Super Moderator florduh Posted May 31, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted May 31, 2019 I take it that "eat it" is Christianese for "fuck you." 3 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 It's good to see honest discussion of the foundation of one's belief system and where the importance is placed. "Accordingly, we do not seek to prove Christian theism but only try to show that we can find no meaning in our human experience unless there be a self-sufficient God to give it meaning." This is similar to my instruction, while I was a bible believing Pentecostal in how to respond to people challenging my faith. It was simply, "That's a nice argument but I choose to believe in Jesus." Why have such conviction (high confidence) about something whose adherents dont even want to bother seeking to prove. Something with little to no evidence of being true, is most probably false. Why seriously devote your life to Christian theism if it is most probably false? Why spend every Sunday and who knows what other days in church if Christianity is most probably false? What is the point of trying to find meaning in your human experience through Jesus if he probably isn't even real? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TABA Posted May 31, 2019 Moderator Share Posted May 31, 2019 1 hour ago, midniterider said: Why seriously devote your life to Christian theism if it is most probably false? Why spend every Sunday and who knows what other days in church if Christianity is most probably false? What is the point of trying to find meaning in your human experience through Jesus if he probably isn't even real? This is a choice that has been faced by every person who seriously considers the intellectual case against theism in general and Christianity in particular. Many choose to continue to ‘believe’ or to act as if they believe. Most of us here did not follow that path and separated ourselves from Christianity and - in most cases - from theism also. I can see why somebody would remain in the church: for the social connections, which are absolutely real; for moral guidance, which is highly dubious and anyway is increasingly cherry-picked by the faithful; for the comforting idea of a loving father watching over one’s life. It should not be carried too far though, since getting the theology wrong could result in eternal damnation, which is a feature, not a bug. Come to think of it, most Christians cherry-pick both the morality and the doctrine. Belief in Heaven is pretty much universal; belief in Hell... not so much. Most believers take it seriously enough to attend church and teach their kids about God, but not so seriously that the cognitive dissonance troubles them. In my case, I let go of the belief system and have found agnostic atheism to be better than dealing with the troubling doctrines and downright contradictions. I never expected to find such peace and contentment outside of faith, but here I am. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astreja Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 4 hours ago, florduh said: I take it that "eat it" is Christianese for "fuck you." Either that, or he's channeling Weird Al Yankovic channeling Michael Jackson. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 He is probably hungry for some more of that delicious atheism that Chef Pantera is cooking. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted May 31, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted May 31, 2019 He speaks of all the historical arguments supporting the veracity of christianity; yet, when given the opportunity to provide said "facts", he failed to do so. He speaks of christianity standing the test if time, despite all the objections to it. But Buddhism predates christianity by several hundred years. By his own logic, if christianity were so "formidable", why has Buddhism stood the test of time better than his religion? Why is Hinduism the world's oldest religion, predating christianity by more than 2 millenia? Perhaps it is because standing the test if time simply does not make a good indicator of "fact" or "truth", as the other side of the coin demonstrates. Science, as we know it, has only been around for a few hundred years (hardly standing the test of time, in the grand scheme of things), yet look how much it has been able to produce in such a short span: cures for once deadly diseases, flights into outer space, higher yielding crops, better jock itch cream... What has religion been doing all this time? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 Standing by to be destroyed by sound historical argument from Luth. Putting on my seatbelt for this one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted June 1, 2019 Moderator Share Posted June 1, 2019 16 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: He speaks of all the historical arguments supporting the veracity of christianity; yet, when given the opportunity to provide said "facts", he failed to do so. He speaks of christianity standing the test if time, despite all the objections to it. But Buddhism predates christianity by several hundred years. By his own logic, if christianity were so "formidable", why has Buddhism stood the test of time better than his religion? Why is Hinduism the world's oldest religion, predating christianity by more than 2 millenia? Perhaps it is because standing the test if time simply does not make a good indicator of "fact" or "truth", as the other side of the coin demonstrates. Science, as we know it, has only been around for a few hundred years (hardly standing the test of time, in the grand scheme of things), yet look how much it has been able to produce in such a short span: cures for once deadly diseases, flights into outer space, higher yielding crops, better jock itch cream... What has religion been doing all this time? I made sure that a brief mention of this point made the main debate. Christian makes a logical fallacy to support his argument for christianity, ex-christians call it out, and then the christian responds how????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 1, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 1, 2019 4 hours ago, Joshpantera said: I made sure that a brief mention of this point made the main debate. Christian makes a logical fallacy to support his argument for christianity, ex-christians call it out, and then the christian responds how????? By changing the subject. Now he's complaining about the particular translation of the bible you're using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted June 1, 2019 Moderator Share Posted June 1, 2019 7 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: By changing the subject. Now he's complaining about the particular translation of the bible you're using. As I said, I'm only using the names of god bible because instead of using generic terms like, "God," or "The Lord," it shows where "Elohim," and "Yahweh," for instance, occur in the original Hebrew. It's not as if any translation of the bible doesn't encounter contradictions in Genesis from the very outset. So Luth is welcome to provide any translation he chooses for us to consider. I wager that all of the contradictions remain. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 "This is important because in textual criticism the goal is to determine as close as possible what the author actually wrote. A paraphrase will not provide this." Don't people paraphrase in order to understand something? Isnt a small group of Christians doing a bible study and concerned with a particular passage using paraphrasing to get at the meaning of it? If someone asks, "What does that scripture mean?", do you repeat the scripture back to them and call it a day? Or do you use other words to describe it. Sermons in church usually involve discussion about the scriptural passage at hand. Seems like a lot of paraphrasing...what do I know. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 2, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 2, 2019 What y'all fail to understand is that the word of god doesn't mean what it says unless you use the right translation. And read it in the proper context. And only read certain passages. And skip over the uncomfortable bits, with all the rape and genocide and never-ending begetting. Seriously, did you really think that god could properly oversee the accurate translation of his meaning, when he was providing his own divine revelation of himself to all of humanity for the sake of saving our eternal souls from everlasting damnation and hellfire? Y'all must think god is omnipotent or something. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 So now we're in a battle of sources. "PhD level...scholarship." Well, obviously there can be only one side to any PhD level scholarship; "that which promotes my view. Don't offer any other." While we're all encouraged to "read through" this PhD level scholarship, I'm willing to bet money that this http://www.sent2all.com/Archer-Introduction to Bible Difficulties.pdf will be lightly skimmed over for disagreeable terms and then abandoned. ... 'Battle of sources' - Is this a bad thing? Why? "that which promotes my view. Don't offer any other." - This IS a debate, isn't it? Josh provides the side against Christianity, you present the side in favor of Christianity. Well, that link points to a 443 page document, so if you expected more than skimming, that's kind of silly. Btw,I hope there's no paraphrasing in that 443 page document. Maybe Jesus should just lay out the facts. Jesus? Thoughts? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 2, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 2, 2019 Why don't y'all two just put your PhDs on the table and measure them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted June 2, 2019 Moderator Share Posted June 2, 2019 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 3, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 3, 2019 Geez, Josh. Why can't you just accept faith-based evidence? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 @Joshpantera I admire your maturity, integrity and patience in attempting to have rational discussions with Posters Christforums and LuthAMF. It is quite obvious that neither of them are capable of behaving in similar fashion. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted June 3, 2019 Moderator Share Posted June 3, 2019 9 hours ago, sdelsolray said: @Joshpantera I admire your maturity, integrity and patience in attempting to have rational discussions with Posters Christforums and LuthAMF. It is quite obvious that neither of them are capable of behaving in similar fashion. Thank you for saying. It's very difficult to have a rational discussion about the bible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted June 3, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 3, 2019 12 hours ago, Joshpantera said: Thank you for saying. It's very difficult to have a rational discussion about the bible. Secular scholars have rational discussions about the Bible all the time. Rationality goes out the window when one party believes the Bible is the Word of God, infallible, an historical account or a science book. Without agreement on rules of evidence or how logic works the encounter is pointless aside from demonstrating the weakness of the Christian arguments to onlookers. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted June 4, 2019 Moderator Share Posted June 4, 2019 On 6/3/2019 at 7:08 PM, florduh said: Secular scholars have rational discussions about the Bible all the time. Rationality goes out the window when one party believes the Bible is the Word of God, infallible, an historical account or a science book. Without agreement on rules of evidence or how logic works the encounter is pointless aside from demonstrating the weakness of the Christian arguments to onlookers. Yes, they do. I hope that interested readers and lurkers will read through what secular scholars have to say in contrast. The apologist that Luth cited is quite a piece of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 5, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 5, 2019 "It is well to note at once the nature of the argument; it is transcendental and not formally logical. An argument for the existence of God based on formal logic would imply the ability to define God and arrive at a comprehensive rationality of all our experience. A transcendental argument on the contrary, is negative in so far that it reasons from the impossibility of the opposite." In short, god exists because god cannot not exist. Well... I'm convinced. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator LogicalFallacy Posted June 5, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted June 5, 2019 17 minutes ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: "It is well to note at once the nature of the argument; it is transcendental and not formally logical. An argument for the existence of God based on formal logic would imply the ability to define God and arrive at a comprehensive rationality of all our experience. A transcendental argument on the contrary, is negative in so far that it reasons from the impossibility of the opposite." In short, god exists because god cannot not exist. Well... I'm convinced. Isn't this along the lines of William L Craigs argument developed from early church apologists about the most powerful being existing in all possible worlds? And because we can imagine a most powerful being in one possible world it must therefore exist in all possible worlds? Ah yes, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument I've never found this argument convincing in the slightest. By this logic if I imagine an all power dragon to exist, because this dragon exists in my mind then it must exist in reality. Bullocks! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 5, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 5, 2019 "god exists." The opposite is "god does not exist." One problem that I see, without even trying, is that if god is omnipotent, if "all things are possible with god," then god can not exist. It is, therefore, possible for god to not exist, if god exists. This argument starts falling apart before it ever even gets off the ground. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted June 5, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted June 5, 2019 "As the development of the human family has been from the first a historical fact, and as man really occupies that place in the world which this record assigns him, the creation of man, as well as that of the earth on which, and the heaven for which, he is to live, must also be a work of God, i.e. a fact of objective truth and reality." Was the creation of Neanderthals and Denisovans, with whom modern humans interbred (evidence of which can be observed in our DNA) also a "work of god" toward the "development of the human family"? https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/dtcgenetictesting/neanderthaldna 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disillusioned Posted June 5, 2019 Share Posted June 5, 2019 Ontological and transcendental arguments for God are slightly different, but both are stupid. The Ontological argument basically says "Imagine a God who exists. Therefore, God exists!" It's an argument grounded in the definition of God. The Transcendental argument basically says "Logic (and, in some formulations, morality) is a real, potent, objective universal, and, as such, requires a source. The source is God." It's an argument grounded in the definition of logic. Both are stupid, but for somewhat different reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now