You find it unreasonable to believe there is a god, or gods, without sufficient evidence. You feel it is just as likely for the universe to have been created by teal titanium tortoises as any other proposition. Furthermore, it is this very belief, this delusion, that is really tearing humanity apart and ruining people’s lives. It is perfectly possible to be ethical without God. Further, it is entirely possible to live a happy, successful life by giving your life its own meaning and making your own purpose in life. You do not pass up the opportunity to challenge people’s supersticious beliefs. You are a strong proponent of reason, for you believe it is the only tool man has to solve life’s problems.[/quote]
You are a protheist.
You are not only a faithful believer in God, but you are also concerned for others and their faith. You are no doubt interested in spreading the Good News to others. You are likely eager to speak with fellow theists to encourage them to be more vocal and energized about the word of God so that they too can save others as you strive to do. You may also attempt to persuade even the agnostics and atheists to consider God’s gift, though this is far more challenging to do. You realize that antitheists are extremely difficult to convert, but you also believe that nothing is impossible with God.
This thing is stupid. If you believe in God and that such belief is beneficial you are a missionary? Was Kant a missionary?
…your fallacious appeal to authority is noted ZEB. Did the smartest man prove God yet?
[/quote]
Did anyone disprove God yet either? No? So it looks like you are about on equal footing[/quote]
…how can you disprove something that exists nowhere else but in beliefs? And that which exists in beliefs only needs no proof, otherwise if someone, at one point somewhere, had found a way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that [a] God exists, you’d no longer need faith and beliefs to sustain your religion, and atheism would no longer exist…[/quote]
Is your IQ higher than those in Mensa? Ah, never mind.[/quote]
The flaw in your logic is that you assume that I think my recommendation is infallible, I do not. I just thought you might want to give it another look based upon the fact that those with much higher IQ’s than you think that there is a God.[/quote]
Now you ask him to jump on the bandwagon? These are emotionally good arguments, but not sound proofs.
Besides, if high IQ’s and Mensa membership impressed Ephrem, he would have given in to me.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Everyone knows the Nazis were “right” as opposed to “left”- they were reactionaries not progressives, to use 20th century terms. What I don’t think most people (on this forum) realize is that “libertarians” are not “pure right wing” they are a hybrid of right and left wing values.[/quote]
Yeah, economically right and socially left, to state it simply.
Although, the academic ones will object to that along the following lines:
Conservatives and liberals are inconsistent because they support statist intervention in some areas and not others, while only libertarians are fully consistent in opposing statist intervention in all areas.
[quote]orion wrote:
That is a superficial distinction.
Fasbists believe in telling you what to do and that includes you property, socialists control your property and therefore you.
Both believe that the individual must bow to the collective and as time goes by the differences disappear.[/quote]
The problem with libertarians is that they sabotage their own incredibly well constructed theory of human action by constructing a false dichotomy between “state” and “market” forces. In reality, every so-called state action takes place within the broader market, which is simply the sum of all human interactions, and states themselves arise as a direct result of market forces.
For a “state” can simply be considered a business entity within the market that has come to establish a natural monopoly in the use of force within a particular territory.
In order for libertarians to reconcile their hatred of statism with their economic doctrine, one of two things are necessary, both of which create internal contradictions in libertarian theory:
Recognize that so-called “market failures” are possible and have occurred throughout history in every part of the world to the extent that the market has hitherto proven incapable of preventing the establishment of monopolist state entities through natural competition from other agents-of-force. Neither mainstream libertarian ideology nor radical iterations such as anarcho-capitalism can explain this phenomenon. Purist libertarian dogma holds that “monopolies cannot arise without government intervention,” which begs the question as to how the most prominent monopoly in any inhabited territory comes into existence - that is, the local government.
or
A possible “solution” to the above dilemna which nevertheless creates deep schisms in the libertarian worldview is the implicit recognition that, since all market trends ultimately express the will of the market (an economic axiom of libertarianism), the existence of statist entities with monopolies must be viewed as a direct consequence of the “invisible hand” of the market at work and thus statism is to be considered a “market trend” no different from a market preference for one type of automobile over another.
The latter is the more academically and internally consistent view which libertarians would do well to adopt if they were more concerned about being correct than about being relevant.
You must recognize that the establishment of state entities with a de facto monopoly over violence does, in fact, represent the “will” or “invisible hand” of the market at work and you must therefore drop your academic objections to statism.
This thought process is similar to a dilemna often posed to advocates of democracy. Namely, what if the masses use their democratic vote to install a dictatorship which then promptly strips them of it?
Under strict interpretations of political ideology, such bizarre outliers must be “allowed” if the theory is to remain internally consistent.
In summary, libertarians need to abandon their artificial divide between “statist and free market” forces.
Another thought experiment will be useful:
Examine the internal structure of any capitalist organization, and what do you see? Laissez faire and the self interest principle at work? No. Collectivism and central planning on a grand scale.
The take home lesson is that the world operates on collectivism because that’s exactly where the “invisible hand of the market” has guided it.
Stop thinking of states as separate entities existing in some arbitrary no-man’s-land “outside” the market and start thinking of them as corporations within the market and suddenly every utopian ideal of libertarianism evaporates and you shall gain an immense understanding of how the world really operates.
States are and always have been a product of market forces. The day that states end is the day that the market wills them to end by establishing an alternative through natural competition. This could be done at any given time. The only possible explanation for why it hasn’t been done that is consistent with libertarian ideology is that it does not represent the will of the market. Thus, by advocating for less statism, you are actually contradicting the expressed will of the market. How’s that for a mind bender? Now you know why I’m no longer a libertarian - too many internal contradictions and utopian nonsense.
The moment you stop analyzing what “is” and start spouting off about what “should” be, you’ve crossed over the threshhold of science and gone into religious territory.
Other dichotomies that form an integral part of libertarian theory include:
Individualism vs Collectivism Benefit - This is a legitimate dichotomy
Initiation of Force vs Non-Aggression Principle - Fundamentally contradictory (thereby non-axiomatic) since even the most stringent libertarians must concede that force must be initiated on certain occasions (such as to stop a murder, for instance).
Libertarianism’s inherent strength lies in its economic axioms but there is a gray area, there cannot be any axioms. Consequently, the “non-aggression principle” is one of the weaker tenets of libertarian theory. [/quote]
There are a some ideas in there I agree with, with others I dont.
The first is that a government is a kind of company like any other. It is not. It is a monopoly from the very beginning and it establishes a monopoly on coercive power, no less.
Therefore two of the most important regulatory forces of the market place evaporate as soon as a government is established as far as governments go, you cannot simply establish a competing government.
Now on the other hand, whenever the situation came close to what you describe, like the competing Greek city states, or the hundred of German jurisdictions in the Holy Roman Empire, there actually was a race to liberty because if a Duke, Count, Doge, whatever behaved like an ass, merchants and therefore trade would disappear and he would lose his power.
It is no coincidence that the US was conceived as a union of competing states. The ability to vote with your feet is a necessity for a free society.
Unfortunately, in the EU as well as the US, centralized power structures draw more and more power to them and you cannot even escape by moving to another state, even though the situation has already become difficult becuause with the modern nation state you have to learn a new language and new customs if you leave your state.
So, if you see as governments as companies, they actually worked quite well as long as you were free to leave them with a relatively moderate amount of effort, but they build trusts now to make it harder and harder.
The US even goes so far as to tax people living outside the US jurisdiction. Now they truly own you and they do no even bother to keep that a secret. Also, the attempts to force “tax havens” to open their books is also questionable unless you see it as an attempt to prevent others from profiting from their livestock.
So in short, if governments are companies, or both are simply organizations competing in the market place we face the problem that governments destroy the market so that they do not have to compete.
Companies routinely try that too, but without a government and its army they usually do not get very far.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I’ve been involved in these types of threads in the past and I know how the atheists value intelligence over faith. Many further claim that those who believe in God are not unintelligent. I usually don’t get involved with these types of threads any longer but I couldn’t help but post the following quote from Chris Langan the smartest man in the world who has an IQ of between 195-210:
"you cannot describe the universe completely with any accuracy unless you’re willing to admit that it’s both physical and mental in nature"12 and that his CTMU explains the connection between mind and reality, therefore the presence of cognition and universe in the same phrase.15 He calls his proposal a true ‘Theory of Everything’, a cross between John Archibald Wheeler’s ‘Participatory Universe’ and Stephen Hawking’s ‘Imaginary Time’ theory of cosmology."9 In conjunction with his ideas, Langan has claimed that “you can prove the existence of God, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics.”
It’s also interesting to note that memebrs of Mensa (organization for those with high IQ’s) are mostly made up of those who believe in God. In fact only 3.6% are atheists.
…your fallacious appeal to authority is noted ZEB. Did the smartest man prove God yet?
[/quote]
Not at all fallacious and he’s working on it.[/quote]
…i’ll wait for said proof with bated breath…
[/quote]
In the meantime you might want to join the overwhelming majority of the most intelligent people in the world and believe that there is a God. No?[/quote]
…why would i? Is that common where you’re from, to follow the majority because you think you’re too stupid to understand what they’re on about? You are a man who can think for himself, aren’t you?
…your fallacious appeal to authority is noted ZEB. Did the smartest man prove God yet?
[/quote]
Did anyone disprove God yet either? No? So it looks like you are about on equal footing[/quote]
…how can you disprove something that exists nowhere else but in beliefs? And that which exists in beliefs only needs no proof, otherwise if someone, at one point somewhere, had found a way to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that [a] God exists, you’d no longer need faith and beliefs to sustain your religion, and atheism would no longer exist…[/quote]
Is your IQ higher than those in Mensa? Ah, never mind.[/quote]
The flaw in your logic is that you assume that I think my recommendation is infallible, I do not. I just thought you might want to give it another look based upon the fact that those with much higher IQ’s than you think that there is a God.[/quote]
Now you ask him to jump on the bandwagon? These are emotionally good arguments, but not sound proofs.
Besides, if high IQ’s and Mensa membership impressed Ephrem, he would have given in to me. ;)[/quote]
…if you still feel like doing so, there’s a post waiting for your reply…
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Besides, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Mao, Pol Pot, and other people who make the crusades look tame were all atheists. So there goes the “religion starts all wars”…[/quote]
Hitler was Catholic, and drew on years of Catholic antisemitism to get public support.
And no one said religion starts ALL wars, it only start MOST wars. And saying “Oh the atheist guy did it, what’s so wrong with us doing it” is very telling of how you operate mentally. And the Crusades were anything BUT tame, so don’t try that shit.
…if you are referencing a book [any religious book] that was written, compiled, altered and poorly translated by humans, then you have no evidence at all, have you?
[/quote]
You are quite mistaken, even if there would be errors, it would just mean less proof, not none at all.
Now, prove that these errors occur. I will require that you do so using the Hebrew text of the bible so that we don’t have a little back and forth about errors in the King James that I agree with you are problematic.
Also, please provide the same proof of errors in the Koran, the Vedas, etc.
A history book is assumed to be accurate until someone can prove it is erroneous. So go for it, disprove the history books. In the process, ask yourself some questions, starting with-
“If people were making this stuff up left and right why would the average person follow all of the complex and expensive laws contained within? If the people didn’t see the prophecies why would they risk doing no agricultural labor every seventh year? Wouldn’t the entire population die out in the ensuing famine that there was no God to prevent?”
Not to mention giving up consumption of pork and extensive tithes (more than 1/4 of any harvest, 1/10 of cattle, etc).
So at worst we have a lot of circumstantial evidence, which you may call weak. The arguments against though, have no basis whatsoever.[/quote]
The Bible has been proved to be self contradictory and false in it’s assertion about historical events several times over.
Thanks for cleaning things up, I had trouble reading it too.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]First of all, third party confirmation is a stricture applied only to the bible. We don’t question other accounts this way. Nevertheless, I can play your game.
Sancherev’s (Assyrian emperor) records, as found in archeologically excavated documents on display in the British Museum report that the biblical story of his armies laying siege to Jerusalem and his entire army dying in their sleep (except for a few people who ran away).
Documents have been found in Egypt about great troubles (at the time the Israelites were supposed to be there) including the river turning to blood.
So even though I endured greater scrutiny than is normal when discussing historical events, my position is upheld.[/quote]
…got any links for me to peruse?[/quote]
Could not find any about Sancherev, but I have plenty more. Keep in mind, for my point to be upheld, I only need the slightest but of likelihood that these are all the same, and for yours you need proof beyond doubt that it is all 100% false. If you cannot do that, your claim fails and atheism is irrational, and you should become an agnostic who believes that God probably exists, but you don’t know how that should impact your life.
Babylonian Chronicles which support the historicity of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Lamentations, and Zedekiah. Babylonian Chronicles - Wikipedia
Bulla of Gedalayah ben Immer which describes a person from the book of Jeremiah and is dated from that time period. This find completely uproots a critical idea called ‘priestly fraud’ which is hinged on people like David, Solomon and Jeremiah never having existed, and there never having been a first temple http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/jan/02/20060102-123421-5168r/
Josephus, Philo and Herodotus also corroborate biblical accounts.
I will remind you again that this is not independent proof beyond a shadow of doubt that there is a God and he wants you to do x,y, and z. It is merely third party verification of the veracity of the bible in some areas, which leads us to see it as reliable in others.
Many atheists have only discussed religion with idiots and people who will tell them “look you just need to have faith” and this makes them think that that is what religion is. While there is certainly faith involved, it is not necessarily the blind, baseless, anti-scientific kind, or at least not in every religion it isn’t.
…maintaining a coherent and succesful tribe requires certain rules and regulations. Morality evolved from necessaty, because we started to live together in increasing numbers. Our ability for abstract thought increased, and with it our ability for empathy. Morality is an evolutionary construct in order to provide the tribe a means of dealing with eachother in a civil way. That is one explanation, aside from the divine one…
…because if i am the lesser of you, i’m not happy. And since i don’t want you to be unhappy, i’m not your superior. We’re human after all…[/quote]
The words you wrote don’t make much sense as the ‘therefores’ don’t follow from the ‘sinces’. I will have to assume what you must have meant. So let’s analyze your assumptions here.
Social inferiors are necessarily unhappy in relation to social superiors.
Happiness is a positive value.
We’re human.
I will challenge you that social inferiors are not necessarily less happy because of it. It is widely known that rich people and celebrities have much higher rates of suicide, divorce, depression, and even criminal behavior than regular people. If you will argue that they are not really our social superiors then how come when they are caught for say, driving a car into a mall (Tara Reid) they don’t get punished?
I agree that happiness is a positive value, but objectively it is nothing worth discussing as it is immeasurable. As far as our shared humanity goes, it is a complete non-sequitor. Perhaps smarter people deserve more rights than dumber ones? You need a source which tells you that all people are equal and deserve to be treated so, otherwise how do you know? By definition the only such source must be a supra-human one.
…and i explained numerous times that atheism isn’t a beliefsystem. Why is that so hard to understand?[/quote]
Because it really is a belief system. To me it seems sort of like a Christian denomination, as it relies on all the trappings of christian society and law to function. Unless you go over to someone like Nietzsche. His point was to remake a new morality in light of the failure of Christianity to maintain people’s interest.
At best, you seem to wish to mock other people’s belief systems as foolish and baseless while not even having a belief system of your own of any substance. It’s sort of like the pot calling the kettle black, except that the kettle is trying to clean itself.
…the alternative to God being the prime mover? First of all, God does not explain the universe, because you can’t explain God in any rational terms. Second, i don’t have an alternative for you: i don’t know how the universe came to be…[/quote]
Why can’t you explain God in rational terms? Use the negative attributes method? God is incomprehensible to us, possesses all possible perfections, and we cannot describe him in human terms at all because by definition his attributes are beyond ours.
God does explain the universe. If there is a God (who merely acts as a first mover) existence is explained. If there is no such God, how did we get here? Under the laws of physics matter cannot be created or destroyed. How did things get set in motion? If you don’t accept God, then you have a hole. You don’t seem to mind a hole though, you say you don’t know. This turns atheism into a type of faith.
Please don’t bother arguing how great it is to have mysteries in the universe (a common atheist claim) because this is mysticism, which is a type of religion.
I didn’t want to bother with slavery initially because it accomplishes nothing, as I can push off all problems with it. The only type of slavery that I have to justify is biblical slavery. You have to justify the African Slave Trade, as you believe that laws and culture determine morality, which means that African Slave Trade was perfectly moral.
Here is an explanation of what slavery was in the bible: a means of paying a debt to society. The way people were sold into slavery was because they committed a certain type of theft which required a penalty payment equal to (or sometimes four or five times the value of, depending on the circumstances of what he did with it,) the object stolen. If that person’s entire net worth was less than the cost of the penalty payment he would have to be sold into slavery to pay off his remaining debt. Sort of like a chain gang. You committed a crime, now you work.
Also, slaves had to be treated a certain way and had rights. They had to be given food, a bed, a wife, etc. Masters had no right to kill them, only a court could, if they would commit a capital crime with the same rights as anyone else. Slavery could last a maximum of 6 years, and if the slave chose to stay on, he could. If not, the master was acquired to, as the bible phrases it “liberally adorn him with lavish vestments” so that when he returned to society he would not be looked at as a low life, but as a guy with a means to get himself started with.
So there, does biblical slavery sound so terrible? Any worse than prison today? I think it sounds way better. You on the other hand, must ethically explain the Atlantic slave trade to defend your source of morality.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Eye-witness accounts are generally perceived as the best possible evidence (in your holy contemporary law they will put people to death based upon it), and there is plenty of eye-witness evidence.[/quote]
It boggles the mind that someone actually believes this. Eyewitness accounts are generally the worst form of evidence, since they rely on human memory. Memory can be made up out of whole cloth, btw and even memories of actual events suffer from distortion.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Again, 2.5 million people at Mount Sinai, loads of public miracles throughout history. I won’t say these things prove anything, but they are enough to count as something on the scoreboard. Even if you say it’s only something minuscule, like a single free throw, the score ends up Theism 1, Atheism 0, as there is no evidence whatsoever supporting that.[/quote]
If they don’t ‘prove anything’, then why bring them up? Further, why assume only your religions miracle claims are true?
Also, what is this about 2.5 million people at Sinai? Are you actually referencing the bible as a first hand account or are you referring to some other incident?
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
I think you may be confusing the difference between “sufficient evidence to give one pause on the possibility of God’s existence” and “sufficient evidence to justify belief in and practice of christianity”.[/quote]
I think you are attempting to overplay the hand you believe you have in terms of Christianity.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
I was arguing atheism vs. theism, not any particular religion. Try to abstract it into something else if you can’t make the separation.[/quote]
Not all versions of theism contain miracles, nor must they.
…if you are referencing a book [any religious book] that was written, compiled, altered and poorly translated by humans, then you have no evidence at all, have you?
[/quote]
You are quite mistaken, even if there would be errors, it would just mean less proof, not none at all.
Now, prove that these errors occur. I will require that you do so using the Hebrew text of the bible so that we don’t have a little back and forth about errors in the King James that I agree with you are problematic.
Also, please provide the same proof of errors in the Koran, the Vedas, etc.
A history book is assumed to be accurate until someone can prove it is erroneous. So go for it, disprove the history books. In the process, ask yourself some questions, starting with-
“If people were making this stuff up left and right why would the average person follow all of the complex and expensive laws contained within? If the people didn’t see the prophecies why would they risk doing no agricultural labor every seventh year? Wouldn’t the entire population die out in the ensuing famine that there was no God to prevent?”
Not to mention giving up consumption of pork and extensive tithes (more than 1/4 of any harvest, 1/10 of cattle, etc).
So at worst we have a lot of circumstantial evidence, which you may call weak. The arguments against though, have no basis whatsoever.[/quote]
The Bible has been proved to be self contradictory and false in it’s assertion about historical events several times over.[/quote]
Where are these proofs? I am pretty well read and have never heard them before.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Eye-witness accounts are generally perceived as the best possible evidence[/quote]
No they aren’t.[/quote]
I don’t know where you are from (it says NZ? Is that correct?), but where I come from they put people to death based on eye witness testimony. If ten people in NZ say they saw John Johnson kill a prostitute and destroy her body, what would happen to Mr. Johnson?
…if you are referencing a book [any religious book] that was written, compiled, altered and poorly translated by humans, then you have no evidence at all, have you?
[/quote]
You are quite mistaken, even if there would be errors, it would just mean less proof, not none at all.
Now, prove that these errors occur. I will require that you do so using the Hebrew text of the bible so that we don’t have a little back and forth about errors in the King James that I agree with you are problematic.
Also, please provide the same proof of errors in the Koran, the Vedas, etc.
A history book is assumed to be accurate until someone can prove it is erroneous. So go for it, disprove the history books. In the process, ask yourself some questions, starting with-
“If people were making this stuff up left and right why would the average person follow all of the complex and expensive laws contained within? If the people didn’t see the prophecies why would they risk doing no agricultural labor every seventh year? Wouldn’t the entire population die out in the ensuing famine that there was no God to prevent?”
Not to mention giving up consumption of pork and extensive tithes (more than 1/4 of any harvest, 1/10 of cattle, etc).
So at worst we have a lot of circumstantial evidence, which you may call weak. The arguments against though, have no basis whatsoever.[/quote]
The Bible has been proved to be self contradictory and false in it’s assertion about historical events several times over.[/quote]
Where are these proofs? I am pretty well read and have never heard them before.[/quote]
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Eye-witness accounts are generally perceived as the best possible evidence[/quote]
No they aren’t.[/quote]
I don’t know where you are from (it says NZ? Is that correct?), but where I come from they put people to death based on eye witness testimony. If ten people in NZ say they saw John Johnson kill a prostitute and destroy her body, what would happen to Mr. Johnson?[/quote]
He would be subject to a fair trial and due process, all forms of evidence would be collected and presented to an impartial (in theory) jury of his peers for examination.
Simply put, eye witness testimony counts for jack shit.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Eye-witness accounts are generally perceived as the best possible evidence (in your holy contemporary law they will put people to death based upon it), and there is plenty of eye-witness evidence.[/quote]
It boggles the mind that someone actually believes this. Eyewitness accounts are generally the worst form of evidence, since they rely on human memory. Memory can be made up out of whole cloth, btw and even memories of actual events suffer from distortion.[/quote]
I don’t know where you come from, but witness testimony is pretty strong in western courts. Nothing stronger that I know of.
[quote][quote]jglickfield wrote:
Again, 2.5 million people at Mount Sinai, loads of public miracles throughout history. I won’t say these things prove anything, but they are enough to count as something on the scoreboard. Even if you say it’s only something minuscule, like a single free throw, the score ends up Theism 1, Atheism 0, as there is no evidence whatsoever supporting that.[/quote]
If they don’t ‘prove anything’, then why bring them up? Further, why assume only your religions miracle claims are true?
Also, what is this about 2.5 million people at Sinai? Are you actually referencing the bible as a first hand account or are you referring to some other incident?[/quote]
I can use the bible as a first hand account just as easily as you can dismiss it. You have no actual evidence with which to disprove it. Besides, my argument doesn’t NEED the bible to be 100% true. 1% will do.
If you ask why I mention things which don’t prove anything, it is because I am building a case based upon likelihood. If there is any likelihood whatsoever that God exists it is irrational to be an atheist, because that relies upon the presumption that there is no likelihood whatsoever.
Someone trying to prove negatives has a very heavy burden upon him. Again, do not hold problems in atheist arguments against me.
[quote][quote]jglickfield wrote:
I think you may be confusing the difference between “sufficient evidence to give one pause on the possibility of God’s existence” and “sufficient evidence to justify belief in and practice of christianity”.[/quote]
I think you are attempting to overplay the hand you believe you have in terms of Christianity. [/quote]
You’re welcome to your thoughts and opinions. Care to give us reason to believe what you are saying?
[quote][quote]jglickfield wrote:
I was arguing atheism vs. theism, not any particular religion. Try to abstract it into something else if you can’t make the separation.[/quote]
Not all versions of theism contain miracles, nor must they. [/quote]
OK, I agree. So what? If there would be a miracle, don’t you think that the theists who don’t require miracles (such as say Einstein, Hawking, etc) would see a miracle (if it happened) as evidence of their position of theism?
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Eye-witness accounts are generally perceived as the best possible evidence[/quote]
No they aren’t.[/quote]
I don’t know where you are from (it says NZ? Is that correct?), but where I come from they put people to death based on eye witness testimony. If ten people in NZ say they saw John Johnson kill a prostitute and destroy her body, what would happen to Mr. Johnson?[/quote]
He would be subject to a fair trial and due process, all forms of evidence would be collected and presented to an impartial (in theory) jury of his peers for examination.
Simply put, eye witness testimony counts for jack shit.[/quote]
Quite simply, you are wrong. If his DNA was found all over the murder weapon, but 100 people claimed that he was with them giving an academic lecture at the time of the murder, he would be dismissed. The eye witnesses would outweigh.
Also, rather than insulting my literacy, why not show me where these disproofs are?
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Eye-witness accounts are generally perceived as the best possible evidence[/quote]
No they aren’t.[/quote]
I don’t know where you are from (it says NZ? Is that correct?), but where I come from they put people to death based on eye witness testimony. If ten people in NZ say they saw John Johnson kill a prostitute and destroy her body, what would happen to Mr. Johnson?[/quote]
He would be subject to a fair trial and due process, all forms of evidence would be collected and presented to an impartial (in theory) jury of his peers for examination.
Simply put, eye witness testimony counts for jack shit.[/quote]
Quite simply, you are wrong. If his DNA was found all over the murder weapon, but 100 people claimed that he was with them giving an academic lecture at the time of the murder, he would be dismissed. The eye witnesses would outweigh.
Also, rather than insulting my literacy, why not show me where these disproofs are?[/quote]
Because they aren’t hard to find, and they’ve been posted on this site even, countless times.
No it doesn’t. Further, science and reason disprove the global flood account. Also, why is it that only ancient societies that had localized floods had ‘global flood accounts’? Further, why did the Chinese have a global flood account, where the global flood was prevented?
No it doesn’t - in the Bible account the poor do not become rich. Further, even your link disputes your claims. It seems some people are reaching for anything to justify their notions of the Exodus. At best, let’s suppose this lists the atrocities in Egypt - that does not justify the Bible’s account, you realize.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Josephus, Philo and Herodotus also corroborate biblical accounts.
[/quote]
Again, no they don’t. At best, they corroborate the fact that there were Christians who believed certain things. The silence of the various historians of the period (about 40) strongly argues against the ideas presented in the new testament. Also, let’s realize that none of those people you listed are contemporary - all of them are several decades after the events of the bible.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
I will remind you again that this is not independent proof beyond a shadow of doubt that there is a God and he wants you to do x,y, and z. It is merely third party verification of the veracity of the bible in some areas, which leads us to see it as reliable in others.
[/quote]
It’s not proof or evidence that there is a God. At best you have evidence that people believed X or Y about what they thought was god.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Many atheists have only discussed religion with idiots and people who will tell them “look you just need to have faith” and this makes them think that that is what religion is. While there is certainly faith involved, it is not necessarily the blind, baseless, anti-scientific kind, or at least not in every religion it isn’t.
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This might be true for some, but certainly isn’t true for all.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Because it really is a belief system.
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Nonsense.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
To me it seems sort of like a Christian denomination, as it relies on all the trappings of christian society and law to function. Unless you go over to someone like Nietzsche. His point was to remake a new morality in light of the failure of Christianity to maintain people’s interest.
[/quote]
Really? So what are the code of conducts for atheists? What are the beliefs that all atheists adhere to? You are simply being ridiculous.
Also, Nietzsche was arguing for the overman to come up with a morality based on the will to power - among other things. He saw Christianity, at it’s core, as being anti-intellectual and that when the public realized their atheism that there would be a gap in value/morals that needed to be filled. The overman would fill it.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
At best, you seem to wish to mock other people’s belief systems as foolish and baseless while not even having a belief system of your own of any substance. It’s sort of like the pot calling the kettle black, except that the kettle is trying to clean itself.
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You are trying to jam all atheists into one thing, which is as ridiculous as trying to jam all theists under one thing.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Why can’t you explain God in rational terms? Use the negative attributes method? God is incomprehensible to us, possesses all possible perfections, and we cannot describe him in human terms at all because by definition his attributes are beyond ours.
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If you negatively define god, you, in reality, DON’T define god. If you admit that god is incomprehensible then your belief is automatically irrational since there is nothing coherent to believe in. In short, atheism (non cognitivism with respect to religion) is justified.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
God does explain the universe. If there is a God (who merely acts as a first mover) existence is explained. If there is no such God, how did we get here? Under the laws of physics matter cannot be created or destroyed. How did things get set in motion? If you don’t accept God, then you have a hole. You don’t seem to mind a hole though, you say you don’t know. This turns atheism into a type of faith.
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This is untrue - You are simply saying ‘magic explains the universe’, by referring to God in this context. You are explaining precisely nothing.
It is better to say ‘I don’t know’ then to call ‘magic’ or ‘the unknown’ by the name ‘God’.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Please don’t bother arguing how great it is to have mysteries in the universe (a common atheist claim) because this is mysticism, which is a type of religion.
[/quote]
?
The fact is, the universe is mysterious. Pretending that ‘god did it’ is an answer is dishonest. Just admit that you don’t know and be on par with the Atheists.
I do want to say that your whole argument here begs the question (ie, about the creation of the universe) and hence, your belief in god is based on two logical fallacies (an appeal to ignorance - we don’t know, so god did it, being your second fallacy).
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
So there, does biblical slavery sound so terrible? Any worse than prison today? I think it sounds way better. You on the other hand, must ethically explain the Atlantic slave trade to defend your source of morality.
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Please read your bible, this is not what slaves were nor how they were treated. Let’s remember that the bible has provisions on how hard you can beat your slaves - if they survive a beating for a few days and then die, you are off the hook.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
I don’t know where you come from, but witness testimony is pretty strong in western courts. Nothing stronger that I know of. [/quote]
This is nonsense.
“Of the more than 200 people exonerated by way of DNA evidence in the US, over 75% were wrongfully convicted on the basis of erroneous eyewitness identification evidence.”
"At the same time, numerous psychological studies have shown that human beings are not very good at identifying people they saw only once for a relatively short period of time. The studies reveal error rates of as high as fifty percent â?? a frightening statistic given that many convictions may be based largely or solely on such testimony. "
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
I can use the bible as a first hand account just as easily as you can dismiss it. You have no actual evidence with which to disprove it. Besides, my argument doesn’t NEED the bible to be 100% true. 1% will do.[/quote]
If you are being honest, you cannot use the bible as first hand accounts. The majority of scholars believe that the NT Gospels were based on Mark, Mark was not a witness. Further, the bible isn’t written in a documentary way. There is no way that the disciples would have known what Pontious Pilate thought of the execution, about Jesus’s thoughts in Gesthaminy, etc, etc.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
If you ask why I mention things which don’t prove anything, it is because I am building a case based upon likelihood. If there is any likelihood whatsoever that God exists it is irrational to be an atheist, because that relies upon the presumption that there is no likelihood whatsoever.
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In order to assess likelihood you would have to know what god is, you don’t by your own admission, therefore your case faulters from the start.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
Someone trying to prove negatives has a very heavy burden upon him. Again, do not hold problems in atheist arguments against me.[/quote]
I agree that trying to prove a negative is a heavy burden - but it is not necessary to reject belief in god. Lack of rational evidence is enough, the failure of a coherent definition of what god is, is also enough.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
You’re welcome to your thoughts and opinions. Care to give us reason to believe what you are saying? [/quote]
You have not given sufficient evidence. The evidence you have given, if believed at face value, would justify a number of religions, not just yours. Further, it relies on faulty logic.
[quote]jglickfield wrote:
OK, I agree. So what? If there would be a miracle, don’t you think that the theists who don’t require miracles (such as say Einstein, Hawking, etc) would see a miracle (if it happened) as evidence of their position of theism?[/quote]
I’m saying that it’s not a simple dichotomy as you present it.
