Hmm, well I really don't know what sugar-coated word I could use that could be seen as more considerate. I consider myself lucky for being able to get out of the Christian lifestyle, as most people will not be able to. They are too far-gone in their brainwashing and so desperately need more comfortable answers when it comes to death, purpose, etc. My husband was raised strictly Mormon and was able to get out of that on his own;
I think you would be complicating the matter from a scientific/philosophical view. Instead, in a sociological context the conversation can be intelligible.
As for having "proof" that god does not exist, no, you can not 100% prove that,
I don't deny "proof" in the
traditional sense. I deny "proof" in the
Modernist sense. Of course, so did all the greatest secular philosophers of the second half of the 20th century...
All this I am doing is asking you to give "proof" for any of your claims. You don't seem to be able to move beyond mockery, as evident in other posts, and the assumption that secular humanism is somehow "neutral" or "natural." One major point of bringing up all these different philosophers and such is to demonstrate that it's only "neutral" from the provincial perspective of somehow raised with secular humanist assumptions. (Which is true of basically any American, including those raised in Christian homes.)
but it is akin to my saying that there is an invisible three-headed purple dragon in my garage.
Yes, it is certainly better to believe in god in general rather than subscribe to any conventional religion. But THERE IS NO EVIDENCE to suggest that the natural processes in which our world was brought about had anything to do with a god. I'm with the logical crowd in that no one can 100% say there isn't a creator (just as we can't 100% prove that there isn't an invisible pink unicorn who kisses me on the forehead at night), but where does the evidence point??
You are absolutely correct that the Christian God, belief and faith appear to you no different than does your "Invisible Colored Mythical Creature". There is no argument there.
But if you know you invented the invisible three-headed purple dragon (from Sagan) and so therefore know it is fake, then what you're saying is not that similar to having "proof" that god does not exist. They are different from each other. Christians didn't invent God. The credibility of your argument falls as the IPD does not share this commonality with God. Your thinking fails when you debate using a false "given". God is not akin to invisible dragons or unicorns. They have absolutely no backing.
You cannot prove that there isn't! That may sound silly, but it's true.
God cannot be compared to such things. On the one hand, we have looked through a lot of the world and never found an invisible three-headed purple dragon. However, such looking is irrelevant when it comes to the existence of God, because He is not a space-time entity. At best, this only tells us that we don't yet have good reason to believe either way. On the other hand, God is taken to be transcendental in nature. God is taken to be categorically different than all these things, because they are creatures/creations and He is taken to be the Creator. Both of these converge to say that discussing the existence of God is different from discussing whether or not there is milk in the fridge.
As far as I'm concerned, the possibility for god is virtually non-existent so it's understandable why one would just round that figure down to zero. If the Christian god actually did exist, I would want nothing to do with him based on the Bible.
While god is *a possibility* just like my pink unicorn is *a possibility*, the evidence is very highly AGAINST that being the case to the point that it is acceptable to "round down" the possibility of god to zero.
Basically what you just said is that theists haven't proven empirically that God exists. All the above claim amounts to is, "I don't agree with them." We know this, but the rhetoric isn't needed. I agree that empirical methods are legitimate, but you need to prove that we are limited to them. Or else you have no case nor accountability for this "lack of evidence."
The scientific explanations for the universe are abundant.
And, yet again, not everyone is an empiricist. You are skipping ahead. Prove empiricism, as the claim that we are limited to empirical methods, and your claim that the possibility for god is virtually non-existent according to empiricism may have some purpose.
But Christians will always have their ridiculous excuses as to why the evidence isn't good enough. It's all from the devil, they'll say, or you just got to have "faith" and leave it at that.
You'd be hard-pressed to find in the Bible a faith-evidence dichotomy, as they are not mutually exclusive.
Additionally, evidence, in the sense of being simply facts and not merely utility, cannot be faulty. They are the dots, and the dots are true, as the evidence is just the facts and facts cannot be wrong.
However, it is what we think the dots picture that is important. How we use/interpret the facts is where fault comes in. So evidence is not faulty, but conclusions you draw from evidence are faulty.
For instance, I could say that your conclusions of the following evidence, research, etc are faulty:
I was shocked upon discovering there wasn't a god, but I was backed with enough evidence, research, and common sense that I personally could not deny the facts on a godless existence even if I wanted to.
It appears to me that through most of your posts you have accounted for this proposition by the links and TUH that you have provided by appeal to authority (never mind that this is a logical fallacy.)
So your argument that the utter lack of evidence in favor of God's existence is enough proof to support atheism is basically, if we already think that atheism is right, then we can conclude that atheism is right?
This is not very convincing.
Even if your premise is correct, though, it's not just support for atheism. For instance, it could just demonstrate that God can't communicate with us, for some reason.
No one will change on this matter unless they personally have the desire to. That is to say it has to be in the fundamental nature/personality of a religious person to value deep contemplation and have the courage to admit that everything they know may be wrong.
This is a non-sequitor fallacy. The latter doesn't automatically lead to the former.
http://www.godisimaginary.com/
As for the http://www.godisimaginary.com/ link, I'm skeptical as to if visitors did anything more than skim it. Even if it's not written by Richard Dawkins, it brings up some very good points, even if you don't like it's style. The only reason I suggested it is because it presents its info in a much easier style than other sources....
when I brought up the godisimaginary link, someone accused that website of being like a "your mama" joke and I was like what?? The points brought up by these webmasters played a part in convincing this once-Christian
Their arguments don't seem very rigorous.
Honestly, the most annoying thing about it is that they are trying to use logic. All the "if... then".. The problem is that, one, they are are not very logical and two, logic doesn't
prove anything, unless you can first agree on a couple of base sentences.
For example, the statement at the end:
The only way for Jesus to prove that he is resurrected is to appear to people. Therefore, each person needs an appearance by Jesus to know that he is real.
Clasic 'if... then' statement. Does the statement prove that Jesus has to appear to people? Of course not. It could only prove that, if we all agreed that "the only way for Jesus to prove that he is resurrected is to appear to people". Now, did he successfully prove that in the article? No. What he did, was put together a bunch of Christianeese responses as a proof of assertion fallacy. Not one scholarly response in the entire document.
In my opinion, this person isn't a real apologist,
or logical. He is using quick and easy methods to try to attack Christianity.
Admittedly, I know they can bring their meat & potatoes of their belief (since it's hard to prove that which does not manifest itself regularly to sensory observation,) but just by that sentence alone the person is making the assumption that what is real is empirically verifiable, which, in the history of science has only been held (and constructed by) a small minority of naturalistic scientists. Which ironically, was created from their own "un-empirically or logically justifiable" assumptions of reality.
...These are just a few of the MANY examples of god wanting death for people who disobey.
I don't understand how believers can read this stuff plain as day and make excuses for it. Saying "that was meant for a different time" is not true because Jesus said you are not to take away any word from the law! And anyway, that kind of *bleep* should not be in a "holy" book, spoken by a "loving, just" god under ANY circumstances. And if you are in the camp that thinks such horrible verses are just metaphors or something, you are extremely ignorant. I thought you saw the Bible as an "instructions for life" and history book, no?
For non-video resources, I recommend...http://www.evilbible.com.
This site is so anxious to 'willie nilly' prove anything in the Bible wrong that it overlooks some very important things. For instance, the Old Testament is basically a history book -- it is
descriptive of what happened and what it meant for the people living through it, not
prescriptive to how God wanted things to happen or how He wants them to happen today (necessarily).
With that being said, I just kind of glanced over the whole site and it's pretty thrown together. It would be like if I read through the Koran, looking for non-literal commands and contradictions, not taking into account any cultural or religious deviance, and tried to make a website about how evil the Koran was.
read actual books by Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris on the subject (try the library if you don't want to pay for 'em).
When did this debate take place btw?
It would have been much more worthy of a debate had Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens been swapped in so that Dr. Craig didn't "win" due to a slew of cheap shots.
I encourage you to read books by Richard Dawkins or whatever you would consider "respectable" that is on the atheist side. As for me, I am still capable of recognizing intelligence and what is truly true, even when the source is from an "average" person.
Why? They are equally folly and unpropitious as their antagonists. Besides, other than political preferences, there's no good existential reason to be very interested in this particular brand of militant atheism.
http://exchristian.net/ is another good source.
This is equivalent to 'Creationist-testimonial' websites. They are no more biased than the other.
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