philologos wrote: » RichieC & himnextdoor: From Jeremiah chapter 10. When the heck have you ever tried to chisel your Christmas tree into a particular shape?
La Petite Fleur wrote: » There's nothing grand in the simple proposition that is possible for an infinite spirit to exist. The fact remains, I have yet to see a single convincing argument for the Atheist position. So, if you've got a decent one, post it up.
philologos wrote: » However, the argument still falls flat on its face. Why atheism even if Christianity is false? Rubbishing Christianity does not demonstrate atheism to be true. It's like saying if I rubbish atheism and every single other faith if that were even possible, that Christianity would be true. That's nonsense though, one must present a positive argument for that position. Likewise, you do too.
philologos wrote: » King Mob: You of all people should know that atheists in the past did present positive arguments for their position. The philosophy course that we studied at university (for others - King Mob and I studied philosophy together at university) went quite extensively through a number of them in the Philosophy of Religion modules in particular. The new-atheist movement has rejected this however, which is a loss to that position. That's why I believe my POV to be fair.
Penn wrote: » However, to me, religion is also oppression. It is a system with such arbitrary rules where so much is open to interpretation. It is an excuse to discriminate against others for believing differently, or living their life in a different way.
Penn wrote: » Then we come to Hell. Why is there such a place, with everlasting torment for those who sin? Why not have it where if you die a sinner, you simply die. You don't get to have everlasting happiness in Heaven, but you simply just die. Fear, that's why. The fear of going to Hell is used to keep people following the faith, because if they don't, they will suffer everlasting torture and torment. Why is it not enough to just live a good, moral life? Why do you have to worship God? Praise him, thank him, go to church, follow these rules which can somehow change in accordance with the times. Why?
himnextdoor wrote: » Which must qualify for the 'weakest argument ever' award. Or are you of the opinion that God said it is okay to have Christmas trees as long as you don't take a chisel to them?
So, one could say that the existence of so many religions is evidence that even if the were a God, He wouldn't be a very honest God. To fool all the nations except for Christian ones is a little unfair, if you ask me.
philologos wrote: » ISAW: I don't believe the Hellenistic period of Christianity was positive. Mixing pagan philosophy with Christian belief never works. Indeed, it often fails. As much as I find some of Plato and Aristotle's work interesting. Their ideas are in many ways contradictory to Christianity. For example, Plato condones collective wives in his Plato's Republic. Essentially that any woman in society should be free for any man to use them as they please. Aristotle believed that the world would never end. These are just isolated examples. There are plenty more. This may have brought some advantages, but ultimately it was corrupting. Galileo was condemned by the RCC largely on the basis of Aristotle rather than Christianity.
himnextdoor wrote: » Excuse me while I laugh myself to hell! You're at it as well; refuting biblical testimony with glib asides... By deduction, because by definition [it is impossible to keep to the law of God] (hence the need for a Messiah), no religion that preceded Christianity can have been a 'true religion' that was inspired by God. Otherwise, God lied to someone; the Hindus, Greeks, Ancient Egyptians... etc. So, on balance, it would appear that if God does exist, He isn't very loyal to the people He promises everything to. Except for Christians of course.
King Mob wrote: » Yes, but those arguments are not why I, and many others are atheist, nor are those arguments very good since there is a difference between a positive belief in there being no God and a lack of a belief in God.
Since most atheists are of the more reasonable option, it is not a positive position and can't really be supported by positive evidence.
So again, what positive evidence do you have to support your afairyism and ateapotism and why should we choose those over some other forms of teapot/fairy belief?
ISAW wrote: » for your information so we dont fudge I go by what atheists actually in A&A and in surveys such as arishttp://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/publications/american-nones-the-profile-of-the-no-religion-population/ page 11 When asked Regarding do you think...? the following answers Atheist= there is no such thing agnostic = not sure/dont know deist= ther is a higher power theist= ther is a personal god all the above are NOT Catholics Protestants islam or members of other religions as far as i know. according to the above you are probably a hard agnostic and not an atheist. No atheists are of the above option all agnostics are! You are asking someone to prove a negative which is like asking them to prove No God. Atheism cant formally be proved in such a way no more than theism can.
Benny_Cake wrote: » You're right of course, religion can and has been guilty of a lot of these things. Personally I don't believe that any religious beliefs gives someone then right to discriminate and persecute others. Thankfully, into most of the Western world it is accepted that a democratic and secular society provides the best context for human and social development for all people, whether they are religious or non-religious. I should add that it is a little unfair sometimes that a believer is expected to justify the crimes of other believers (I know that's not what you were saying). I find that fundamentalists of whatever stripe, are very much alike. This has always been the single biggest issue I've had as a Christian. When it comes to hell, I think an awful lot of people don't dwell on the subject, or rationalise it - I can see why. The problem for me is how you reconcile a God of infinite mercy and infinite justice with the idea of unending punishment. After all, humans with our imperfect justice systems and our desire for vengeance would give a prisoner hope of release. There is a tradition in Christianity of belief in universal salvation - that all will ultimately cabe saved through Christ. Another tradition is annihilationism, which is the belief that those who are not saved will be destroyed, ie; no conscious suffering. These are minority views but many Christians would be surprised at the stature of some who held them (the famous evangelist John Stott for example). In any case, I came to the conclusion that a belief in eternal torment is not a necessity and I was a lot happier. There are a whole lot of other points in your post that I'd like to reply to when I have more time - it's an excellent and thought-provoking post devoid of the rancour and arrogance that unfortunately typifies what passes for debate sometimes.
ISAW wrote: » according to the above you are probably a hard agnostic and not an atheist.
ISAW wrote: » No atheists are of the above option all agnostics are!
ISAW wrote: » You are asking someone to prove a negative which is like asking them to prove No God. Atheism cant formally be proved in such a way no more than theism can.
Zombrex wrote: » Sure. Humans have evolved brains where a primary function is to process human to human interaction. As social creatures this is very important to humans from a survival point of view. It is very important that we can understand and predict the behavior of others, that we have methods of imagining what they are doing or will do, even if they are not there.
We know the world only through language and cannot, as it were, “get outside” our particular languages (natural and scientific) to examine the extent to which they mirror The World As It Really Is. Language, as Rorty puts it, ought to be seen not Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, and Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. p. xviii f. as a tertium quid between Subject and Object, nor as a medium in which we try to force pictures of reality, but as part of the behavior of human beings. On this view, the activity of uttering sentences is one of the things people do in order to cope with their environment. The Deweyan notion of language as tool rather than picture is right as far as it goes. But we must be careful not to phrase this analogy so as to suggest that one can separate the tool, Language, from its users and inquire as to its “adequacy” to achieve our purposes. The latter suggestion presupposes that there is some way of breaking out of language in order to compare it with something else. But there is no way to think about either the world or our purposes except by using language. One can use language to criticize and enlarge itself, as one can exercise one’s body to develop and strengthen and enlarge it, but one cannot see language-as-a-whole in relation to something else to which it applies, or for which it is a means to an end
These abilities of the human brain (often grouped under terms such as theory of mind) to processes these interactions provides the primary advantage to humans. We have not developed brains that are well suited to processing natural events, which often involve chaotic series of parallel systems, some visible and some invisible.
Or to put it another way, our brains are adapted to understand why you are violently annoyed at me cause I slept with your wife not where does snow come from or when is there going to be another Earthquake. Because so much of our mental capacity is given over to these issues of humans interaction when attempting to process the natural world we co-opt these abilities. We assign human like agency to actions in nature, because our brain is so adapt at modeling human agents. This has worked good enough from an evolutionary point of view, it allows basic ability to cop with natural events. From a survival point of view the important thing is to stay away from lightening, not whether you think it is Thor's wrath or an electrical storm.
So when we suffer in say a flood our instinctive response is to try and attribute this violent action against us to some mind that has some motivation to harm us. We search for a reason why this happened that fits with how our brains are mostly evolved to think.
These detached "minds" that are doing good or bad things to us become the supernatural agents humans have always imagined existed throughout history, be they all powerful gods or simply supernatural creatures, or simply just mother nature herself.
All this is backed up by years of scientific research. It is pretty well established by now that we do this.
PDN wrote: » The Bible doesn't mention Christmas trees. It talks about the folly of pagans who make idols out of wood and decorate them with gold and solver to install as idols in their homes. Rather than repeat what others have already said to point outy the silliness of seeing Christmas trees in Jeremiah centuries before Christmas was invented, read this link: http://www.orlutheran.com/html/jer10.html Are you introducing this silliness to deflect attention away from what could be an interesting debate about the merits of Atheism and Christianity? If so, you are succeeding admirably. Now that. on the other hand, is a genuine contender for the weakest argument award! The existence of different religions, just like the existence of different theories about anything, is evidence of man's diversity, inventiveness and individuality. If men choose to construct ideas then they can hardly accuse God of 'fooling' them.
King Mob wrote: » No I am both an agnostic and an atheist. The definitions you are using are simply wrong.
Atheism = without or lacking theism. It is a lack of a belief in God Agnostism = without or lacking gnosticism. Which is a lack of certainty about the nature or existence of god.
Most atheists if you ask them adhere to the position that there is no evidence for God, therefore lack a positive belief in God. A few atheists state a positive belief that there is certainly no God, but this is not the position I am arguing.
Yes, this is the point I am trying to convey to Philologos, who is asking atheists to prove a negative.
philologos wrote: » The lack of evidence argument is not sufficient. I've explained already why. If Christianity is wrong, it does not mean that atheism is right.
Zombrex wrote: » Would it echo a crucification if you had never heard of the story of Jesus' crucification? These vague passages can echo anything you want once you have been given a context to interpret them by. Basically how horoscopes work.
ISAW wrote: » THAT is what i mean by the words. i wont be changing it!
ISAW wrote: » you are not arguing an atheist position then. You are arguing an agnostic one.
ISAW wrote: » which you cant formally prove.
ISAW wrote: » But like the "no milk in the fridge" example we can actually look and see. That however is not formal proof.
ISAW wrote: » When asked Regarding do you think...? the following answers Atheist= there is no such thing agnostic = not sure/dont know deist= ther is a higher power theist= ther is a personal god THAT is what i mean by the words. i wont be changing it!
himnextdoor wrote: » Come on! You're nearly there. Don't stop now. It can't be reconciled. You made the argument. It's not very cost-effective is it, when the vast majority of the product goes into the fire? Unless you're producing coal or something, that is. Statistically speaking, with the existence of the Christian God, I am doomed to eternal suffering in the lake of fire whereas, statistically speaking, I am more likely to have chosen the wrong God. Anyway, empirically and for pragmatic reasons, man's existence is intimately linked to the arms race; why does God need an atom-bomb? Of course, God doesn't need an atom bomb but even if He did, He wouldn't want us to have them in the same way that we don't want the Iranians to have them which is really the reason that I don't want my children playing with fireworks. The world as it is today could only exist in the absence of God.IMO
himnextdoor wrote: » Seriously, apart from bird-song and butterfly-wings, what has God done for mankind? Would there be more bombing and killing and war in the absence of Christianity? In what way would the world be worse off without God?
ISAW wrote: » there are huge parallels between the genesis 22 account of Abraham and Isaac and the crusifiction story of Jesus. this isn't a co incidence of interpreting it in hiddsight and looking for similarities. Exegesis is not Eisegesis.
King Mob wrote: » Atheism is not a positive position,
I asked you to give examples of the positive evidence you use to support your negative positions on things you lack a belief in, namely Russell's Teapot and fairies. So can you please provide examples of the type of evidence you are looking for, by providing positive evidence for Ateapotism and Afairyism? If your request is a fair one, you then should already have this evidence and would have no problems presenting it. But if you can't show it, please say as much as it shows a flaw in your point.
Philosopher Paul Chamberlain says it is logically erroneous to assert that positive truth claims bear a burden of proof while negative truth claims do not.[8] He notes that all truth claims bear a burden of proof, and that like Mother Goose and the tooth fairy, the teapot bears the greater burden not because of its negativity but because of its triviality, arguing that "When we substitute normal, serious characters such as Plato, Nero, Winston Churchill, or George Washington in place of these fictional characters, it becomes clear that anyone denying the existence of these figures has a burden of proof equal to, or in some cases greater than, the person claiming they do exist." [8] Another counter-argument, advanced by philosopher Eric Reitan,[9] is that belief in God is different from belief in a teapot because teapots are physical and therefore in principle verifiable, and that given what we know about the physical world we have no good reason to think that belief in Russell's teapot is justified and at least some reason to think it not.[10]
PDN wrote: » The modern habit of using GPS systems to guide bombs would almost certainly never have developed with out the patronage of the Church that enabled Copernicus and Galileo to do their stuff, or indeed the Christian-based worldview which led them to seek for order in the earthly and heavenly realms.
himnextdoor wrote: » See! That's what I love about Christianity; we can compare the crucifixion to binding Isaac and building a bonfire around him but we can't compare Christmas trees to the prohibited tradition of taking trees from the forest and adorning them.
Typical; you rebut the claim that there is no evidence to support your claim by claiming that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; the fact that there is no trace of God's fingerprints goes to prove that God wears gloves. Can His fingerprints be found? No? Ergo, He wears gloves. QED.
What is it about this world that make you think that God exists?
himnextdoor wrote: » When you say 'enabled' do you mean 'didn't try to subvert'?
King Mob wrote: » Good for you, but that's not what the words actually mean and it's not how I'm defining it. ... I'm not using your definitions. My position is based on a lack of a belief in God but like all things can be changed by new evidence. This is what I (and people who understand what the words are) define as agnostic atheism.
you cannot use your definitions as the position does not fit into your narrow categories.
You can claim that it's whatever you like, but it would not be an accurate definition of what the argument is.
Nor is it positive argument evidence for a negative position. Opening the fridge door to see if the milk is there is a test/falsification of the opposing positive position (that "there is milk in the fridge").
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://w8.vanillicon.com/v2/867a9f20e705add43a3ada2e4f4480cc.svg)
