Hi, Warrick here!

wzedi
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Hi, Warrick here!

Hi guys,

I'm Warrick - I love Jesus because He first loved me.

I'm visiting this forum for several reasons. Most importantly I pray that Jesus use these forums and discussions to reveal the truth to all those who doubt and bring them to a place where they know without a doubt that the God of Israel, the creator of the universe, loves them and nothing can separate them from that love.

Another reason I'm here is because I find discussions with free thinkers revitalising. I'm intent on learning the Word of God and understanding it as best I possibly can and I find discussions with atheists a very challenging and effective way to learn. Mostly because really zealous atheists know more of the Word and seem to spend more time in it than your average Christian. Interesting.

I'm excited by open, honest frank discussion since there is no other way to get to the truth. And Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

No matter what is said in these discussions, Jesus loves each one of us. No doubt, blasphemy (even against the Holy Spirit) or profanity can change that. Thank you Jesus. In fact Jesus will leave the 99 sheep to find the one that is lost - so all you lost sheep Jesus is looking for you - knocking at the door of your heart waiting for you to let Him in.

God is not a respecter of men. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, And He loves you.


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BGH wrote:wzedi

BGH wrote:
wzedi wrote:

There are other texts that backup the book. Tacitus' account of Christian persecution shows that there was a large body of people willing to die horrible deaths becuase of their faith in Christ. This was very close to the time Jesus is claimed to have lived. Why were they so willing to die if it was just a hoax or a joke?

Doesn't this make the Muslim faith and the Koran more real because they are blowing themselves up for their god? They are not even waiting for someone to persecute them, they a taking their own lives in the name of allah. This means the muslims have it correct, right?

wzedi wrote:
This is further evidence (which can be disputed of course) that Jesus lived and it can go toward an dargument that He rose from the dead.

Well the muslims believe he lived but that he was not god, nor was he resurrected. So like I said before since they are blowing themselves up for their faith this means their argument that he was not god is more real, right?

wzedi wrote:
Now the issue here is consistency. There are many texts that show the consistency of the Bible. The contrary arguments are ad-hoc. If you disagree please present your reasoning.

BGH, I wanted to go back to this point about the martyrdom. The difference between the Christian persecution and the terrorist acts of the Muslim Jihad are that the Christians were killed by the violent acts of others because of their Christian faith.

Muslim Jihad warriors kill themselves for their own faith. So no, the Muslims cannot be compared to the Christian martyrs.

<The above was my original response. I'm editing to provide a little more justification for my stance>

I believe the comparison is not relevant because the point to be made by the reference to the martyrs was one of consistency. Now, I'm not trying to baffle you (and myself) with BS and tehchnicalities. What I'm saying is that the fact that secular history records very many people being persecuted and put to death for their conviction that Christ was the Saviour lends consistency and bolsters the credibility fo the Biblical accounts - i.e.

1. It corroborates the evidence presented in the Bible that people (around the time Jesus is claimed to have lived) at least believed that Jesus lived

2. They had enough faith that He was in some way special that they would not renounce that faith in public to the point of enduring torture and death.

3. There were very many of them. Mass hysteria might be claimed but that would need to be substantiated. So there is evidence in play which now needs to be discredited.

The Muslim argument is not really relevant (without attempting to side step your point) because it does not go to discrediting the Bible. Nonetheless, in response, the Muslims kill themsleves. They do not have to endure torture at the hands of others. Nobody is asking them to renounce their faith.

The comparison is not relevant in this case and does nothing to lessen the contribution of the secular record on the consistency and credibility of the Biblical accounts.

Tacitus os very credible, corroborating evidence that Jesus existed and people of the time believed He was special in some way. You can of course still dispute His deity and the reaslity of the miracles, even with this evidence in play. But to dispute His existence the onus is now on you to produce proof.

Maybe we can pick this up in your response to the non-physical cause to the physical universe question? I'm working toward shopwing that it is reasonable to accept that there are non-physical, super natural events that cannot be explained by physics. What say you?


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wzedi

wzedi wrote:
Quote:

dogma

One entry found for dogma.
 

Main Entry: dog·ma ">Pronunciation: 'dog-m&, 'däg-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural dogmas also dog·ma·ta "> /-m&-t&/
Etymology: Latin dogmat-, dogma, from Greek, from dokein to seem -- more at DECENT
1 a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b : a code of such tenets <pedagogical dogma> c : a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds
2 : a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church

 

The first still does not reflect atheism, there are no authorative tenets. Just lack of belief.

 

OK. Looks like we are going to have to agree to disagree here. I just want to make one last point on the dogma argument and keen to see your views.

I would argue that the first definition does, at the very least, closely reflect the behaviour of atheists. My argument is based on the fact that evry discussion I have with an atheist results in the standard responses, i.e.

1. there is no god

    1.1 this is stated by every atheist and is therefore established opinion

    1.2 it is authoritative in that if you do not make this statement you cannot be an atheist

    1.3 It is without adequate grounds because you cannot prove conclusively that there is no god.

2. Jesus is a fallacy

    2.1 this is stated by every atheist and is therefore established opinion

    2.2 it is authoritative in that if you do not make this statement you cannot be an atheist

    2.3 It is without adequate grounds because you cannot prove conclusively that Jesus is a fallacy

 

Even more importantly I think the following point needs to be made about dogma. The frustrating thing about dealing with a dogmatic person in a discussion is that they will fall back on some statement that is either irrelevant or unsubstantiated (as you claim Bible verses are) and you cannot move them past that dogma with reason.

My argument as that atheists (in general, there may be exception but I haven't seen one yet) do exactly the same. One makes a statement, or asks a question, which challenges the fundamental atheist stance and the atheist reverts to His standard (dogmatic) responses.

So here's my challenge to all the free, independent thinkers:

1. There are no grounds for you to say there is no god. You can say that you do not believe it and you have seen no proof but the fact is, you don;t know for sure. So the statement is in fact false.

2. There are no grounds to claim that Jesus, or his supernatural acts, are fallacy. You do not have conclusive proof to show this to be the case. So you can claim to not believe it but to state without qualification that Jesus is a fallacy is false.

3. I have still not seen any asnwer to the question about the non-physical cause of the physical universe. I've had a side step from BGH (this is dogmatic behaviour) with an explanation of what happened from some nano-second after the big bang. I'm talking about what happened before. The cause had to be non-physical. To make any other statement is surely not reasonable. If you disagree please give grounds for your disagreement. Without making any assumption that the non-physical cause is the God of the Bible, is the statement reasonable?

Let's reason this out.  

You have some misconceptions of atheism. Firstly in 1.1 you say that Atheists believe there is no God. Wrong (although some may) but in general the majority of thinking atheists simply do not believe in God, that is not the same as believing there is no God. I'm fed up of having to explain this to theists but it is a popular misconception.

Atheism is arrived at through reasoned argument, very often through personal thinking on the subject. There is no church of atheism, no real organisation. No indoctrination from a young age. No flawed moral codes pushed down our throats (that is not to say we are amoral, I personally am a Utilitarian/Consequentialist, a claim I can argue rationally). No doctrine really to speak of. The only thing that could be called a doctrine would be the absense of belief but a) it is never forced upon people, it merely remains an option and b) is the only definition of atheist, look at the word a-theist, someone who isn't a theist, therefore in order to be an atheist absense of a belief in God would pretty much be mandatory only by definition, if they believed in God by definition they would be theistic.

 


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Jacob Cordingley wrote:

Jacob Cordingley wrote:
You have some misconceptions of atheism. Firstly in 1.1 you say that Atheists believe there is no God. Wrong (although some may) but in general the majority of thinking atheists simply do not believe in God, that is not the same as believing there is no God. I'm fed up of having to explain this to theists but it is a popular misconception.

Then you might want to make sure you correct your fellow atheists since that seems to be the message. "Believe in God? We can fix that" is NOT a message of not believing in God but rather a message to show others there is no God.

Before RRS, I had always believed that atheists were passive and would not jump at a chance to discredit any theist.  Most examples I've seen simply were to make sure they weren't forced to believe, which I have no problem with.  But what I do have a problem with is when they've gone on the offensive and distored the very faith in order to question the existance of God and mark other people's faith as "delusions".  That is not the actions of someone who does not believe in a God but rather someone who wants to discredit God and to prove there is no God at all.

What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason. - Voltaire


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razorphreak wrote:Jacob

razorphreak wrote:

Jacob Cordingley wrote:
You have some misconceptions of atheism. Firstly in 1.1 you say that Atheists believe there is no God. Wrong (although some may) but in general the majority of thinking atheists simply do not believe in God, that is not the same as believing there is no God. I'm fed up of having to explain this to theists but it is a popular misconception.

Then you might want to make sure you correct your fellow atheists since that seems to be the message. "Believe in God? We can fix that" is NOT a message of not believing in God but rather a message to show others there is no God.

Before RRS, I had always believed that atheists were passive and would not jump at a chance to discredit any theist. Most examples I've seen simply were to make sure they weren't forced to believe, which I have no problem with. But what I do have a problem with is when they've gone on the offensive and distored the very faith in order to question the existance of God and mark other people's faith as "delusions". That is not the actions of someone who does not believe in a God but rather someone who wants to discredit God and to prove there is no God at all.


<edited my original response>

Exactly.


wzedi
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Quote:   You have some

Quote:
 

You have some misconceptions of atheism. Firstly in 1.1 you say that Atheists believe there is no God. Wrong (although some may) but in general the majority of thinking atheists simply do not believe in God, that is not the same as believing there is no God. I'm fed up of having to explain this to theists but it is a popular misconception.

 

Other than the comments by razorphreak I'll cop this one. Your commetn makes sense and I'll be sensitive to that in future.

Quote:
 

Atheism is arrived at through reasoned argument,

No it isn't. I say that because every time a reasoned argument is attempted we get the same old responses. Let's you and I have a reasoned argument then.

Quote:
 

very often through personal thinking on the subject.

 No argument there. Personal thought based on misconceptions and subjetivity. No reasoned argument.

Quote:
 

There is no church of atheism, no real organisation.

Not explicity maybe. But it is implied. But we can probably just ignore this. It doesn't really make a difference. It's just a point of interest.

Quote:
 

No indoctrination from a young age.

Interesting thought. I agree that indoctrination is not good. But ensuring that your kids get no exposure is also a type of indoctrination. AS with anything moderation is the way to go. Absolutely no exposure is extreme. 

Quote:
 

No flawed moral codes pushed down our throats (that is not to say we are amoral,

 

What codes are moral. Let's talk about this too. Name the moral code and explain what the flaws are. You will not find any flawed moral code in the Bible.

Quote:
 

I personally am a Utilitarian/Consequentialist, a claim I can argue rationally).

OK. Let's argue rationally about the non-physical cause of the physical universe.

Quote:
 

No doctrine really to speak of. The only thing that could be called a doctrine would be the absense of belief but a) it is never forced upon people, it merely remains an option and b) is the only definition of atheist, look at the word a-theist, someone who isn't a theist, therefore in order to be an atheist absense of a belief in God would pretty much be mandatory only by definition, if they believed in God by definition they would be theistic.

OK. Fair enough.

So let's argue rationally then.

1. How did you arrive at your atheist conclusions? What reasoned argument did you use?

2. Is it reasonable to say the cause of the physical universe had to be non-physical, i.e. something that cannot be described by physics?

Let's reason now. No dogmatic statements, no doctrine. 

 


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Mr Warrick, I arrived at

Mr Warrick,

I arrived at the conclusions that I do not believe in God very simply, by asking what we can actually know. So we enter the world with no knowledge of anything and so we need to find knowledge, the only way being through empiricism (i.e. through the senses). Ok, so in order to know something we have to have evidence of that something, you can't know something unless there is evidence for it. If I pick up a stone and see woodlice underneath then I have evidence that woodlice live underneath stones. God however, what is that? I cannot sense God, nor can he be measured, and there is no evidence for his existence, I would have to take a leap of faith in order to believe in God, but I could never actually know God existed. Ok, there are holy books, the bible, the qu'ran, the book of mormon, the book of the flying spaghetti monster but are these reliable sources? Why should I believe these anymore than I believe that The Lord of the Rings actually happened? They all claim to be the word of God, but how can we know that, just a little bit of study of any of them shows that God is really inconsistent, all loving and yet pretty downright nasty, all powerful and yet somehow he can't be everywhere at once. And then we come to Jesus, there is very scant evidence that Jesus actually existed. And even if he were a real historical person why should I believe he was the son of God? Why should I believe in virgin births (something that contradicts all evidence) how would a virgin get pregnant, well through a great supernatural bloke in the sky? There is also no evidence for worldwide floods either, nor of many other things the bible says. 

So religious Gods seem a bit incoherent and again there is no evidence for them. I cannot know anything without evidence. But there is also no evidence for a plain theistic God (one not belonging particularly to a religion) no matter how consistent they try to make him. He cannot be sensed, measured, experienced. The same goes for a deistic God, there's no evidence so why believe.

On to your second question. It could be the case that the universe through a non-physical cause. It does however raise massive questions. How would a non-physical cause make something physical? So far as we know nothing non physical has ever caused anything physical, all physical actions have physical causes. For example the apples on my windowsil aren't going to suddenly be moved by something non-physical. Also we must ask where such a complex non-physical cause came from? You would assume it had always been there right? God has always existed? But such a God is extremely complex, it can break the divide between physical and non-physical, it needs a cause. And then we have to ask ourselves what non-physical is? Are there laws of non-physics? How does it have force if there is nothing physical?

It seems ever more likely that the universe would need a physical cause. In fact there is no reason why it actually needs a beginning at all. The big bang may not be the beginning of the cosmos, all we know is that at some point 14 billion years ago all the matter was crammed together into a space so small it cannot be fathomed by the human brain lest it be mathematically (we know this is possible because the majority of space a single atom takes up is just empty space, if the nucleus were a football (I mean a round football, not your American footballs) then an electron would be a pea 3 or 4 miles away). We know that the big bang was the beginning of the universe as we know it, but we do not know whether it is actually the start of everything ever. It need not be. And is it not more likely that a physical event has a physical cause than a physical event having a non-physical cause. Admittedly we do not know what physical cause that was but we are only really at the beginning of scientific discovery. We do not claim to know everything, as many religions do (how they came by that knowledge without scientific experimentation beats me, perhaps it was made up), but we endeavour to know everything. We go about trying to learn an almost infinite amount of knowledge in the hope that one day we may know everything.  


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wzedi wrote: Quote: You

wzedi wrote:

Quote:

You have some misconceptions of atheism. Firstly in 1.1 you say that Atheists believe there is no God. Wrong (although some may) but in general the majority of thinking atheists simply do not believe in God, that is not the same as believing there is no God. I'm fed up of having to explain this to theists but it is a popular misconception.

Other than the comments by razorphreak I'll cop this one. Your commetn makes sense and I'll be sensitive to that in future.

Quote:

Atheism is arrived at through reasoned argument,

No it isn't. I say that because every time a reasoned argument is attempted we get the same old responses. Let's you and I have a reasoned argument then.

Quote:

very often through personal thinking on the subject.

No argument there. Personal thought based on misconceptions and subjetivity. No reasoned argument.

Quote:

There is no church of atheism, no real organisation.

Not explicity maybe. But it is implied. But we can probably just ignore this. It doesn't really make a difference. It's just a point of interest.

Quote:

No indoctrination from a young age.

Interesting thought. I agree that indoctrination is not good. But ensuring that your kids get no exposure is also a type of indoctrination. AS with anything moderation is the way to go. Absolutely no exposure is extreme.

Quote:

No flawed moral codes pushed down our throats (that is not to say we are amoral,

What codes are moral. Let's talk about this too. Name the moral code and explain what the flaws are. You will not find any flawed moral code in the Bible.

Quote:

I personally am a Utilitarian/Consequentialist, a claim I can argue rationally).

OK. Let's argue rationally about the non-physical cause of the physical universe.

Quote:

No doctrine really to speak of. The only thing that could be called a doctrine would be the absense of belief but a) it is never forced upon people, it merely remains an option and b) is the only definition of atheist, look at the word a-theist, someone who isn't a theist, therefore in order to be an atheist absense of a belief in God would pretty much be mandatory only by definition, if they believed in God by definition they would be theistic.

OK. Fair enough.

So let's argue rationally then.

1. How did you arrive at your atheist conclusions? What reasoned argument did you use?

2. Is it reasonable to say the cause of the physical universe had to be non-physical, i.e. something that cannot be described by physics?

Let's reason now. No dogmatic statements, no doctrine.

 

WTF, you dont believe in my invisable purple snarfwidget so you must have a dogmatic doctrine that causes you to reject it.

What lead me to my atheism. Simple, hocus pocus superstition is fiction. There is no such thing as spirt sperm or people surviving rigor mortis. There is no multy armed deity named Ganish and you wont get 72 virgins in an afterlife. It is the same crap as Apollo pulling the sun across the sky with a chariot and the same as Superaman and Luke Skywalker. You just like your myth. So what, so do all the other people who like different myths. 

"There has to be something outside physics"

So, why are to so desperate to incert a magical sky daddy into what we dont know? You think rocks talk? No of course not. Do you think that Napolean is lurking in your bedroom closet? No, of course not. 

"Their has to be". Yea, and there may be something beyond what we know. But that doesn't nessistate a disimbodied brain. If physics is natural, then I'd hassard to guess that what lies beyond that is not magical, but just as natural, merely unknown at this time.

The point is you like your super hero in the sky and never consider that it is YOU wanting to believe it.

You are in the same boat of lack of evidence as any Scientologist, Kabbalahist, Shintoist, Toeist, Jew or Muslim or Wiccan. All of you make up myths to justify belief in the absurd.

That is not being mean, that is being blunt. I dont sugar coat reality just because you cant face it. 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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wzedi
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Jacob Cordingley wrote:Mr

Jacob Cordingley wrote:

Mr Warrick,

I arrived at the conclusions that I do not believe in God very simply, by asking what we can actually know. So we enter the world with no knowledge of anything and so we need to find knowledge, the only way being through empiricism (i.e. through the senses). Ok, so in order to know something we have to have evidence of that something, you can't know something unless there is evidence for it. If I pick up a stone and see woodlice underneath then I have evidence that woodlice live underneath stones. God however, what is that? I cannot sense God, nor can he be measured, and there is no evidence for his existence, I would have to take a leap of faith in order to believe in God, but I could never actually know God existed. Ok, there are holy books, the bible, the qu'ran, the book of mormon, the book of the flying spaghetti monster but are these reliable sources? Why should I believe these anymore than I believe that The Lord of the Rings actually happened? They all claim to be the word of God, but how can we know that, just a little bit of study of any of them shows that God is really inconsistent, all loving and yet pretty downright nasty, all powerful and yet somehow he can't be everywhere at once. And then we come to Jesus, there is very scant evidence that Jesus actually existed. And even if he were a real historical person why should I believe he was the son of God? Why should I believe in virgin births (something that contradicts all evidence) how would a virgin get pregnant, well through a great supernatural bloke in the sky? There is also no evidence for worldwide floods either, nor of many other things the bible says.

So religious Gods seem a bit incoherent and again there is no evidence for them. I cannot know anything without evidence. But there is also no evidence for a plain theistic God (one not belonging particularly to a religion) no matter how consistent they try to make him. He cannot be sensed, measured, experienced. The same goes for a deistic God, there's no evidence so why believe.

On to your second question. It could be the case that the universe through a non-physical cause. It does however raise massive questions. How would a non-physical cause make something physical? So far as we know nothing non physical has ever caused anything physical, all physical actions have physical causes. For example the apples on my windowsil aren't going to suddenly be moved by something non-physical. Also we must ask where such a complex non-physical cause came from? You would assume it had always been there right? God has always existed? But such a God is extremely complex, it can break the divide between physical and non-physical, it needs a cause. And then we have to ask ourselves what non-physical is? Are there laws of non-physics? How does it have force if there is nothing physical?

It seems ever more likely that the universe would need a physical cause. In fact there is no reason why it actually needs a beginning at all. The big bang may not be the beginning of the cosmos, all we know is that at some point 14 billion years ago all the matter was crammed together into a space so small it cannot be fathomed by the human brain lest it be mathematically (we know this is possible because the majority of space a single atom takes up is just empty space, if the nucleus were a football (I mean a round football, not your American footballs) then an electron would be a pea 3 or 4 miles away). We know that the big bang was the beginning of the universe as we know it, but we do not know whether it is actually the start of everything ever. It need not be. And is it not more likely that a physical event has a physical cause than a physical event having a non-physical cause. Admittedly we do not know what physical cause that was but we are only really at the beginning of scientific discovery. We do not claim to know everything, as many religions do (how they came by that knowledge without scientific experimentation beats me, perhaps it was made up), but we endeavour to know everything. We go about trying to learn an almost infinite amount of knowledge in the hope that one day we may know everything.

Hi Jacob,

Thanks for taking the time to talk about this.

Before I respond I just want to reiterate my commitment to free and open discussion. I am open to having even my most fundamental beliefs challenged. I sincerely want to know the truth and if my beliefs are based on dogmatic reasoning I want that exposed.

This is the basis for reasoned argument and free thought I believe. I'm hoping and expecting that you have a similar attitude.

Your reasoning includes comments about a spaghetti monster and about The Lord of the Rings. These are very common in atheist speak and are dogmatic thoughts. You imply that the Bible is clearly fiction by listing it along side references to spaghetti monsters. This exposes an underlying dogmatic attitude. The Bible is not clearly fiction. The Lord of the Rings is obviously fiction. You cannot be that certain about the Bible. Such thoughts have no place in free and honest discussion.

I concede your are asking why you should believe the Bible over Lord of the Rings. Well, the first response is as above. Lord of the Rings is undeniably fiction. The Bible is not so certainly fiction. So the question is really irrelevant. Don't you agree.

The point I am making with the non-physical question is that it is not entirely unreasonable to make such a statement. You akcnowledge that there could be a non-physical cause then launch into a discourse on how it probably isn't. Fact of the matter, and I know you'll agree, is we have no physical evidence to convince us one way or the other. The point however, is that it is not unreasonable to make such a statement. Since everything physical is in the Universe, nothing physical exists outside of hte Universe, whatever caused the Universe is non-physical. Perfectly logical and reasonable.

We can argue that the Universe is eternal and carry on ad infinitum but there is no evidence to say that it is and in fact all evidence suggests the contrary, the Universe had a beginning.

So what we have is a book that says the Universe was spoken into existence by God. We have physics that suggests the Universe began some time ago and we have no physics to explain how it began. We know that everything physical is in the Universe. We don't know that there is anything outside of the Universe.

So based on what we know,the statement is reasonable - it does not defy logic and reason to make the statement, that;s the point.

Based on the fact that it is not unreasonable or insane to say that it is possible that something non-physical caused the Universe I'd say it is similarly reasonable to say that something non-physical could well be acting in the Universe today.

It is also similarly reasonable to say that such a non-physical thing may not be subject to time as we know it. Time is evidenced in change and entropy. Entropy is a physical property. A non-physical thing may not exhibit physical characteristics and so could be eternal.

I know your saw this line of reasoning coming but what I am saying is that it is not illogical or unreasonable. Quite the opposite in fact. So based on just that simple line of reasoning it is not insane or unreasonable to consider virgin births, miracle healings and the like possible.

There is an assumption as the basis of all atheist thought that it is unreasonable and illogical to accept the claims of the Bible. That assumption is invalid abnd dogmatic.


wzedi
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Quote: WTF, you dont

Quote:

WTF, you dont believe in my invisable purple snarfwidget so you must have a dogmatic doctrine that causes you to reject it.

What lead me to my atheism. Simple, hocus pocus superstition is fiction. There is no such thing as spirt sperm or people surviving rigor mortis. There is no multy armed deity named Ganish and you wont get 72 virgins in an afterlife. It is the same crap as Apollo pulling the sun across the sky with a chariot and the same as Superaman and Luke Skywalker. You just like your myth. So what, so do all the other people who like different myths.

Why do I just like the myth? Why is that my only justification? The superman and Luke Skywalker stuff is old and useless. It means nothing to me and surely it means nothing to anyone else. It's just bravado and dogma. Dogma because all atheists make similar statements and it is so obviously flawed and illogical. Superman and Luke Skywalker are obviously fiction. The Bible is not obviously fiction. You don't believe it and see not satisfactory evidence but it is still possibly true.

Quote:
 

"There has to be something outside physics"

Who said this?

Quote:
 

So, why are to so desperate to incert a magical sky daddy into what we dont know?

Desparate? Whose desparate?

Quote:
 

You think rocks talk? No of course not.

Not usually. But God can make them talk and sing if He so wishes.

Quote:
 

Do you think that Napolean is lurking in your bedroom closet? No, of course not.

Ridiculous comparison. Something that has absolutely no evidence vs something that has a mountain of evidence.

Quote:
 

"Their has to be". Yea, and there may be something beyond what we know. But that doesn't nessistate a disimbodied brain. If physics is natural, then I'd hassard to guess that what lies beyond that is not magical, but just as natural, merely unknown at this time.

This is all based on a quote that I have not found in this thread. Anyway, nobody is claiming anything magical exists anywhere.

Quote:
 

The point is you like your super hero in the sky and never consider that it is YOU wanting to believe it.

I have considered this and found it to be untrue.

Quote:
 

You are in the same boat of lack of evidence as any Scientologist, Kabbalahist, Shintoist, Toeist, Jew or Muslim or Wiccan. All of you make up myths to justify belief in the absurd.

No I am not. Scientology? That is obviously fiction again. That is literally in the realm of Star Wars. There is a mountain of evidence. A dogmatic thinker will always struggle to consider it fairly.

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That is not being mean, that is being blunt. I dont sugar coat reality just because you cant face it.

Be as mean or blunt as you like. Who says I can't face it? This statementexposes a few underlying attitudes:

1. You have a self-righteous pride about you

2. You assume others sugar coat reality

3. You assume that I can't handle the truth.

4. Notice the assumptions here? These show that you have a tendency to argue from assumption, you are a dogmatic thinker, not a free thinker. You are unlikely to give any point fair consideration. It is likely to be pointless having a discussion with you.

Now don't assume I am running for the hills because I just can't bear your revelation of truth. You haven't made any good points in this discourse. You have relied entirely on dogmatic statements. You are the guy that wants peer reviewed medical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. That is an unreasonable and illogical request. One you are proud of becuase you believe it is bullet proof.

It is in fact a ridiculous request that again exposes your dogmatic thought process. We all know there is no "peer reviewed" medical evidence. That proves nothing otehr than the fact that you have already made up your mind and are therefore not a free thinker.

If you have anything useful you want to discuss let's do it. 


Jacob Cordingley
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Warrick. You seem to be

Warrick. You seem to be calling every single argument dogmatic rather than actually looking at the argument. Just because an argument is well used does not imply it is fallacious or dogmatic. Look at the arguments, read them, examine them.


wzedi
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Jacob Cordingley

Jacob Cordingley wrote:
Warrick. You seem to be calling every single argument dogmatic rather than actually looking at the argument. Just because an argument is well used does not imply it is fallacious or dogmatic. Look at the arguments, read them, examine them.

Hang on Jacob. Can you honestly say I have not looked at your argument and examined it. I didn't respond to Brian's comments showing due consideration? I'd say I did just that and the refernce to dogma is justified.

Brian37 makes unsubstantiated assertions which stifle free discussion.


wzedi
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Jacob Cordingley

Jacob Cordingley wrote:
Warrick. You seem to be calling every single argument dogmatic rather than actually looking at the argument. Just because an argument is well used does not imply it is fallacious or dogmatic. Look at the arguments, read them, examine them.

As much as the atheist can claim appeals to emotion and appeals to tradition one can claim that the atheist makes an appeal to fiction. The appeal to fiction is false because the comparison is always to stories which can conclusively be proven as fiction while the Bible cannot be.

Appeals to fiction have no place in these discussions.

I believe in my response to you Jacob I have provided sufficient cause to say that believing in super natural events is not unreasonable. Beliving the unproven maybe, but not unreasonable. So that leaves the atheist in a position where he needs to justify to himself why he believes the theist stance to be unreassonable.