Faith is not evidence. This is why atheism has more of an advantage.

[tayla]

Wait, so now you're saying the Bible is not to be taken literally? Believe the Bible, but don't take it literally? Most of Christian beliefs come from it, so how can it not be taken literally.

The early Christians didn't take the Bible literally. They used it as allegories containing the truths they wanted to teach.

 

[tayla]

While Bible has historical information, most non-fundamentalist Christians and Jews consider the Bible to be a theological guide to the nature of God and his relationship with man, expressed through the modes of history, myths, songs, poems, parables and visions through the ages. All these genres exist, are intricately mixed together, and the writings are inspired by the spirit of God. However, they are infallible only on revealing the nature of God to man and the duty of man to God, and not infallible in any other sense.

Yes, most Christians don't know this.

 

[tayla]

Some folks have experiential relationships with their god or gods. So it's not scientific evidence, it anecdotal evidence. Of course one can make a much stronger case with scientific evidence. However it hard to deny a spiritual experience you've experienced for yourself.

The physical and spiritual are different domains. The scientific method guarantees knowledge and truth regarding the physical realm. There is no corresponding "spiritual" method to provide information about the spiritual realm.

The spiritual realm is lived in by the soul which experiences it moment by moment via conscious awareness and dreams and memory and emotions and etc. There is no point to pit these two realms against each other as if they are in a war.

Some don't believe in the spiritual realm and that's OK. They are living within it anyway via their subjective conscious experience. They might call consciousness an illusion or an emergent property, but so what?

 

[tayla]

The notion of Paganisms being dead is straight up wrong, and brushing off Pagan mythology as merely explanatory is not in keeping with more contemporary study of religion.

There is a YouTube Yale Course online by Christine Hayes on the Hebrew Bible. She spends one class on paganism, and has a different view than what you are proposing. I think the word pagan has different meanings and different usages at various times and places.

 

[tayla]

But many people feel faith for their own gods and spirits and such. It doesn't prove that the God we believe exist.

You can't prove anything about the spiritual realm like you can with the material physical universe using the scientific method. There is no analogous "spiritual" method.

 

[tayla]

I do not exactly blame atheists , not completely, they are not really hopeless, belief system does not come first - one forms it based on knowledge, many atheists have closed minds - they have means to overcome that knowledge draw back it just may be harder for some of them, but easier than stepping over their closed minds.

I'm not sure it's fair to say that scientific materialist atheists have closed minds. They assume materialism is all that exists and their belief system arises as a result. It's understandable they might have this belief considering that the scientific method generates provable knowledge and truth via the scientific method.

In contrast, nothing at all can be proved about the spiritual realm (which includes religion and such -- anything non-material).

 

[tayla]

Lots of everybody have closed minds.

Hardly anyone has a more closed mind than a YEC.

They will do just about anything to escape the realization that their faith is based on nonsense.

Yes. They have invented a new form of science and archaeology based on proving their view at all cost. I'm surprised anyone believes it these days.

 

[tayla]

I will always find it more correct to state that all we know is that the universe exists, and it exists with employment of the specific "laws" of functioning that we can/have discerned. Beyond that in this particular arena, we know nothing.

You should add the disclaimer that this is known based on the assumption of materialism. Science does not explain the subjective experience of consciousness except by calling it an illusion or an emergent property. Yet, consciousness clearly exists outside of the material universe in the spiritual realm.

 

[tayla]

The problem is that the Exodus can be definitively shown to be fictional, which reduces all the rest of your case to similar historical fiction and fable.

It's true that the kinds of historical errors such as the one you mention are fatal to the claims of Christianity.

 

[tayla]

if God exists then nothing created the first thing because God was the first thing.

The universe had a beginning. God has no beginning.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You should add the disclaimer that this is known based on the assumption of materialism. Science does not explain the subjective experience of consciousness except by calling it an illusion or an emergent property. Yet, consciousness clearly exists outside of the material universe in the spiritual realm.

Does it? What evidence or reason do you have for that claim? Unfortunately it can be show that physical brain damage impairs the ability to think. Consciousness appears to be a physical manifestation only in my experience.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The universe had a beginning. God has no beginning.

No, the best we can say is that the universe as we know it had a beginning. There may be a "before the Big Bang". Following the same line of logic that enable you to claim that God has no beginning we can say that the universe had no beginning. This of course does not refute the idea of a god it merely refutes the Kalam Cosmological argument.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

You should add the disclaimer that this is known based on the assumption of materialism. Science does not explain the subjective experience of consciousness except by calling it an illusion or an emergent property. Yet, consciousness clearly exists outside of the material universe in the spiritual realm.

Can you demonstrate this?

 

[Polymath257]

I don't believe in God because of a book. The evidence is "I think, therefore I am" -- my subjective experience of consciousness. It's not part of the physical material universe and, therefore, there is something more.

1. How do you know it isn't part of the material universe?

2. Even if it is, how does that prove the existence of a deity?

 

[Polymath257]

I wonder if they are using the term "argument" in the philosophical sense of the word; providing reasoned evidence. I agree that God can't be discerned via logic and reason, at least not fully. There is an intuition necessary too.

Those who assume materialism, I think, can only approach the topic via philosophical argument; they have blocked out other possibilities and options.

Such as?

 

[Polymath257]

You can't prove anything about the spiritual realm like you can with the material physical universe using the scientific method. There is no analogous "spiritual" method.

So there is not actually 'spiritual knowledge', just 'spiritual opinion', right?

 

[Polymath257]

The universe had a beginning. God has no beginning.

Prove either statement. For that matter, just prove the existence of that God that supposedly had no beginning.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

You should add the disclaimer that this is known based on the assumption of materialism. Science does not explain the subjective experience of consciousness except by calling it an illusion or an emergent property. Yet, consciousness clearly exists outside of the material universe in the spiritual realm.

Not "clearly", and there are several ideas I can offer that should give any reasonable person pause on that idea. One is that physical damage to the brain causes a degradation in the function of one's consciousness. This has happened enough times that it is proven. Another is a simple question... if consciousness is completely separate from the body and will somehow "escape" when the body stops functioning... then by what methods or using what utilities is the consciousness then able to perceive anything? The ONLY tools we have ever come across for perception of any and all stimulus are the physical ones we have at our disposal. Any answer here is complete and total speculation... which is worth nothing more than fiction.

 

[socharlie]

I'm not sure it's fair to say that scientific materialist atheists have closed minds. They assume materialism is all that exists and their belief system arises as a result. It's understandable they might have this belief considering that the scientific method generates provable knowledge and truth via the scientific method.

In contrast, nothing at all can be proved about the spiritual realm (which includes religion and such -- anything non-material).

my experience partially build up because of my connection with metaphysical realty which is a joke for a materialist, that is why I mentioned closed minds of materialism.

 

[Audie]

my experience partially build up because of my connection with metaphysical realty which is a joke for a materialist, that is why I mentioned closed minds of materialism.

Could you say what sort of connection you have with "metaphysical reality"?

One might take it that you feel your probably pointless pursuits make you some way superior, on a higher mental plane than those
closed minded people you have left so far behind. Not so?

Dont be dismissive and insulting to people who dont see it your way if you
do not want to be perceived as in the above.

Here is some metaphysics stuff. I suppose it is good sport, everyone
give it some thought, others may spend a lot of time on it.

"High above the dark streets on the 8th floor of the Acme building, one guy
is still searching for the answers to life's persistent questions. Guy Noir, Private Eye." That you?

Metaphysics aims to question the concepts of spirit science, which are related to every aspect of life. Some questions are:
What is being?

What types of objects are included in being?

Who created the being and why?

Is there any outside world beyond the human mind?

What is free will?

Does it exist?

Who created the universe and why?

Does God or the first cause exist?

If yes, then where is He and how can the being approach him?

Is He more than one? What does He want?

This stuff is not a joke, but not everybody feels a need to knock
himself out over things that will never be settled, Or even one flippin'
thing learned about them.