Is it Reasonable to Compare Gods with Bigfoot, Fairies, Unicorns, and Leprechauns?

[Trailblazer]

Well, there's a slam at Christianity if I've ever seen one!

I just call an ace an ace and a spade a spade. I could say more but that would get me in trouble with the staff.

Do you not suppose that Christians can take what "teaching" they like from the resurrection?

What teaching? I see no teaching, just a fictional story men wrote.

Moreover, do you not see that while you think the Jonah story has a moral lesson to teach, Christians see the story as a forshadowing of their own end? Because, Jonah cried out from the belly of the "great fish" (it wasn't a whale) and the Lord saved him, and Jesus cried out from the Cross, and the Lord saved him. And Christians can likewise cry out from the belly of their own iniquity -- and shall the Lord not save them?

Frankly, I don't care what Christians see. I have my own religion so I interpret the Bible from my own perspective.
How many Christians do you think interpret the Jonah story the same way? Some believe it is fictional and others believe it really happened.

(My goodness, I'm sounding like one myself. But, hey Christians, don't think I don't understand the imagery.)

and I am starting to sound like an atheist.

 

[Riders]

Faeries and Leprechauns are magical, correct?

 

[ratiocinator]

Dude, you aren't up to this conversation.

Running away so soon?

Look, you understand the relevant difference between real and fictional in your day-to-day life, otherwise you'd simply not survive. You know where the shops are in reality and when you go to buy stuff, you go to their real location, not to some mythical or fictional one. You understand how much money is really in your bank account and you spend that, you don't use a fictional balance.

Your utterly absurd attempt to blur the difference don't hold water because, just like everybody else, you are forced to live your life according to what is real.

You can run away from my posts but you can't run away from what is real in the sense being discussed here...

 

[joelr]

I’m not sure why such an adverse reaction towards a simple answer to the poster

It's a reaction to sweeping generalizations about people with certain beliefs.

Yes and continue to do so.

What historical scholars are you currently studying? Not my business but you did accuse someone of not digging. It's not really digging if you just read apologetics over and over. Which I do subject myself to. Notably Mike Licona and Johnathan Sheffield.

I’m not sure how this applies to the post. Are you asking for a certain historical knowledge?

No but you are accusing someone of not digging and I get the impression you don't study the historical knowledge of your religion. Which is fine, but you can't tell others they are not digging and then not dig yourself.

I’m sorry it came across that way. Certainly wasn’t attempting to do so.

That is a bit hard to believe -

Of course there is the catchall phrase of Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns and Spaghetti Monster because they really don’t care and don’t really want to delve deeper. Perhaps because they won’t like what they would see in themselves if they looked? Perhaps because they love darkness more than having their lives in the light? Perhaps because of horrible things that have happened in their lives and they blame God by denying HIs existence?

Those "perhaps" sound rhetorical, this is a judgment. No?

I’m not sure how this applies to the post. YAHWEH, according to my signature, was from the beginning. It would stand to logic that it would have some semblance in all religions (in lieu of my signature)

Well he wasn't. He was a subordinate of EL who was the supreme Canaanite deity. An early Hebrew version of Deuteronomy
"When Elyon gave the nations as an inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God (bny 'l[hym]). For Yahweh's portion was his people; Jacob was the lot of his inheritance".

But in this time Gods were all part of a pantheon, they didn't exist alone yet.

If you go back before Canaanite religion there are far older gods but they are certainly not Yahweh.

A hymn to Inana by Enheduana is a completely different type of theology than late Hebrew ideas about God. Early Hebrew worship included a consort to Yahweh, Ashera. Thousands of Ashera idols are found at temple digs as well as other goddess imagery. None of this tracks with all ideas of God being the same. It does track with made up ideas of god changed over time.

As it changed in the NT with adding Hellenistic concepts.


But how does it apply? I'm digging. A PhD in early Hebrew Bible literature.
Francesca Stavrakopoulou , God: An Anatomy, her new book goes over some of this.

I’m sorry… not sure of the relevance. Another subject and thread?

The relevance is I mention Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns and Spaghetti Monster sometimes as a comparison, and that is a historical study on the NT I just read. You made a sweeping generalization, I'm saying it's not always true. But it might be a little true in reverse.

I find that to be opinions and personal interpretations.

Perfect, this makes my point. You don't know. How do you know Hebrew theology? You read scripture. Do you know how we know Hellenistic theology? Same. Hellenism goes back to around 300 BC, there are multiple ways to date these religions, dating techniques, historians of the time mention them, they mention current events, even Justin Martyr confirmed they pre-dated Jesus and were extremely similar. They happened in centuries before Christianity and the NT ideas are imported from Greek theology.

The NT moves away from OT theology and uses all Hellenism and Platonic philosophy.


Death & Afterlife: Do Christians Follow Plato rather than Jesus or Paul?

Dr James Tabor

this video is all timestamped but this is for just this - the basic comparison between the two.


47:15 Hellenistic Greek view of cosmology


Material world/body is a prison of the soul


Humans are immortal souls, fallen into the darkness of the lower world


Death sets the soul free


No human history, just a cycle of birth, death, rebirth


Immortality is inherent for all humans


Salvation is escape to Heaven, the true home of the immortal soul


Humans are fallen and misplaced


Death is a stripping of the body so the soul can be free


Death is a liberating friend to be welcomed


Asceticism is the moral idea for the soul





49:35 Genesis view


Creation/body very good, procreation good


Humans are “living breathers”, akin to animals, mortal, dust of the earth


Death is dark silent “sleeping in the dust”


Human history moves toward a perfected new age/creation


Salvation is eternal life in the perfected world of the new creation


Humans belong on earth


Resurrection brings a new transformed glorious spiritual body


Death is an enemy


Physical life and sensory pleasures are good


There are many scholarly works that cover sources such as:

The Religious Context of Early Christianity
A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions
HANS-JOSEF KLAUCK

or you can read it in a respected old-school Christian work,

Encyclopaedia Biblica : a critical dictionary of the literary, political, and religious history, the archaeology, geography, and natural history of the Bible
by Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly), 1841-1915; Black, J. Sutherland (John Sutherland), 1846-1923


"We must conclude with the following guarded thesis. There is in the circle of ideas in the NT, in addition to what is new, and what is taken over from Judaism, much that is Greek ; but whether this is adopted directly from the Greek or borrowed from the Alexandrians, who indeed aimed at a complete fusion of Hellenism and Judaism, is, in the most important cases, not to be determined ; and primitive Christianity as a whole stands considerably nearer to the Hebrew world than to the Greek."

So this is obviously an apologetic work and they are not going to admit it's taken from Hellenism, even that they said this speaks volumes.

It isn't an opinion or interpretation, you were just never told about this. In Jesus Interrupted, Bart Ehrman talks about how in seminary schools it's touched on in history classes but NEVER spoken about again by the students who graduate to become church leaders. He's done lectures at churches of students he graduated with and members often ask him why they are not told these different facts. It doesn't make sense to shake up the beliefs of a congregation but what's told to people doesn't represent the entire truth.

So beautiful. I pray that God would indeed shine His light on you. We (Christians) understand He is the light of the world and there is no darkness in Him.

No, that is wrong.
[7] I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

I would argue there is quite a bit of darkness in the OT. But yes, I understand the Platonic view of God that emerged and was again revised in some Christian churches seems to focus on light and love. That doesn't track with the Bible.

 

[PureX]

Rubbish! The word "real" in the context used means nothing more difficult than "actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed."

And all of those entities actually exist as a thing occurring in fact, and there is a ton of evidence to support this. Not in your biased presumption, of course, but in actual fact. The problem with running to a dictionary to try and back up your biased claims is that all the dictionary does is document our use and misuse of words. It tells us very little about the actual accuracy or logic of their use. So it's like pointing to the idiot next to you and saying "well HE says so!"

Those who wish to establish as "real" something to which they are emotionally attached are left with the challenge of demonstrating that existence or factual occurrence.

Emotion has nothing to do with anything.

Something which -- as we see all too often, they are unwilling (or perhaps unable) to do.

Yes, I'm seeing this right before my eyes. The unwillingness to consider or clarify what you think it means to exist, and not to exist, and why you think so. Instead, you want to pretend your own unconsidered bias is somehow universal ("see, those idiots thinks so, too!"), regardless of the facts and the evidence thatclearly contradict it. All the while imagining yourself to be such some sort of superior critical thinker.

We're done here.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Even the dumbest of us can do that.

I don't think it's fair to drag me into this exchange.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Faeries and Leprechauns are magical, correct?

The only thing I would have to base this on is a box of cereal.

 

[joelr]

You mean these ones?:

How Paul Created Christianity--His [Mis]Appropriation of Four Hebrew Bible Texts

James Tabor

Dead Messiahs who don't return.

Right?

Regards

More specific:

Death & Afterlife: Do Christians Follow Plato rather than Jesus or Paul?

In this ninth of my series on" Death, Afterlife, and the Future," I consider the thesis of the late great Oscar Cullmann who argued that Christianity--ancien...

www.youtube.com

Death and Afterlife: The Origins of the Idea of Bodily Resurrection

In Part VI of my series on Death and Afterlife in the Ancient Western World, I turn to the question of how, when, and where the ideas of a bodily "Resurrecti...

www.youtube.com

papers on his site

Publications & Papers – TaborBlog

jamestabor.com

He also mentions this by J.Z. Smith the top scholar on Hellenism, did a piece for Britannica and he says it gives a really good overview.
I was sourcing this in the past but glad to hear he signs off on it.

Hellenistic religion | Ancient Greek Gods, Rituals & Beliefs | Britannica

Hellenistic religion, any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of eastern Mediterranean peoples from 300 bc to ad 300. The period of Hellenistic influence, when taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most creative periods in the history of religions. It was a time of spiritual

www.britannica.com

 

[ratiocinator]

The unwillingness to consider or clarify what you think it means to exist, and not to exist, and why you think so.

You seem to be the only one here who is at all confused about this. Everybody else know what they mean and you do too in your day-to-day life (#243). You just don't seem able to admit it in this context. Weird.

 

[Kenny]

It's a reaction to sweeping generalizations about people with certain beliefs.

What historical scholars are you currently studying? Not my business but you did accuse someone of not digging. It's not really digging if you just read apologetics over and over. Which I do subject myself to. Notably Mike Licona and Johnathan Sheffield.

No but you are accusing someone of not digging and I get the impression you don't study the historical knowledge of your religion. Which is fine, but you can't tell others they are not digging and then not dig yourself.

I’m sorry… I really don’t think I have to address this at all since I used myself as an example.

That is a bit hard to believe -

Of course there is the catchall phrase of Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns and Spaghetti Monster because they really don’t care and don’t really want to delve deeper. Perhaps because they won’t like what they would see in themselves if they looked? Perhaps because they love darkness more than having their lives in the light? Perhaps because of horrible things that have happened in their lives and they blame God by denying HIs existence?

Those "perhaps" sound rhetorical, this is a judgment. No?

Feel free to say that if you so want to. I’m not offended

Well he wasn't. He was a subordinate of EL who was the supreme Canaanite deity. An early Hebrew version of Deuteronomy
"When Elyon gave the nations as an inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God (bny 'l[hym]). For Yahweh's portion was his people; Jacob was the lot of his inheritance".

But in this time Gods were all part of a pantheon, they didn't exist alone yet.

If you go back before Canaanite religion there are far older gods but they are certainly not Yahweh.

A hymn to Inana by Enheduana is a completely different type of theology than late Hebrew ideas about God. Early Hebrew worship included a consort to Yahweh, Ashera. Thousands of Ashera idols are found at temple digs as well as other goddess imagery. None of this tracks with all ideas of God being the same. It does track with made up ideas of god changed over time.

As it changed in the NT with adding Hellenistic concepts.

Yes… there is a full spectrum of opinions.

But how does it apply? I'm digging. A PhD in early Hebrew Bible literature.
Francesca Stavrakopoulou , God: An Anatomy, her new book goes over some of this.

elevance is I mention Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns and Spaghetti Monster sometimes as a comparison, and that is a historical study on the NT I just read. You made a sweeping generalization, I'm saying it's not always true. But it might be a little true in reverse.

Again… I fully understand that there is a full spectrum of position. There are even those who continue to support a flat earth. No bone to pick here for me

Perfect, this makes my point. You don't know. How do you know Hebrew theology? You read scripture. Do you know how we know Hellenistic theology? Same. Hellenism goes back to around 300 BC, there are multiple ways to date these religions, dating techniques, historians of the time mention them, they mention current events, even Justin Martyr confirmed they pre-dated Jesus and were extremely similar. They happened in centuries before Christianity and the NT ideas are imported from Greek theology.

The NT moves away from OT theology and uses all Hellenism and Platonic philosophy.

I think that cuts both ways. I’m sure we both study and come to our conclusions. I support your right to have a different viewpoint.

Death & Afterlife: Do Christians Follow Plato rather than Jesus or Paul?

Dr James Tabor

this video is all timestamped but this is for just this - the basic comparison between the two.

47:15 Hellenistic Greek view of cosmology

Material world/body is a prison of the soul

Humans are immortal souls, fallen into the darkness of the lower world

Death sets the soul free

No human history, just a cycle of birth, death, rebirth

Immortality is inherent for all humans

Salvation is escape to Heaven, the true home of the immortal soul

Humans are fallen and misplaced

Death is a stripping of the body so the soul can be free

Death is a liberating friend to be welcomed

Asceticism is the moral idea for the soul

I disagree with most of these positions biblically.

49:35 Genesis view

Creation/body very good, procreation good

Humans are “living breathers”, akin to animals, mortal, dust of the earth

Death is dark silent “sleeping in the dust”

Human history moves toward a perfected new age/creation

Salvation is eternal life in the perfected world of the new creation

Humans belong on earth

Resurrection brings a new transformed glorious spiritual body

Death is an enemy

Physical life and sensory pleasures are good
There are many scholarly works that cover sources such as:

The Religious Context of Early Christianity
A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions
HANS-JOSEF KLAUCK

or you can read it in a respected old-school Christian work,

Encyclopaedia Biblica : a critical dictionary of the literary, political, and religious history, the archaeology, geography, and natural history of the Bible
by Cheyne, T. K. (Thomas Kelly), 1841-1915; Black, J. Sutherland (John Sutherland), 1846-1923


"We must conclude with the following guarded thesis. There is in the circle of ideas in the NT, in addition to what is new, and what is taken over from Judaism, much that is Greek ; but whether this is adopted directly from the Greek or borrowed from the Alexandrians, who indeed aimed at a complete fusion of Hellenism and Judaism, is, in the most important cases, not to be determined ; and primitive Christianity as a whole stands considerably nearer to the Hebrew world than to the Greek."

So this is obviously an apologetic work and they are not going to admit it's taken from Hellenism, even that they said this speaks volumes.

It isn't an opinion or interpretation, you were just never told about this. In Jesus Interrupted, Bart Ehrman talks about how in seminary schools it's touched on in history classes but NEVER spoken about again by the students who graduate to become church leaders. He's done lectures at churches of students he graduated with and members often ask him why they are not told these different facts. It doesn't make sense to shake up the beliefs of a congregation but what's told to people doesn't represent the entire truth.

I am sure you have a point to all of this, though I’m not clear at what exactly your point is other than you believe the message has changed over the millenniums.

No, that is wrong.
[7] I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

I would argue there is quite a bit of darkness in the OT. But yes, I understand the Platonic view of God that emerged and was again revised in some Christian churches seems to focus on light and love. That doesn't track with the Bible.

i disagree with your interpretation. If I make a speed limit of 25, I created a transgressor of that law, I did it all. If you splice it and dice it, though, I really didn’t “create” the transgressor. It was the law that created the opportunity for someone that transgresses, but it is the transgressor that did it himself/herself.

Was there a different point here? Or did you want to discuss scripture?

 

[Audie]

Faeries and Leprechauns are magical, correct?

No

 

[Audie]

You seem to be the only one here who is at all confused about this. Everybody else know what they mean and you do too in your day-to-day life (#243). You just don't seem able to admit it in this context. Weird.

Not really weird, it's just what " philosophy" does to a person's ability to think.

 

[Audie]

Running away so soon?

Look, you understand the relevant difference between real and fictional in your day-to-day life, otherwise you'd simply not survive. You know where the shops are in reality and when you go to buy stuff, you go to their real location, not to some mythical or fictional one. You understand how much money is really in your bank account and you spend that, you don't use a fictional balance.

Your utterly absurd attempt to blur the difference don't hold water because, just like everybody else, you are forced to live your life according to what is real.

You can run away from my posts but you can't run away from what is real in the sense being discussed here...

Winner frubal

 

[MikeF]

The idea of a tree is a fictional abstraction. And yet everyone the world over recognizes the fictional abstraction of 'a tree', even though they will all hold forth a slightly different image-concept of a tree as the representation of their abstract ideal.

Look at this. You start with “The idea of a tree” and end with “tree as the representation of their abstract ideal.”

These terms are not synonyms. While all ideals are abstractions, not all abstractions are ideals. You are setting up a false equivalency here.

You don't seem to be understanding that we humans recognize reality through the many ideals we hold about it in our minds. We recognize the mountains, valleys, and forrests and rivers and everything else by relating them to the many ideals about reality that we hold in our minds. And a great many of these ideals are universal: meaning that they are held in the minds of all of us. I think you are conflating their being universal with their being absolute.

And here you are, having established your false equivalency, running full steam ahead within a flawed Platonic or Neoplatonic philosophical framework.

No, they aren't. They are created in our minds as a way of understanding what we actually experience through our interactions with the world around us. We experience many trees in our lifetime, and we generate the ideal of 'treeness' as a result of these eperiences. And every new tree we encounter gets recognized and evaluated through it's relation to that held ideal.

The "thing" cosmos is an ideal you are holding onto in your mind. But science has long since shown us that "things" are actually events. Objects are actually phenomena. Philosophical materialism was dead on arrival 200 years ago. But there are many modern day atheists obsessed with maintaining it. And this is a sad testament to their willful ignorance of both philosophy and science.

The rest is more of the same and just as flawed.

The world is whatever it is. Mostly it's a mystery, to us. But all we're ever going to know of it will have to be known cognitively because that's how we're made. Perception is conception. Everything else is moot. So I think its time we stop insisting that knowledge is objective and static when nothing that exists is objective or static.

We both agree that there is that which is unknown. My stance would be that we can’t say boo about the unknown as it is literally unknown. You, on the other hand, want to say something about it.

I can’t argue with the idea that what we know of reality is known cognitively, because, duh, one needs a mind to think. Does the CNS have physical and other limitations? Certainly. Do those limitations necessarily preclude our ability to know anything? Absolutely not.

Your last sentence is quite confusing. Everything that exists *is* objective, the exact opposite of your assertion. I agree that objective reality is not static, that it is a system undergoing constant change.

I disagree with your assessment of knowledge. We do have objective knowledge of reality, and we know this because we are able to form reliable expectations from that objective knowledge. And yes, without question, our body of objective knowledge is incomplete as regards the whole of reality. Given this incomplete understanding, I agree that knowledge is not static. We continue to incrementally build an objective picture of reality, however incomplete that picture may currently be.

 

[PureX]

Look at this. You start with “The idea of a tree” and end with “tree as the representation of their abstract ideal.”

These terms are not synonyms. While all ideals are abstractions, not all abstractions are ideals. You are setting up a false equivalency here.

An ideal is just an idea that has been presumed universal in the mind that holds it so. And all ideas are abstracted perceptions (i.e., conceptions) of what we experience. None of these are equivalent which is why we use different words to refer to them. And I implied no equivalence that I am aware of. They are, however, steps in the same cognitive process.

We both agree that there is that which is unknown. My stance would be that we can’t say boo about the unknown as it is literally unknown. You, on the other hand, want to say something about it.

We can know that we don't know even though we don't know what we don't know. This condition manifests in us as what we would call a question. Happens all the time.

I can’t argue with the idea that what we know of reality is known cognitively, because, duh, one needs a mind to think. Does the CNS have physical and other limitations? Certainly. Do those limitations necessarily preclude our ability to know anything? Absolutely not.

"Knowing" is just a form of cognition (there are others, of course), mostly based on direct real time eperience. And even with that, as you say, we still cannot be certain that what we think we then know to be so, is truly so. All we can really do in that regard is 'act as if' it is, and see if our presumed 'truth' functions as true in relation to everything else we presume to be true.

But when it does function as true, if it does, we still can't be certain that it's true because function is not the equivalent of truth. It's just the best we can get.

Your last sentence is quite confusing. Everything that exists *is* objective, the exact opposite of your assertion.

Objectivity is an idea you and others hold ABOUT reality. It is not reality itself. If you keep refusing to differentiate these, you will continue to be confused. This is not my fault.

I agree that objective reality is not static, that it is a system undergoing constant change.

So is our very subjective cognitive experience of it.

I disagree with your assessment of knowledge. We do have objective knowledge of reality,...

There is no such thing as "objective knowledge of reality". Knowledge is based on a direct real time experience of something that we then cognate into an abstracted idea of 'it' in the mind. To perceive is to conceive, and those concepts are not "objective" by your own meaning of that term. They are subjective.

... and we know this because we are able to form reliable expectations from that objective knowledge.

Ah, back to function as the determiner of truth, again. But function does not equal truth. Just because idea "X" functions as true when we test it aginst other ideas we think are true does not mean that it is true.

And yes, without question, our body of objective knowledge is incomplete as regards the whole of reality. Given this incomplete understanding, I agree that knowledge is not static. We continue to incrementally build an objective picture of reality, however incomplete that picture may currently be.

Knowledge is not only not static, it's also illusory in that it is never certain. And 'uncertain knowledge' is an inherently contradictory coupling of terms.

 

[Quintessence]

So... just to point out something that should be obvious...

... there's an entire sub-discipline of philosophy that addresses the question of what existence is and what reality is. The nature of existence and reality is not anywhere near as straightforward as some participants in this thread are assuming.

 

[MikeF]

So... just to point out something that should be obvious...

... there's an entire sub-discipline of philosophy that addresses the question of what existence is and what reality is. The nature of existence and reality is not anywhere near as straightforward as some participants in this thread are assuming.

And we should all know the value, or lack there of, of philosophy. Feel free to elaborate on which points being made are not as straightforward as they are allegedly being presented and why.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I find this to be a logical fallacy: a false analogy, because while there is no objective evidence of their existence, the purposes of these concepts are entirely different.

I don't find that objection to be relevant. It doesn't matter why somebody conjured up a fictional entity.

You asked, "Do you think it's reasonable to compare gods to these creatures? Why or why not?" My answer is yes. The analogies are apt.

What gods and angels and demons have in common with vampires, leprechauns, and fairies is that there is insufficient evidence to justify belief in any of them, which is what makes the analogy apt. Imagine an atheist that believed in vampires. It would be perfectly appropriate to contrast his belief in one with his unbelief in the other and ask him to justify holding one but not both or neither.

I also find the comparison rather insulting to those who have had an experience of a god.

And so do many who make that claim, but so what? I don't believe them and don't mind saying so. This led to a protracted, very emotional reaction from one such theist in a thread a few months ago after I told him that I understand all such claims as somebody misinterpreting their experience as sensing something other than their own minds and mental states, something I once did as well. I don't hold myself responsible for such reactions, and don't censor myself to protect such people from their emotions. That's their job.

They also commonly say that they feel attacked by these discussions, and my reaction is the same - that's on them.

You have yet to give any "underlying reasons" for finding it unreasonable to believe in God

A god belief is not reasonable. Reason cannot justify it. There is no sound argument that ends, "therefore, God," meaning that if you hold that belief, you didn't come to it using reason, making the belief unjustified and faith-based - the opposite of reasonable.

Look, you understand the relevant difference between real and fictional in your day-to-day life, otherwise you'd simply not survive. You know where the shops are in reality and when you go to buy stuff, you go to their real location, not to some mythical or fictional one. You understand how much money is really in your bank account and you spend that, you don't use a fictional balance.

Your utterly absurd attempt to blur the difference don't hold water because, just like everybody else, you are forced to live your life according to what is real.

I wrote a similar post to him recently (third comment in this post). There was no evidence in that he read it much less understood it. This is the all-too-common posting style I call preaching - when one is only interested in promulgating his own ideas and is uninterested in the responses of others, which have no impact on subsequent posting.

I find that to be opinions and personal interpretations.

I guess that's a deal breaker for you except when they're also YOUR opinions and personal interpretations. Everything you believe about gods fits that description.

In another thread, you were advocating for "investigating the supernatural," and after explaining that there is nothing to investigate, I suggested that you investigate vampires. It was a perfectly apt comparison. Investigate what, you might ask? You didn't express offense at the comparison, but you did dismiss it out of hand. Were you offended? Did you feel attacked? I hope not, but if you were, do you think I should stop writing such things? If so, why?

Faeries and Leprechauns are magical, correct?

Yes, like gods, angels, and demons. They are all unseen entities that are said to modify reality by those who believe in them, which is done using magic.

What teaching? I see no teaching, just a fictional story men wrote.

That's my answer to your next comment:

The short story has much to teach children in terms of moral lessons that they can apply to their lives. The main lesson is to trust the almighty and have faith in him as he has planned everything for everyone, and in the end, everything will be fine.

What teaching? I see no teaching, just a fictional story men wrote.

Once magic becomes part of the description, falsification is no longer possible.

You just restated my argument to Salix. All of the magical creatures man has conjured up are equivalent. They're all unfalsifiable claims that can be treated as equivalent and rejected according to Hitchens' Razor, and that includes gods.

The debate is not a debate over the existence of God. That's already a given ... Let's clear a few things up, here. Bigfoot, fairies, unicorns, and leprechauns all exist, and there is a mountain of evidence to prove it ... fiction is reality, too ... The idea of a tree is a fictional abstraction

These are the kinds of comments that undermine you. After reading that, why would an atheist be interested in anything else you have to say about reality versus imagination?

So you just presume that 'fiction' means 'deception'?

Fiction means imagination. If one knowingly attempts to claim that fiction is fact - or reality in your words - then he is being deceptive. If he's unaware that he is wrong, then he's just confused.

 

[Valjean]

There are first-person accounts of UFOs and bigfoot. There are living eyewitnesses who have been interviewed. There is hard physical evidence, such as footprints, photographs, &c.

There are no eyewitness or first-person accounts of the biblical claims of God or Jesus, and no physical evidence. There do exist persons who claim to have seen or communicated with various gods, but they can offer no more actual evidence than can those claiming to have seen leprechauns or færies.

 

[Kenny]

I guess that's a deal breaker for you except when they're also YOUR opinions and personal interpretations. Everything you believe about gods fits that description.

Not a deal breaker at all and certainly no offense taken.

Of course my position can be seen as my interpretations and opinions. My signature says as much

In another thread, you were advocating for "investigating the supernatural," and after explaining that there is nothing to investigate, I suggested that you investigate vampires.
It was a perfectly apt comparison. Investigate what, you might ask? You didn't express offense at the comparison, but you did dismiss it out of hand.

I believe I did investigate and posted it too. I’m sure I can find another post…. Oh, here it is

Vampire bat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here’s another:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/us/real-vampires-new-orleans-atlanta-cec/index.html

You never know, they may be worshipping the god of vampires.

You didn't express offense at the comparison, but you did dismiss it out of hand. Were you offended? Did you feel attacked? I hope not, but if you were, do you think I should stop writing such things? If so, why?

Not at all… Why should it offend me?

This is a free country and you are a freewill spiritual agent. I’m not the judge. So I give all the leeway that people want. As per my signature, I would simply say “God believes in you, Jesus loves you and there is a plan for you life”.

And people can throw that in the garbage and I wouldn’t feel offended. Maybe the older one gets the less we become dogmatic? I don’t know. maybe its because I live in the God of love.