100% lack of evidence to God

[BilliardsBall]

The books of the New Testament were chosen by people who believed that. It was one of the conditions for inclusion in the Bible. So, of course, it is 'univocal' about it.

The OT is likewise univocal.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I wish you could stand back from that and look at what you wrote. The results are the evidence. If you've tested an idea, gotten results that you like, and continued with it to sustain the benefit, you're an empiricist. You don't worship evidence like a God, which is good, but you make judgments based on it, which is also good.



Where to begin. Equivocation, or the use of vague language and the conflation of different words that sound and look alike is not relevant here. Second, no claim was made that false beliefs invalidate a true one.



Your comment is the faith-based one if you belief that mutually exclusive ideas can both be correct in the same sense at the same time. This is a violation of one of the most basic tenets of reasoning, noncontradiction. To hold a belief that flies in the face of that is faith-based, sometimes referred to as doublethink: "Doublethink is a process of indoctrination in which subjects are expected to simultaneously accept two conflicting beliefs as truth, often at odds with their own memory or sense of reality." The concept comes out of the book 1984 by Orwell, and is an example of the perversion of reason by indoctrination - political propaganda in case of the book.



There is no such thing. You want to offer your deity as a counterexample, which is believed in despite contrary evidence, but not universally. It is only believed by Christians despite contrary evidence. I have given the evidence against the deity of the Christian Bible on this site several times, but Christians so far haven't been interested in acknowledging that they read it, much less rebut it. It's the same evidence that supports the theory of evolution, which, even though it can never be enough to "prove" the theory beyond a reasonable doubt, has already falsified the claim that an honest, benevolent deity that wants to be known, believed, loved, obeyed, and worshiped created the tree of life on earth.

That evidence indisputably says otherwise. It says that if evolution is ever falsified, it will need to be replaced by deceptive intelligent designer, one that went to great pains to make it look like a process that never occurred actually had. The old evidence never goes away even if the theory does. It just needs to be reinterpreted in the light of that falsifying find to reflect an deceptive intelligent designer.

And other deities that are believed in, such as the deist deity, are also not believed in despite contrary evidence. They are believed in despite insufficient supporting evidence.

No. I wrote "Name one thing in the known universe outside religion that nearly everyone believes despite contrary evidence."

There is near-universal belief in one or more deities. Now name anything else in the known universe, as stated.

 

[BilliardsBall]

How can they all be right if they all contradict each other?

How can you be right if you contradict everyone else? Many of the religious tenets of chief importance are also near-universal.

 

[BilliardsBall]

What does this have to do with what I said?

This is what I said.

The Bible has explanations of why many people refuse to trust Jesus for salvation. It's hard to argue the Bible with you since you lack elementary knowledge of it.

 

[SkepticThinker]

How can you be right if you contradict everyone else? Many of the religious tenets of chief importance are also near-universal.

And many aren't "near-universal."
So now what?

 

[Polymath257]

That one or more gods exist. Now answer my question, please. You are unable to do so.

That their values are the best.

That their group is special.

That those who disagree with them are suspicious.

There are plenty of times when confirmation bias applies to make people think wrong things. Some biased are universal.

 

[Polymath257]

That one or more gods exist. Now answer my question, please. You are unable to do so.

And yet, they can't seem to agree on any specifics. It's always their cultural deity that exists.

Unless, if course, they don't have one.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..It's always their cultural deity that exists..

Not always .. that is how Islam & Christianity spread around the world.

 

[wandering peacefully]

And yet, they can't seem to agree on any specifics. It's always their cultural deity that exists.

Unless, if course, they don't have one.

Just comparing the Indigenous spiritual ideas which we do have actual records for for some groups, shows how vastly different the ideas of deities and their purposes are and should be enough for Abrahamics to understand that religion and gods completely originate with cultural origins and environmental factors. This isn't rocket science imo.

 

[Polymath257]

Not always .. that is how Islam & Christianity spread around the world.

Except that it was. For Christianity, it was often by co-opting local beliefs into Christianity.

For Islam, it was usually by military conquest at first. People converted when they realized that they could only advance in the new society if they adopted the ruling religion.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Except that it was. For Christianity, it was often by co-opting local beliefs into Christianity.

For Islam, it was usually by military conquest at first. People converted when they realized that they could only advance in the new society if they adopted the ruling religion.

That is your opinion or perception.

The underlying faiths remain, and while you might see it as a coincidence that those faiths are uppermost, they most surely are .. and they are global.

Naturally, you will come up with all sorts of reasons why people believe what they believe.
You are an atheist and oppose.
I know why I believe .. and that's good enough for me.

 

[night912]

The Bible has explanations of why many people refuse to trust Jesus for salvation.

Doesn't matter since according to you, those who believed and followed Jesus were wrong fewer than the ones who opposed them.

It's hard to argue the Bible with you since you lack elementary knowledge of it.

Because you were shown why your argument was fallacious using your own religious beliefs as an example, you resorted to using an ad hominem. You never saw that coming did you?

 

[Polymath257]

That is your opinion or perception.

Actually, it is supported by historic record. in Islamic societies, it became a problem to the extent that the Arab elites started to refuse to let non-believers become Moslem because that would decrease the taxes they collected and threatened their monopoly on power.

The underlying faiths remain, and while you might see it as a coincidence that those faiths are uppermost, they most surely are .. and they are global.

And my basic point is that those faiths disagree.

Naturally, you will come up with all sorts of reasons why people believe what they believe.
You are an atheist and oppose.
I know why I believe .. and that's good enough for me.

And there *are* a lot of reasons people convert. They range from true belief, to rebellion, to family pressure, to coercion by authorities, to doing so for convenience and power, etc.

But religion is *always* a way to power.

 

[muhammad_isa]

And there *are* a lot of reasons people convert. They range from true belief, to rebellion, to family pressure, to coercion by authorities, to doing so for convenience and power, etc.

..and how do you know this?
It's no more than conjecture, is it?

All you can speak for is yourself. You know why you have no interest in religion.
..just like I know why I am interested.

 

[Polymath257]

..and how do you know this?
It's no more than conjecture, is it?

It is much more than conjecture, actually.

All you can speak for is yourself. You know why you have no interest in religion.
..just like I know why I am interested.

I have talked to and watched quite a number of people, as well as reading quite a few stories as well as histories.

That's how I can tell when and why people convert. It's interesting that when a religion becomes powerful, the conversions into it tend to increase. I wonder why that would be?

And, if you notice, I do include actual belief as a reason for conversion. I would also add that belief often follows conversion.

But I also know that family is a big reason for conversion (often the requirement of a spouse or future spouse) and, of course, family is the reason for childhood belief.

No child is born believing in any religion. It has to be taught to them.

 

[BilliardsBall]

That their values are the best.

That their group is special.

That those who disagree with them are suspicious.

There are plenty of times when confirmation bias applies to make people think wrong things. Some biased are universal.

Good effort! 90-99% of people do not hold to the above all the time

" " or order their lives around such things, their finances, their marriages, their mores, etc.

 

[BilliardsBall]

And yet, they can't seem to agree on any specifics. It's always their cultural deity that exists.

Unless, if course, they don't have one.

There are near universals, including opposing forces to God inside humans and external agents! It's not "cultural deity" as much as "I'm morally accountable," so that most people when encountering moral challenges/trials/tests speak of/appeal to/think of God.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Doesn't matter since according to you, those who believed and followed Jesus were wrong fewer than the ones who opposed them.


Because you were shown why your argument was fallacious using your own religious beliefs as an example, you resorted to using an ad hominem. You never saw that coming did you?

I'd like respond but don't understand your comment, "those who believed and followed Jesus were wrong fewer than the ones who opposed them".

An ad hom is "directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining". The fact is a very new Bible reader/born again Christian would have said your question was uninformed regarding Bible knowledge. I was being factual. It IS hard to argue against skeptics since I know the Bible far better than they do or even attempt to do (general) and in your specific case, you asked a quite facile question.

 

[Polymath257]

Good effort! 90-99% of people do not hold to the above all the time

I disagree. I would say that over 90% hold to these most of the time.

" " or order their lives around such things, their finances, their marriages, their mores, etc.

They most certainly do! The marriage ceremony is cultural. The structure of the marriage itself is cultural. the way they do finances is cultural (banks are very different in some societies). Their morals are cultural (even more than they are religious).

 

[Polymath257]

There are near universals, including opposing forces to God inside humans and external agents! It's not "cultural deity" as much as "I'm morally accountable," so that most people when encountering moral challenges/trials/tests speak of/appeal to/think of God.

Unless, for example, they are Buddhist or live in a primarily atheist society. there is still moral accountability, just not to a deity.