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Being an Atheist in Ireland is a Cnut
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Upward Spiral wrote: »Ok, that's commendable. So would it be fair to say that you follow an altered version of Christianity? One that happens to disagree with some aspects of scripture?
It's called Protestantism. I personally agree with the Vatican on a lot of issues, but on some I find their interpretation isn't valid.Upward Spiral wrote: »The reason I consider myself to be Atheist is because the Church does not give people a choice in what context they choose to hold their faith. It clearly states what you are supposed to blindly agree with and believe in and states that people who don't believe will be punished. If it was a more philosophical form of preaching/teaching it wouldn't seem so bad, I guess.
Every man should read the Bible for himself. We shouldn't be left blind, but we should have full vision of God's will for us through reading and studying.
A lot of the Bible itself is philosophical, such as the book of John, dealing with who Jesus was in comparison to the more legalistic Jesus of Matthew, Mark and Luke. I think it's an important balance to ask. One of my favourite passages is in John when Pilate asks "What is truth?" to Jesus
Upward Spiral wrote: »But it isn't. The Vatican stand by their old fashioned way of thinking and refuse to adapt to a more modern interpretation of the Bible.
By modern though, I find that some people can alter it from it's original context. I think the Church needs to change the way it does church, rather than the Gospel and the text itself. This applies to the Church of Ireland (my denomination) as well as Catholicism.Upward Spiral wrote: »I have nothing against what others believe in btw. I'm just curious as to how they manage to do it.
Indeed, I like people who are true seekers trying to understand how people like me live our lives, so thanks for your response 0 -
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I'm going to let other religions defend themselves. I have enough reason to believe what I believe, and I'll go through them in headings:
1) Messianic prophesy, over three hundred prophesies concerning the Messiah in the Tanakh were fulfilled by Christ's ministry on the earth. The more of these that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus makes it more and more unlikely that Jesus was indeed not the Messiah. Over 300 checks and balances to show that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and the Lord is quite an extensive test of validity.
2) Christian history does not make sense without a Resurrection event:
Let's go through this bit by bit:
a. You have been with a charismatic preacher for 3 years in Israel,
b. You have seen this man endure trials of all sorts, and you have come to know His personal character during this time.
c. You see this man die.
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d. You and the others who were with you at the time, spread the teachings of this individuals thousands of miles throughout the Gentile world, preaching that we can become a new Creation in Christ Jesus if we are baptized and confess that Jesus is Lord (2 Corinthians 5).
e. These men are zealous for the spiritual truths that this man taught throughout His worldly existence, even until the point of death, by stoning (James the Righteous - see Josephus' Jewish Antiquities), Thomas who is believed to have been gored with a spear in India, Peter said to be crucified upside down, James Son of Zebedee who was said to have been put to death by Herod in the book of Acts.
Now, what on earth can explain the difference between d and e. How on earth if you have seen your best friend, if you have seen this man who has testified to such truths while alive, could they possibly have endured to spread it as zealously as they did and until the point of death? It does not make sense unless something extraordinary happened inbetween both of these events. I'm not saying that this necessarily has to be the Resurrection, but it certainly gives credence to it.
If you cannot explain to me conclusively how all 11 disciples went through to the lengths that they did in a reasonable manner, then this will always give credence to something extraordinary having happened to bring these men to those lengths.
Then taking into account that in the accounts the mention of women running to the tomb would have been seen as laughable in Jewish society at the time, a lack of an attempt to cover this up would indicate that it was indeed the honest and frank truth of the situation.
There are more and more textual implications like these in the Gospels themselves.
3) Creation without a higher power does not make sense.
The probability of the world coming into existence through natural processes, according to Roger Penrose is in the millions of billions of zeroes. 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123 is quite a huge number. This is commonly deemed by mathematicians and physicists to be mathematical impossibility. It would seem to me that the prudent thing to do would be to look to the possibility of a Creator or a means of causation to explain how the universe came into existence given the co-ordination of the planets in the right distance from the Sun to create life, and the forming of the earth with the correct chemical composition in the universe to sustain life. It is incredible to me to suggest that this world was not created by a supernatural force given that what is natural is frequently observable, what happened in the formation of the earth is not frequently observable by any means. In addition to this, when looking to how the universe has come into being, we can only assess what is within the universe, rather than what is external to it.
It's quite frankly ridiculous that those who believe that miracles are an impossibility can deem that the creation of the world by purely natural means is in anyway more probable. Miracles by their nature are hugely improbable by natural means if and of their own, however if there is a supernatural force behind said miracles by which the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are known, then it is rather probable that indeed that miracles can take place, just as it is quite probable that the universe came into existence through a supernatural force. This gives credence to me that the earth is the creation of God.
The reasoning that William Lane Craig common proponent of the kalam cosmological argument, gives for believing in a God of miracles is as follows:
a) God makes sense of the universes origins.
b) God makes sense of the universes complexity.
c) God makes sense of objective moral values.
d) God makes sense of the resurrection.
e) God can be immediately experienced
(I'll quote from him when dealing with spiritual experiences)
4) Spiritual experiences - These are the strongest witness and conviction of an individuals faith, and this is where the atheist is left to struggle in misunderstanding over these type of issues. William Lane Craig has commonly claimed that the Holy Spirit is the greatest witness to a Christian about the truth of Christianity. If I may give an example from Lee Strobel's Case for Faith, published by Zondervan, which is a book I'd recommend you all to read if you are genuinely curious. You have no excuse, there is a range of Christian apologetics that you can read if you want answers:
So, although secondary evidence is still useful. The only way that the mental barriers that people put up before God will be lifted will be through trust, and asking to God to open up your heart so that you may accept Jesus as Lord.
Paul in 1 Corinthians chapters 1 - 3 says the Cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but for those who are being saved it is the power of God.
Yet you are without excuse, according to the book of Romans chapter 1 as God has made Himself apparent through creation.
Experiences also convince me of my faith, as I can discuss with my Christian friends, all of differing denominations of Christ's faith, and they can all discuss with me about how Christ is working in their lives, and about spiritual challenges and struggles we all have under the armour of the Lord (Ephesians 6).
If you do not understand spiritual experiences, you will forever misunderstand how the average Christian operates.
5) Historical sources for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth -
Writers such as Josephus, Tactius, Pliny the Younger, and so on reference the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and the early Christian community in their works. If you take a read of Josephus' - Jewish Antiquities in particular it has references to both Jesus of Nazareth and the Crucifixion, Christians, and James the Righteous and his stoning to death. There is also a broad historical consensus with slight disagreement that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was the site where Jesus was crucified. This gives credence to me that Jesus was indeed crucified. This in particular is a problem for Islam stating that Jesus was not crucified at all.
6) Archaeology, Geology and History backing up the Bible.
Figures such as Xerxes (if you have seen 300 this is the same Xerxes), Nebuchadnezzar, Hezekiah, Sennachera, Balthasar, Darius, Cyrus, and so on have been substantiated in secular historical sources of the age. Likewise, the construction of the walls of Jerusalem, the construction of the 2nd Temple, the captivity of the Judeans and the Israelites, and so on are also backed up historically. Archaeological sites such as the Zedekiahs Cave underneath the city of Jerusalem, King David's Tower, and Biblical sites such as Herod's palace, Temple coins from Jerusalem, Pilates residence in Caesarea, the ruins of the city of Capernaum and so on have all been found, and there are many more promising archaeological projects in the future which may substantiate the Biblical record more over the first few years. I have also mentioned the likelihood of the occurrence of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it's citation by many geologists, if you take a look at Google Scholar or JSTOR you will find information on these.
7) Authenticity of the Bible - The New Testament is one of the most widely circulated pieces of work in the Greek world, and it has indeed circulated far further than works of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, if we are to reject the New Testament as a reliable and authoriative historical witness to the life of Christ, we would also have to reject works which aren't anywhere near as widely accounted for as the New Testament accounts themselves. The Bible as a whole compiled in two periods, the Tanakh compiled by the Jewish leaders in 450BC, and the Bible including the New Testament was compiled in 360AD at the council of Nicea. However we have evidence through the church fathers that these books were widely used in the first century:
A good youtube video might help on this:
There was perfect reason for the selection of these books over other texts that were released at much later dates.
How these reasons aren't considered logical, are beyond me, quite frankly beyond me. These to me are very very strong indicators of my faith, and of it's truth and validity in the world. Feel free to try and pick them apart now
All of the above can be summarised as:
I actually need to just get a life
I need all the the above and more to validate my life because I can't do it for myself with my own actions.
...and O' - I probably need to get laid more often!
As to the original OP -
Just repeat the following to the old out of date ageing hags:
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Don't know enough to comment, but I'm guessing that these prophecies weren't airtight definitions of specific future events, but widely open to different interpretations and easy to fit to the events in Jesus's life.1) Messianic prophesy, over three hundred prophesies concerning the Messiah in the Tanakh were fulfilled by Christ's ministry on the earth. The more of these that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus makes it more and more unlikely that Jesus was indeed not the Messiah. Over 300 checks and balances to show that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and the Lord is quite an extensive test of validity.
That's very weak, in fairness. Look at any cult today. Look at any martyr in history. Witnessing a miracle is not necessary for one to become so strongly believing in something that they would die for it.Now, what on earth can explain the difference between d and e. How on earth if you have seen your best friend, if you have seen this man who has testified to such truths while alive, could they possibly have endured to spread it as zealously as they did and until the point of death? It does not make sense unless something extraordinary happened inbetween both of these events. I'm not saying that this necessarily has to be the Resurrection, but it certainly gives credence to it.
If you cannot explain to me conclusively how all 11 disciples went through to the lengths that they did in a reasonable manner, then this will always give credence to something extraordinary having happened to bring these men to those lengths.
By that logic, the creation of a higher power doesn't make sense.3) Creation without a higher power does not make sense.
Until there's actual evidence, which there might never be, I'm just going to stick with I don't know exactly how the universe originated.
Misinterpretations of profound, yet natural, feelings, IMO.4) Spiritual experiences
But, unless I'm very much mistaken, can you not apply that logic to the Qur'an also? Or any other religious text?7) Authenticity of the Bible - The New Testament is one of the most widely circulated pieces of work in the Greek world, and it has indeed circulated far further than works of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, if we are to reject the New Testament as a reliable and authoriative historical witness to the life of Christ, we would also have to reject works which aren't anywhere near as widely accounted for as the New Testament accounts themselves.
Well, you can read above what I think of them.How these reasons aren't considered logical, are beyond me, quite frankly beyond me. These to me are very very strong indicators of my faith, and of it's truth and validity in the world. Feel free to try and pick them apart now
In summary:
I don't know enough about 1.
2 is very weak.
3 is illogical. You believe in a creator which you can't explain where he came from because the universe couldn't have come into existence on its own.
4 is very subjective. I would say it is a bit delusional.
5 and 6 are fine, but only explain that some purely natural (as opposed to supernatural) events from the Bible are possibly true.
If I were to accept 7, I would have to believe that any supernatural event described in any other widely circulated historical text were true also.0 -
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Don't know enough to comment, but I'm guessing that these prophecies weren't airtight definitions of specific future events, but widely open to different interpretations and easy to fit to the events in Jesus's life.
No, they really aren't. A select few:
1) Be born in Bethlehem of Judea (Jesus is the only Messiah claimant to be born in Bethlehem) (Micah 5:2)
2) To ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, to be welcomed (Zechariah 9:10)
3) To be put to death (Isaiah 53)
4) To be ridiculed, mocked, and to have people cast lots for his posessions (Psalm 22)
5) To be buried in a rich mans tomb (Joseph of Arimethea) (Isaiah 53:9)
There are a lot more of these. You can imagine, as more prophesies unfold about the Messiah and His identity, the more and more refined the actual probability of Jesus not being the Messiah actually is.
It's like if you are guessing about who a celebrity is in 20 questions, after 20 questions your option will be a lot more refined than it was when you started. Now just think about the probability of being wrong after over 300 questions. You have to admit that this is a reasonable check and balance to check if someone fits the description of Messiah.That's very weak, in fairness. Look at any cult today. Look at any martyr in history. Witnessing a miracle is not necessary for one to become so strongly believing in something that they would die for it.
I don't think so though. When we are looking at the Resurrection, we would have to compare Christianity as a large large scale project in the 1st century with huge success in the Roman Empire, something that could only be attributed to having a huge drive. Like, Christianity spread from India in the east to Rome in the west by the time the first century was drawing to a close. The Apostles made huge successes, were persecuted heavily. If they were doing this for a lie, you would have to admit it would be very very easy to throw in the towel. Modern cults have the comfort of living without that scale of persecution in the West, you've seen how the Church of Scientology has actually taken advantage of the Western legal system to be used as a relative defence for it's religion and practices. Christianity didn't have that. Followers of God were put to the lions.
You would have to take the followers consciences into account also:
If it was just one individual I could understand how that would come into play. However if it was several individuals, it would be a much much harder efforts to get all of these people onboard if they were doing this in the plain of day knowledge that they were deceiving people.
We have another possibility however, what if the Apostles actually believed this themselves? They had known Jesus for 3 years, they would hardly mistake him for someone else after being raised from the dead.
Can you see how big a problem this is explaining Christianity as a myth when the obvious conclusion seems to be that something incredible must have happened to drive these people to do what they did?By that logic, the creation of a higher power doesn't make sense.
A necessary being doesn't have to be created. James Sadowsky argues quite effectively that if we go on infinitely saying Y causes Z and X causes Y and so on. The statement is never fulfilled as one never actually finds a root cause. Nothing actually causes anything. There can be no such thing as infinity in a finite universe. Humans even struggle with the mathematical concept of it. But yeah, check out some of his philosophy I think it's titled "Why there cannot be an infinite regress". It's definitely in Brian Davies - Philosophy of Religion an Anthology if you are ever curious.Until there's actual evidence, which there might never be, I'm just going to stick with I don't know exactly how the universe originated.
Well the same could be asked of a purely naturalistic definition of the world. A higher power should certainly be seen as a real possibility, far from the ridiculous if a naturalistic explanation of the world is as improbable as it is.Misinterpretations of profound, yet natural, feelings, IMO.
This is my point. When I and several other Christians all of different denominations can tell me about their spiritual experiences and struggles, I can only conclude that there is something more than just my subjective whim involved.But, unless I'm very much mistaken, can you not apply that logic to the Qur'an also? Or any other religious text?
You should look at theology concerning the accuracy of the text in the Bible. Most are in agreement that there are about a handful of differences in rendering between the manuscripts such as the Codex Sinaticus (the most recent found), and the Codex Vaticanus, which would confirm that the Bible is 99.5% authentic. Even in the codexes where the rendering does differ in most cases it is a repetition of a passage that was already in another Gospel.
As for the Qur'an. I'll let you discuss that with Muslims. There is a lot of discussion between critics of Islam and Muslims concerning Al Bukharis Hadith volume 6 concerning how the Qur'an was compiled. However, I'm not an authority on this, perhaps you could start a thread in the Islam forum?
I'm going to make my case for the Bible however 0 -
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1) Messianic prophesy, over three hundred prophesies concerning the Messiah in the Tanakh were fulfilled by Christ's ministry on the earth. The more of these that were fulfilled in the person of Jesus makes it more and more unlikely that Jesus was indeed not the Messiah. Over 300 checks and balances to show that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and the Lord is quite an extensive test of validity.
This would be true and a very good argument if it wasn't based on such a major logical fallacy. You are saying one proposition can be proven by another proposition, both of which are based on no empirical evidence and both of which are hugely suspect in terms of both reliability and accuracy.
You are basing your belief that Christ fulfilled those prophecies on the word of his believers. These are not credible witnesses. Even the educated Romans made some massive logical leaps, so the testimony of a people seeking salvation from a "Messiah" and being offered one cannot be held as reliable. (A Roman observer sent to Ireland to inspect it said that no venomous creature could exist here as the air was so pure that they died immediately upon breathing it. No sane person would believe that now. This was a few hundred years before St. Patrick too)2) Christian history does not make sense without a Resurrection event:
I'm not saying that this necessarily has to be the Resurrection, but it certainly gives credence to it.
If you cannot explain to me conclusively how all 11 disciples went through to the lengths that they did in a reasonable manner, then this will always give credence to something extraordinary having happened to bring these men to those lengths.
Christian history does not make sense. It was a cult of Judaism that just kept on growing almost exclusively thanks to it's use by certain opportunistic individuals within the Roman Empire who exploited it for their political aspirations.
As for "an event having happened which gives credence to the Resurrection" - no it does not. Those people you refer to were already devout followers. History is littered with cult leaders who have inspired their followers to all sorts of actions up to and including mass suicide, over-riding our most basic instinct to survive. The martyr phenomenon exists to this day in the sickening guise of suicide bombers. Do you suggest then that the willingness to blow oneself up gives credence to the existence of Allah? The disciples of Christ (as you refer to them), all 11 of them, are nothing unique in history. In fact they are not even particularly gruesome examples of the lengths people will go when they "believe".3) Creation without a higher power does not make sense.
The probability of the world coming into existence through natural processes, according to Roger Penrose is in the millions of billions of zeroes. 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123 is quite a huge number. This is commonly deemed by mathematicians and physicists to be mathematical impossibility. It would seem to me that the prudent thing to do would be to look to the possibility of a Creator or a means of causation to explain how the universe came into existence given the co-ordination of the planets in the right distance from the Sun to create life, and the forming of the earth with the correct chemical composition in the universe to sustain life.
I cannot really quote the science as I do not claim to be a scientist and there are others who are more qualified to do so. However, I have read in more than one place arguments which stand opposed to this. I am not saying life is not a miracle, I am just saying that my definition of the word miracle does not include a deity to accomplish it.It's quite frankly ridiculous that those who believe that miracles are an impossibility can deem that the creation of the world by purely natural means is in anyway more probable. Miracles by their nature are hugely improbable by natural means if and of their own, however if there is a supernatural force behind said miracles by which the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology are known, then it is rather probable that indeed that miracles can take place, just as it is quite probable that the universe came into existence through a supernatural force. This gives credence to me that the earth is the creation of God.
Took me a while to decipher this. I do not wish to appear insulting but it is nonsense.
A miracle is an event which occurs in spite of a seemingly insurmountable statistical improbability. Also your first line which I have highlighted needs examination. You are saying that if I do not believe in a divine miracle that I cannot accept scientific explanations of creation as being anymore reasonable? Scientific explanations have empirical evidence, religious ones are simply faith based and are no more plausible or provable than the existence of the tooth fairy.The reasoning that William Lane Craig common proponent of the kalam cosmological argument, gives for believing in a God of miracles is as follows:
a) God makes sense of the universes origins. WHY? HOW?
b) God makes sense of the universes complexity.WHY? HOW?
c) God makes sense of objective moral values.Even the most famous of religious writers on the nature of moral arguments do not require the existence of God to validate morality or ethics. Mostly I am referring to John Finnis' work.
d) God makes sense of the resurrection.Of course he does. That's like saying Harry Potter makes sense of Lord Voldemort. One thing naturally follows the other. But since both things are simply untrue then first does not prove the second. Your syllogism is flawed. The propositions need to be provable for the conclusion to be valid. They cannot simply prove each other.
e) God can be immediately experienced Not sure what you mean by this so, once more, how?
I'll quote from him when dealing with spiritual experiences)4) Spiritual experiences - These are the strongest witness and conviction of an individuals faith, and this is where the atheist is left to struggle in misunderstanding over these type of issues. William Lane Craig has commonly claimed that the Holy Spirit is the greatest witness to a Christian about the truth of Christianity. If I may give an example from Lee Strobel's Case for Faith, published by Zondervan, which is a book I'd recommend you all to read if you are genuinely curious. You have no excuse, there is a range of Christian apologetics that you can read if you want answers:
So, although secondary evidence is still useful. The only way that the mental barriers that people put up before God will be lifted will be through trust, and asking to God to open up your heart so that you may accept Jesus as Lord.
This essentially translates to: "If you do not believe, you cannot understand." Therefore only you are privy to the "truth" as a believer while those of us who seek proof are simply closed to the "truth"? In order to get the proof I need I must accept that you are right before I can receive the proof?5) Historical sources for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth -
Writers such as Josephus, Tactius, Pliny the Younger, and so on reference the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and the early Christian community in their works. If you take a read of Josephus' - Jewish Antiquities in particular it has references to both Jesus of Nazareth and the Crucifixion, Christians, and James the Righteous and his stoning to death. There is also a broad historical consensus with slight disagreement that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was the site where Jesus was crucified. This gives credence to me that Jesus was indeed crucified. This in particular is a problem for Islam stating that Jesus was not crucified at all.
So? I never said he didn't exist. Some people do based on the lack of any record of his crucifixion in Roman records. They were pretty good with the old records to be fair although they very well may have been lost in the mists of time but regardless the existence of the man does not prove the existence of God.6) Archaeology, Geology and History backing up the Bible.
Figures such as Xerxes (if you have seen 300 this is the same Xerxes), Nebuchadnezzar, Hezekiah, Sennachera, Balthasar, Darius, Cyrus, and so on have been substantiated in secular historical sources of the age. Likewise, the construction of the walls of Jerusalem, the construction of the 2nd Temple, the captivity of the Judeans and the Israelites, and so on are also backed up historically. Archaeological sites such as the Zedekiahs Cave underneath the city of Jerusalem, King David's Tower, and Biblical sites such as Herod's palace, Temple coins from Jerusalem, Pilates residence in Caesarea, the ruins of the city of Capernaum and so on have all been found, and there are many more promising archaeological projects in the future which may substantiate the Biblical record more over the first few years. I have also mentioned the likelihood of the occurrence of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it's citation by many geologists, if you take a look at Google Scholar or JSTOR you will find information on these.
It is not unreasonable to assume that many of the places mentioned in the Bible exist. The city of Troy was discovered too. Does that mean that Apollo existed and guided a poisoned arrow to the heel of an otherwise invincible warrior fighting for the Greeks before a large wooden horse became a viable tactic? Their existence proves nothing.7) Authenticity of the Bible - The New Testament is one of the most widely circulated pieces of work in the Greek world, and it has indeed circulated far further than works of Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. Indeed, if we are to reject the New Testament as a reliable and authoriative historical witness to the life of Christ, we would also have to reject works which aren't anywhere near as widely accounted for as the New Testament accounts themselves. The Bible as a whole compiled in two periods, the Tanakh compiled by the Jewish leaders in 450BC, and the Bible including the New Testament was compiled in 360AD at the council of Nicea. However we have evidence through the church fathers that these books were widely used in the first century:
A good youtube video might help on this:
There was perfect reason for the selection of these books over other texts that were released at much later dates.
I totally agree with the highlighted section. Though I imagine you and I would disagree on the reason. Constantine and Licinius were faced with a divisive split in their Empire due to the "Arian heresy". They convened the Council of Nicea to reject the Arian heresy (only 2 of the roughly 300 bishops voted for the Arian interpretation) and stabilise the new state religion. The reason those books were chosen was to reinforce the interpretation of Christianity which the state had decided would be the official interpretation as per the Nicean Creed.0 -
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