Ill answer on pat’s behalf. Even though I have an exam tomorrow and the day after.
Of three of the four people you have quoted only one is a philosopher. Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” misrepresents Thomas Aquinas arguments so as to set up a strawman and in addition doesn’t have rudimentary understanding of logic so as to understand what he is putting forth is a fallacy. As for Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins advancing the charge that God is such a big meanie is their best case except that they are unknowledgeable that this argument was put forward in a much more succinct manner by Epicurus called the problem of evil and variants of it. Too bad the logical and evidential versions have been defeated.[/quote]
Have you read the God Delusion? There’s a LOT more to that book than just “Yawhweh is a meanie.”
And there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the existence of god.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
No he isn’t a deist but what the argument does give you is that there is one being from which everything else derives its existence. The explanation for why a contingent thing exist is that this being has a will that chose to bring it into existence and is not some abstract object. Why the Christian God instead of a deistic God who set the universe in motion and left it to its own devices. Well I guess Pat would also put forth the moral argument where goodness is embodied in the being of God, the ontological argument which covers a huge swath of his properties and perfections etc… which rules out all other Gods but the Christian one and finally it would rest on Jesus Christ, how he tied all of these things together, his impact on history and personal experience. [/quote]
Wait why would goodness be embodied in the being of god? How can you assume god is moral?
The ontological argument? You got to be kidding me.
In this argument, existence is given as one of God’s attributes as part of the definition: if X is God, then X has the property of existence. This is logically equivalent to “if X does not exist, then X is not God.” It does not prove that there are any entities that actually match the definition.
Existence can hardly ever be considered an attribute, as something nonexistent cannot have attributes. Therefore, making conclusions about existence of an entity based on its properties is not logically sound. In short, this argument boils down to “show me a god, and I’ll show you an existing god.” It is a form of circular reasoning because the existence is built into the assumptions.
Here are some examples of this proof that highlight the fallacy.
Unicorns:
Let us define a unicorn as a magical equine being that has one horn, and that exists.
By that definition, such a being must necessarily exist.
Therefore unicorns exist.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
You posted a video of Dennett, here is a critic of him where Dennett answers.
Sorry if I won’t be able to answer sufficiently well until Wednesday.[/quote]
You know I just watched a WLC debate and he uses some fallacies himself
He keeps asking “How do you know atheism is true?” which makes no sense since it’s just a position of doubt and makes no claims.
He also talks about the historicity of jesus as it’s conclusive, when it’s actually very sketchy. There’s no extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus. And don’t bring up Josephus because that was a forgery.
Lastly he uses the fine tuning argument which is also flawed.
No he isn’t a deist but what the argument does give you is that there is one being from which everything else derives its existence. The explanation for why a contingent thing exist is that this being has a will that chose to bring it into existence and is not some abstract object. Why the Christian God instead of a deistic God who set the universe in motion and left it to its own devices. Well I guess Pat would also put forth the moral argument where goodness is embodied in the being of God, the ontological argument which covers a huge swath of his properties and perfections etc… which rules out all other Gods but the Christian one and finally it would rest on Jesus Christ, how he tied all of these things together, his impact on history and personal experience. [/quote]
Wait why would goodness be embodied in the being of god? How can you assume god is moral?
The ontological argument? You got to be kidding me.
[/quote]
I said goodness can only be embodied by a person or being. Imagine the earth with no life on it at all, would tornadoes, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions cause any moral violence? Abstract objects are not the sort of thing that can be or embody goodness.
Secondly if you parodied the argument in that fashion it means you do not even understand it, I have nothing to respond to this atrocity of a parody except to read up on what the argument actually says.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
You posted a video of Dennett, here is a critic of him where Dennett answers.
Sorry if I won’t be able to answer sufficiently well until Wednesday.[/quote]
You know I just watched a WLC debate and he uses some fallacies himself
He keeps asking “How do you know atheism is true?” which makes no sense since it’s just a position of doubt and makes no claims.
He also talks about the historicity of jesus as it’s conclusive, when it’s actually very sketchy. There’s no extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus. And don’t bring up Josephus because that was a forgery.
Lastly he uses the fine tuning argument which is also flawed.
[/quote]
He is using the word atheism in its traditional definition which is where one holds the proposition God exists to be false regardless if they hold it tentatively or more certain. It has this definition in philosophic encyclopedias and dictionaries.
It has been only recently where the new atheist have tried to redefine it as a psychological state as an absence of belief. Well that’s great except it has nothing to do with the truth value of the statement does God exists. On this redefinition I can be a-cauchy schwarz theoremimst but instead of proposing that the theorem does not follow from the Euclid postulates and is therefore false I just have a physiological state in which I don’t believe its true which has nothing to do with its truth value.
Well first of all there is extra biblical evidence for the historicity of Jesus, but the more important historical consideration is why the bias against the biblical sources themselves? You know the the new testament wasn’t originally just one book but was the product of several of the best sources that go back the closest to the life of Jesus with the books themselves being composed of sources that go back even further than any history of the time. It is only proper historical methodology that we prefer sources that go back earlier than second hand hearsay. So before you complain about extra-bibical evidence give a good argument for why we should ignore the best sources we have for Jesus.
p.s. just spouting that the Josephus mention of Jesus is a forgery therefore we should just ignore it is really weak. What is not in doubt is that he mentioned Jesus because he also speaks of James the head of the Jerusalem church being stoned who was the brother of Jesus but rather what is in dispute is what he has to say about Jesus being the messiah in the “Testimonium Flavianum”, not whether he was crucified by Pontius Pilate. Josephus also makes mention of John the Baptist.
Saying that there are flaws with it is different than pointing out the flaws, whats wrong with it.
Edit: I may not be able to answer you as I would like until Wednesday I have a physical chemistry II exam tomorrow morning and a biochemistry II exam the day after.
He is using the word atheism in its traditional definition which is where one holds the proposition God exists to be false regardless if they hold it tentatively or more certain. It has this definition in philosophic encyclopedias and dictionaries.
It has been only recently where the new atheist have tried to redefine it as a psychological state as an absence of belief. Well that’s great except it has nothing to do with the truth value of the statement does God exists. On this redefinition I can be a-cauchy schwarz theoremimst but instead of proposing that the theorem does not follow from the Euclid postulates and is therefore false I just have a physiological state in which I don’t believe its true which has nothing to do with its truth value.[/quote]
Definitions of atheism have been around for a while.
He makes an argument against “positive” or “strong” atheism and ignores most people’s position of weak atheism while talking about it on the whole.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Well first of all there is extra biblical evidence for the historicity of Jesus,[/quote]
Please share
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
but the more important historical consideration is why the bias against the biblical sources themselves? [/quote]
Because it gets several things that have proved to be wrong. Even if you do accept it as a historical document, there is no extra-biblical evidence for the supernatural claims made by the bible.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
You know the the new testament wasn’t originally just one book but was the product of several of the best sources that go back the closest to the life of Jesus with the books themselves being composed of sources that go back even further than any history of the time. It is only proper historical methodology that we prefer sources that go back earlier than second hand hearsay. So before you complain about extra-bibical evidence give a good argument for why we should ignore the best sources we have for Jesus. [/quote]
I’ve been over this with pat already. Let me give you an example. Plato’s existence is also doubted and we aren’t even sure if he actually existed. But you know what? It doesn’t really matter in the large scheme of things because whether he existed or not doesn’t affect my life. Jesus and evidence of his divinity on the other hand literally effects EVERYTHING.
The Bible Cannon makes supernatural claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Are you honestly willing to believe Jesus existed and was divine based on 2nd hand textual accounts by people of a very ignorant time in human history?
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
p.s. just spouting that the Josephus mention of Jesus is a forgery therefore we should just ignore it is really weak. What is not in doubt is that he mentioned Jesus because he also speaks of James the head of the Jerusalem church being stoned who was the brother of Jesus but rather what is in dispute is what he has to say about Jesus being the messiah in the “Testimonium Flavianum”, not whether he was crucified by Pontius Pilate. Josephus also makes mention of John the Baptist.
Saying that there are flaws with it is different than pointing out the flaws, whats wrong with it.
[/quote]
The authenticity of this document is hotly disputed, it is far from credible. That’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars. Jesus is literally mentioned in ONE paragraph. Secondly, don’t you find it a little odd Josephus remained a Jew even after knowing and apparently confirming Jesus’s divinity? Kinda weird huh?
The mention of John the Baptist doesn’t matter, since he was not a supernatural being.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Edit: I may not be able to answer you as I would like until Wednesday I have a physical chemistry II exam tomorrow morning and a biochemistry II exam the day after.[/quote]
The authenticity of this document is hotly disputed, it is far from credible. That’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars. Jesus is literally mentioned in ONE paragraph. Secondly, don’t you find it a little odd Josephus remained a Jew even after knowing and apparently confirming Jesus’s divinity? Kinda weird huh?
The mention of John the Baptist doesn’t matter, since he was not a supernatural being.
"The authenticity of this document is hotly disputed, it is far from credible. That’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars. Jesus is literally mentioned in ONE paragraph. Secondly, don’t you find it a little odd Josephus remained a Jew even after knowing and apparently confirming Jesus’s divinity? Kinda weird huh?
The mention of John the Baptist doesn’t matter, since he was not a supernatural being. "
Three quick points.
Saying, “that’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars” is not an argument. That’s not how scholarship works; I know, because I am in graduate school studying Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins. The difference between a scholar (especially in the humanities) and the average person is that a scholar’s opinion is supposed to derive from actual engagement with the subject matter. His or her opinion is, in other words, an educated opinion. It doesn’t make it authoritative. Scholars can be just as biased and petty as the average person.
The vast majority of scholars, both conservative Christians and diehard secularists, agree that the reference to “James the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ” is authentic. As far as the Testimonium Flavianum is concerned, most secular and Christian scholars agree that an original passage mentioning Jesus and his crucifixion had further expansions added to it later on. The evidence suggest that Josephus certainly knew of Jesus, though the part where he confirms Jesus’ messianic status is an interpolation. This is a good example of why we need to familiarize ourselves with evidence rather than just talk about what we hear other people saying (even scholars). “The authenticity of this document” is not in question; the authenticity of a portion of this passage (NOT the passage that mentions James and Jesus together) is in question.
THe mention of John the Baptist does matter because it confirms several aspects of the time line of Jesus’ life and ministry as reflected in the gospels. In other words, it shows that there is a degree of historical accuracy to the gospels in terms of chronology. It doesn’t prove that Jesus was the Messiah or God or anything else; it does suggest that he did exist. After all, we wouldn’t know that John the Baptist existed aside from the mention of him in Josephus and in the gospels.
You don’t automatically have to believe that Jesus was God just because he is mentioned in Josephus, but it doesn’t make much sense to attack the historicity of a man named Jesus’ existence.
Saying, “that’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars” is not an argument. That’s not how scholarship works; I know, because I am in graduate school studying Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins. The difference between a scholar (especially in the humanities) and the average person is that a scholar’s opinion is supposed to derive from actual engagement with the subject matter. His or her opinion is, in other words, an educated opinion. It doesn’t make it authoritative. Scholars can be just as biased and petty as the average person.[/quote]
Sure. We tend to rely on educated opinion all throughout society - Doctors, lawyers, scientist for a reason. They are generally closer to the actual truth than the average person. I am not claiming they know with absolute certainty.
Also please learn to use the quote function.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
The vast majority of scholars, both conservative Christians and diehard secularists, agree that the reference to “James the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ” is authentic. As far as the Testimonium Flavianum is concerned, most secular and Christian scholars agree that an original passage mentioning Jesus and his crucifixion had further expansions added to it later on. The evidence suggest that Josephus certainly knew of Jesus, though the part where he confirms Jesus’ messianic status is an interpolation. This is a good example of why we need to familiarize ourselves with evidence rather than just talk about what we hear other people saying (even scholars). “The authenticity of this document” is not in question; the authenticity of a portion of this passage (NOT the passage that mentions James and Jesus together) is in question.[/quote]
You’re nitpicking at what I wrote. My point was that it doesn’t add to the evidence that Jesus was divine. I’ve said this before. I think Jesus probably DID exist, was ahead of his time morally but had tons of mythical aspects added to his life.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
THe mention of John the Baptist does matter because it confirms several aspects of the time line of Jesus’ life and ministry as reflected in the gospels. In other words, it shows that there is a degree of historical accuracy to the gospels in terms of chronology. It doesn’t prove that Jesus was the Messiah or God or anything else; it does suggest that he did exist. After all, we wouldn’t know that John the Baptist existed aside from the mention of him in Josephus and in the gospels.
You don’t automatically have to believe that Jesus was God just because he is mentioned in Josephus, but it doesn’t make much sense to attack the historicity of a man named Jesus’ existence.[/quote]
As I said I’m not saying he didn’t exist. I’m saying you don’t have to enough evidence to say he did exist. Big difference.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
"The authenticity of this document is hotly disputed, it is far from credible. That’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars. Jesus is literally mentioned in ONE paragraph. Secondly, don’t you find it a little odd Josephus remained a Jew even after knowing and apparently confirming Jesus’s divinity? Kinda weird huh?
The mention of John the Baptist doesn’t matter, since he was not a supernatural being. "
Three quick points.
Saying, “that’s not my opinion, it’s of scholars” is not an argument. That’s not how scholarship works; I know, because I am in graduate school studying Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins. The difference between a scholar (especially in the humanities) and the average person is that a scholar’s opinion is supposed to derive from actual engagement with the subject matter. His or her opinion is, in other words, an educated opinion. It doesn’t make it authoritative. Scholars can be just as biased and petty as the average person.
The vast majority of scholars, both conservative Christians and diehard secularists, agree that the reference to “James the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ” is authentic. As far as the Testimonium Flavianum is concerned, most secular and Christian scholars agree that an original passage mentioning Jesus and his crucifixion had further expansions added to it later on. The evidence suggest that Josephus certainly knew of Jesus, though the part where he confirms Jesus’ messianic status is an interpolation. This is a good example of why we need to familiarize ourselves with evidence rather than just talk about what we hear other people saying (even scholars). “The authenticity of this document” is not in question; the authenticity of a portion of this passage (NOT the passage that mentions James and Jesus together) is in question.
THe mention of John the Baptist does matter because it confirms several aspects of the time line of Jesus’ life and ministry as reflected in the gospels. In other words, it shows that there is a degree of historical accuracy to the gospels in terms of chronology. It doesn’t prove that Jesus was the Messiah or God or anything else; it does suggest that he did exist. After all, we wouldn’t know that John the Baptist existed aside from the mention of him in Josephus and in the gospels.
You don’t automatically have to believe that Jesus was God just because he is mentioned in Josephus, but it doesn’t make much sense to attack the historicity of a man named Jesus’ existence.[/quote]
Thanks for the response king kai, I was typing something up similar but it disappeared. I also typed up a response that deals with the bias against the 27 document that were complied in the new testament vs other documents.
I’ll answer on pat’s behalf. Even though I have an exam tomorrow and the day after.
Of three of the four people you have quoted only one is a philosopher. Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” misrepresents Thomas Aquinas arguments so as to set up a strawman and in addition doesn’t have rudimentary understanding of logic so as to understand what he is putting forth is a fallacy.[/quote]
False. You’re going to have to show me how Dawkins “misrepresents” Aquinas’s so called proofs. From what I see, he attacks Aquinas’s arguments at face value, and does a great job of slaughtering them. In addition, he goes on to dismantle many other “proofs”.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
As for Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins advancing the charge that God is such a big meanie is their best case except that they are unknowledgeable that this argument was put forward in a much more succinct manner by Epicurus called the problem of evil and variants of it. Too bad the logical and evidential versions have been defeated. [/quote]
I’m well aware of Epicurus’s problem of evil; again, show me where Epicurus was flawed in his questions and problem of evil.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
As for Daniel Dennet though he has a better grasp on logic attacks a teleological argument that isn’t currently defended by theist. He would have to attack the one by Robbin Collins since all of the universal constants are preloaded in the beginning of our contingent existence. I can understand Pat’s frustration when promulgating straw men and fallacies from these men.
No he isn’t a deist but what the argument does give you is that there is one being from which everything else derives its existence. The explanation for why a contingent thing exist is that this being has a will that chose to bring it into existence and is not some abstract object.[/quote]
The contingency argument falls flat in that it’s a faith based argument, no way around that. Contingency relies on selective regression (I’ve already stated this), in that you have to invoke god to bring that regression to an end. Believers always argue at this point that “god always existed”; well…no.
Again…who created god? Nothing? So you’re saying that something CAN exist from nothing?
I’ll say it again, even if we could make the huge leap of faith and say that there must be a creator, of which we have no reason to, then we still have zero reason to ascribe this creator with the qualities normally given to "god’, there’s just no reason to…not one. Making the leap to deism is quite a large leap, but making the leap from deism to theism is gigantic, and requires a whole lot of faith.
I’d have more respect for believers if they’d just admit that there’s no evidence for god’s existence, but choose to believe anyway. To me, that’d be the genuine faith they claim to possess. But don’t go around trying to make a logical argument for a mythical figure, and hijacking science along the way. That just makes believers look foolish.
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
Why the Christian God instead of a deistic God who set the universe in motion and left it to its own devices. Well I guess Pat would also put forth the moral argument where goodness is embodied in the being of God, the ontological argument which covers a huge swath of his properties and perfections etc… which rules out all other Gods but the Christian one and finally it would rest on Jesus Christ, how he tied all of these things together, his impact on history and personal experience.[/quote]
This ^^^ is an argument? If what I see around me is the creation of a “good and moral god”, then I’m going to have to adjust my perception of those qualities. Good grief.
It would be funny to watch all of the religions of the world try to make the claim that there’s is the one true religion, if they weren’t so willing to murder, maim, and torture to prove it.
No he isn’t a deist but what the argument does give you is that there is one being from which everything else derives its existence. The explanation for why a contingent thing exist is that this being has a will that chose to bring it into existence and is not some abstract object. Why the Christian God instead of a deistic God who set the universe in motion and left it to its own devices. Well I guess Pat would also put forth the moral argument where goodness is embodied in the being of God, the ontological argument which covers a huge swath of his properties and perfections etc… which rules out all other Gods but the Christian one and finally it would rest on Jesus Christ, how he tied all of these things together, his impact on history and personal experience. [/quote]
Wait why would goodness be embodied in the being of god? How can you assume god is moral?
The ontological argument? You got to be kidding me.
[/quote]
I said goodness can only be embodied by a person or being. Imagine the earth with no life on it at all, would tornadoes, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions cause any moral violence? Abstract objects are not the sort of thing that can be or embody goodness.
Secondly if you parodied the argument in that fashion it means you do not even understand it, I have nothing to respond to this atrocity of a parody except to read up on what the argument actually says.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
You posted a video of Dennett, here is a critic of him where Dennett answers.
Sorry if I won’t be able to answer sufficiently well until Wednesday.[/quote]
You know I just watched a WLC debate and he uses some fallacies himself
He keeps asking “How do you know atheism is true?” which makes no sense since it’s just a position of doubt and makes no claims.
He also talks about the historicity of jesus as it’s conclusive, when it’s actually very sketchy. There’s no extra-biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus. And don’t bring up Josephus because that was a forgery.
Lastly he uses the fine tuning argument which is also flawed.
[/quote]
He is using the word atheism in its traditional definition which is where one holds the proposition God exists to be false regardless if they hold it tentatively or more certain. It has this definition in philosophic encyclopedias and dictionaries.
It has been only recently where the new atheist have tried to redefine it as a psychological state as an absence of belief. Well that’s great except it has nothing to do with the truth value of the statement does God exists. On this redefinition I can be a-cauchy schwarz theoremimst but instead of proposing that the theorem does not follow from the Euclid postulates and is therefore false I just have a physiological state in which I don’t believe its true which has nothing to do with its truth value.
Well first of all there is extra biblical evidence for the historicity of Jesus, but the more important historical consideration is why the bias against the biblical sources themselves? You know the the new testament wasn’t originally just one book but was the product of several of the best sources that go back the closest to the life of Jesus with the books themselves being composed of sources that go back even further than any history of the time. It is only proper historical methodology that we prefer sources that go back earlier than second hand hearsay. So before you complain about extra-bibical evidence give a good argument for why we should ignore the best sources we have for Jesus.
p.s. just spouting that the Josephus mention of Jesus is a forgery therefore we should just ignore it is really weak. What is not in doubt is that he mentioned Jesus because he also speaks of James the head of the Jerusalem church being stoned who was the brother of Jesus but rather what is in dispute is what he has to say about Jesus being the messiah in the “Testimonium Flavianum”, not whether he was crucified by Pontius Pilate. Josephus also makes mention of John the Baptist.
Saying that there are flaws with it is different than pointing out the flaws, whats wrong with it.
Edit: I may not be able to answer you as I would like until Wednesday I have a physical chemistry II exam tomorrow morning and a biochemistry II exam the day after.[/quote]
I would address this, but the rajraj did a well enough job already.
[quote]pat wrote:
Dan and his faulty reasoning against the ‘Intelligent design’ model can suck my dick. [/quote]
Nothing says “debate over”, quite like offers of fellatio.
And you accuse me of being emotive!? LOL[/quote]
You got me there, I can be and am sometimes emotive, but it’s not the basis for my faith or the logic that backs it up. Rather than picking up on people who have an axe to grind with something, you need to go to sources that are without bias, that don’t have a horse in the race. People who know the subject matter rather than interested in an opinion piece.[/quote]
The atheist thinkers and authors in which I’ve read, I assure you, have a great understanding of MANY of the versions of the bible. I would also say that they have a great understanding of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, etc.; not just of Christianity. I would also bet that their knowledge of what’s written in the holy books of the worlds religions is of a greater understanding than 99% of the believers out their who subscribe to these religions.
These authors are not merely writing “opinion pieces”, as you say, but offer a genuine criticism for religions of all stripes, and an intelligent rebuttal to the false notion that we have any reason to believe that there’s a god.
[/quote]
If you are quoting them accurately, then sorry, it’s sounds like they are hopelessly full of shit. They may have convinced you of their expertise, but it stops there.
You see it for what you want it to be not for what it is…We are the janitors of the world. The people you don’t give a fuck about, who eat the food we throw out and live in shit, it’s us that take care of them. It’s us that see them as greater then their situation. You’d rather just slough them off to the government to take care of so they don’t get in your way.
You view is very convenient for the well to do.
You are right and wrong about atheism not being a religion. You put no faith in that which is beyond your senses, but it’s a religion of self. Hardly sensible in my opinion.
Not selective regression. The exercise of regression ends in a necessity. There’s nothing I can do about that. It’s logic in it’s purest form and has little to do with faith. If think it’s wrong, prove it wrong. Don’t presume to tell me I have arrived at certain conclusions on a selective set with out evidence. So if my regression execise was selective, show me how exactly. Show me that ‘other’ regression?
I didn’t say ‘I don’t care if the bible is wrong’ I said it doesn’t have to be right for God to exist. That’s way different. My mere contention is that if God does not exist, then talking about the validity of the bible is pointless because none of it is, in the absence of God.
If you’re a theist, as you claim to be, then it will be very important for you to make a claim to a god resembling that which is found in the bible. A god that knows who you are, listens to your prayers, cares what food you stuff into your grocery hole, cares if you’ve confessed in the proper manner, cares who you go to bed with and what position you use with that partner, and even what you’re thinking (of which you may or may not be convicted of and sent to hell). To be a theist, you have to believe in these ridiculous claims; good luck with that.
I can be use whatever works under a circumstance to make a point. Theism, Deism are just means to an end, not an end in itself. Deistic arguments just happen to work very well against atheism.
If Hitchens said that, then he’s wrong. The jump can be made because the argument necessitates that said Prime Mover has ‘God like’ attributes. The idea that you can’t get a ‘Christian God’ out of the argument is a misunderstanding of God and the argument itself. First error is God isn’t Christian, nor is he a ‘Christian creation’. Christianity is a means to interact with God. Religions may or may not know something about God, but they do claim worship of the Creator, the Creator and the Necessary Being must be the same as you cannot have 2 or more creators by necessity. It’s an inference, but a damn strong one. And it’s only an inference because you have to know something about God to draw the conclusion, where as cosmology deduces it.
You certainly are riding on an awful lot of faith in that. Second, you cannot argue everything in the bible is pure fiction, because it’s not. There are indeed facts in the bible that are true.
I am aware of the burden of proof and have more than satisfied it. You cannot claim that you have nothing to prove when their is an unrefuted argument on the table. Once the burden has been fulfilled, you have to prove it wrong. That’s how this whole burden of proof thing works.
But again, he’s not ‘my God’, I didn’t invent him nor does he belong to me, nor did I make any such claim.
Ill answer on pat’s behalf. Even though I have an exam tomorrow and the day after.
Of three of the four people you have quoted only one is a philosopher. Richard Dawkins in his book “The God Delusion” misrepresents Thomas Aquinas arguments so as to set up a strawman and in addition doesn’t have rudimentary understanding of logic so as to understand what he is putting forth is a fallacy. As for Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins advancing the charge that God is such a big meanie is their best case except that they are unknowledgeable that this argument was put forward in a much more succinct manner by Epicurus called the problem of evil and variants of it. Too bad the logical and evidential versions have been defeated.[/quote]
Have you read the God Delusion? There’s a LOT more to that book than just “Yawhweh is a meanie.”
And there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the existence of god.
[/quote]
It would be interesting to see how someone would fit ‘God’ in to the tiny empirical box of the scientific method.
Second, you can put any substance of scientific expression in to a chain of regression that always ends up at the same place. All that exists, indeed all of existence is subject to cosmological regression. You can do either temporal or substantive regression, it doesn’t really matter…It’s very flexible.
You have to have a strong grasp on metaphysics to get it. I didn’t get it at first, until I got that material understanding ends at some point. Ontology, in the end is still a regression based argument. To understand it, means you have damn good grasp of the crude limits of our senses and epistemology.
That is incorrect. Existence is an attribute, your thinking of physical existence only. From the ontological point of view the understanding of Unicorns includes that understanding that it is a human creation, not a necessary creation pointed to by it’s known attributes. So in ontology, yes unicorns exist as a human mental construct and not known by any other source. So, under ontology, the existence of the unicorn is based on the fact that it’s a mental construct. Where as in the deep-field in ontology, those designations drop as physical existence is not a factor. Metaphysical existence is still existence. In reality, metaphysics is in control. Everything that physically exists, is beholden to laws and rules that guide it’s bbehavior, but are not of a material nature. Metaphysics, owes physical existence.
Often the case of science is to try and find out what metaphysical properties are in place for a particular object. Material, does what it’s programmed to do. Just look at anything in the universe. It always follows the rules and always will. It’s that fact that allows us to make scientific predictions.
The Josephus entry was not ‘proven’ to be a forgery. It’s a possibility along with any of his works. This one just happens to be the one people give the most damn about. Second, you’ll be hard pressed to find a historian who doesn’t believe Jesus actually existed.
You may not think he is who he said he was, but a totally fictitious character with no real basis is not likely to have an influence on history the likes of Jesus. The whole world changed after his death and that is a historical fact.
