There Is No Evidence For God

[EdwardAbbey]

If God does exist as so many affirmatively claim then why .....

 

....isn’t there any physical evidence for his existence?

 

....hasn't there ever been any physical evidence for any of Jesus miracles in modern times? haven't you noticed they only happened in a book written thousands of years ago?

 

....hasn’t God ever spoken a rational message to all the world by taking control of any TV or radio stations all over the world? He is all-powerful isn’t he? Or is he? It certainly doesn’t look that way.

 

....hasn’t the resurrected Jesus ever literally/physically appeared to modern civilization? isn't it obvious he is never going to return to planet earth? When someone makes an assertion they are coming back "soon", don't you think two thousand years is way beyond "soon?"

 

....hasn’t God responded to deadly diseases all over the world? Why all the silence? Why all the inactivity?

 

Could it be this God is just non-existent? A myth? An impossibility? Nothing more than a fantasy or just a figure of speech that makes humans feel good about life after death?

 

Dear Christian:

 

let's face the facts; God is just another one of those fantasy figures for adults that gives the assumption of purpose and meaning in this life and the promise (false promise) of living forever in the next life that is never going to happen anyway.

[Asimov]

I'm going to make a prediction that your questions will be dodged and avoided if not completely ignored.

[garrisonjj]

If God does exist as so many affirmatively claim then why .....

 

....isn’t there any physical evidence for his existence?

 

....hasn't there ever been any physical evidence for any of Jesus miracles in modern times? haven't you noticed they only happened in a book written thousands of years ago?

 

....hasn’t God ever spoken a rational message to all the world by taking control of any TV or radio stations all over the world? He is all-powerful isn’t he? Or is he? It certainly doesn’t look that way.

 

....hasn’t the resurrected Jesus ever literally/physically appeared to modern civilization? isn't it obvious he is never going to return to planet earth? When someone makes an assertion they are coming back "soon", don't you think two thousand years is way beyond "soon?"

 

....hasn’t God responded to deadly diseases all over the world? Why all the silence? Why all the inactivity?

 

Could it be this God is just non-existent? A myth? An impossibility? Nothing more than a fantasy or just a figure of speech that makes humans feel good about life after death?

 

Dear Christian:

 

let's face the facts; God is just another one of those fantasy figures for adults that gives the assumption of purpose and meaning in this life and the promise (false promise) of living forever in the next life that is never going to happen anyway.

 

 

Oh my your question is a sign of your faith being tested! Blessed are they who have not seen, and believe! That must be the devil speaking through you!

Those are th xtians remarks. I agree. Where the fuck is this god everyone worships? (Probably in their minds.) I would like to think a person's spirit lives on somehow.

[KT45]

Hope you don't mind if I play fundie for a bit. It's been a while. Please comment back as if I was a christian or just wait until a real one shows up.

 

If God does exist as so many affirmatively claim then why .....

 

....isn’t there any physical evidence for his existence?

There is, his bible

 

....hasn't there ever been any physical evidence for any of Jesus miracles in modern times? haven't you noticed they only happened in a book written thousands of years ago?

It happens now too. I see the sick healed and the devil cast out in his name all the time.

 

....hasn’t God ever spoken a rational message to all the world by taking control of any TV or radio stations all over the world? He is all-powerful isn’t he? Or is he? It certainly doesn’t look that way.

If you saw it on tv, you would just dismiss it as a hoax. You must have faith

 

....hasn’t the resurrected Jesus ever literally/physically appeared to modern civilization? isn't it obvious he is never going to return to planet earth?

The signs say that his time is nigh. You must open your eyes and see them

 

When someone makes an assertion they are coming back "soon", don't you think two thousand years is way beyond "soon?"

A thousand years is like a day to God. It's only been two thousand so that's only two days to god. Jesus is a guy. Like most guys when we say "See you later" we mean "see you in about a week."

 

....hasn’t God responded to deadly diseases all over the world? Why all the silence? Why all the inactivity?

Lack of Faith

 

Could it be this God is just non-existent? A myth? An impossibility? Nothing more than a fantasy or just a figure of speech that makes humans feel good about life after death?

No

 

Dear Christian:

let's face the facts; God is just another one of those fantasy figures for adults that gives the assumption of purpose and meaning in this life and the promise (false promise) of living forever in the next life that is never going to happen anyway.

With faith all things are possible.

[jauggy]

A common Christian argument is:

 

(1) Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.

(2) The universe exists.

Therefore:

(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.

(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence, then that cause is God.

Therefore:

(5) God exists.

 

 

The problem I have with this argument is with number (4). I.e. that God must be the first cause. Anyone want to suppose why number (4) must be true? I would say that you'd have to prove that the first cause has properties of God such as self awareness, emotion, etc. Anyone want to try?

[EdwardAbbey]

 

 

Oh my your question is a sign of your faith being tested! Blessed are they who have not seen, and believe! That must be the devil speaking through you!

Those are th xtians remarks. I agree. Where the fuck is this god everyone worships? (Probably in their minds.) I would like to think a person's spirit lives on somehow.

 

I would like to think that too but we all know it's just wishful thinking.

[Turgonian]

If God does exist as so many affirmatively claim then why .....

 

....isn’t there any physical evidence for his existence?

Lots of people think there is. Take King David: 'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.' (Psalm 19:1) Or Paul: 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.' (Romans 1:20)

 

....hasn't there ever been any physical evidence for any of Jesus miracles in modern times? haven't you noticed they only happened in a book written thousands of years ago?

Hmm. Because Jesus had His Ascension some 2000 years ago? Why isn't Churchill leading British politics today?

 

....hasn’t God ever spoken a rational message to all the world by taking control of any TV or radio stations all over the world? He is all-powerful isn’t he? Or is he? It certainly doesn’t look that way.

What would He say? Maybe something like, 'Hello, I'm God, all you need to know about me is in the Bible. Please read it. Bye.' Now maybe some people just wouldn't believe it, others wouldn't follow His commands, others would complain about His alleged 'cruelty' in the Bible, and comparatively few would believe. Hmm...sounds suspiciously like it is now. By the way, how often would He have to give that message? Every 20 years? Or only once, so that those people could tell their children, and so on? Well, that's what happened 2000 years ago, if you have to believe Christians.

 

....hasn’t the resurrected Jesus ever literally/physically appeared to modern civilization? isn't it obvious he is never going to return to planet earth? When someone makes an assertion they are coming back "soon", don't you think two thousand years is way beyond "soon?"

Yeah, way beyond soon. But there are two 'comings' (parousiai) of Christ. One is the Final Judgement, which may still take a while. The other, according to partial preterists, happened in 70 AD, when God 'came on the clouds' (which is Jewish symbolism for executing judgement) to the unbelieving Jews, destroyed the Temple and scattered them over the face of the earth.

This was the time when Christ came into His kingdom -- and it was indeed 'soon'. God gave all authority to Christ. There is a prophecy about is, referring to a prophecy in Daniel which talks about a coming UP into heaven, not a coming down!

So, in short: there will be a coming down, but we don't know the time; the 'soon' coming was a coming up into Heaven, a coming into authority, which happened in 70 AD.

 

....hasn’t God responded to deadly diseases all over the world? Why all the silence? Why all the inactivity?

God is not a heavenly First-Aid Kit.

The reason for evil and disease is, according to Christians, that we sinned... And there may be various reasons why God allows evil in our lives. Joseph was thrown into a pit, separated from his family and sold into slavery, only to become great in Egypt. The non-Christian poet John Keats talked about this world as 'the vale of soul-making', and was of the opinion that every violent emotion, be it love, hate or pain, was preferable to a shallow emotion, because the soul was formed by the first kind of emotions. (And Keats knew about pain!)

In The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, Manwë exclaims (quoting from memory): 'Dear-bought those [heroic] songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. Thus shall [...] evil be yet good to have been.' (But Mandos adds the counterpart: 'And yet remain evil.')

 

I'm going to make a prediction that your questions will be dodged and avoided if not completely ignored.

Want to take some prophecy lessons from, say, Isaiah?

[mwc]

Lots of people think there is. Take King David: 'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.' (Psalm 19:1) Or Paul: 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.' (Romans 1:20)

Not too much evidence for old King David either but simply appealing to the masses and citing "creation" is pretty weak in and of itself.

 

Hmm. Because Jesus had His Ascension some 2000 years ago? Why isn't Churchill leading British politics today?

I think the point was that since that supposed "ascension" there hasn't any updates coming from old jesus and pals. As for Churchill? Were we discussing him or is that a red herring I smell?

 

What would He say? Maybe something like, 'Hello, I'm God, all you need to know about me is in the Bible. Please read it. Bye.' Now maybe some people just wouldn't believe it, others wouldn't follow His commands, others would complain about His alleged 'cruelty' in the Bible, and comparatively few would believe. Hmm...sounds suspiciously like it is now. By the way, how often would He have to give that message? Every 20 years? Or only once, so that those people could tell their children, and so on? Well, that's what happened 2000 years ago, if you have to believe Christians.

First, a true god could do so much better than taking over the radio/television signals so even if this were to occur it would be interesting but not particularly convincing. Now sending everyone the same message telepathically would be impressive.

 

Second, and on point, no a true god would not simply point to some dusty old book and say "Look in there." Even the book you refer to says that wouldn't happen. As for your reasoning of "well, some people wouldn't believe anyway" well, I guess then that's more than enough reason for YHWH to just sit on his ass and never, ever try to communicate directly with us because some of us just won't believe. So better to toss six billion into the furnace than to actually try and toss only four billion in the fire. Makes perfect sense to me.

 

As for how frequently he would have to do this, well, he supposedly loves us more than anything. He supposedly wants to save us all. He supposedly wants none of us to go to damnation. So I'd say he'd have to do it often enough to minimize the casualties. Maybe that's every 2000 years (unlikely) or 200 years or 20 years or 2 years or 2 days. I don't know but it seems like he would. What I do know is that it is more often than what it has been. Speaking for myself I would like to witness something undisputable (what this sign is would be between YHWH, if this god truly exists, and myself...being all-knowing he should be able to know it and do it) at least once in my life. I imagine others feel roughly the same. So based on that, this sets a baseline frequency for him.

 

Yeah, way beyond soon. But there are two 'comings' (parousiai) of Christ. One is the Final Judgement, which may still take a while. The other, according to partial preterists, happened in 70 AD, when God 'came on the clouds' (which is Jewish symbolism for executing judgement) to the unbelieving Jews, destroyed the Temple and scattered them over the face of the earth.

This was the time when Christ came into His kingdom -- and it was indeed 'soon'. God gave all authority to Christ. There is a prophecy about is, referring to a prophecy in Daniel which talks about a coming UP into heaven, not a coming down!

So, in short: there will be a coming down, but we don't know the time; the 'soon' coming was a coming up into Heaven, a coming into authority, which happened in 70 AD.

Uh, Yeah. Daniel wasn't a prophecy about anything. Daniel was talking about the Macabees and it all took place around 170BCE. Daniel was fairly clueless about about his captors if he really lived in Babylon (and likewise they of him).

 

Also, no matter how you try to say it, Jews do not buy into jesus as Messiah so one, two, three or a million "comings" doesn't matter to them. Take as many as you like. You can have him "coming" on the hill of the transfiguration. You can have him "coming" in 70CE. You can have him "coming" during the second sacking of Jerusalem (the date escapes me). You can have him "coming" during the rapture and you can have him "coming" for the final judgement. You can invent as many "comings" for this guy as you want. The fact of the matter is when, according to the bible story, he died his run for the messiah ended. That's the rules of the game. If you have a problem with the rules you take it up with the Jews since it's their game. Sadly, however, your guy never was really in the running since he didn't have two human parents and the true Messiah needs that. Also, he needs to be from King David via Solomon and if you read some Isreal Finkelstein good old King David likely never existed and Solomon is very much a phantom of history. Everyday that passes it is more and more likely that no one will ever be able to trace their lineage to these two since it is more than likely they never even existed. They were invented. Just myths.

 

God is not a heavenly First-Aid Kit.

The reason for evil and disease is, according to Christians, that we sinned... And there may be various reasons why God allows evil in our lives. Joseph was thrown into a pit, separated from his family and sold into slavery, only to become great in Egypt. The non-Christian poet John Keats talked about this world as 'the vale of soul-making', and was of the opinion that every violent emotion, be it love, hate or pain, was preferable to a shallow emotion, because the soul was formed by the first kind of emotions. (And Keats knew about pain!)

In The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, Manwë exclaims (quoting from memory): 'Dear-bought those [heroic] songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. Thus shall [...] evil be yet good to have been.' (But Mandos adds the counterpart: 'And yet remain evil.')

Have you ever heard the story of The Good Samaritan? The Samaritans were a group, that among other things, sided against the Jews (look at Wikipedia for details) which is why they were villified. They were looked down upon for this. They were they examples of sinful horrible people in a number of stories, right?

 

So, we have people that are hurting. They've been beat up by diseases and other injuries. Just like the person in the story. So here comes YHWH. Does he help? No, he walks by on the other side. Here comes jesus. Does he help? Nope. Right on by on the other side. Here comes the Samaritans. Us lowly, sinful, disgusting, humans. We can't do much but we try. We come over and we try to help. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don't but we tried. Yet you defend the two that just walked on past on the other side simply because they didn't want to get near the "sinner." Yuck.

 

They are the hypocrites for not practicing for what they supposedly preached. If anyone should be helping it should be them. We should be trying to heal each other but they should be beating us to it. Running to ahead to get to those in the ditches...even on the Sabbath...as jesus himself supposedly said that healing on the Sabbath was the thing to do because we are better than animals. Now he stops altogether? Studies show that he is no more reliable than a horeshoe or random luck? Pathetic.

 

Want to take some prophecy lessons from, say, Isaiah?

Sure. Isaiah made a number of blunders in his "prophecies" (the Nile drying up, Damascas laid waste...at that time...not in modern days like some rather sick people were/are hoping for, and others).

 

mwc

[Astreja]

If God does exist as so many affirmatively claim then why .....

 

....isn’t there any physical evidence for his existence?

Lots of people think there is. Take King David: 'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.' (Psalm 19:1) Or Paul: 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.' (Romans 1:20)

No, young lad, what you have there is a book making claims that existence of the universe somehow proves the existence of your god.

 

Why your god and your particular pile o' holy words? Why not one of mine instead?

 

To illustrate this problem, let's assume for a moment that I have the power to erase your entire religion from human memory. Five minutes later I write up my own version of a scripture and disseminate it to the current population. Let's also say that the deity that I invent for this scripture is the antithesis of the one from the now non-existent Abrahamic worldview. The book takes hold as a cultural meme and is held to be "truth".

 

Two thousand years hence, someone signs on to the 4006 version of an Internet message board and makes the same claim that you just made. Can you see from this example why holy books are inadmissable as "evidence of the truth"?

 

It becomes necessary to toss the books aside, as they have no value in themselves. That leaves us with the physical universe, which is a reasonable entity to search for proof of your god.

 

Heavens declare glory of your god? How? It rains. It snows. The sun appears to rise and set (but in reality it's just the rotation of the earth creating an illusion). Sometimes there are pretty colours; sometimes, lightning. These are all based on exceedingly simple physical laws. Where do gods come into it?

 

"Work of his hands"? Hands?? If it has hands, it's probably a physical being. Should be possible to find one of those. Haven't managed to do so yet, even with the Hubble telescope.

 

"Eternal power and divine nature"? Uh, no. First you have to prove the god is there; only then can you test it for attributes such as immortality and divinity. (And we have yet to see a universally-agreed definition of what "divinity" actually is, so that needs to be done before one can see if your god possesses it.)

 

No proof to see here, folks. Move along.

[OnceConvinced]

....hasn't there ever been any physical evidence for any of Jesus miracles in modern times? haven't you noticed they only happened in a book written thousands of years ago?

Hmm. Because Jesus had His Ascension some 2000 years ago? Why isn't Churchill leading British politics today?

But we should see miracles today. In fact Jesus guarantees we will. He says we will perform even more impressive miracles than him. It's a guarantee!!

 

John ch 14:

12:Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.

 

13 Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

 

14 If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it.

 

Guarantees guarantees gurantees! (Actually lies, but we'll overlook that fact).

 

Matthew 17:20

So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

 

Wow, we can have absolute crap faith and still be able to move mountains! Another assurance from Jesus! Still yet to see anyone move a mountain. Even Jesus didn't.

 

Mark 16:

17 These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages.

18 They will pick up serpents (with their hands), and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

More lies... I mean promises and assurances from Jesus!

 

God is not a heavenly First-Aid Kit.

 

No, but he promises to heal us if we ask. But he is notorious for breaking that promise.

 

And there may be various reasons why God allows evil in our lives.

Shit happens. God set things up that way.

[Asimov]

Lots of people think there is. Take King David: 'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.' (Psalm 19:1) Or Paul: 'For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.' (Romans 1:20)

 

Those are meaningless statements. They don't provide adequate argumentation.

 

What would He say? Maybe something like, 'Hello, I'm God, all you need to know about me is in the Bible. Please read it. Bye.' Now maybe some people just wouldn't believe it, others wouldn't follow His commands, others would complain about His alleged 'cruelty' in the Bible, and comparatively few would believe. Hmm...sounds suspiciously like it is now. By the way, how often would He have to give that message? Every 20 years? Or only once, so that those people could tell their children, and so on? Well, that's what happened 2000 years ago, if you have to believe Christians.

 

That's assuming that God is so incompetent as to not be able to create a message that everyone could accept his existence and at least KNOW which God exists before choosing whether or not to be with Him.

 

So, in short: there will be a coming down, but we don't know the time; the 'soon' coming was a coming up into Heaven, a coming into authority, which happened in 70 AD.

 

I think you're misreading your bible. He said that he'd come back in the lifetime of the people he was speaking to at the time.

 

God is not a heavenly First-Aid Kit.

The reason for evil and disease is, according to Christians, that we sinned... And there may be various reasons why God allows evil in our lives.

 

So God is unwilling to help people?

 

Want to take some prophecy lessons from, say, Isaiah?

 

It wasn't a prophecy, it was a prediction.