religions can be connected, but I know you'll find some that link to the history of Jews.

What evidence do you have that these people existed? Recorded human history predated these books, and nobody (even in nearby regions) seemed to know a thing about them. I'll respond to the rest another day. It's late and I'm tired. 

 

EDIT - Added a bit to the Mother Teresa cure claim. I'll address the rest later tonight. 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5526
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Beyond Saving

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

It can be used against anyone who uses the tactic and you use it a lot. This entire thread is based upon you attempting to force reality to fit a preconceived story that you decided is true.

 

I never claimed to be an expert in Archaeology, but I would say do to your claims of knowledge as well, this would apply to you more than me.

I have provided you dozens of reputable sources to support each of the points I have made. To date, you have provided two sources, the Bible itself and a crazy geologist from Australia who you said you don't believe yourself. That is why you have changed your explanation about the story a dozen times. You followed the exact same pattern when being pressed for evidence of demons. In both cases, you assume the story is true and find explanations to work around any evidence you are presented with- rather than use the evidence available and attempt to draw conclusions from it. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

Jews weren't called Jews until much later in history.  Abraham wasn't Jewish because that tribe did not exist.  Judaism was not a religion but a people group that followed their own traditions and history.  When the Bible talks about the 12 tribes, they're talking about Judaism as a people group, not a religious sect.  Not all pre-dated religions can be connected, but I know you'll find some that link to the history of Jews.

What the hell does that even mean? So which religions?

Also, Abraham wasn't Jewish because the Abraham of the old testament is a wholly fictional character. The non-existence of the tribe is only half the worries there.

cap wrote:

really???? you're asking what that means???? it means the same thing as Native Americans weren't called Indians until Eurpeans came over.  That seems pretty strait forward to me.  Its history... without using Biblical references, just look up the Tribes of Israel. 

So your conclusion based on evidence is that "Abraham wasn't Jewish becasue the Abraham of the old testament is a wholly fictional character".... I thought you accepted evidence over faith. 

You'll now ask, what evidence is there?  I'll answer other than later generations claiming to be Abrahamic decent and inscriptions with the Abrahamic name there isn't any... which makes your claim that much more incredible be it that it couldn't possibly be based on evidence, but rather lack thereof.

Well, the bible claims that Israel came about when Jacob was named Israel, thus founding the nation (funny enough, El is a god who isn't Yahweh....My question of "what the hell does that mean" mostly referred to the final sentence in that post. I asked you what you say to the religions that pre-date Judaism, since they by definition can't be traced to the Judeo-Christian origin. Hinduism is the biggest religion that is older than Judaism. Is Hinduism a bastardization of the concept of the real god, or is it a wholly invented concept that the real one true god simply allowed to spiral out of control? If your religion is true, these are important matters and questions!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites

If they claimed to be of Abrahamic descent in later generations when the religion of Judaism was already established, it does not mean that Abraham was a real historical person. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Oh I tried that too. You can tell me all you want that I did it wrong, but let me assure you that there was a time when I was lost, and wanted nothing more than to find god. My inability to find him falls squarely on his shoulders if he exists.

why would I tell you you did it wrong?  You just haven't seen His work in your life yet... I can't begin to assume on that.  I don't know you.

So now you're saying that the onus is on god? He's taking his damn time if that's the case.

Also you're wrong. I DID see his work in my life. Then I realized that my interpretation of that experience was erroneous. Some pretty amazing things happened to me when I believed. Some pretty crappy ones too. Same goes for when I didn't believe. What qualifies as a verifiable work of god? It's hard to answer isn't it? It's because the entire concept is vague. You may think that you know, but certainty is simply a state of mind, and absolutely everybody on earth is succeptible to being 100% certain of something (in their minds) that isn't true. I had that certainty, and I no longer do. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

I'd multiply that few million by 0. I agree that the percentage that have some education regarding their faith is far lower. I just think that it's completely incoherent in the end.

I get that

You get that it's incoherent? Do you agree that it's incoherent? If so, then why do you believe it? 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

How does one begin to examine the metaphysical? I'm honestly curious, because I didn't know that this was a real thing.

I like this description the best.

http://www.wikihow.com/Study-Metaphysics

note: this is the most basic understanding..

 

Ok. The only thing that this touches that can apply to the existence of a god is point 4 as written at my reading of it. It suggests that a universe can exist outside of a physical one. That doesn't matter to me one iota. Brought up in the same link is a line saying to learn to properly distinguish between the physical and the abstract. I agree with that. Do numbers exist? As abstract concepts yes. However, we can map these to reality in a logical sense that is understood by other people, and adhere to logical absolutes. So long as we're not counting in base 4 or lower, 2+2=4. Despite numbers not being physically demonstrable, we can still demonstrate the concept, as soon as you agree that 2 of something is 2 of something. This is a human construct that adheres to logic, and people are generally capable of understanding. At the end of the day though, the concept of counting and numbers is simply a construct of human minds that allows us to specifically detect patterns, and communicate them to others. There is no evidence to suggest that somewhere in an undetectable dimension a 2 exists. What you're suggesting, is that somewhere in an undetectable dimension, a god exists. While it's undetectable, a bunch of bronze age jews, wrote a book about this undetectable entity. Later, some additions were written in Greek adding details that greatly altered the theology. I'm simply claiming that that is almost certainly not the case, and like the number 2, god only exists in your mind. The difference is, the number 2 is useful.

caposkia wrote:

downward causation is the study that things are caused by a higher power and not by upward causation which is us doing something then it having a result... not to say that doesn't happen on a day to day basis, but that there is a downward causation for events, not that the upward causation doesn't happen... it is complicated, but if we were unable to grasp how it works, then we wouldn't be able to label it. 

You really didn't address anything there. I know what downward causation is. I have never seen anybody in the field of quantum mechanics posit from the field that a supernatural entity is consciously in control of it all. If we're unable to grasp how it works, we should figure it out. Keep in mind, everything our species has ever figured out was not helped, but hindered, when even the mere suggestion that the supernatural was involved was made. 

caposkia wrote:

it seems that we've at least weeded out a few points that would obviously not work for you... though it seems you'd accept at least a logical converation about a being detached from scripture yet existing metaphysically.  is that true?

Hah! Weeded out points that wouldn't work for me. I quite enjoy how you're so willing to drop points that you felt were good going in. I hope you're dropping them as I am. As far as the being detached from scripture yet existing metaphysically, I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is 0 evidence suggesting that such a being exists (and also 0 evidence that if it did, that the metaphysical being population is limited to 1). Also, if the being is detached from scripture, it simply isn't Christianity, which is the religion for which you have been arguing this entire time. Why are you willing to concede the entirety of scripture if you think that it's steeped in truth??

 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
made it

Hey all, i first wanted to appologize for the absence... I'm not sure if anyone else had the issue, but I was unable to sign in for the longest time.  I've also been quite busy with family and work so my time to check in and see if I could get in is limited.  I hope we can pick up where we left off.

-- cap 


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:To preface

Jabberwocky wrote:

To preface this, it feels to be good posting here in the browser I use for everything else. Thanks to Brian, and all donors responsible for this! Thanks all. I just made a large purchase, but once that financial fun is over, I'll be glad to help myself! Moving on...

I echo that thanks

Jabberwocky wrote:

How would you do that? 

Discuss a metaphical existence and its possibility?  Discuss the unknowns, theories that have no logical connection to the physical yet are affecting the physical.  Or to put it a better way, discuss theories that have to do with unseen matter e.g. dark matter and how they could be a glimpse of something beyond the physical... Also can discuss statistical reasoning for life, the organization of the universe, the Aspect theory, etc.

 

Once that's established,

Jabberwocky wrote:

It's not

you asked for the process... dont' be rude.

Jabberwocky wrote:

 

So you're saying that it's appropriate to compare world religions to one another logically based on their history, origins, progressions and intentions/views (a weird way to put it, but ok, let's roll with that!)

ok

Jabberwocky wrote:

Great! This is what I'm looking for! Of course your presupposition that ONE of them MUST be true is absurd.

Just as absurd as your claim that none of them can be true.  Consider perspectives here.

Jabberwocky wrote:

You attempted to do that by merely suggesting that a metaphysical existence is possible. Of course you did this without quantifying whether or not it actually is, let alone whether it's even plausible, or has a reasonable basis for believing in. You then leapfrogged (in the very next sentence!) to that being an established fact without even saying why YOU feel it the case, let alone actually providing any evidence for believing it as plausible. Wow! Ok. But the fact that you implied that means that you immediately put that one pawn forward in this chess game. You believe this to be in the realm of plausible metaphysics, and are open to the fact that ANY religion could be true. Awesome! I love nothing more than a religious person who is willing to take their holy book and pit it in a battle royale against the other ones, and produce a futile attempt at proving it as a more legitimate source of truth (or as I prefer to word it, in a far less ambiguous way, a model of reality). Because it is always futile. So your question "why the Bible..." to be continued below. Let's keep going!

again, you asked for a process.. I was running through a hypothetical progression.. you seem to assume between the last post and now we had an extensive conversation about it... don't know how that's logical

Jabberwocky wrote:

So if you can't establish that such metaphysics are indeed plausible, don't you lose by default? I'll leave that point alone for the moment just to continue the discussion. Urgh...WHICH ONES? Which stories? I asked for specifics, and you literally took the biggest divide you could come up with! It would be the equivalent of me asking you "where do you live on this planet?" and your answer being "the western hemisphere. It's opposite the eastern one. The locations in the western hemisphere don't coincide with those from the east, but because it's in the western hemisphere, you know where it is in relative to the eastern hemisphere you've heard so much about! The topography is completely different, not merely a mirror image of the Eastern hemisphere, so it would take a while to describe. This would go into why Easterners are not Westerners, and why Westerners are not Easterners, and why the North Pole had to die!" I'm sorry to caricature what you said, but what you said is seriously no less absurd than my caricature. I asked you for specifics, and you gave me a whole fucking testament! Frankly, I know that my dreams are just my own random-ass thoughts, but they are more insightful (and oddly enough, preditctive) than the bible ever is, or was. You have to do better than that. If you can't provide a specific example, it either means that you are inept in your knowledge of the bible (which makes you a terrible spokesman for Christianity) or that you know the bible damn well enough that you keep it vague to make your belief a harder target to hit. 

Do you follow conversation well on a normal basis or is this typical for you?

Jabberwocky wrote:

Cost a few hundred??? Ok. So you're saying that people that have done the best job at proving Christianity true are charging a few hundred for this (real money in the real world) but they believe that the actual important world is beyond the one we know? I can't and won't buy that. If people are able to scrimp and save for years to benefit themselves later (such as to buy a car, or a house, or otherwise invest), then certainly somebody that honestly believes that the next 50...60...hell even 100 years of their life here (should they be so fortunate to live out...if it's pleasant) is a literally infinitely small fraction of their eternal existence, wouldn't give a flying fack about the money they make on this planet if they believed that this afterlife was actually undoubtedly true. By the way, the fact that you can't even identify one such text by name is telling that you don't fully agree with any of them either, supporting my position that the theology is incohrerent.

I don't agree that teaching the Bible through volume sets really is the way, but they are out there....  I recently sold my largest volume, but my NT 4 book volume is Vincents if you're looking for a name... the next to be sold...
 

alleged future quote-jabb....:  if you don't agree with that, why do you have them?

 

response:  I got them a long time ago when I was still young in the faith... I figured they'd help me further understand and grow in the faith... I was wrong.

 

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site? Surely your great completely coherent thoughts on why Christianity MUST be true should be shared with the whole world? And your certainty that you're right will convince everyone will save the whole world if you were able to transmit it? Nah, that's not worth writing about. Nevermind. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot!

Can you ever think a rational thought??? even for a moment?  This is why I had doubts that a logical conversation could happen with you.  How about think outside the last sentence for a moment and consider that there are not a lot of Christians on sites like these... where do you think the rest of the legitimate Christians are? 

jabberwocky wrote:

What is it that I claimed didn't exist? If it's hard evidence of the truth of Christianity, I'm still right, and have outlined why above. 

my clipboard isn't working either

all I saw outlined above was a bunch of illogical conclusions without basis.... usually it's the atheist blaming the Christian for those.

jabberwocky wrote:

Wrong. Don't attempt to imply that belief and faith are one and the same. Faith is a belief in a proposition that is without evidence, or in the face of contrary evidence.

If that was true, there'd be nothing to have faith in... contrary evidence shows that your faith is not true... adversity on the other hand...

jabberwocky wrote:

CaposkiaImTiredOfInventingNewNames wrote:

The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer.  This is not to say a lot of people out there do have 'faith in nothing' as I call it, but that should not determine what you're going to accept as truth. 

Wrong again! The things that we can't answer are vast. This is an incredible amount of things. But we can make judgements on which of two propositions is more likely. Sometimes, one proposition is slightly more likely thatn the other. Sometimes, one is extraordinarily more likely than the other. The bible is most probably not true. Anyhow, moving on...

wrong again?  I'm explaining to you how we have faith, you're telling me, the one who has this faith that I"m wrong about how I accept the thing I have faith in.. you're ultimately telling me that it's wrong to have faith in something with evidence for that something... why do you contradict your own reasoning?

jabberwocky wrote:

Holy bullshit alert! So you start by saying we can't know that our brain and eyes aren't fucking with us, and that a pen we see is may not be a pen, but then if we examine it (accepting that our brain and eyes could indeed be fucking with us at any given point) we conclude that it is a pen and not a stick or a pencil? Wow. Seriously...wow! 

psychology 101

jabberwocky wrote:

I can't verify with 100% certainty that I'm even typing this right now. However, I have good reason to think that I am. If I were able to convince you to accept a bet, and force you to accept it, I would bet you that I am indeed typing this, and seeing what I think I see (providing evidence by way of photography with my own description), I would bet you money that it is the case every day, and have a jury corroborate what I say. What you're explaining we can't know with 100% certainty (then explaining that we can if we look closer, in a hilarious display of inconsistency), we can know as well as humanly possible! 

Also, if it's on TV, of course I'm open to reality being more malleable. It's what TV does.

So are you saying here that my original conclusion about you was right.. that we could not have a progressive logical conversation?

[/quote=caposkia]

 

deludedontheotherside wrote:

my point is, faith is always an aspect of evidence... unlike your claim, they always have to go hand in hand. 

 

That's gibberish. 

Belief doesn't require evidence, but if you have evidence that convinces you that a particular belief is impossible, then it forces you to disbelieve in the proposition, because you've been shown (to your own satisfaction) that it is not possible. Faith is not synonymous to belief. If you would like to rephrease that using the correct terminology, feel free.

See, here, I'm telling you there's a pen on the table... I'm SHOWING you that pen.. what are you doing?  you're doubting its existence despite your rant about how we can confirm things 100%,.. Just putting it into perspective.. I'm again defining the terms here for you as they are realistically... you're calling bs on it despite the fact that we haven't even gotten to the questionable aspects.  

You are so bent on being right you're forgetting to take into consideration that I'm just defining terms at this point as they are and practiced by Christians like me.  As I practice them...  You are ultimately on here trying to tell me that I'm not doing what I'm doing... Really?  who's deluded?   

deludedjoker wrote:

You have not addressed my point. They don't address misses. The church has never said "X person contacted me that they prayed to Agnes and were not cured". I refuse to believe (given Mother Teresa's popularity) that it has never happened that prayers for her to intercede went unfulfilled.

They get 1000's of claims a day... misses happen 1000's of times a day... Prayer is not like flipping a light switch... either it's in Gods will or it's not.. what makes it a miracle is the act of an event happening without the means of physical intervention necessary to make the event happen.  

jabberwocky wrote:

 

Did you read a single fucking word of what I said regarding the woman with a growth who prayed to Mother Teresa? Clearly not. Or you chose to ignore it while you adddressed it. Dishonesty in support of Christianity. Very typical. The church clearly did NOT consult the doctor who treated her (or maybe they did, and put under wraps what was said, which would be an even BIGGER lie. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1443320/Medicine-cured-miracle-woman-not-Mother-Teresa-say-doctors.html Here are some details regarding that. I wonder whether the husband was convinced to change his tune by niceness, money, or whether he was coerced by threats. The whole thing stinks. 

Also, double checking with a non-believer (the devli's advocate) to my knowledge has been repealed, and no longer goes on. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

I read your quotes better than you read mine

jabberwocky wrote:

Not if I am provided with compelling evidence. Scroll up. Pick the most compelling part of the new testament (as I have challenged you, MULTIPLE TIMES IN MULTIPLE THREADS) and let's go from there!

fine, Jesus as a historical person..

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, so you believe in the Jesus parts of the bible literally. Now provide proof. Also, if you take the word of authorities (which he allegdly said not to do at face value....which verse?) wouldn't that tell people that Christianity is true in the case of Christian theocracies?

one would think so.

"Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted. "

quoted from Wiki historicity of jesus.  

A very long writeup on the historical and many books on the subject if you google "Historical Jesus"

Jabberwocky wrote:

The ones that pre-dated Judaism can't be traced to a Judeo/Christian origin. What say you about those? I bolded that because if you don't have time to answer anything else, this is the question I would like answered by you most of all.

What evidence do you have that these people existed? Recorded human history predated these books, and nobody (even in nearby regions) seemed to know a thing about them. I'll respond to the rest another day. It's late and I'm tired. 

 

EDIT - Added a bit to the Mother Teresa cure claim. I'll address the rest later tonight. 

um... what evidence do I have that the Jews existed?  Probably the most compelling evidence is the existence of Jewish families in the world today.  Most Jewish "families" have a history that would date back to Biblical times... granted there are some who converted, so not all would have that history, but I'd find a particular Jewish family that has a good Ancestrial line and just trace them back... The Next Christiandom goes thorugh the history of the following in a more textbook like manner.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:caposkia

Beyond Saving wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

It can be used against anyone who uses the tactic and you use it a lot. This entire thread is based upon you attempting to force reality to fit a preconceived story that you decided is true.

 

I never claimed to be an expert in Archaeology, but I would say do to your claims of knowledge as well, this would apply to you more than me.

I have provided you dozens of reputable sources to support each of the points I have made. To date, you have provided two sources, the Bible itself and a crazy geologist from Australia who you said you don't believe yourself. That is why you have changed your explanation about the story a dozen times. You followed the exact same pattern when being pressed for evidence of demons. In both cases, you assume the story is true and find explanations to work around any evidence you are presented with- rather than use the evidence available and attempt to draw conclusions from it. 

...and none of them supported your points very well.  To date I have discussed many many topics with you and provided many more than 2 sources on all the threads we have discussed on..  You are stuck on me changing an explanation...

let's reflect on the "changes"... I told you right off we do not have a date... you were set on having a date... so I came up with an educated "guess"  you came up with a problem with my "guess"  I said that problem was logical and modified my "guess"... that was the start of your change issue.  Too bad educated guesses aren't allowed to be wrong ever... too bad I'm no better than any other geologist, archaeologist or scientist out there who also have not come up with a difinitive date due to lack of evidence in the possible eras in question in general about any topic.  

It is interresting how you're expecting me to know more than the experts though... I guess I should take that as a complement.  Thank you.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
 Jabberwocky wrote:Well,

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Well, the bible claims that Israel came about when Jacob was named Israel, thus founding the nation (funny enough, El is a god who isn't Yahweh....My question of "what the hell does that mean" mostly referred to the final sentence in that post. I asked you what you say to the religions that pre-date Judaism, since they by definition can't be traced to the Judeo-Christian origin. Hinduism is the biggest religion that is older than Judaism. Is Hinduism a bastardization of the concept of the real god, or is it a wholly invented concept that the real one true god simply allowed to spiral out of control? If your religion is true, these are important matters and questions!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites

If they claimed to be of Abrahamic descent in later generations when the religion of Judaism was already established, it does not mean that Abraham was a real historical person. 

...and it doesn't in any way suggest that he was NOT a real historical person... evidence would point to historical be it that there's really no reason or timeline to consider tha He wasn't real.  Just the sheer fact that there are Abrahamic inscriptions long before the Bible was compiled or the stories were written would be more reason to suggest legitimate historocity of the Abraham person.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

So now you're saying that the onus is on god? He's taking his damn time if that's the case.

Ask any True follower of God and you'll find they all agree... God always takes his damn time.  We guess it's how he builds us in faith, because we always see that He comes through just at the right time.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Also you're wrong. I DID see his work in my life. Then I realized that my interpretation of that experience was erroneous. Some pretty amazing things happened to me when I believed. Some pretty crappy ones too. Same goes for when I didn't believe. What qualifies as a verifiable work of god? It's hard to answer isn't it? It's because the entire concept is vague. You may think that you know, but certainty is simply a state of mind, and absolutely everybody on earth is succeptible to being 100% certain of something (in their minds) that isn't true. I had that certainty, and I no longer do. 

Boy, this sounds like the exact line of logic that you so harshly critisized me of using in a former post.... de javu?  Is the pen really there?

jabberwocky wrote:

You get that it's incoherent? Do you agree that it's incoherent? If so, then why do you believe it? 

I get that the education is far lower and that you believe it's incoherent in the end... I get your perspective... been there.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok. The only thing that this touches that can apply to the existence of a god is point 4 as written at my reading of it. It suggests that a universe can exist outside of a physical one. That doesn't matter to me one iota. Brought up in the same link is a line saying to learn to properly distinguish between the physical and the abstract. I agree with that. Do numbers exist? As abstract concepts yes. However, we can map these to reality in a logical sense that is understood by other people, and adhere to logical absolutes. So long as we're not counting in base 4 or lower, 2+2=4. Despite numbers not being physically demonstrable, we can still demonstrate the concept, as soon as you agree that 2 of something is 2 of something. This is a human construct that adheres to logic, and people are generally capable of understanding. At the end of the day though, the concept of counting and numbers is simply a construct of human minds that allows us to specifically detect patterns, and communicate them to others. There is no evidence to suggest that somewhere in an undetectable dimension a 2 exists. What you're suggesting, is that somewhere in an undetectable dimension, a god exists. While it's undetectable, a bunch of bronze age jews, wrote a book about this undetectable entity. Later, some additions were written in Greek adding details that greatly altered the theology. I'm simply claiming that that is almost certainly not the case, and like the number 2, god only exists in your mind. The difference is, the number 2 is useful.

If this existence was completely undetectable, there'd be nothing to write about or believe in. yet people wrote about it and beleive in it.. they also claime to see its effects in the physical world... pretty incredible for an undetectable entity.    

Rather we shoudl look at it as an entitiy that controls how it is detected.. be it that all of our means of detecting anything have been created within the existence of the entities creation.  

jabberwocky wrote:

downward causation is the study that things are caused by a higher power and not by upward causation which is us doing something then it having a result... not to say that doesn't happen on a day to day basis, but that there is a downward causation for events, not that the upward causation doesn't happen... it is complicated, but if we were unable to grasp how it works, then we wouldn't be able to label it. 

You really didn't address anything there. I know what downward causation is. I have never seen anybody in the field of quantum mechanics posit from the field that a supernatural entity is consciously in control of it all. If we're unable to grasp how it works, we should figure it out. Keep in mind, everything our species has ever figured out was not helped, but hindered, when even the mere suggestion that the supernatural was involved was made. 

not true.  

and Amit Goswami PHD posits from a quantum perspective this idea attached to God.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Hah! Weeded out points that wouldn't work for me. I quite enjoy how you're so willing to drop points that you felt were good going in. I hope you're dropping them as I am. As far as the being detached from scripture yet existing metaphysically, I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is 0 evidence suggesting that such a being exists (and also 0 evidence that if it did, that the metaphysical being population is limited to 1). Also, if the being is detached from scripture, it simply isn't Christianity, which is the religion for which you have been arguing this entire time. Why are you willing to concede the entirety of scripture if you think that it's steeped in truth??

 

Because unlike what you believe, there's more than 0 evidence... again though, what evidence works for me may not work for you... we're weeding out what doesn't work for you.  ...and then... there are some people who are so comfortable with what they think they know, they'll never find evidence to reason anything other than what they think they know.  hence your 0 evidence claim.  Evidence is in the eye of the beholder and it can change according to the eye.  

I have to say, compared to your last post, this was a much more reasonable and logical post.  I prefer more like these and less like the latter.  


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:caposkia

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

I would start with whether a metaphysical existence is possible....

How would you do that? 

discussion and conversation.... different facts work for different people... there's no one right way to the truth.

Jabberwocky wrote:

So you're saying that it's appropriate to compare world religions to one another logically based on their history, origins, progressions and intentions/views (a weird way to put it, but ok, let's roll with that!)

sure it is, why is that weird? 

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

This would help answer the question, why the Bible... 

Great! This is what I'm looking for! Of course your presupposition that ONE of them MUST be true is absurd. You attempted to do that by merely suggesting that a metaphysical existence is possible. Of course you did this without quantifying whether or not it actually is, let alone whether it's even plausible, or has a reasonable basis for believing in. You then leapfrogged (in the very next sentence!) to that being an established fact without even saying why YOU feel it the case, let alone actually providing any evidence for believing it as plausible. Wow! Ok. But the fact that you implied that means that you immediately put that one pawn forward in this chess game. You believe this to be in the realm of plausible metaphysics, and are open to the fact that ANY religion could be true. Awesome! I love nothing more than a religious person who is willing to take their holy book and pit it in a battle royale against the other ones, and produce a futile attempt at proving it as a more legitimate source of truth (or as I prefer to word it, in a far less ambiguous way, a model of reality). Because it is always futile. So your question "why the Bible..." to be continued below. Let's keep going!

You had asked what the process would be... I detailed the process.  Since when was this detailed process any assumption of conculsion between us?  We haven't even begun the discussion.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

So if you can't establish that such metaphysics are indeed plausible, don't you lose by default?

no... if I can't establish it to YOUR satisfaction, that could mean either I lose, or you choose not to accept the facts offered.  I can't prove to someone that black holes exist unless they actually want to accept the facts behind them.  Same with God.

Jabberwocky wrote:

 

Urgh...WHICH ONES? Which stories? I asked for specifics,

you asked for a process.. if you're so ready to start the conversation, then let's stop with the BS and start with what you understand of metaphysics. In other words, how credible and as to what angle to you find it useful.

Jabberwocky wrote:

 I asked you for specifics, and you gave me a whole fucking testament! Frankly, I know that my dreams are just my own random-ass thoughts, but they are more insightful (and oddly enough, preditctive) than the bible ever is, or was. You have to do better than that. If you can't provide a specific example, it either means that you are inept in your knowledge of the bible (which makes you a terrible spokesman for Christianity) or that you know the bible damn well enough that you keep it vague to make your belief a harder target to hit. 

We haven't even established the metaphysical yet... how are you already on the Bible?  

Jabberwocky wrote:

So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site? Surely your great completely coherent thoughts on why Christianity MUST be true should be shared with the whole world? And your certainty that you're right will convince everyone will save the whole world if you were able to transmit it? Nah, that's not worth writing about. Nevermind. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot!

Wha?? uh.. so you're statment makes the assumption that 1.  I'm the only spokesman for Christianity, 2.  all others who might speak for God only talk to you... If you can't get out of these types of funk thoughts, we're not going to make it far in the metaphysical converation... we'll never make it to the Bible.

Jabbs wrote:

Wrong. Don't attempt to imply that belief and faith are one and the same. Faith is a belief in a proposition that is without evidence, or in the face of contrary evidence.

So faith has nothing to do with anything we're aware of... got it.  Guess by this definition I have no faith.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Wrong again! The things that we can't answer are vast. This is an incredible amount of things. But we can make judgements on which of two propositions is more likely. Sometimes, one proposition is slightly more likely thatn the other. Sometimes, one is extraordinarily more likely than the other. The bible is most probably not true. Anyhow, moving on...

interesting take... so maybe our conversation must jump to the alternative proposition to Bible focuses.. oh... and "the real world" isn't an alternative as much as you'd like it to be.    To make the conversation logical, I think we'd have to both agree on opposing propositions before discussing their probability.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

You have not addressed my point. They don't address misses. The church has never said "X person contacted me that they prayed to Agnes and were not cured". I refuse to believe (given Mother Teresa's popularity) that it has never happened that prayers for her to intercede went unfulfilled.

Did you read a single fucking word of what I said regarding the woman with a growth who prayed to Mother Teresa? Clearly not. Or you chose to ignore it while you adddressed it. Dishonesty in support of Christianity. Very typical. 

Also, double checking with a non-believer (the devli's advocate) to my knowledge has been repealed, and no longer goes on. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

Of course they don't address misses... it'd be like the lottery commission publicizing every losing ticket... There are many more missed claims... From what I understand there are literally 1000's that come to their attention daily... most of them get immediately weeded out.  Most are not legitimate cases, or are so insignificant, they're not worth investigating.   

Jabberwocky wrote:

Not if I am provided with compelling evidence. Scroll up. Pick the most compelling part of the new testament (as I have challenged you, MULTIPLE TIMES IN MULTIPLE THREADS) and let's go from there!

as I said considering the process of discussing scripture successfully, we'd need to start with how logical a metaphysical existence is... if you can't accept that, there's no possible way any part of the NT is going to be compelling to you because you're going to be preoccupied with the idea that these people were either dilusional about there being a God involved in the situation... or if you're not the historical type, you'll dismiss the occurance of the event altogether.  I have also said this MULTIPLE TIMES IN MULTIPLE THREADS.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, so you believe in the Jesus parts of the bible literally. Now provide proof. Also, if you take the word of authorities (which he allegdly said not to do at face value....which verse?) wouldn't that tell people that Christianity is true in the case of Christian theocracies?

sure.  There is proof that Jesus Christ is an actual historical Character, just wiki Jesus Christ and a lot comes up.  Considering the miracles that Jesus performed... a lot of what was written was eye witness accounts... Certain books were written by the witness themselves.  We can theorize that these people were making it up like many atheists like to do, but then I'd have to ask them to provide proof of fabrication.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

What evidence do you have that these people existed? Recorded human history predated these books, and nobody (even in nearby regions) seemed to know a thing about them. I'll respond to the rest another day. It's late and I'm tired. 

There are davidian artifacts that suggest the following and other artifacts taht can be linked to the people group.  That's the main source of evidence... usually the most compelling evidence is linked to symbols on artifacts that have been linked to King David and/or those who believe to be decendents of.  


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote: Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Well, the bible claims that Israel came about when Jacob was named Israel, thus founding the nation (funny enough, El is a god who isn't Yahweh....My question of "what the hell does that mean" mostly referred to the final sentence in that post. I asked you what you say to the religions that pre-date Judaism, since they by definition can't be traced to the Judeo-Christian origin. Hinduism is the biggest religion that is older than Judaism. Is Hinduism a bastardization of the concept of the real god, or is it a wholly invented concept that the real one true god simply allowed to spiral out of control? If your religion is true, these are important matters and questions!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites

If they claimed to be of Abrahamic descent in later generations when the religion of Judaism was already established, it does not mean that Abraham was a real historical person. 

...and it doesn't in any way suggest that he was NOT a real historical person... evidence would point to historical be it that there's really no reason or timeline to consider tha He wasn't real.  Just the sheer fact that there are Abrahamic inscriptions long before the Bible was compiled or the stories were written would be more reason to suggest legitimate historocity of the Abraham person.  

Your argument that it doesn't suggest that he was NOT a real historical person. That is an awful argument, as you can make that argument about anything in the past. We begin to believe things (or we should, anyhow) when there is evidence for them, and not before. The lack of proof against a proposition is not enough to make the proposition reasonable. Everything after the "..." is mostly gibberish. The sheer fact? Anyhow, which Abrahamic inscriptions? I'm sure there are some if you're this sure, so could you present me with some?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

So now you're saying that the onus is on god? He's taking his damn time if that's the case.

Ask any True follower of God and you'll find they all agree... God always takes his damn time.  We guess it's how he builds us in faith, because we always see that He comes through just at the right time.  

So what? He dangles evidence just beyond your reach? To make you reach for it? Like someone putting a steak JUST too far for the hungry dog to reach? 

What, then, about the people for whom he NEVER comes through?

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Also you're wrong. I DID see his work in my life. Then I realized that my interpretation of that experience was erroneous. Some pretty amazing things happened to me when I believed. Some pretty crappy ones too. Same goes for when I didn't believe. What qualifies as a verifiable work of god? It's hard to answer isn't it? It's because the entire concept is vague. You may think that you know, but certainty is simply a state of mind, and absolutely everybody on earth is succeptible to being 100% certain of something (in their minds) that isn't true. I had that certainty, and I no longer do. 

Boy, this sounds like the exact line of logic that you so harshly critisized me of using in a former post.... de javu?  Is the pen really there?

What does that have to do with it? 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

You get that it's incoherent? Do you agree that it's incoherent? If so, then why do you believe it? 

I get that the education is far lower and that you believe it's incoherent in the end... I get your perspective... been there.

So, what confused you into your current state?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok. The only thing that this touches that can apply to the existence of a god is point 4 as written at my reading of it. It suggests that a universe can exist outside of a physical one. That doesn't matter to me one iota. Brought up in the same link is a line saying to learn to properly distinguish between the physical and the abstract. I agree with that. Do numbers exist? As abstract concepts yes. However, we can map these to reality in a logical sense that is understood by other people, and adhere to logical absolutes. So long as we're not counting in base 4 or lower, 2+2=4. Despite numbers not being physically demonstrable, we can still demonstrate the concept, as soon as you agree that 2 of something is 2 of something. This is a human construct that adheres to logic, and people are generally capable of understanding. At the end of the day though, the concept of counting and numbers is simply a construct of human minds that allows us to specifically detect patterns, and communicate them to others. There is no evidence to suggest that somewhere in an undetectable dimension a 2 exists. What you're suggesting, is that somewhere in an undetectable dimension, a god exists. While it's undetectable, a bunch of bronze age jews, wrote a book about this undetectable entity. Later, some additions were written in Greek adding details that greatly altered the theology. I'm simply claiming that that is almost certainly not the case, and like the number 2, god only exists in your mind. The difference is, the number 2 is useful.

If this existence was completely undetectable, there'd be nothing to write about or believe in. yet people wrote about it and beleive in it.. they also claime to see its effects in the physical world... pretty incredible for an undetectable entity.    

Rather we shoudl look at it as an entitiy that controls how it is detected.. be it that all of our means of detecting anything have been created within the existence of the entities creation.  

Well that is kind of my point. In the bible, god appears to a ton of people constantly in a very obvious way. It is not said to be in a way that Christians today claim to experience him. The claims are of appearances that seem physical in nature (as the bible talks of people who have seen and heard god). Then, after this book was written, this god suddenly stopped presenting himself in that obvious manner. You are claiming a god existing in a metaphysical universe, but the bible has him appearing physically in ours. Therefore, god had bridged that gap in the past, and no longer does. That is an inconsistent thing to do. You chalk it up as amazing...well, ok then. 

The second paragraph is nonsense to me. I have no idea what you're trying to say. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

downward causation is the study that things are caused by a higher power and not by upward causation which is us doing something then it having a result... not to say that doesn't happen on a day to day basis, but that there is a downward causation for events, not that the upward causation doesn't happen... it is complicated, but if we were unable to grasp how it works, then we wouldn't be able to label it. 

You really didn't address anything there. I know what downward causation is. I have never seen anybody in the field of quantum mechanics posit from the field that a supernatural entity is consciously in control of it all. If we're unable to grasp how it works, we should figure it out. Keep in mind, everything our species has ever figured out was not helped, but hindered, when even the mere suggestion that the supernatural was involved was made. 

not true.  

and Amit Goswami PHD posits from a quantum perspective this idea attached to God.  

One guy. Awesome. If the field of quantum mechanics seemed to point to that, then you'd be on to something. Also, Amit Goswami seems to put alternative medicine on the same footing as regular medicine (saying that it complements it). I'll have to paraphrase Tim Minchin here. "Alternative medicine is medicine that has not been proved to work, or has been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine!" To accept alternative medicine as useful in any way (aside from conceding that it would more than likely have a placebo effect) is to leave science at the door. Why am I supposed to trust what he says on other topics related to science? He sounds like another Deepak Chopra type, who interweaves scientific terms into his own personal brand of quackery in order to not sound like a quack or a fraud. 

I don't know much about quantum mechanics (and experts in the field would sometimes say that they don't either). However, it is consistent to a degree equivalent to measuring the width of North America to the width of a human hair (as per Richard Feynman). I have no idea how that points to anything supernatural. Even if god told us that he was going to do something like flood the earth, it would not be a scientifically predictable event. Our best methods of predicting what happens next would be useless. In quantum mechanics, everything works exactly how it is expected to. To even attempt to find god through quantum mechanics is an absurd exercise at best. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Hah! Weeded out points that wouldn't work for me. I quite enjoy how you're so willing to drop points that you felt were good going in. I hope you're dropping them as I am. As far as the being detached from scripture yet existing metaphysically, I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is 0 evidence suggesting that such a being exists (and also 0 evidence that if it did, that the metaphysical being population is limited to 1). Also, if the being is detached from scripture, it simply isn't Christianity, which is the religion for which you have been arguing this entire time. Why are you willing to concede the entirety of scripture if you think that it's steeped in truth??

 

Because unlike what you believe, there's more than 0 evidence... again though, what evidence works for me may not work for you... we're weeding out what doesn't work for you.  ...and then... there are some people who are so comfortable with what they think they know, they'll never find evidence to reason anything other than what they think they know.  hence your 0 evidence claim.  Evidence is in the eye of the beholder and it can change according to the eye.  

I have to say, compared to your last post, this was a much more reasonable and logical post.  I prefer more like these and less like the latter.  

My posts are always reasonable and logical, and no amount of evidence will make me think otherwise!

The rest of this here is you telling me that we examine evidence differently..you got that right! 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

 

So you're saying that it's appropriate to compare world religions to one another logically based on their history, origins, progressions and intentions/views (a weird way to put it, but ok, let's roll with that!)

ok

Jabberwocky wrote:

Great! This is what I'm looking for! Of course your presupposition that ONE of them MUST be true is absurd.

Just as absurd as your claim that none of them can be true.  Consider perspectives here.

I never claimed that none of them can be true. I did say that they can't all be true as they're often mutually exclusive. That's not absurd, that's just logic. I merely stated that it's more likely that none of them are true than that one of them specifically is true, and the rest not.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

You attempted to do that by merely suggesting that a metaphysical existence is possible. Of course you did this without quantifying whether or not it actually is, let alone whether it's even plausible, or has a reasonable basis for believing in. You then leapfrogged (in the very next sentence!) to that being an established fact without even saying why YOU feel it the case, let alone actually providing any evidence for believing it as plausible. Wow! Ok. But the fact that you implied that means that you immediately put that one pawn forward in this chess game. You believe this to be in the realm of plausible metaphysics, and are open to the fact that ANY religion could be true. Awesome! I love nothing more than a religious person who is willing to take their holy book and pit it in a battle royale against the other ones, and produce a futile attempt at proving it as a more legitimate source of truth (or as I prefer to word it, in a far less ambiguous way, a model of reality). Because it is always futile. So your question "why the Bible..." to be continued below. Let's keep going!

again, you asked for a process.. I was running through a hypothetical progression.. you seem to assume between the last post and now we had an extensive conversation about it... don't know how that's logical

No I didn't. Anyway, let's continue. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

So if you can't establish that such metaphysics are indeed plausible, don't you lose by default? I'll leave that point alone for the moment just to continue the discussion. Urgh...WHICH ONES? Which stories? I asked for specifics, and you literally took the biggest divide you could come up with! It would be the equivalent of me asking you "where do you live on this planet?" and your answer being "the western hemisphere. It's opposite the eastern one. The locations in the western hemisphere don't coincide with those from the east, but because it's in the western hemisphere, you know where it is in relative to the eastern hemisphere you've heard so much about! The topography is completely different, not merely a mirror image of the Eastern hemisphere, so it would take a while to describe. This would go into why Easterners are not Westerners, and why Westerners are not Easterners, and why the North Pole had to die!" I'm sorry to caricature what you said, but what you said is seriously no less absurd than my caricature. I asked you for specifics, and you gave me a whole fucking testament! Frankly, I know that my dreams are just my own random-ass thoughts, but they are more insightful (and oddly enough, preditctive) than the bible ever is, or was. You have to do better than that. If you can't provide a specific example, it either means that you are inept in your knowledge of the bible (which makes you a terrible spokesman for Christianity) or that you know the bible damn well enough that you keep it vague to make your belief a harder target to hit. 

Do you follow conversation well on a normal basis or is this typical for you?

What? I was calling you out here for being as un-specific as you possibly could when I asked you to be specific. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Cost a few hundred??? Ok. So you're saying that people that have done the best job at proving Christianity true are charging a few hundred for this (real money in the real world) but they believe that the actual important world is beyond the one we know? I can't and won't buy that. If people are able to scrimp and save for years to benefit themselves later (such as to buy a car, or a house, or otherwise invest), then certainly somebody that honestly believes that the next 50...60...hell even 100 years of their life here (should they be so fortunate to live out...if it's pleasant) is a literally infinitely small fraction of their eternal existence, wouldn't give a flying fack about the money they make on this planet if they believed that this afterlife was actually undoubtedly true. By the way, the fact that you can't even identify one such text by name is telling that you don't fully agree with any of them either, supporting my position that the theology is incohrerent.

I don't agree that teaching the Bible through volume sets really is the way, but they are out there....  I recently sold my largest volume, but my NT 4 book volume is Vincents if you're looking for a name... the next to be sold...

You mean this? http://www.amazon.com/Vincents-Word-Studies-Testament-Volume/dp/0917006305 

That is perplexing. I believe you said earlier in a thread that you knew your Hebrew, but not so much your Greek. I must say it's odd that you released a 4 volume series of books talking about the vocabulary of the new testament. Very odd indeed. I can not understand it at all. Also, if you wrote that, you might want to include the apostrophe in "Vincent's". I figure someone who wrote something that long would get the name right. 

caposkia wrote:

 

alleged future quote-jabb....:  if you don't agree with that, why do you have them?

 

response:  I got them a long time ago when I was still young in the faith... I figured they'd help me further understand and grow in the faith... I was wrong.

 

Fair enough

caposkia wrote:
 

Jabberwocky wrote:

So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site? Surely your great completely coherent thoughts on why Christianity MUST be true should be shared with the whole world? And your certainty that you're right will convince everyone will save the whole world if you were able to transmit it? Nah, that's not worth writing about. Nevermind. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot!

Can you ever think a rational thought??? even for a moment?  This is why I had doubts that a logical conversation could happen with you.  How about think outside the last sentence for a moment and consider that there are not a lot of Christians on sites like these... where do you think the rest of the legitimate Christians are? 

I have no clue what you're talking about here. It has nothing to do with the point I made. The point is that you seem to spend ample time on this site, and say that you legitimately care about our internal souls. I'm not sure how this helps on any significant scale. 

 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

What is it that I claimed didn't exist? If it's hard evidence of the truth of Christianity, I'm still right, and have outlined why above. 

my clipboard isn't working either

all I saw outlined above was a bunch of illogical conclusions without basis.... usually it's the atheist blaming the Christian for those.

More gibberish. It's like we're not even having a discussion sometimes. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Wrong. Don't attempt to imply that belief and faith are one and the same. Faith is a belief in a proposition that is without evidence, or in the face of contrary evidence.

If that was true, there'd be nothing to have faith in... contrary evidence shows that your faith is not true... adversity on the other hand...

Can you read what you wrote? That also makes 0 sense. Belief addresses whether you accept a proposition as true or not. Faith is belief without evidence (at least in the context usually found on this forum). 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

CaposkiaImTiredOfInventingNewNames wrote:

The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer.  This is not to say a lot of people out there do have 'faith in nothing' as I call it, but that should not determine what you're going to accept as truth. 

Wrong again! The things that we can't answer are vast. This is an incredible amount of things. But we can make judgements on which of two propositions is more likely. Sometimes, one proposition is slightly more likely thatn the other. Sometimes, one is extraordinarily more likely than the other. The bible is most probably not true. Anyhow, moving on...

wrong again?  I'm explaining to you how we have faith, you're telling me, the one who has this faith that I"m wrong about how I accept the thing I have faith in.. you're ultimately telling me that it's wrong to have faith in something with evidence for that something... why do you contradict your own reasoning?

Yes you are. I am telling you why you're wrong. You said "The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer". You are basically saying here that employing a god of the gaps answer to everything is logical. Guess what...it's not.

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Holy bullshit alert! So you start by saying we can't know that our brain and eyes aren't fucking with us, and that a pen we see is may not be a pen, but then if we examine it (accepting that our brain and eyes could indeed be fucking with us at any given point) we conclude that it is a pen and not a stick or a pencil? Wow. Seriously...wow! 

psychology 101

What?? You mentioned in this particular line of conversations that sometimes we have to deal with incomplete information with an example of assuming something is a pen because it looks like one. Then you examine it later and confirm it's a pen. Then you present a situation where a closer examination is impossible. Is it still right to assume it to be a pen? Yes. Why? Because we know pens exist. This does not apply to a god at all, as we don't have other gods you can present to me. I have other pens. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

I can't verify with 100% certainty that I'm even typing this right now. However, I have good reason to think that I am. If I were able to convince you to accept a bet, and force you to accept it, I would bet you that I am indeed typing this, and seeing what I think I see (providing evidence by way of photography with my own description), I would bet you money that it is the case every day, and have a jury corroborate what I say. What you're explaining we can't know with 100% certainty (then explaining that we can if we look closer, in a hilarious display of inconsistency), we can know as well as humanly possible! 

Also, if it's on TV, of course I'm open to reality being more malleable. It's what TV does.

So are you saying here that my original conclusion about you was right.. that we could not have a progressive logical conversation?

No I'm not saying this at all. Are you saying that a progressive logical conversation is impossible unless I first prove that we don't live in a virtual reality of some sort? I don't get why you typed what you just did here. 

caposkia wrote:

 

deludedontheotherside wrote:

caposkia wrote:

my point is, faith is always an aspect of evidence... unlike your claim, they always have to go hand in hand. 

 

That's gibberish. 

Belief doesn't require evidence, but if you have evidence that convinces you that a particular belief is impossible, then it forces you to disbelieve in the proposition, because you've been shown (to your own satisfaction) that it is not possible. Faith is not synonymous to belief. If you would like to rephrease that using the correct terminology, feel free.

See, here, I'm telling you there's a pen on the table... I'm SHOWING you that pen.. what are you doing?  you're doubting its existence despite your rant about how we can confirm things 100%,.. Just putting it into perspective.. I'm again defining the terms here for you as they are realistically... you're calling bs on it despite the fact that we haven't even gotten to the questionable aspects.  

You are so bent on being right you're forgetting to take into consideration that I'm just defining terms at this point as they are and practiced by Christians like me.  As I practice them...  You are ultimately on here trying to tell me that I'm not doing what I'm doing... Really?  who's deluded?   

No you're not. You are not showing me that pen. Not even close. I asked you for specifics earlier, and you gave me nothing. 

Then you followed up with another badly written paragraph I won't even respond to, as it makes no sense. 

caposkia wrote:

deludedjoker wrote:

You have not addressed my point. They don't address misses. The church has never said "X person contacted me that they prayed to Agnes and were not cured". I refuse to believe (given Mother Teresa's popularity) that it has never happened that prayers for her to intercede went unfulfilled.

They get 1000's of claims a day... misses happen 1000's of times a day... Prayer is not like flipping a light switch... either it's in Gods will or it's not.. what makes it a miracle is the act of an event happening without the means of physical intervention necessary to make the event happen.  

So if it's god's will, what is prayer for? My point in saying what I said was that if so many people pray to mother teresa to intercede, statistically it's likely that one will experience something like spontaneous remission. Of course in the case of her first alleged miracle, there are doctors who will tell you exactly why the woman's growth went away, and it had nothing to do with prayer. Also, her husband would have told you before (until he changed his mind suddenly, with probably a lot of pressure to do exactly that). I wouldn't be surprised if it was something more sinister than just social pressure either, seeing he changed his tune quite quickly. Spontaneous remission of cancer does happen, to people of any faith in fact. How can you establish causation in this situation? The truth is, you can't. If something ACTUALLY miraculous happened, and it ONLY happened due to Christian prayer, you would have some footing to stand on. The truth is, it hasn't, and you don't. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

 Did you read a single fucking word of what I said regarding the woman with a growth who prayed to Mother Teresa? Clearly not. Or you chose to ignore it while you adddressed it. Dishonesty in support of Christianity. Very typical. The church clearly did NOT consult the doctor who treated her (or maybe they did, and put under wraps what was said, which would be an even BIGGER lie. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1443320/Medicine-cured-miracle-woman-not-Mother-Teresa-say-doctors.html Here are some details regarding that. I wonder whether the husband was convinced to change his tune by niceness, money, or whether he was coerced by threats. The whole thing stinks. 

Also, double checking with a non-believer (the devli's advocate) to my knowledge has been repealed, and no longer goes on. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

I read your quotes better than you read mine

And then you brag about it instead of actually addressing what I said. I just called you out for failing to respond to a point of mine, and your response is "I read your quotes better than you read mine" and a failure to address it again. So do you concede the miracles argument? Or do you have something in response to what I just presented?

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Not if I am provided with compelling evidence. Scroll up. Pick the most compelling part of the new testament (as I have challenged you, MULTIPLE TIMES IN MULTIPLE THREADS) and let's go from there!

fine, Jesus as a historical person..

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, so you believe in the Jesus parts of the bible literally. Now provide proof. Also, if you take the word of authorities (which he allegdly said not to do at face value....which verse?) wouldn't that tell people that Christianity is true in the case of Christian theocracies?

one would think so.

"Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed, and most biblical scholars and classical historians see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted. "

quoted from Wiki historicity of jesus.  

A very long writeup on the historical and many books on the subject if you google "Historical Jesus"

If Jesus being a historical person is compelling evidence to you, so be it. It does not convince me. I do believe that Jesus was a historical person as far as someone who had a small following during his lifetime, and was crucified. I have reasons to believe that that wasn't made up. However, how do you get from him being a historical person to him being the son of god? To his crucifixion saving us? To him rising from the dead? To him being born a virgin? 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

What evidence do you have that these people existed? Recorded human history predated these books, and nobody (even in nearby regions) seemed to know a thing about them. I'll respond to the rest another day. It's late and I'm tired. 

 

EDIT - Added a bit to the Mother Teresa cure claim. I'll address the rest later tonight. 

um... what evidence do I have that the Jews existed?  Probably the most compelling evidence is the existence of Jewish families in the world today.  Most Jewish "families" have a history that would date back to Biblical times... granted there are some who converted, so not all would have that history, but I'd find a particular Jewish family that has a good Ancestrial line and just trace them back... The Next Christiandom goes thorugh the history of the following in a more textbook like manner.

I'm not asking you what evidence do you have that jews existed? I'm asking what evidence you had that specific characters in the old testament were real historical people? With Jesus, you do have records, although no contemporaneous ones. To me that suggets that he simply wasn't too noticed during his lifetime, but as his following grew after his death, he may have been a notable figure to right about. When it comes to Abraham, there are no records to my knowledge to suggest that he was real. 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:Your

Jabberwocky wrote:

Your argument that it doesn't suggest that he was NOT a real historical person. That is an awful argument, as you can make that argument about anything in the past. We begin to believe things (or we should, anyhow) when there is evidence for them, and not before. The lack of proof against a proposition is not enough to make the proposition reasonable. Everything after the "..." is mostly gibberish. The sheer fact? Anyhow, which Abrahamic inscriptions? I'm sure there are some if you're this sure, so could you present me with some?

You need to remember I'm coming from the perspective that Abraham is a real person because I believe in and know God.  Proof of Abraham is through God.  But inscriptions would include the 20,000 or so clay tablets found that paints a picture during the time.  Abraham is mentioned only in the Bible, but details of the time are etched in the tablets

Jabberwocky wrote:

So what? He dangles evidence just beyond your reach? To make you reach for it? Like someone putting a steak JUST too far for the hungry dog to reach? 

What, then, about the people for whom he NEVER comes through?

That's all in perspective.  If there's one thing I noticed it's that I can't expect God to "come through" for me in the way I expect him to.  Most people that I'm aware of who claim they pray and God never came through find out later that He came through for them, just not in the way they expected... and unfortunately a lot of times, not in the way they wanted.  

For example, finances are tight for my family right now. I have prayed for a higher paying job, a winfall or some means of getting money so we don't have to struggle.  Instead of giving us money, God has helped by cutting most of our bills down so we're paying less monthly and through generosity of others providing us what we need.  These were ways I never would have expected, but all have helped give us the relief we needed.   No, we did not go through a finance company to do that either.   

God's will comes first.  If He has a plan, and you're praying for something contrary to that plan, God can and will say "no".  He will instead come through in a different way.  He always gives His people what they need.  We have to think about what that means because what you need many times in not necessarily what you want.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Also you're wrong. I DID see his work in my life. Then I realized that my interpretation of that experience was erroneous. Some pretty amazing things happened to me when I believed. Some pretty crappy ones too. Same goes for when I didn't believe. What qualifies as a verifiable work of god? It's hard to answer isn't it? It's because the entire concept is vague. You may think that you know, but certainty is simply a state of mind, and absolutely everybody on earth is succeptible to being 100% certain of something (in their minds) that isn't true. I had that certainty, and I no longer do. 

Boy, this sounds like the exact line of logic that you so harshly critisized me of using in a former post.... de javu?  Is the pen really there?

Jabberwocky wrote:

What does that have to do with it? 

that it's the same that you critisized.  

You asked what qualifies as a verifiable work of God.  That's hard to call unless it's a true unexplained miracle.... unless you know God and understand how He works in your life.  I can varify that the bills getting cut is a verifiable work of God mostly because it all happened at once and not sporatically one one year and another the next.  All at once being in the space of the same month.  If it's not, it's awefully ironic that we were at a tipping point and I prayed that the change was necessary and it was done.  

Everyone loves to try to explain their way out of situations like this and say that it wasn't God... but that's like explaining your way out me doing something for you and you trying to say someone else did it.  I'm sure you could convince many people that it wasn't me, but that doesn't really mean it wasn't me if I actually did it.  

jabberwocky wrote:

So, what confused you into your current state?

confused me?  you mean opened my eyes?  lol... you're going to laugh... people like you!  No I'm not kidding.  It took those who opposed the following or are a cult to the following to show me the right path to take by making me do my homework.  I have learned so much by talking on even just this site because topics go in directions I never would have thought of looking into. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Well that is kind of my point. In the bible, god appears to a ton of people constantly in a very obvious way. It is not said to be in a way that Christians today claim to experience him. The claims are of appearances that seem physical in nature (as the bible talks of people who have seen and heard god). Then, after this book was written, this god suddenly stopped presenting himself in that obvious manner. You are claiming a god existing in a metaphysical universe, but the bible has him appearing physically in ours. Therefore, god had bridged that gap in the past, and no longer does. That is an inconsistent thing to do. You chalk it up as amazing...well, ok then. 

The second paragraph is nonsense to me. I have no idea what you're trying to say. 

God had appeared to a ton of people.  Then at the coming of Jesus Christ, those physical apperances became unnecessary.  Jesus came in the flesh to give a new outlook.  He even said he'd go away for a while but then He'll be back.  (John 8:21) I understand that to mean that appearances would stop.  If you notice throughout the NT there are no appearances of "God" to the people.  Only angels.  

The 2nd paragraph:  God can choose how visible He is within His own creation.  

jabberwocky wrote:

One guy. Awesome. If the field of quantum mechanics seemed to point to that, then you'd be on to something. Also, Amit Goswami seems to put alternative medicine on the same footing as regular medicine (saying that it complements it). I'll have to paraphrase Tim Minchin here. "Alternative medicine is medicine that has not been proved to work, or has been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine!" To accept alternative medicine as useful in any way (aside from conceding that it would more than likely have a placebo effect) is to leave science at the door. Why am I supposed to trust what he says on other topics related to science? He sounds like another Deepak Chopra type, who interweaves scientific terms into his own personal brand of quackery in order to not sound like a quack or a fraud. 

I don't know much about quantum mechanics (and experts in the field would sometimes say that they don't either). However, it is consistent to a degree equivalent to measuring the width of North America to the width of a human hair (as per Richard Feynman). I have no idea how that points to anything supernatural. Even if god told us that he was going to do something like flood the earth, it would not be a scientifically predictable event. Our best methods of predicting what happens next would be useless. In quantum mechanics, everything works exactly how it is expected to. To even attempt to find god through quantum mechanics is an absurd exercise at best. 

So here's a few problems with that defense:

1.  you claim Amit SEEMS to put an alternative medicine on the same footing then tangent on what alternative medicine means.  

     does that mean He did? no.  Did he?  no.  

2.  you claim to not know much about quantum mechanics and then compare yourself to experts who would claim the same, but I'm guessing you really dont' know much about it.  You then go on to pull a random measurements and say that it sums up quantum mechanics and question how that points to the supernatural.  Horrible reasoning.  YOu finally conclude based on a science you admitted to not knowing much about that "even attempting to find God through quantum mechanics is an absurd exercise at best."  

How would you know if you don't know much about it?  Have you read Amit's work?  Have you looked into the others claiming the same through Quantum Mechanics?  yes there are others, no I don't know off hand any names.  If you must know i'm sure i can do some homework on that.  

Really, here you have to admit you're not even trying.  Instead your asserting.  You're trying to make it sound absurd with no grounds for your conclusions.  Basically you gave up before researching because you're so sure you're right about my following.  

As I told you, I've learned a lot by talking to people like you.  Is it really going to be a waste of your time to get even a small understanding of Quantum Theory?

jabberwocky wrote:

My posts are always reasonable and logical, and no amount of evidence will make me think otherwise!

The rest of this here is you telling me that we examine evidence differently..you got that right! 

even with that last paragraph that I just tore apart?  I'm sorry, you have to stop and open your eyes.  You've been working harder to try and NOT see God than I have at supporting the following.  


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:I never

Jabberwocky wrote:

I never claimed that none of them can be true. I did say that they can't all be true as they're often mutually exclusive. That's not absurd, that's just logic. I merely stated that it's more likely that none of them are true than that one of them specifically is true, and the rest not.

What if some of them are on the right track, but one of them has the closest understanding while still having its problems?  There are a few that are in the ballpark.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

You mean this? http://www.amazon.com/Vincents-Word-Studies-Testament-Volume/dp/0917006305 

That is perplexing. I believe you said earlier in a thread that you knew your Hebrew, but not so much your Greek. I must say it's odd that you released a 4 volume series of books talking about the vocabulary of the new testament. Very odd indeed. I can not understand it at all. Also, if you wrote that, you might want to include the apostrophe in "Vincent's". I figure someone who wrote something that long would get the name right. 

NO, I'm sorry.  I meant my copy.  I'm getting rid of the sets I own.   I did not write them.... and yes that looks like the one.  As you can tell, it's not an easy sell.

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site? Surely your great completely coherent thoughts on why Christianity MUST be true should be shared with the whole world? And your certainty that you're right will convince everyone will save the whole world if you were able to transmit it? Nah, that's not worth writing about. Nevermind. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot!

Can you ever think a rational thought??? even for a moment?  This is why I had doubts that a logical conversation could happen with you.  How about think outside the last sentence for a moment and consider that there are not a lot of Christians on sites like these... where do you think the rest of the legitimate Christians are? 

jabberwocky wrote:

I have no clue what you're talking about here. It has nothing to do with the point I made. The point is that you seem to spend ample time on this site, and say that you legitimately care about our internal souls. I'm not sure how this helps on any significant scale. 

When you said; "So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site" I took that as the works of all true followers.  We work as a unit.  Everyone has their calling.  Those who are not on sites like these are reaching out to those who don't visit this site.  I also do reach out to those not on this site.  This is not my only work.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Can you read what you wrote? That also makes 0 sense. Belief addresses whether you accept a proposition as true or not. Faith is belief without evidence (at least in the context usually found on this forum). 

faith is belief without evidence, but it has to be based on something, otherwise there's not even a concept to have faith in.  Christains don't have faith in God just because some ancients put words on parchment. 

jabberwocky wrote:

Yes you are. I am telling you why you're wrong. You said "The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer". You are basically saying here that employing a god of the gaps answer to everything is logical. Guess what...it's not.

uh..no not what I'm saying.  Faith in a God we don't know is not faith.  that's what I'm saying.  

jabberwocky wrote:

What?? You mentioned in this particular line of conversations that sometimes we have to deal with incomplete information with an example of assuming something is a pen because it looks like one. Then you examine it later and confirm it's a pen. Then you present a situation where a closer examination is impossible. Is it still right to assume it to be a pen? Yes. Why? Because we know pens exist. This does not apply to a god at all, as we don't have other gods you can present to me. I have other pens. 

uh actually there are plenty of other gods to pick from, do your history homework and pull one out of the hat.  

jabberwocky wrote:

So if it's god's will, what is prayer for? My point in saying what I said was that if so many people pray to mother teresa to intercede, statistically it's likely that one will experience something like spontaneous remission. Of course in the case of her first alleged miracle, there are doctors who will tell you exactly why the woman's growth went away, and it had nothing to do with prayer. Also, her husband would have told you before (until he changed his mind suddenly, with probably a lot of pressure to do exactly that). I wouldn't be surprised if it was something more sinister than just social pressure either, seeing he changed his tune quite quickly. Spontaneous remission of cancer does happen, to people of any faith in fact. How can you establish causation in this situation? The truth is, you can't. If something ACTUALLY miraculous happened, and it ONLY happened due to Christian prayer, you would have some footing to stand on. The truth is, it hasn't, and you don't. 

except that it has and is documented as mentioned... yes miracles happen to people of any faith.  What are the patterns, why were they healed, what were the actions of those who love them... were there prayers involved at all was there another faith involved?  That gets deep, but it all matters.  Satan works too.  

jabberwocky wrote:

And then you brag about it instead of actually addressing what I said. I just called you out for failing to respond to a point of mine, and your response is "I read your quotes better than you read mine" and a failure to address it again. So do you concede the miracles argument? Or do you have something in response to what I just presented?

yea, miracles happen, they're documented and cross referenced with doctors and neutral entities.  

jabberwocky wrote:

If Jesus being a historical person is compelling evidence to you, so be it. It does not convince me. I do believe that Jesus was a historical person as far as someone who had a small following during his lifetime, and was crucified. I have reasons to believe that that wasn't made up. However, how do you get from him being a historical person to him being the son of god? To his crucifixion saving us? To him rising from the dead? To him being born a virgin? 

well, it is quite a journey from there to here.  One would need to start seeking God in all of it.  Is He really there, was Jesus really Gods son.  Probably doing homework on the character of Jesus and the claims, praying about it, talking to others about it in and outside the faith.  etc.  You will find that Jesus paralleled the Bible personality pretty well.  The only part that can't be proven is the miracles He performed... for obvious reasons.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

I'm not asking you what evidence do you have that jews existed? I'm asking what evidence you had that specific characters in the old testament were real historical people? With Jesus, you do have records, although no contemporaneous ones. To me that suggets that he simply wasn't too noticed during his lifetime, but as his following grew after his death, he may have been a notable figure to right about. When it comes to Abraham, there are no records to my knowledge to suggest that he was real. 

well, there are tablets with Davidian inscriptions, there are over 20,000 tablets that paint the picture of the cultures around Abraham's location and time, fits the story very well.  There is reason to believe an artifact found may have been a part of Solomon's staff, etc.  


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Your argument that it doesn't suggest that he was NOT a real historical person. That is an awful argument, as you can make that argument about anything in the past. We begin to believe things (or we should, anyhow) when there is evidence for them, and not before. The lack of proof against a proposition is not enough to make the proposition reasonable. Everything after the "..." is mostly gibberish. The sheer fact? Anyhow, which Abrahamic inscriptions? I'm sure there are some if you're this sure, so could you present me with some?

You need to remember I'm coming from the perspective that Abraham is a real person because I believe in and know God.  Proof of Abraham is through God.  But inscriptions would include the 20,000 or so clay tablets found that paints a picture during the time.  Abraham is mentioned only in the Bible, but details of the time are etched in the tablets

Hence there is no reason to discuss this further. Of course the old testament will likely be an accurate portrayal of what the area was like at the time. If you believe Abraham is real because you believe in and know god, then that's just that. You believe that you have within you the holy spirit which allows you to know something for sure (even though humans have the ability to be certain about things, while being wrong). Your proof of Abraham through god is something you can't possibly demonstrate. This really is no different from saying "I know because I know" and therefore it warrants no further discussion.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

So what? He dangles evidence just beyond your reach? To make you reach for it? Like someone putting a steak JUST too far for the hungry dog to reach? 

What, then, about the people for whom he NEVER comes through?

That's all in perspective.  If there's one thing I noticed it's that I can't expect God to "come through" for me in the way I expect him to.  Most people that I'm aware of who claim they pray and God never came through find out later that He came through for them, just not in the way they expected... and unfortunately a lot of times, not in the way they wanted.  

I understand that things often have a way of working themselves out, and you may have prayed before it happened. Now how about the people for whom it doesn't? You skipped over a similar point discussing the vatican and miracles. You only discuss examples where things have gone right after praying, and ignore the ones where it hasn't.  This suggests that maybe he's cooking something up, taking his sweet time, or the horrificly sinister "God's plan for your day is always better than your plan" nonsense. 

Anyway, what did you mean at the end? "Not in the way they wanted"? If it's not in the way they wanted, wouldn't that simply mean he didn't answer the prayer at all? 

caposkia wrote:

For example, finances are tight for my family right now. I have prayed for a higher paying job, a winfall or some means of getting money so we don't have to struggle.  Instead of giving us money, God has helped by cutting most of our bills down so we're paying less monthly and through generosity of others providing us what we need.  These were ways I never would have expected, but all have helped give us the relief we needed.   No, we did not go through a finance company to do that either.   

If you're in debt, or having trouble with keeping up bills, keep one thing in mind. Nobody actually WANTS you to go bankrupt. Financial insitutions, and anyone you might owe money to, will do everything they can to allow you time to pay, because the alternative is to bankrupt you and get less money. They will get to a point where they feel you won't pay the bills willingly, so more extreme measures have to be taken. Now I doubt the bills just went down on their own. I figure you probably had spoken with those collecting the bills and discussed your situation, and they were willing to work with you. If I'm wrong, and they just cut down the bills on their own, well then that's that. However, anyone in Georgia or West Virginia (or anywhere else in the bible belt) can probably throw a stone and hit a house where good loyal Christians got foreclosed and lost their homes. Still god's plan? Still answering those prayers?

caposkia wrote:

God's will comes first.  If He has a plan, and you're praying for something contrary to that plan, God can and will say "no".  He will instead come through in a different way.  He always gives His people what they need.  We have to think about what that means because what you need many times in not necessarily what you want.  

I know a good Christian family who's son suddenly died 2 years ago at age 26 in his bedroom (in their house). That's what they needed?

It sounds like you have gone through some hardships in life, but everything's finding a way to chug along, and you're giving god credit for it. I think you're wrong, but since you believe in such a god, that's a nice sentiment that you're being helped along. So I suggest you look at pictures of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and see the etchings of human nail markings in the concrete walls. In CONCRETE! Humans, people, trying a futile escape from pure agony at the end of their abbreviated lives caused by a tyrranical regime. I have a place to sleep very close to Auschwitz if I need it, and having seen the picture I just described, I refuse to ever go there. Also, I won't link to the image because I'm shuddering just typing about it, and never want to see it again. In what way can you possibly say that that is coming through? 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Also you're wrong. I DID see his work in my life. Then I realized that my interpretation of that experience was erroneous. Some pretty amazing things happened to me when I believed. Some pretty crappy ones too. Same goes for when I didn't believe. What qualifies as a verifiable work of god? It's hard to answer isn't it? It's because the entire concept is vague. You may think that you know, but certainty is simply a state of mind, and absolutely everybody on earth is succeptible to being 100% certain of something (in their minds) that isn't true. I had that certainty, and I no longer do. 

Boy, this sounds like the exact line of logic that you so harshly critisized me of using in a former post.... de javu?  Is the pen really there?

Huh? All I'm saying is that shit happens, and attributing the good (or the bad) to some sort of cosmic force deliberately controlling every minute detail of our universe is a bad assumption to make. If Christians were overwhelmingly more fortunate than their non-Christian counterparts, then you would at least have anecdotal evidence that you could then subject to further testing. This has never been shown to be the case. Because of this, it is foolish to attribute good works to a cosmic force. Is there something wrong with this reasoning?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

What does that have to do with it? 

that it's the same that you critisized.  

You asked what qualifies as a verifiable work of God.  That's hard to call unless it's a true unexplained miracle.... unless you know God and understand how He works in your life.  I can varify that the bills getting cut is a verifiable work of God mostly because it all happened at once and not sporatically one one year and another the next.  All at once being in the space of the same month.  If it's not, it's awefully ironic that we were at a tipping point and I prayed that the change was necessary and it was done.  

That's not what irony is. Also, there is nothing unexplainable about people's bills becoming more manageable. What were the real world justifications for them going down? Was there some incorrect billing previously? Or did you ask them to lower them due to financial strain? I know people who have done that and gotten a break, and as I said regarding debt, it's pretty common. 

caposkia wrote:

Everyone loves to try to explain their way out of situations like this and say that it wasn't God... but that's like explaining your way out me doing something for you and you trying to say someone else did it.  I'm sure you could convince many people that it wasn't me, but that doesn't really mean it wasn't me if I actually did it.  

Yes, but you could on the other hand provide evidence that it was you. God hasn't. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

So, what confused you into your current state?

confused me?  you mean opened my eyes?  lol... you're going to laugh... people like you!  No I'm not kidding.  It took those who opposed the following or are a cult to the following to show me the right path to take by making me do my homework.  I have learned so much by talking on even just this site because topics go in directions I never would have thought of looking into. 

Elaborate further please. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Well that is kind of my point. In the bible, god appears to a ton of people constantly in a very obvious way. It is not said to be in a way that Christians today claim to experience him. The claims are of appearances that seem physical in nature (as the bible talks of people who have seen and heard god). Then, after this book was written, this god suddenly stopped presenting himself in that obvious manner. You are claiming a god existing in a metaphysical universe, but the bible has him appearing physically in ours. Therefore, god had bridged that gap in the past, and no longer does. That is an inconsistent thing to do. You chalk it up as amazing...well, ok then. 

The second paragraph is nonsense to me. I have no idea what you're trying to say. 

God had appeared to a ton of people.  Then at the coming of Jesus Christ, those physical apperances became unnecessary.  Jesus came in the flesh to give a new outlook.  He even said he'd go away for a while but then He'll be back.  (John 8:21) I understand that to mean that appearances would stop.  If you notice throughout the NT there are no appearances of "God" to the people.  Only angels.  

The 2nd paragraph:  God can choose how visible He is within His own creation.  

If god can choose, then why not make himself obvious to anyone? There are contentious issues, and there are more obvious ones. For the obvious ones, there are a lot of crackpots in this world. Those who believe vaccinations are bad, those who believe blood transfusions are wrong, those who believe they can survive on only the sun's energy, etc. Let's take the last group. They are wrong, and it is 100% that they either lie or they die. However that is an extraordinarily small percentage of the human population. Why doesn't god make himself as obvious to us as a fact like "we need food to survive"? It means he either can't or he won't. If hell is the consequence of disbelief, then god, by not appearing as obviously to me as I would require, is condemning me to hell. It's that simple. You may sit on your high horse and say that you believe despite that. However, for me the burden of proof has not been met. Hell, in the NT, Thomas would have presumably witnessed some miracles of Jesus, then didn't believe it when he was said to have come back. What was the response...damn you to hell? This evidence you already saw, where you witnessed miracles first-hand is enough? Nope. It was "Hey, put your hand in this gash in my side, and your fingers through my hands' nail holes!" If your god is real, and the consequence of disbelief is hell, he is a tyrant for not providing such evidence to any caring, generous, good natured people who just happen to disbelieve. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

One guy. Awesome. If the field of quantum mechanics seemed to point to that, then you'd be on to something. Also, Amit Goswami seems to put alternative medicine on the same footing as regular medicine (saying that it complements it). I'll have to paraphrase Tim Minchin here. "Alternative medicine is medicine that has not been proved to work, or has been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine!" To accept alternative medicine as useful in any way (aside from conceding that it would more than likely have a placebo effect) is to leave science at the door. Why am I supposed to trust what he says on other topics related to science? He sounds like another Deepak Chopra type, who interweaves scientific terms into his own personal brand of quackery in order to not sound like a quack or a fraud. 

I don't know much about quantum mechanics (and experts in the field would sometimes say that they don't either). However, it is consistent to a degree equivalent to measuring the width of North America to the width of a human hair (as per Richard Feynman). I have no idea how that points to anything supernatural. Even if god told us that he was going to do something like flood the earth, it would not be a scientifically predictable event. Our best methods of predicting what happens next would be useless. In quantum mechanics, everything works exactly how it is expected to. To even attempt to find god through quantum mechanics is an absurd exercise at best. 

So here's a few problems with that defense:

1.  you claim Amit SEEMS to put an alternative medicine on the same footing then tangent on what alternative medicine means.  

     does that mean He did? no.  Did he?  no.  

2.  you claim to not know much about quantum mechanics and then compare yourself to experts who would claim the same, but I'm guessing you really dont' know much about it.  You then go on to pull a random measurements and say that it sums up quantum mechanics and question how that points to the supernatural.  Horrible reasoning.  YOu finally conclude based on a science you admitted to not knowing much about that "even attempting to find God through quantum mechanics is an absurd exercise at best."  

How would you know if you don't know much about it?  Have you read Amit's work?  Have you looked into the others claiming the same through Quantum Mechanics?  yes there are others, no I don't know off hand any names.  If you must know i'm sure i can do some homework on that.  

Really, here you have to admit you're not even trying.  Instead your asserting.  You're trying to make it sound absurd with no grounds for your conclusions.  Basically you gave up before researching because you're so sure you're right about my following.  

As I told you, I've learned a lot by talking to people like you.  Is it really going to be a waste of your time to get even a small understanding of Quantum Theory?

Ok, this is the course description of something Amit offers online for the measly sum of $499!

Quote:

An integral medicine is developed in this course based upon the principles of quantum physics and the primacy of consciousness. We show how the metaphysical principles underlying both conventional allopathic medicine and the various techniques of alternative medicine can all be incorporated within the metaphysics of the primacy of consciousness. We then explore a new typology of disease and healing techniques from this new perspective. We show how the quantum field and the primacy of consciousness thinking integrate conventional and alternative medicine in a paradox-free fashion. We then explain the various techniques of alternative medicine such as Chinese medicine and acupuncture, the East Indian medicine system of Ayurveda, chakra medicine, homeopathy, mind-body medicine, Christian Science and spiritual healing. Finally we explore the healing path to spiritual growth.

If you can't see this as dishonest garbage, then words fail me. Everything I quoted here is absolutely gibberish. Here, Amit is throwing crap at a wall, and trying to hook anyone. Explaining the various techniques of (insert a list of many different alternative medicine practices here). Even Christian Science. Are you suggesting that what I quoted here is in any way, shape, or form reasonable? Amit is clearly a charlatan preying on credulous people, and the worth of his words is nothing. 

The reason I said I don't know much about QM is because I don't. However I do know that the mainstream scientists who study it don't see the links Amit makes. Also, the mainstream scientists don't sell online courses for a lot of money on dodgy websites peppered with utter nonsense as I just quoted. You then go on to say that it's not only Amit, and there are others but you don't know any names off hand. Do you wonder why? Do you wonder why these people aren't known, or easy to look up? It's because they're lying. Someone like Amit wants to make money, but he's happy being relatively unknown, because he has to stay off the radar of those whose work he is lying about to make money. 

Here is an article by someone who actually knows what he's talking about in this field:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/

He addresses the conflating of quantum mechanics with BS. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

My posts are always reasonable and logical, and no amount of evidence will make me think otherwise!

The rest of this here is you telling me that we examine evidence differently..you got that right! 

even with that last paragraph that I just tore apart?  I'm sorry, you have to stop and open your eyes.  You've been working harder to try and NOT see God than I have at supporting the following.  

Tore apart...you're joking, right? How?

 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

I never claimed that none of them can be true. I did say that they can't all be true as they're often mutually exclusive. That's not absurd, that's just logic. I merely stated that it's more likely that none of them are true than that one of them specifically is true, and the rest not.

What if some of them are on the right track, but one of them has the closest understanding while still having its problems?  There are a few that are in the ballpark.  

Because many of them are mutually exclusive about key issues. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

You mean this? http://www.amazon.com/Vincents-Word-Studies-Testament-Volume/dp/0917006305 

That is perplexing. I believe you said earlier in a thread that you knew your Hebrew, but not so much your Greek. I must say it's odd that you released a 4 volume series of books talking about the vocabulary of the new testament. Very odd indeed. I can not understand it at all. Also, if you wrote that, you might want to include the apostrophe in "Vincent's". I figure someone who wrote something that long would get the name right. 

NO, I'm sorry.  I meant my copy.  I'm getting rid of the sets I own.   I did not write them.... and yes that looks like the one.  As you can tell, it's not an easy sell.

Ok, I thought you were implying something else. My mistake. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site? Surely your great completely coherent thoughts on why Christianity MUST be true should be shared with the whole world? And your certainty that you're right will convince everyone will save the whole world if you were able to transmit it? Nah, that's not worth writing about. Nevermind. On second thought, let's not go to Camelot!

Can you ever think a rational thought??? even for a moment?  This is why I had doubts that a logical conversation could happen with you.  How about think outside the last sentence for a moment and consider that there are not a lot of Christians on sites like these... where do you think the rest of the legitimate Christians are? 

I don't know where they are, but my point stands. If Christianity were actually completely coherent, and one, just ONE Christian figured out how to communicate that well, you figure they would. Since hell is punishment for disbelief, such a Christian would want to save everyone. Nobody's ever done it. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

I have no clue what you're talking about here. It has nothing to do with the point I made. The point is that you seem to spend ample time on this site, and say that you legitimately care about our internal souls. I'm not sure how this helps on any significant scale. 

When you said; "So it's important for me to be saved, but not those who don't visit this site" I took that as the works of all true followers.  We work as a unit.  Everyone has their calling.  Those who are not on sites like these are reaching out to those who don't visit this site.  I also do reach out to those not on this site.  This is not my only work.  

Fair enough, however I re-iterate the point I just made above. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Can you read what you wrote? That also makes 0 sense. Belief addresses whether you accept a proposition as true or not. Faith is belief without evidence (at least in the context usually found on this forum). 

faith is belief without evidence, but it has to be based on something, otherwise there's not even a concept to have faith in.  Christains don't have faith in God just because some ancients put words on parchment. 

Of course it has to be based on something. It doesn't mean it has to be rational. I was simply providing concise definitions for words that got muddied up earlier. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Yes you are. I am telling you why you're wrong. You said "The evidence needs to come first... then faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer". You are basically saying here that employing a god of the gaps answer to everything is logical. Guess what...it's not.

uh..no not what I'm saying.  Faith in a God we don't know is not faith.  that's what I'm saying.  

So you're saying "faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer" but then go and say that you know this god, therefore you know the answer? Now I'm very confused. Wait, no I'm not. Christianity doesn't make any sense, so the problems here are expected. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

What?? You mentioned in this particular line of conversations that sometimes we have to deal with incomplete information with an example of assuming something is a pen because it looks like one. Then you examine it later and confirm it's a pen. Then you present a situation where a closer examination is impossible. Is it still right to assume it to be a pen? Yes. Why? Because we know pens exist. This does not apply to a god at all, as we don't have other gods you can present to me. I have other pens. 

uh actually there are plenty of other gods to pick from, do your history homework and pull one out of the hat.  

Not ones that have been proven to exist. This answer doesn't really help your position as you would probably say that all of those other gods are indeed not real. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

So if it's god's will, what is prayer for? My point in saying what I said was that if so many people pray to mother teresa to intercede, statistically it's likely that one will experience something like spontaneous remission. Of course in the case of her first alleged miracle, there are doctors who will tell you exactly why the woman's growth went away, and it had nothing to do with prayer. Also, her husband would have told you before (until he changed his mind suddenly, with probably a lot of pressure to do exactly that). I wouldn't be surprised if it was something more sinister than just social pressure either, seeing he changed his tune quite quickly. Spontaneous remission of cancer does happen, to people of any faith in fact. How can you establish causation in this situation? The truth is, you can't. If something ACTUALLY miraculous happened, and it ONLY happened due to Christian prayer, you would have some footing to stand on. The truth is, it hasn't, and you don't. 

except that it has and is documented as mentioned... yes miracles happen to people of any faith.  What are the patterns, why were they healed, what were the actions of those who love them... were there prayers involved at all was there another faith involved?  That gets deep, but it all matters.  Satan works too.  

No. Simply...no. As I said with the first Mother Teresa miracle, the doctors who treated the woman will tell you exactly what happened! No supernatural intervention was necessary, yet the church view it as a miracle. 

As far as Satan, how does he work? How powerful is he? 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

And then you brag about it instead of actually addressing what I said. I just called you out for failing to respond to a point of mine, and your response is "I read your quotes better than you read mine" and a failure to address it again. So do you concede the miracles argument? Or do you have something in response to what I just presented?

yea, miracles happen, they're documented and cross referenced with doctors and neutral entities.  

I provided an example where doctors were ignored. An example involving quite a famous person. Why have you failed to respond to anything regarding Monica Besra's doctors, who have said in no uncertain terms that the woman's tumour disappeared as a result of the medication she was prescribed, which she said she took as prescribed? Is this still a miracle? You may have faith in the RC church's process, but I think the hastiness with which this "miracle" occurred suggests more that an influential public figure like Mother Teresa is one you want to canonize quickly. It was a marketing move, nothing more. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

If Jesus being a historical person is compelling evidence to you, so be it. It does not convince me. I do believe that Jesus was a historical person as far as someone who had a small following during his lifetime, and was crucified. I have reasons to believe that that wasn't made up. However, how do you get from him being a historical person to him being the son of god? To his crucifixion saving us? To him rising from the dead? To him being born a virgin? 

well, it is quite a journey from there to here.  One would need to start seeking God in all of it.  Is He really there, was Jesus really Gods son.  Probably doing homework on the character of Jesus and the claims, praying about it, talking to others about it in and outside the faith.  etc.  You will find that Jesus paralleled the Bible personality pretty well.  The only part that can't be proven is the miracles He performed... for obvious reasons.  

There is a remarkably small amount of historical record of Jesus, so comparing that to the bible account isn't worthwhile. You can't verify the miracles, you are correct. So what's more likely, that one single man bucked a trend and performed all of those miracles, or that it's just another myth?  

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

I'm not asking you what evidence do you have that jews existed? I'm asking what evidence you had that specific characters in the old testament were real historical people? With Jesus, you do have records, although no contemporaneous ones. To me that suggets that he simply wasn't too noticed during his lifetime, but as his following grew after his death, he may have been a notable figure to right about. When it comes to Abraham, there are no records to my knowledge to suggest that he was real. 

well, there are tablets with Davidian inscriptions, there are over 20,000 tablets that paint the picture of the cultures around Abraham's location and time, fits the story very well.  There is reason to believe an artifact found may have been a part of Solomon's staff, etc.  

And in another post you mentioned that you believe Abraham existed because you know god, not because of evidence. That's all I need to know I suppose. It's faith, not evidence. I won't accept that as compelling. 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
 Jabberwocky wrote:Hence

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Hence there is no reason to discuss this further. Of course the old testament will likely be an accurate portrayal of what the area was like at the time. If you believe Abraham is real because you believe in and know god, then that's just that. You believe that you have within you the holy spirit which allows you to know something for sure (even though humans have the ability to be certain about things, while being wrong). Your proof of Abraham through god is something you can't possibly demonstrate. This really is no different from saying "I know because I know" and therefore it warrants no further discussion.

So be it. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

I understand that things often have a way of working themselves out, and you may have prayed before it happened. Now how about the people for whom it doesn't? You skipped over a similar point discussing the vatican and miracles. You only discuss examples where things have gone right after praying, and ignore the ones where it hasn't.  This suggests that maybe he's cooking something up, taking his sweet time, or the horrificly sinister "God's plan for your day is always better than your plan" nonsense. 

Anyway, what did you mean at the end? "Not in the way they wanted"? If it's not in the way they wanted, wouldn't that simply mean he didn't answer the prayer at all? 

no, not necessarily.  Not in the way they wanted could mean they prayed for money and instead got discounts they otherwise wouldn't have which would in turn allow them to have more money in the end.  

You seem to be stuck on looking at answers vs. not... well not to quote a movie, but Bruice Almighty is a great example of why a "yes to all" answer is not logical.  Granted I'm sure you're looking for a reason why God would say no to prayers for healing of a loved one that ultimately died from their sickness, but to that I cannot answer why, only that it was part of His plan.  I believe we are here for a purpose, and when that purpose is complete we allegedly "go home".  We see it as death, the end, a loss, but the Bible teaches that death is not loss.   Pilippians 1:21 NASB

jabberwocky wrote:

If you're in debt, or having trouble with keeping up bills, keep one thing in mind. Nobody actually WANTS you to go bankrupt. Financial insitutions, and anyone you might owe money to, will do everything they can to allow you time to pay, because the alternative is to bankrupt you and get less money. They will get to a point where they feel you won't pay the bills willingly, so more extreme measures have to be taken. Now I doubt the bills just went down on their own. I figure you probably had spoken with those collecting the bills and discussed your situation, and they were willing to work with you. If I'm wrong, and they just cut down the bills on their own, well then that's that. However, anyone in Georgia or West Virginia (or anywhere else in the bible belt) can probably throw a stone and hit a house where good loyal Christians got foreclosed and lost their homes. Still god's plan? Still answering those prayers?

yes it is.  The question is, what happened to those families after?  Why did it happen?  the other problem is, God does not compensate for our own stupidity.  How many of those foreclosures etc. were from people's mistakes or lack of management?  

I'm not worried because I know God will not let us fail.  i also know no one wants us to go bankrupt.  The bills really kind of worked themselves out.   We didn't do the leg work for the changes in these instances.  

jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

God's will comes first.  If He has a plan, and you're praying for something contrary to that plan, God can and will say "no".  He will instead come through in a different way.  He always gives His people what they need.  We have to think about what that means because what you need many times in not necessarily what you want.  

I know a good Christian family who's son suddenly died 2 years ago at age 26 in his bedroom (in their house). That's what they needed?

God gives and God takes away.  God gives the family what they need.  Is that what they needed?  I don't know... I don't know thier particular circumstance or what they did because of their sons death.  some families get a fire going and start charities and community outreach programs due to family deaths like that that ultimately help hundreds of people... was it then necessary for that person to die for hundreds others to be saved?  I would say, yes, that was needed, but this could have just been one of those things that God put in their lives because of their strength so that others can see the faith of Gods followers.  

I know a personal story of such a case that happened recently to a close friend of ours... through that horrific death, the faith of the parents has brought so many more people to the realization of the power of God.  This situation was an unfortunate case of poor judgement on people's part, but it still allowed for God's power to shine through and it does to this day.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

It sounds like you have gone through some hardships in life, but everything's finding a way to chug along, and you're giving god credit for it. I think you're wrong, but since you believe in such a god, that's a nice sentiment that you're being helped along. So I suggest you look at pictures of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and see the etchings of human nail markings in the concrete walls. In CONCRETE! Humans, people, trying a futile escape from pure agony at the end of their abbreviated lives caused by a tyrranical regime. I have a place to sleep very close to Auschwitz if I need it, and having seen the picture I just described, I refuse to ever go there. Also, I won't link to the image because I'm shuddering just typing about it, and never want to see it again. In what way can you possibly say that that is coming through? 

God does not interfere with the choices of others... if others choose to put people in horrific situations like you're describing above, they get to make that choice just like anyone making a "good" choice gets to make it... we have the freedom to do that.  There are consequences for those choices good or bad, the Bible makes that clear.  These people may not see their justice in this life, but there is a judgement day that I'm sure you've heard the fanatics yelling about on the street.  Granted they're a bit hyperfocused and not rational, but they're right that the day is coming, the problem is that should not be our focus or reason to follow God.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

Huh? All I'm saying is that shit happens, and attributing the good (or the bad) to some sort of cosmic force deliberately controlling every minute detail of our universe is a bad assumption to make. If Christians were overwhelmingly more fortunate than their non-Christian counterparts, then you would at least have anecdotal evidence that you could then subject to further testing. This has never been shown to be the case. Because of this, it is foolish to attribute good works to a cosmic force. Is there something wrong with this reasoning?

well, fortunate circumstance is really in the eye of the beholder now isn't it.  Despite the troubles we've gone through in life, i would say we're more fortunate than that rich family down the street whom may have never had a financial burden in their life.  fortune is not based on money or posessions, or even luck, it's what you percieve to have.  I have a healthy family with a roof over our heads and we can't say that we're ever starving.  I also have very secure jobs and I love them, to that I say my family is quite fortunate... more than most.  I could go on and on with the fortunate circumstances in our lives, but you get the picture.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

That's not what irony is. Also, there is nothing unexplainable about people's bills becoming more manageable. What were the real world justifications for them going down? Was there some incorrect billing previously? Or did you ask them to lower them due to financial strain? I know people who have done that and gotten a break, and as I said regarding debt, it's pretty common. 

here's the problem with that though.. just because you can explain how it happened doesn't mean it was not God's work (assuming God is real).  God would logically use natural means to make things happen... 

but to put it in perspective... one bill I call up with an issue...  had nothing to do with lowering the cost, just setting it right... the guy in the moment put me on hold and then got back on with some interesting news... "I have a way of solving this issue"   turns out there was a new plan that worked for what we needed and it just ended up being cheaper and the change would ultimately prevent future errors of the like.

Likewise, the other bill change, the company was actually just making rounds.  I wasn't looking to make changes, but they informed me of something that gave me more for less... something I know wasn't available before.  

third our bank happened to start a new promotion that allowed monthly payments for doing a specific change.

When does irony come into play?

Jabberwocky wrote:

Yes, but you could on the other hand provide evidence that it was you. God hasn't. 

Of course he has... the problem with that logic is, you believe God doesn't exist, so regardless of what 'evidence' He may provide, you would never accept that it was actually God.  

To put it in perspective of the analogy, you'd be denying that I actually exist and therefore could have never done it.  

jabberwocky wrote:

So, what confused you into your current state?

confused me?  you mean opened my eyes?  lol... you're going to laugh... people like you!  No I'm not kidding.  It took those who opposed the following or are a cult to the following to show me the right path to take by making me do my homework.  I have learned so much by talking on even just this site because topics go in directions I never would have thought of looking into. 

jabberwocky wrote:

Elaborate further please. 

um... I'm not sure how... are you looking for me to start explaining conversations that made me do research?  

I guess to summarize it all, to the non-believers, I've learned so much about Bible/church history and human/Earth history science philosophy etc. yet everything they tried to show me that would allegedly contradict scripture claims was not concrete evidence, but rather speculation beyond the evidence.   To the cult followers, their perspectives are always different than believers, thus they use different scriptures and sometimes books to support their reasoning which forces me to reconsider our perspectives.  Usually I find that they're quite misinformed in even basic non-Biblical history or reality, but sometimes I see just as I do with the non-believers that they're right about something I previously never thought of investigating far enough.  

In most cases, they would make me think and reconsider what I think I know because I always leave an open mind to what people present to me, even you.  but when i do the research I typically find that both of us were lacking in information and typically a key peice of information was missing somewhere which caused the separation in understanding.  When i respond, I've done my homework.  

to make my long story short it all started when my dad married into a Jehovah Witness family and started trying to teach me their ways.  to prove him wrong, I opened the Bible for the first time in my life only to find out that not only what He was teaching was wrong, but what I was being taught was also wrong.  There was a period of unbelief before deciding that I was going to do my homework and demand a consensus once and for all with all whom I talk to.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

If god can choose, then why not make himself obvious to anyone? There are contentious issues, and there are more obvious ones. For the obvious ones, there are a lot of crackpots in this world. Those who believe vaccinations are bad, those who believe blood transfusions are wrong, those who believe they can survive on only the sun's energy, etc. Let's take the last group. They are wrong, and it is 100% that they either lie or they die. However that is an extraordinarily small percentage of the human population. Why doesn't god make himself as obvious to us as a fact like "we need food to survive"? It means he either can't or he won't. If hell is the consequence of disbelief, then god, by not appearing as obviously to me as I would require, is condemning me to hell. It's that simple. You may sit on your high horse and say that you believe despite that. However, for me the burden of proof has not been met. Hell, in the NT, Thomas would have presumably witnessed some miracles of Jesus, then didn't believe it when he was said to have come back. What was the response...damn you to hell? This evidence you already saw, where you witnessed miracles first-hand is enough? Nope. It was "Hey, put your hand in this gash in my side, and your fingers through my hands' nail holes!" If your god is real, and the consequence of disbelief is hell, he is a tyrant for not providing such evidence to any caring, generous, good natured people who just happen to disbelieve. 

He doesn't make himself obvious becasue He doesn't want people to "believe in his existence"  He wants them to "know Him".  For those who don't want to know Him, they don't need to believe in Him either.  

The first mistake of a non-believer is to think you're condemned to hell for not believing.  That is not at all the case.  We are ALL condemned to hell for the sins we have committed... "the wages of sin is death", but through Jesus Christ, we are redeemed adn are seen as pure in Gods eyes... this again is for ALL, not just me.  

The thing is, God has given the world a book with all the information in it.  The story of doubting Thomas... this would then be an eye-witness account of a non-believer who became a believer by Jesus literally standing in front of him and saying, poke your finger in my wounds... and you say this is not enough.  Would you expect God for the next 2000 years to have Jesus go on tour for all those non-believers to poke at him just so they can know for sure that what the Bible says actually happened?  

We have what is called "The great Commission".  We are to inform the world of God's Gospel and the gift through Jesus Christ... what the world does with that information is up to them, but again, you are not condemned for not believing, you are condemned for your sin just as I am.  The message is the salvation we all have through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  He took our punishment so that we may live though we deserve death... or in your perspective, we deserve to burn in hell forever, but instead we will live in heaven with God because Jesus took that punishment for us.  

My take on this is, what are you going to lose for taking a chance on accepting the gift of the sacrifice with your full heart?  IT seems a lot less than if you didn't and you were wrong about Gods non-existence.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, this is the course description of something Amit offers online for the measly sum of $499!

Quote:

An integral medicine is developed in this course based upon the principles of quantum physics and the primacy of consciousness. We show how the metaphysical principles underlying both conventional allopathic medicine and the various techniques of alternative medicine can all be incorporated within the metaphysics of the primacy of consciousness. We then explore a new typology of disease and healing techniques from this new perspective. We show how the quantum field and the primacy of consciousness thinking integrate conventional and alternative medicine in a paradox-free fashion. We then explain the various techniques of alternative medicine such as Chinese medicine and acupuncture, the East Indian medicine system of Ayurveda, chakra medicine, homeopathy, mind-body medicine, Christian Science and spiritual healing. Finally we explore the healing path to spiritual growth.

You can buy his book for much much less on the quantum physics of God,b ut anyway... that summary tells me nothing of the research done or the claims he makes on alternative medicine other than it's a viable possibility for medicine.. which is not disputed.. in fact, some of what is mentioned has scientific support for success like acupuncture.  

Jabberwocky wrote:

The reason I said I don't know much about QM is because I don't. However I do know that the mainstream scientists who study it don't see the links Amit makes. Also, the mainstream scientists don't sell online courses for a lot of money on dodgy websites peppered with utter nonsense as I just quoted. You then go on to say that it's not only Amit, and there are others but you don't know any names off hand. Do you wonder why? Do you wonder why these people aren't known, or easy to look up? It's because they're lying. Someone like Amit wants to make money, but he's happy being relatively unknown, because he has to stay off the radar of those whose work he is lying about to make money. 

Here is an article by someone who actually knows what he's talking about in this field:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/

He addresses the conflating of quantum mechanics with BS. 

Ok, I stopped reading when I read: 

the revolutionary theory developed early in the century to account for the anomalous behavior of light and atoms, are being misconstrued so as to imply that only thoughts are real 

Just going to say Amit never mentions that perspective in the book I read.  Rather He uses actual studies done like the aspect experiment and quantum theory to discuss reasoning behind considering an intelligence per means of downward causation.  

Ok, so I went back in and skimmed a bit more to give him the benefit of doubt, but I see that the rest is based on... as I said before speculation going back to that opening statement about only thoughts being real and thoughts creating reality...  

The problem is you can be an expert in any field, but if your thesis is on a faulty perspective, the whole thing is going to be bias to that faulty perspective and thus be irrelevent to the problem at hand.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Tore apart...you're joking, right? How?

 

I realize this goes back quite a few posts.. I tried but I didn't look back to the one this originated from, but if I remember I basically showed you how perspective and fact are like oil and water and that your perspective doesnt' necessarily adhere to fact.  If you want to tackle that, i will look back on it, I'm not copping out, but I think it's probably not necessary... your choice though

 


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Jabberwocky wrote:Because

Jabberwocky wrote:

Because many of them are mutually exclusive about key issues. 

but that doesn't answer the what if.  but the mutually exclusive key issues is something to consider.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, I thought you were implying something else. My mistake. 

I didn't make it clear... no worries.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I don't know where they are, but my point stands. If Christianity were actually completely coherent, and one, just ONE Christian figured out how to communicate that well, you figure they would. Since hell is punishment for disbelief, such a Christian would want to save everyone. Nobody's ever done it. 

hell is not punishment for disbelief.  I do want to save everyone, but unfortunately that is beyond my abilities.  I cannot save anyone, people must save themselves and God can only open there eyes if they allow Him to.  i can only be a messenger.  

jabberwocky wrote:

Fair enough, however I re-iterate the point I just made above. 

alright, how does it not help then?  I'm not sure how else to explain it.

jabberwocky wrote:

Of course it has to be based on something. It doesn't mean it has to be rational. I was simply providing concise definitions for words that got muddied up earlier. 

Ok, well I do agree with you here.

jabberwocky wrote:

So you're saying "faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer" but then go and say that you know this god, therefore you know the answer? Now I'm very confused. Wait, no I'm not. Christianity doesn't make any sense, so the problems here are expected. 

no, these problems should not exist within the faith... blindly accepting them as you seem to imply above is a mistake many Chrsitians make.  I will try to clarify

We know the How (to a degree), we know the Who, but we can't always know the Why, there's where the faith comes in.  We have faith that the "Why" is for a greater good though we may never understand it fully.

jabberwocky wrote:

Not ones that have been proven to exist. This answer doesn't really help your position as you would probably say that all of those other gods are indeed not real. 

Not necessarily.  Many historical gods were people claiming to be god or a god.  Some I believe are demons decieving people into thinking they are their god.  Some may actually be mythical and based on very little.  

jabberwocky wrote:

No. Simply...no. As I said with the first Mother Teresa miracle, the doctors who treated the woman will tell you exactly what happened! No supernatural intervention was necessary, yet the church view it as a miracle. 

the problem with that conclusion is the Vatican interviews the doctors involved... if what you say is true, then the Vatican themselves would have already deemed this situation not valid.

Jabberwocky wrote:

As far as Satan, how does he work? How powerful is he? 

Satan is a fallen high angel, so He would be as powerful as the most powerful of angels, but still less powerful than God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  He works in deceptive ways, He is called; "the father of lies".   the biggest mistake people make about Satan is to think that He is opposed to "good things"... He's not, rather He is opposed to God and anything God stands for.  it is said that God can give people good things so they don't seek out God.  Satan would rather have it that way.

jabberwocky wrote:

There is a remarkably small amount of historical record of Jesus, so comparing that to the bible account isn't worthwhile. You can't verify the miracles, you are correct. So what's more likely, that one single man bucked a trend and performed all of those miracles, or that it's just another myth?  

If it was just a random single man that did as you said, it would be more reasonable to claim that it was just a myth, however... there were many who came before Jesus and many who came after Jesus claiming to be the Messiah.  why did none of them get such dramatic recognition?

Jabberwocky wrote:

And in another post you mentioned that you believe Abraham existed because you know god, not because of evidence. That's all I need to know I suppose. It's faith, not evidence. I won't accept that as compelling. 

I wouldn't expect you to


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5526
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote: God does

caposkia wrote:

 

God does not interfere with the choices of others... if others choose to put people in horrific situations like you're describing above, they get to make that choice just like anyone making a "good" choice gets to make it... we have the freedom to do that.

You mean except for when it comes to interfering with the choice of your creditors of whether or not to reduce your bills? Because reducing your bills is far more importantant than saving the innocent person from being put in a gas chamber. 

 

Caposkia wrote:

here's the problem with that though.. just because you can explain how it happened doesn't mean it was not God's work (assuming God is real).  God would logically use natural means to make things happen... 

Yeah... because EVERYTHING good is "God's work" but when people are tortured and murdered it is the choices of evil people. Even you should be able to see the problem with that reasoning. I think the Christian habit of thanking God and giving him credit for the good things that people do is incredibly narcissistic and rude. Even if there were some cosmic being with that kind of power, it is pretty ridiculous to assume he gives a shit about you let alone your bills. It would be like you worrying about the well being of the millions of bacterium you kill. At the same time, you deny credit to people who do care and are genuinely good.  

 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote: Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Hence there is no reason to discuss this further. Of course the old testament will likely be an accurate portrayal of what the area was like at the time. If you believe Abraham is real because you believe in and know god, then that's just that. You believe that you have within you the holy spirit which allows you to know something for sure (even though humans have the ability to be certain about things, while being wrong). Your proof of Abraham through god is something you can't possibly demonstrate. This really is no different from saying "I know because I know" and therefore it warrants no further discussion.

So be it. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

I understand that things often have a way of working themselves out, and you may have prayed before it happened. Now how about the people for whom it doesn't? You skipped over a similar point discussing the vatican and miracles. You only discuss examples where things have gone right after praying, and ignore the ones where it hasn't.  This suggests that maybe he's cooking something up, taking his sweet time, or the horrificly sinister "God's plan for your day is always better than your plan" nonsense. 

Anyway, what did you mean at the end? "Not in the way they wanted"? If it's not in the way they wanted, wouldn't that simply mean he didn't answer the prayer at all? 

no, not necessarily.  Not in the way they wanted could mean they prayed for money and instead got discounts they otherwise wouldn't have which would in turn allow them to have more money in the end.  

You seem to be stuck on looking at answers vs. not... well not to quote a movie, but Bruice Almighty is a great example of why a "yes to all" answer is not logical.  Granted I'm sure you're looking for a reason why God would say no to prayers for healing of a loved one that ultimately died from their sickness, but to that I cannot answer why, only that it was part of His plan.  I believe we are here for a purpose, and when that purpose is complete we allegedly "go home".  We see it as death, the end, a loss, but the Bible teaches that death is not loss.   Pilippians 1:21 NASB

That's splitting hairs on the more money vs. less expenditures. You ignore times when he doesn't do either despite prayer, and people lose their cars, homes, and can't feed their children. What your second paragraph implies is that god does have an ultimate plan, and it also implies that when someone dies, even due to murder or genocide, it was a net positive event. You're saying that you don't know why it was good that people spend their last moments being raped and murdered in this world, but it was a part of god's plan. What you're saying is that your god couldn't have implemented a plan that didn't require a lot of rape, murder and genocide. Some god that is. I can't say that that wasn't a god's plan, but I can say it wasn't the plan of an all-powerful and all-loving one. That much is certain. Oh but he tinkered with your family's finances. Hallelujah, praise the lord. My aunt was raped and murdered while hitchhiking (before I was born). Why not a rain-storm or something (natural occurence since violating free will is a breach of contract) to encourage her to not travel to the location where her murderer(s) picked her up? Nope. That had to happen. He couldn't tinker with that. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

If you're in debt, or having trouble with keeping up bills, keep one thing in mind. Nobody actually WANTS you to go bankrupt. Financial insitutions, and anyone you might owe money to, will do everything they can to allow you time to pay, because the alternative is to bankrupt you and get less money. They will get to a point where they feel you won't pay the bills willingly, so more extreme measures have to be taken. Now I doubt the bills just went down on their own. I figure you probably had spoken with those collecting the bills and discussed your situation, and they were willing to work with you. If I'm wrong, and they just cut down the bills on their own, well then that's that. However, anyone in Georgia or West Virginia (or anywhere else in the bible belt) can probably throw a stone and hit a house where good loyal Christians got foreclosed and lost their homes. Still god's plan? Still answering those prayers?

yes it is.  The question is, what happened to those families after?  Why did it happen?  the other problem is, God does not compensate for our own stupidity.  How many of those foreclosures etc. were from people's mistakes or lack of management?  

I'm not worried because I know God will not let us fail.  i also know no one wants us to go bankrupt.  The bills really kind of worked themselves out.   We didn't do the leg work for the changes in these instances.  

Was there far more stupid people ~2008 owning houses? No. The economy simply burst under pressure of leveraged money, loans, etc. These people may have made what was at the time perfectly reasonable decisions. Hell, anyone who was renting was probably better off then, even though being a homeowner is in almost any other situation the better way to go.

Your bills didn't "work themselves out" as you are about to explain

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

God's will comes first.  If He has a plan, and you're praying for something contrary to that plan, God can and will say "no".  He will instead come through in a different way.  He always gives His people what they need.  We have to think about what that means because what you need many times in not necessarily what you want.  

I know a good Christian family who's son suddenly died 2 years ago at age 26 in his bedroom (in their house). That's what they needed?

God gives and God takes away.  God gives the family what they need.  Is that what they needed?  I don't know... I don't know thier particular circumstance or what they did because of their sons death.  some families get a fire going and start charities and community outreach programs due to family deaths like that that ultimately help hundreds of people... was it then necessary for that person to die for hundreds others to be saved?  I would say, yes, that was needed, but this could have just been one of those things that God put in their lives because of their strength so that others can see the faith of Gods followers.  

They didn't need their son dying suddenly at age 26. I can guarantee you that. Also, I don't believe they have gone all Job about it and praised god any more than befor, nor do I believe that they have started any charities. They're just trying to cope. 

caposkia wrote:

I know a personal story of such a case that happened recently to a close friend of ours... through that horrific death, the faith of the parents has brought so many more people to the realization of the power of God.  This situation was an unfortunate case of poor judgement on people's part, but it still allowed for God's power to shine through and it does to this day.  

Poor judgement on peoples' part. Ok. The situation I spoke of was simply someone dying for medical reasons which I have not been told the details of. What was the result? Grief. Sadness. Wouldn't it be nicer if someone "almost" died, then was miraculously healed? Then perhaps they would praise god, AND be happier that their family member was still among us? 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

It sounds like you have gone through some hardships in life, but everything's finding a way to chug along, and you're giving god credit for it. I think you're wrong, but since you believe in such a god, that's a nice sentiment that you're being helped along. So I suggest you look at pictures of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, and see the etchings of human nail markings in the concrete walls. In CONCRETE! Humans, people, trying a futile escape from pure agony at the end of their abbreviated lives caused by a tyrranical regime. I have a place to sleep very close to Auschwitz if I need it, and having seen the picture I just described, I refuse to ever go there. Also, I won't link to the image because I'm shuddering just typing about it, and never want to see it again. In what way can you possibly say that that is coming through? 

God does not interfere with the choices of others... if others choose to put people in horrific situations like you're describing above, they get to make that choice just like anyone making a "good" choice gets to make it... we have the freedom to do that.  There are consequences for those choices good or bad, the Bible makes that clear.  These people may not see their justice in this life, but there is a judgement day that I'm sure you've heard the fanatics yelling about on the street.  Granted they're a bit hyperfocused and not rational, but they're right that the day is coming, the problem is that should not be our focus or reason to follow God.  

See Beyond Saving's post re: the bolded part. I will also bold the part below where you blatantly contradict exactly that. 

Also, just because you're not yelling your beliefs through a megaphone in a public square doesn't make them any more rational. It just means you made that one better decision than the crackpots. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Huh? All I'm saying is that shit happens, and attributing the good (or the bad) to some sort of cosmic force deliberately controlling every minute detail of our universe is a bad assumption to make. If Christians were overwhelmingly more fortunate than their non-Christian counterparts, then you would at least have anecdotal evidence that you could then subject to further testing. This has never been shown to be the case. Because of this, it is foolish to attribute good works to a cosmic force. Is there something wrong with this reasoning?

well, fortunate circumstance is really in the eye of the beholder now isn't it.  Despite the troubles we've gone through in life, i would say we're more fortunate than that rich family down the street whom may have never had a financial burden in their life.  fortune is not based on money or posessions, or even luck, it's what you percieve to have.  I have a healthy family with a roof over our heads and we can't say that we're ever starving.  I also have very secure jobs and I love them, to that I say my family is quite fortunate... more than most.  I could go on and on with the fortunate circumstances in our lives, but you get the picture.  

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

That's not what irony is. Also, there is nothing unexplainable about people's bills becoming more manageable. What were the real world justifications for them going down? Was there some incorrect billing previously? Or did you ask them to lower them due to financial strain? I know people who have done that and gotten a break, and as I said regarding debt, it's pretty common. 

here's the problem with that though.. just because you can explain how it happened doesn't mean it was not God's work (assuming God is real).  God would logically use natural means to make things happen... 

but to put it in perspective... one bill I call up with an issue...  had nothing to do with lowering the cost, just setting it right... the guy in the moment put me on hold and then got back on with some interesting news... "I have a way of solving this issue"   turns out there was a new plan that worked for what we needed and it just ended up being cheaper and the change would ultimately prevent future errors of the like.

Likewise, the other bill change, the company was actually just making rounds.  I wasn't looking to make changes, but they informed me of something that gave me more for less... something I know wasn't available before.  

third our bank happened to start a new promotion that allowed monthly payments for doing a specific change.

Aaand here you go. Of course you don't think that the world of finance is some magical autonomous entity. It is something that is managed by people. People have to make decisions for anything to happen there. If you attribute these things happening to god, then god would have had to influence their decisions, or as you said "interfere with the choices of others". Blatant contradictions from you in one single post.

caposkia wrote:

When does irony come into play?

That was in response to you saying that your scenario (you prayed, and it got better) was ironic. That is not the correct application of the concept of irony. Don't learn your concept of irony from an Alanis Morisette song. The song is wrong in every single example. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Yes, but you could on the other hand provide evidence that it was you. God hasn't. 

Of course he has... the problem with that logic is, you believe God doesn't exist, so regardless of what 'evidence' He may provide, you would never accept that it was actually God.  

To put it in perspective of the analogy, you'd be denying that I actually exist and therefore could have never done it.  

No I wouldn't. I'm convinced that you exist already based on your posting here. God has not provided as much evidence for his existence as you have. To me, you are a poster named "Caposkia" as I don't know your name otherwise. You could be several people, but I find your style of posting consistent enough that I accept you to be one person.

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

So, what confused you into your current state?

confused me?  you mean opened my eyes?  lol... you're going to laugh... people like you!  No I'm not kidding.  It took those who opposed the following or are a cult to the following to show me the right path to take by making me do my homework.  I have learned so much by talking on even just this site because topics go in directions I never would have thought of looking into. 

jabberwocky wrote:

Elaborate further please. 

um... I'm not sure how... are you looking for me to start explaining conversations that made me do research?  

I guess to summarize it all, to the non-believers, I've learned so much about Bible/church history and human/Earth history science philosophy etc. yet everything they tried to show me that would allegedly contradict scripture claims was not concrete evidence, but rather speculation beyond the evidence.   To the cult followers, their perspectives are always different than believers, thus they use different scriptures and sometimes books to support their reasoning which forces me to reconsider our perspectives.  Usually I find that they're quite misinformed in even basic non-Biblical history or reality, but sometimes I see just as I do with the non-believers that they're right about something I previously never thought of investigating far enough.  

In most cases, they would make me think and reconsider what I think I know because I always leave an open mind to what people present to me, even you.  but when i do the research I typically find that both of us were lacking in information and typically a key peice of information was missing somewhere which caused the separation in understanding.  When i respond, I've done my homework.  

to make my long story short it all started when my dad married into a Jehovah Witness family and started trying to teach me their ways.  to prove him wrong, I opened the Bible for the first time in my life only to find out that not only what He was teaching was wrong, but what I was being taught was also wrong.  There was a period of unbelief before deciding that I was going to do my homework and demand a consensus once and for all with all whom I talk to.  

Which part of the bible did you start with that led you on the path?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

If god can choose, then why not make himself obvious to anyone? There are contentious issues, and there are more obvious ones. For the obvious ones, there are a lot of crackpots in this world. Those who believe vaccinations are bad, those who believe blood transfusions are wrong, those who believe they can survive on only the sun's energy, etc. Let's take the last group. They are wrong, and it is 100% that they either lie or they die. However that is an extraordinarily small percentage of the human population. Why doesn't god make himself as obvious to us as a fact like "we need food to survive"? It means he either can't or he won't. If hell is the consequence of disbelief, then god, by not appearing as obviously to me as I would require, is condemning me to hell. It's that simple. You may sit on your high horse and say that you believe despite that. However, for me the burden of proof has not been met. Hell, in the NT, Thomas would have presumably witnessed some miracles of Jesus, then didn't believe it when he was said to have come back. What was the response...damn you to hell? This evidence you already saw, where you witnessed miracles first-hand is enough? Nope. It was "Hey, put your hand in this gash in my side, and your fingers through my hands' nail holes!" If your god is real, and the consequence of disbelief is hell, he is a tyrant for not providing such evidence to any caring, generous, good natured people who just happen to disbelieve. 

He doesn't make himself obvious becasue He doesn't want people to "believe in his existence"  He wants them to "know Him".  For those who don't want to know Him, they don't need to believe in Him either.  

If he did, then he WOULD show himself. You have that quite backwards. If he wants people to know him, all he has to do is show up and have a chat. 

caposkia wrote:

The first mistake of a non-believer is to think you're condemned to hell for not believing.  That is not at all the case.  We are ALL condemned to hell for the sins we have committed... "the wages of sin is death", but through Jesus Christ, we are redeemed adn are seen as pure in Gods eyes... this again is for ALL, not just me.  

Why does a human being unjustly tortured and killed forgive someone else's wrongdoing? Also, what did we all do to be condemned? I understand that theologically it was just an ancestor of ours. It is not just to punish someone for the wrongdoings of their parents, grandparents, etc.

caposkia wrote:

The thing is, God has given the world a book with all the information in it.  The story of doubting Thomas... this would then be an eye-witness account of a non-believer who became a believer by Jesus literally standing in front of him and saying, poke your finger in my wounds... and you say this is not enough.  Would you expect God for the next 2000 years to have Jesus go on tour for all those non-believers to poke at him just so they can know for sure that what the Bible says actually happened?  

Exactly. Thomas ALREADY had way more evidence than we ever did. Being an apostle, he would have seen some serious miracles up to that point. Even after that, he still didn't buy it, and was then given a chance to go up close to a reanimated corpse with what in any normal person would amount to fatal wounds. If that actually happened, and I was there, that would more than do it for me. In fact, if I saw him turn water into wine, raise Lazarus, reattach (perfectly) a guard's ear, and cure a disease (leprosy) that at the time was seen as incurable, I wouldn't have doubted it as far as Thomas did. To say that we have equivalent evidence today is to be dishonest or deluded.

caposkia wrote:

We have what is called "The great Commission".  We are to inform the world of God's Gospel and the gift through Jesus Christ... what the world does with that information is up to them, but again, you are not condemned for not believing, you are condemned for your sin just as I am.  The message is the salvation we all have through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.  He took our punishment so that we may live though we deserve death... or in your perspective, we deserve to burn in hell forever, but instead we will live in heaven with God because Jesus took that punishment for us.  

My take on this is, what are you going to lose for taking a chance on accepting the gift of the sacrifice with your full heart?  IT seems a lot less than if you didn't and you were wrong about Gods non-existence.  

Once again, I can't understand how vicarious redemption can possibly work, let alone how it can be a good thing. The whole thing reeks of "we all deserve nothing but eternal torment, buuuut I will graciously allow you to instead live in eternal bliss....if you throw your mental faculties to the wind and devote your life to groveling before me." Is there anything inaccurate about my portrayal here?

You haven't even demonstrated that a god is more likely to exist than not. To get to where your second paragraph here is, you would have to do that, AND demonstrate that the Christian god is the likeliest one to exist. Pascal's wager restated for the millionth time is no more convincing than it was the first time. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, this is the course description of something Amit offers online for the measly sum of $499!

Quote:

An integral medicine is developed in this course based upon the principles of quantum physics and the primacy of consciousness. We show how the metaphysical principles underlying both conventional allopathic medicine and the various techniques of alternative medicine can all be incorporated within the metaphysics of the primacy of consciousness. We then explore a new typology of disease and healing techniques from this new perspective. We show how the quantum field and the primacy of consciousness thinking integrate conventional and alternative medicine in a paradox-free fashion. We then explain the various techniques of alternative medicine such as Chinese medicine and acupuncture, the East Indian medicine system of Ayurveda, chakra medicine, homeopathy, mind-body medicine, Christian Science and spiritual healing. Finally we explore the healing path to spiritual growth.

You can buy his book for much much less on the quantum physics of God,b ut anyway... that summary tells me nothing of the research done or the claims he makes on alternative medicine other than it's a viable possibility for medicine.. which is not disputed.. in fact, some of what is mentioned has scientific support for success like acupuncture.  

Some. Acupuncture is the champion of the world of alternative medicine. The conclusion? None. Inconclusive. The placebo effect is proven though, and it may be a cause for the effectiveness of acupuncture. Also it may cause a release in endorphins due to stimulation. However classic acupuncture methodology that incorporates the concepts of Qi, Yin and Yang, is clearly quackery. 

Some modern practitioners have embraced the use of acupuncture to treat pain, but have abandoned the use of qi, meridians, yin and yang as explanatory frameworks.[10][11] They, along with acupuncture researchers, explain the analgesic effects of acupuncture as caused by the release of endorphins, and recognize the lack of evidence that it can affect the course of any disease.[

So that's from wikipedia's acupuncture page. 

Could you tell me which of those things Amit mentioned you agree with, and which you don't? Do you believe that the church Christian Science has ANYTHING unique to them that is correct?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

The reason I said I don't know much about QM is because I don't. However I do know that the mainstream scientists who study it don't see the links Amit makes. Also, the mainstream scientists don't sell online courses for a lot of money on dodgy websites peppered with utter nonsense as I just quoted. You then go on to say that it's not only Amit, and there are others but you don't know any names off hand. Do you wonder why? Do you wonder why these people aren't known, or easy to look up? It's because they're lying. Someone like Amit wants to make money, but he's happy being relatively unknown, because he has to stay off the radar of those whose work he is lying about to make money. 

Here is an article by someone who actually knows what he's talking about in this field:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/

He addresses the conflating of quantum mechanics with BS. 

Ok, I stopped reading when I read: 

the revolutionary theory developed early in the century to account for the anomalous behavior of light and atoms, are being misconstrued so as to imply that only thoughts are real 

Just going to say Amit never mentions that perspective in the book I read.  Rather He uses actual studies done like the aspect experiment and quantum theory to discuss reasoning behind considering an intelligence per means of downward causation.  

Ok, so I went back in and skimmed a bit more to give him the benefit of doubt, but I see that the rest is based on... as I said before speculation going back to that opening statement about only thoughts being real and thoughts creating reality...  

The problem is you can be an expert in any field, but if your thesis is on a faulty perspective, the whole thing is going to be bias to that faulty perspective and thus be irrelevent to the problem at hand.  

*sigh*. So you stopped reading after the first sentence? Wow. At least I provided you with an article. I've had to look myself for writings by morons like Amit Goswami (and they were harder to find than the Stenger link). So I give you a direct link, and you stop reading almost immediately. You clearly don't want to understand this. Stenger is saying that it is NOT the case that only thoughts are real. Read the first Goswami quote in there and Stenger's response to it. What is wrong with Stenger's assertion there that psychic phenomena have never been demonstrated? I mean, Goswami is literally saying that the study of the motion of subatomic particles is evidence for psychic events (which haven't been proven, and which quantum mechanics has NOTHING to do with). Address Goswami's quote and Stenger's response there please. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Tore apart...you're joking, right? How?

 

I realize this goes back quite a few posts.. I tried but I didn't look back to the one this originated from, but if I remember I basically showed you how perspective and fact are like oil and water and that your perspective doesnt' necessarily adhere to fact.  If you want to tackle that, i will look back on it, I'm not copping out, but I think it's probably not necessary... your choice though

 

Perspective and fact can be like oil and water. Science is the egg-yolk that allows them to mix. Not in an instant, but science is 100% our best way to know anything, and this can be demonstrated. Knowledge by revelation has proven itself inferior to science in every discernable way. You have claimed that your belief in the bible is based in part on revelation. You claim science to be a part of it as well, but you have asserted that you belief certain bits on revelation alone (such as the existence of Abraham as a historical figure). If you are correct, and knowledge by revelation is indeed real, you can do nothing to demonstrate that. If knowledge by the scientific method 100% contradicts your knowledge by revelation, you take the revelation every time. Until you stop doing that, there is virtually no way that we can have any conversation on the topic. Perhaps if we pick one single point, and set a max of 3 quote/unquotes in our posts (because the length of these is only getting bigger, and therefore increasing the time it takes to respond), we will probably never make any headway. 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


Jabberwocky
atheist
Posts: 411
Joined: 2012-04-21
User is offlineOffline
caposkia wrote:Jabberwocky

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Because many of them are mutually exclusive about key issues. 

but that doesn't answer the what if.  but the mutually exclusive key issues is something to consider.

Except it does answer it, unless you have very low standards for "the right track". Would you give Hinduism points because it posits more gods than 0? It's based on completely different mythology from Christianity, and there is probably 0 agreeable ground between the two without seriously bending what Hinduism and Christianity say. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, I thought you were implying something else. My mistake. 

I didn't make it clear... no worries.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I don't know where they are, but my point stands. If Christianity were actually completely coherent, and one, just ONE Christian figured out how to communicate that well, you figure they would. Since hell is punishment for disbelief, such a Christian would want to save everyone. Nobody's ever done it. 

hell is not punishment for disbelief.  I do want to save everyone, but unfortunately that is beyond my abilities.  I cannot save anyone, people must save themselves and God can only open there eyes if they allow Him to.  i can only be a messenger.  

Fine. Hell is punishment for being human because we're descendants of two people who fucked up, so we are being punished for the actions of other people. You can't save anyone. Now the last part....wow. 

"People must save themselves"

"God can only open there (sic) eyes if they allow Him to."

So do we open our own eyes, or does god open them? If god's real, he has my permission to demonstrate it to me.....nope. Still an atheist. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Fair enough, however I re-iterate the point I just made above. 

alright, how does it not help then?  I'm not sure how else to explain it.

You have said in several spots that many Christians have it wrong (including the Catholics which was my upbringing, as well as yours I understand). You are under the impression, though, that you have the answers to all of the logical problems that most Christians have when trying to reconcile their faith with reality. That is an extraordinary claim, and if it were true, you would be able to educate every Christian on the ACTUAL truth, and then eventually everyone on the planet. My contention is that you fail to grasp logic (including contradicting yourself in a single post above), and cherry pick the parts history and science that suit your argument at that time. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Of course it has to be based on something. It doesn't mean it has to be rational. I was simply providing concise definitions for words that got muddied up earlier. 

Ok, well I do agree with you here.

Ok good. When the language is imprecise, the arguments are too. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

So you're saying "faith comes in for the aspects that we just can't answer" but then go and say that you know this god, therefore you know the answer? Now I'm very confused. Wait, no I'm not. Christianity doesn't make any sense, so the problems here are expected. 

no, these problems should not exist within the faith... blindly accepting them as you seem to imply above is a mistake many Chrsitians make.  I will try to clarify

We know the How (to a degree), we know the Who, but we can't always know the Why, there's where the faith comes in.  We have faith that the "Why" is for a greater good though we may never understand it fully.

Yes, but when the "what happened" questions, and "how" disagree with your bible, you also bring in faith over science. You have faith that the worldwide flood happened, that the fall happened, that the tower of babel happened (if I'm misrepresenting you here, let me know, but I believe you have asserted as much). When it's shown that these events couldn't have happened at any point in time, you continue to believe that they did, despite them being disproved. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

Not ones that have been proven to exist. This answer doesn't really help your position as you would probably say that all of those other gods are indeed not real. 

Not necessarily.  Many historical gods were people claiming to be god or a god.  Some I believe are demons decieving people into thinking they are their god.  Some may actually be mythical and based on very little.  

I'm not saying that historical gods couldn't have been based on something. I'm saying that the Hindu gods in your opinion are not indeed gods. Now...am I to understand that you also believe in demonic possession?

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

No. Simply...no. As I said with the first Mother Teresa miracle, the doctors who treated the woman will tell you exactly what happened! No supernatural intervention was necessary, yet the church view it as a miracle. 

the problem with that conclusion is the Vatican interviews the doctors involved... if what you say is true, then the Vatican themselves would have already deemed this situation not valid.

Monica Besra is illiterate, and only speaks a tribal tongue and a tiny big of Bengalese. She was treated in a medical facility, and the doctors expected the tumour (which was said to not be cancerous) to go away, as it did. Due to her life situation, she was probably likely to believe it was a miracle. Her statement saying as much was written in English, and probably was more elaborate than something that she could have said even in her mother tongue. 

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/article/se_en_14102002.htm

You overestimate the honesty of the Catholic Church. Attempting to saint Mother Teresa was fast-tracked because the Catholic Church is a business. Her canonization would have been a huge positive for the Catholic Church due to Mother Teresa's postiive public image (just don't read into her life TOO much...). 

Note: I did NOT fact-check that link. If something in there is inaccurate, I welcome you to show me. 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

As far as Satan, how does he work? How powerful is he? 

Satan is a fallen high angel, so He would be as powerful as the most powerful of angels, but still less powerful than God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  He works in deceptive ways, He is called; "the father of lies".   the biggest mistake people make about Satan is to think that He is opposed to "good things"... He's not, rather He is opposed to God and anything God stands for.  it is said that God can give people good things so they don't seek out God.  Satan would rather have it that way.

...I'm speechless. If he's opposed to anything god stands for, then if god only stands for good things, then he IS opposed to good things. Oh, and you're capitalizing "He" on Satan now too? Is that necessary?...is it blasphemous? Either way, everything you said here is pretty much gibberish. 

caposkia wrote:

jabberwocky wrote:

There is a remarkably small amount of historical record of Jesus, so comparing that to the bible account isn't worthwhile. You can't verify the miracles, you are correct. So what's more likely, that one single man bucked a trend and performed all of those miracles, or that it's just another myth?  

If it was just a random single man that did as you said, it would be more reasonable to claim that it was just a myth, however... there were many who came before Jesus and many who came after Jesus claiming to be the Messiah.  why did none of them get such dramatic recognition?

Luck, the situation, nuances in what he said vs. other messiahs, or he just lucked out by having the most convincing followers. The lack of contemporary records of Jesus's existence to me doesn't confirm that he didn't exist. What it does tell me is that whether or not he did, his followers (who are written of more), were very effective in spreading the faith. If he did exist, then his life was exaggerated. If he didn't, then he was probably made up by the actual founder of the Christian movement (Paul?). Muhammad did a good job getting Islam to take off. Does that in any way increase the legitimacy of his claims? Of course not! The same goes for Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard. With the latter 2, we can see that in the USA alone it's possible to get a religion to take off, but a rather low percentage of people who found such movements actually succeed. A low percentage isn't 0% though.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

And in another post you mentioned that you believe Abraham existed because you know god, not because of evidence. That's all I need to know I suppose. It's faith, not evidence. I won't accept that as compelling. 

I wouldn't expect you to

So for once we agree on something. You're using faith (your unfounded certainty) to assert that a historical figure existed. The entire thing, and every other religion as well, requires some such faith. This shows that the truth of religion is NOT grounded in science, in logic, in history, or in anything which we should base our decisions concerning the truth of something. It is grounded in faith. It is grounded in mere assertion. You are simply asserting what you have been asked to prove. You have just backed into a corner, and admitted that asserting it is all you can possibly do. This is why people with the "Atheist" tag on this board can not take religion seriously.

Until you can actually provide evidence for your assertion, you are exactly where you always were. There is not nearly enough evidence to demonstrate that Christianity portrays the truth about our world, therefore we should refrain from believing it. 

Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.


caposkia
Theist
Posts: 2701
Joined: 2007-05-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving wrote:You mean

Beyond Saving wrote:

You mean except for when it comes to interfering with the choice of your creditors of whether or not to reduce your bills? Because reducing your bills is far more importantant than saving the innocent person from being put in a gas chamber. 

I didn't work with creditors to reduce my bills.  Rather opportunities just happened to present themselves.  No interference of choices.  

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

Yeah... because EVERYTHING good is "God's work" but when people are tortured and murdered it is the choices of evil people. Even you should be able to see the problem with that reasoning. I think the Christian habit of thanking God and giving him credit for the good things that people do is incredibly narcissistic and rude. Even if there were some cosmic being with that kind of power, it is pretty ridiculous to assume he gives a shit about you let alone your bills. It would be like you worrying about the well being of the millions of bacterium you kill. At the same time, you deny credit to people who do care and are genuinely good.  

 

I don't thank God for the good choices people make.  I may thank God for allowing those good choices to affect me positively.  Christians have a saying;  Satan's not opposed to good, he's opposed to God.   In other words, even Satan can "do good"... so you're right, your perspective is quite narcissistic and rude.  

To add to that, the good choices people make in the name of God are to be credited to God because they did it in His name.  

As far as giving credit to those who do good, why wouldn't you?  What are we in North Korea?  I think you've been blinded by the cults of the world.  As usual your perspectives are not very Biblical