AdamjEdgar
Active Member
Actually, that is false. Religion most definately does explain existence. Most scholars, even though they do not believe in God, will agree that it (religion) focuses almost entirely on that question.
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The Alleged Troubles With Atheism
- Thread starter Jagella
- Start date
First, I rather liked your comment above,
"Religion offers only tools
You need to do the hard work yourself"
You need to do the hard work yourself"
But second, the modern theory of evolution, with tools for examining genetics being available for the last thirty years or so, gives quite detailed accounts of evolution hence the complexity of life.
What specifically is your objection?
Viker
Your beloved eccentric Auntie Cristal
No.
Except that it is not, because free-will appears to be unlikely to be true as we are a product of such things as genetic hard-wiring, brain chemistry, environmental influences etc, which are largely outside our control, so only an unjust God would punish us for that which is outside our control.
Therefore if a just God exists universal salvation for all those who want it seems to me to be a more likely concept to be true than this ego trap of Jesus being the only way to be saved - which is a great concept for massaging the ego of that old sinner Jesus, but not so great for independent thinkers.
And since this thread is directed at atheists it would make sense to do more than claim evidence for the Biblical narrative, but rather to look at all the evidence particularly the contrary evidence. Perhaps you could start with Genesis since that is a particular tripping point.
In my opinion.
joelr
Well-Known Member
There is no evidence. Having dreams and visions during operations and near death has been widely studies by neurologists. These are most likely hallucinations or such. According to experts.
The rest are just ancient myths, like:
"
During the period of the Second Temple (c. 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire.[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans.[48][49] The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]"
E. Sanders, Wright, historians
This happened during the Persian/Greek occupations. We see religious syncretism of both cultures
into Judaism. All around this region religions were being Hellenized - savior Gods who resurrect and get followers into an afterlife, baptism, eucharist, God goes from national to Supreme, Revelations type literature (started with the Persians). Heaven as a destination for souls that are redeemed. These were not part of Judaism.
No he isn't an agnostic. Sure, the stories of Jesus. Bart believes, like the consensus of Biblical historians that the Gospels are a mythical narrative using a human teacher as the savior demigod.
I can source Dr Carrier saying this is the historical consensus.
Not one thing proving the supernatural claims. All religious scripture - Hindu, Greek, has real places, Kings, wars among fictional stories of Gods.
Archaeology has shown the Israelites emerged peacefully from Canaanite civilization (not Egypt) The large empires were small scale towns, Yahweh was paired with Ashera and many other things that do not match scripture.
William Dever, Professor Emeritus at the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject.
"The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people.
Is there mention of the Israelites anywhere in ancient Egyptian records?
No Egyptian text mentions the Israelites except the famous inscription of Merneptah dated to about 1206 B.C.E. But those Israelites were in Canaan; they are not in Egypt, and nothing is said about them escaping from Egypt.
So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.
If the Bible's story of Joshua's conquest isn't entirely historic, what is its meaning?
Why was it told? Well, it was told because there were probably armed conflicts here and there, and these become a part of the story glorifying the career of Joshua, commander in chief of the Israelite forces.
The stories of Solomon are larger than life. According to the stories, Solomon imported 100,000 workers from what is now Lebanon. Well, the whole population of Israel probably wasn't 100,000 in the 10th century. Everything Solomon touched turned to gold. In the minds of the biblical writers, of course, David and Solomon are ideal kings chosen by Yahweh. So they glorify them.
Now, archeology can't either prove or disprove the stories. But I think most archeologists today would argue that the United Mo
narchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom. It was very small-scale.
One of the astonishing things is your discovery of Yahweh's connection to Asherah. Tell us about that.
In 1968, I discovered an inscription in a cemetery west of Hebron, in the hill country, at the site of Khirbet el-Qôm, a Hebrew inscription of the 8th century B.C.E. It gives the name of the deceased, and it says "blessed may he be by Yahweh"—that's good biblical Hebrew—but it says "by Yahweh and his Asherah."
Asherah is the name of the old Canaanite Mother Goddess, the consort of El, the principal deity of the Canaanite pantheon. So why is a Hebrew inscription mentioning Yahweh in connection with the Canaanite Mother Goddess? Well, in popular religion they were a pair.
Archeology of the Hebrew Bible
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joelr
Well-Known Member
Oh wow, Eden? That's an old Mesopotamian myth.
Garden of Eden - Wikipedia
Like the Genesis flood narrative, the Genesis creation narrative and the account of the Tower of Babel, the story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth of a king, as a primordial man, who is placed in a divine garden to guard the tree of life.[
The name derives from the Akkadian edinnu, from a Sumerian word edin meaning "plain" or "steppe", closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning "fruitful, well-watered"
A number of parallel concepts to the biblical Garden of Eden exist in various other religions and mythologies. Dilmun in the Sumerian story of Enki and Ninhursag is a paradisaical abode[39] of the immortals, where sickness and death were unknown.[40] The garden of the Hesperides in Greek mythology was also somewhat similar to the Jewish concept of the Garden of Eden, and by the 16th century a larger intellectual association was made in the Cranach painting. In this painting, only the action that takes place there identifies the setting as distinct from the Garden of the Hesperides, with its golden fruit.
As to the flood science:
Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community.[5][6][7][8][9] istory of the planet. Geologists divide Earth's history into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and faunal stages characterized by well-defined breaks in the fossil record (see Geologic time scale).[110][111] In general, there is a lack of any evidence for any of the above effects proposed by flood geologists and their claims of fossil layering are not taken seriously by scientists.[112]
Erosion
The global flood cannot explain geological formations such as angular unconformities, where sedimentary rocks have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains differ significantly.[112]
Geochronology[edit]
This Jurassic carbonate hardground shows generations of oysters and extensive bioerosion, features incompatible with the conditions and timing postulated for the Flood.[7]
The alternation of calcite and aragonite seas through geologic time.[113]
Geochronology is the science of determining the absolute age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is about 4.54 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.
Paleontology[edit]
If the flood were responsible for fossilization, then all the animals now fossilized must have been living together on the Earth just before the flood. Based on estimates of the number of remains buried in the Karoo fossil formation in Africa, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.[84] Creationists argue that evidence for the geological column is fragmentary, and all the complex layers of chalk occurred in the approach to the 150th day of Noah's flood.[114][115] However, the entire geologic column is found in several places, and shows multiple features, including evidence of erosion and burrowing through older layers, which are inexplicable on a short timescale. Carbonate hardgrounds and the fossils associated with them show that the so-called flood sediments include evidence of long hiatuses in deposition that are not consistent with flood dynamics or timing.[7]
Geochemistry[edit]
Proponents of Flood Geology are also unable to account for the alternation between calcite seas and aragonite seas through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vents which changes its Mg/Ca ratio.[116]
Sedimentary rock features[edit]
Phil Senter's 2011 article, "The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology", in the journal Reports of the National Center for Science Education, discusses "sedimentologic and other geologic features that Flood geologists have identified as evidence that particular strata cannot have been deposited during a time when the entire planet was under water ... and distribution of strata that predate the existence of the Ararat mountain chain." These include continental basalts, terrestrial tracks of animals, and marine communities preserving multiple in-situ generations included in the rocks of most or all Phanerozoic periods, and the basalt even in the younger Precambrian rocks. Others, occurring in rocks of several geologic periods, include lake deposits and eolian (wind) deposits. Using their own words, Flood geologists find evidence in every Paleozoic and Mesozoic period, and in every epoch of the Cenozoic period, indicating that a global flood could not have occurred during that interval.[117] A single flood could also not account for such features as unconformities, in which lower rock layers are tilted while higher rock layers were laid down horizontally on top.[118]
joelr
Well-Known Member
QUOTE="AdamjEdgar, post: 7657107, member: 74258"]
The evidence in support of the Bible is very strong when people bother to study it...most don't, instead listening to badly informed naysayers who actually don't give a damn.[/QUOTE]
Biblical historians take this very serious. Calling the field badly informed naysayers when they are the ones reading the original languages, sources and learning all the scholarship to date is tryly misinformed?
Here is a quote from a PhD NT historian on the field:
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.
No. We aren’t interested in that.
When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death. Consequently, I will here disregard fundamentalists and apologists as having no honest part in this debate, any more than they do on evolution or cosmology or anything else they cannot be honest about even to themselves.
Dr Carrier
Ehrman agrees. Thompson, Purvoe, Lataster, Price, Crossan, Pagels, Goodacre,
Your argument here is "it's true because it says so?" Are you serious? Christianity is a Hellenistic/Persian version of Judaism. All of the changes made came from both cultures who also occupied Israel before Christianity. Jesus is the last of many dying/rising savior who rose in 3 days. Those are Greek myths.
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
Christianity is a combination of Hellenism (pagan) and Judaism. These are some of the changes that the religions went through as they adopted Hellenism. Judaism was also one of these religions.
Hellenistic religion - Beliefs, practices, and institutions
Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.
Right. Except you left out the entire Greek civilization who developed philosophy, science, math, logic, democracy, far before Christianity came along.
also historically Israel started around 1200 BC. Mesopotamian writing starts in the 4th century BC. Going back further starting with Sumer there is vast amounts of secular history. That statement is absurd? You clearly have been kept away from any history before your religion started.
For example laws written on stone people pretended were from God:
The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed c. 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The primary copy of the text is inscribed on a basalt or diorite stele 2.25 m (7 ft 4+1⁄2 in) tall.
Before Israel was creating myths so were the Mesopotamians:
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth[a] of both Judaism and Christianity
It expounds themes parallel to those in Mesopotamian mythology, emphasizing the Israelite people's belief in one God.
Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for Jewish mythology. Both sources behind the Genesis creation narrative borrowed themes from Mesopotamian
Genesis 1–11 as a whole is imbued with Mesopotamian myths.[17][21] Genesis 1 bears both striking differences from and striking similarities to Babylon's national creation myth, the Enuma Elish mythology
Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the Flood and its aftermath.
You seemed to forget Egypt as well with several dynasties? Much of the Moses myth was from Egypt originally,
Who is also a fiction.
"Generally, Moses is seen as a legendary figure, whilst retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE
Van Seters concluded, 'The quest for the historical Moses is a futile exercise. He now belongs only to legend.' ."
The evidence in support of the Bible is very strong when people bother to study it...most don't, instead listening to badly informed naysayers who actually don't give a damn.[/QUOTE]
Biblical historians take this very serious. Calling the field badly informed naysayers when they are the ones reading the original languages, sources and learning all the scholarship to date is tryly misinformed?
Here is a quote from a PhD NT historian on the field:
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.
No. We aren’t interested in that.
When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death. Consequently, I will here disregard fundamentalists and apologists as having no honest part in this debate, any more than they do on evolution or cosmology or anything else they cannot be honest about even to themselves.
Dr Carrier
Ehrman agrees. Thompson, Purvoe, Lataster, Price, Crossan, Pagels, Goodacre,
Your argument here is "it's true because it says so?" Are you serious? Christianity is a Hellenistic/Persian version of Judaism. All of the changes made came from both cultures who also occupied Israel before Christianity. Jesus is the last of many dying/rising savior who rose in 3 days. Those are Greek myths.
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
Christianity is a combination of Hellenism (pagan) and Judaism. These are some of the changes that the religions went through as they adopted Hellenism. Judaism was also one of these religions.
Hellenistic religion - Beliefs, practices, and institutions
Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus, Simon Magus, Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish Talmud (an authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the New Testament, and the later patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour, salvator salvandus.
Right. Except you left out the entire Greek civilization who developed philosophy, science, math, logic, democracy, far before Christianity came along.
also historically Israel started around 1200 BC. Mesopotamian writing starts in the 4th century BC. Going back further starting with Sumer there is vast amounts of secular history. That statement is absurd? You clearly have been kept away from any history before your religion started.
For example laws written on stone people pretended were from God:
The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed c. 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hammurabi, sixth king of the First Dynasty of Babylon. The primary copy of the text is inscribed on a basalt or diorite stele 2.25 m (7 ft 4+1⁄2 in) tall.
Before Israel was creating myths so were the Mesopotamians:
The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth[a] of both Judaism and Christianity
It expounds themes parallel to those in Mesopotamian mythology, emphasizing the Israelite people's belief in one God.
Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for Jewish mythology. Both sources behind the Genesis creation narrative borrowed themes from Mesopotamian
Genesis 1–11 as a whole is imbued with Mesopotamian myths.[17][21] Genesis 1 bears both striking differences from and striking similarities to Babylon's national creation myth, the Enuma Elish mythology
Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the Flood and its aftermath.
You seemed to forget Egypt as well with several dynasties? Much of the Moses myth was from Egypt originally,
Who is also a fiction.
"Generally, Moses is seen as a legendary figure, whilst retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE
Van Seters concluded, 'The quest for the historical Moses is a futile exercise. He now belongs only to legend.' ."
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stvdv
Veteran Member
Thank you for your friendly reply.
When I came 4 years ago to RF, I knew nothing about Atheism, and made a few remarks about Atheism that were wrong. And ChristineM was so kind to explain it to me in a very simple way...in short "Atheism is lack of God(s) belief". I told her even then "this is not very much", if you call yourself an Atheist, you only lack God belief and have nothing else. But that's just what it is she said.
Fine with me of course
Now she replied to below quote
With this
To which I said
Because Atheism can't explain it, as it only means "lack of God(s) belief". Just using the proper definition I was taught
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joelr
Well-Known Member
That is incredibly false. Please explain where below existence is explained? The Genesis creation myth falls in the ex-nihlo group:
Ex nihilo (out of nothing)[edit]
Main article: Ex nihilo
- Debate between sheep and grain
- Barton cylinder
- Ancient Egyptian creation myths
- Genesis creation myth (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
- Kabezya-Mpungu
- Māori myths
- Mbombo
- Ngai
Which tells us nothing more than any of the other stories in the list except how Bronze Age people thought the world came to be.
Genesis 1 is actually a "cosmic waters" creation story which was very popular in Mesopotamian creation myths.
There is a great cosmic sea and it's very chaotic. A God comes along and creates some order out of it. The Israelite cosmology reflects this belief. They believed the blue sky was the cosmic ocean which is above heavens chambers where only God lived. The stars and planets were on a lower level under the firmament. Cosmic ocean, literally waters, was everything else.
Cosmography (shape and structure of the cosmos)[[URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Biblical_cosmology&action=edit§ion=4']edit]
The Old Testament cosmos.
See also: Cosmography and Christian mythology
Heavens, Earth, and underworld[edit]
The Hebrew Bible depicted a three-part world, with the heavens (shamayim) above, Earth (eres) in the middle, and the underworld (sheol) below.[24] After the 4th century BCE this was gradually replaced by a Greek scientific cosmology of a spherical earth surrounded by multiple concentric heavens.[9]
The cosmic ocean[edit]
Further information: Tehom
The three-part world of heavens, Earth and underworld floated in Tehom, the mythological cosmic ocean, which covered the Earth until God created the firmament to divide it into upper and lower portions and reveal the dry land;[25] the world has been protected from the cosmic ocean ever since by the solid dome of the firmament.[26]
The tehom is, or was, hostile to God: it confronted him at the beginning of the world (Psalm 104:6ff) but fled from the dry land at his rebuke; he has now set a boundary or bar for it which it cannot pass (Jeremiah 5:22 and Job 38:8–10).[27] The cosmic sea is the home of monsters which God conquers: "By his power he stilled the sea, by his understanding he smote Rahab!" (Job 26:12f).[27] (Rahab is an exclusively Hebrew sea-monster; others, including Leviathan and the tannin, or dragons, are found in Ugaritic texts; it is not entirely clear whether they are identical with Sea or are Sea's helpers).[28] The "bronze sea" which stood in the forecourt of the Temple in Jerusalem probably corresponds to the "sea" in Babylonian temples, representing the apsu, the cosmic ocean.[29]
T[/URL]his does not tell us anything about the creation of the universe. A fictional God and nonsense cosmology does not reveal anything about existence.
Modern theology also tells us nothing except that theologians want to insert consciousness onto a primal mover force which began reality. A notion without evidence and makes no sense. Some people will claim that "nature" is a deity that scientists worship so there are no atheists. But nature is not conscious, giving revelations and handing laws down on stone.
Tolkien explains existence as well in his work. A primal God created other beings and they sung Middle Earth into being. Anyone can write a story and claim it's real. That is not an explanation.
stvdv
Veteran Member
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Perfect answer! (with apologies to @Christine M) Atheism leaves questions like that to science.
I suspect that's what she meant, of course, but she might rephrase it on another occasion.
I'd appreciate that. Thanks.
Atheists can be deluded but just not deluded thinking that a magical man in the sky is their friend.
Religion often does explain existence. The explanations just aren't very good.
I'm not sure if all atheists explain the variety and complexity of living things via evolution, but many do, of course.
Personally, I don't usually decide which point of view is superior by counting casualties allegedly left behind by those views. I think religious apologists get silly when they defend their beliefs by claiming their religion killed fewer people than atheists presumably have!
I don't see how any of us can really know what Hitler's religious beliefs were, but it's a fact that Christianity was a very useful weapon for him.
I'm still wondering what the objective morality of Christianity is. Is it objectively moral to execute homosexuals?
How could anybody possibly know that an all-powerful, all-knowing God exists? He may have limitations we will never discover.
If there are no atheists, then why do the religious complain about them?
The Theory of Evolution and the multiverse predicted by quantum mechanics are ideas for everybody, not just atheists. And I believe that when Darwin came up with his theory, he was a Christian.
Yes, i thought thats what we were discussing.
They are not explanations, they are guessing based on bronze age ignorance of the subject
Im not sure it matters.
I agree, but it's fun shooting them down
Hitler was adamant, the catholic church considered him catholic, the motto he emblazoned his armies with was "got mitt uns" (god with us), he had priests bless his troops before they went into battle. I would say that was pretty conclusive
And many more heinous acts ignored in the name of their faith
I go by the evidence or in this case, complete lack of evidence
Good one.
Yup
Augustus
…
This gives a pretty good idea...
III. THE "URIAH LAW": NAZI HOSTILITY TO MILITARY CHAPLAINS
As Leonhard's experience in the hospital ward suggests, chaplains in Hitler's military faced problems particular to Nazi Germany. Servants of both church and state, they nevertheless encountered considerable hostility from military, state, and party authorities. Hitler and his inner circle made no secret of their contempt for Christianity, a religion they considered nothing but diluted Judaism propagated in a conspiratorial effort to weaken the so-called Aryan race.4
Any form of Christianity, even the national religion of the chaplaincy, threatened Nazi claims to spiritual monopoly. Like the churches, the chaplains were to be allowed to survive until the war was over; Nazi leaders considered it too risky to attack Christian institutions when the full support of the homefront was needed to avoid the "stab-in- the-back" they believed had lost them the previous war.
Attempts to confine and ultimately destroy the chaplaincy took many forms.42 Neither the Luftwaffe nor the SS had chaplains assigned to their units.43... A 1942 command announced that no new chaplains would be appointed; chaplains who died, left due to illness, or were take were not replaced...
A 1942 order even required chaplains to situate themselves in areas of heaviest action, where their morale-boosting effects—and presumably the risk to their lives—would be maximized. "In combat," the order stipulated, "the military chaplain will be found in the hottest part of the battle and at the main dressing station, unless—and this will be the exception—he has received a special assignment from divisional command." Chaplains called this the "Uriah Law," after the general in the Bible whom King David sent on a suicide mission so that David could have his wife Bathsheba.
Totalitarianism: German Military Chaplains in World War II and the Dilemmas of Legitimacy - Doris L. Bergen
doi: 10.2307/3654452
AdamjEdgar
Active Member
No...you say it is a myth and provided no evidence in support of that claim.
As already obvious, there are thousands of historical documents, artifacts, stories passed on down through generations of human legend, social habits...all of these prove conclusively that the Christian Bible, unlike other religions, it is consistent, very credible and historically reliable.
Add to the above the now the scientific researching coming to the fore from YEC academics that prove the flood and y chromosome studies linking human origin to a single individual in the nth Africa region...
Show me another philosophy that has the kind of supporting evidence and consistency of the Christian Bible? As I've said before on these forums, even the famous New Testament scholar and agnostic Bart Erhman admits the most influencial person to have ever lived is Jesus Christ!
AdamjEdgar
Active Member
Do you not recognise the idea that largely, God's punishments are a direct consequence of our own poor decision making...and that this occurs because of design rather than a chaotic accident?
Take for example a some illustration, two drivers in motor vehicles, one regularly speeds, the other conscientiously drives to the speed limit...who is more likely to have a car accident?
A second illustration, two individuals, one smokes the other does not, who is more likely to suffer from lung problems or die from lung cancer?
Third illustration, two individuals, one lives a life of gang related crime, the other a life of honesty and love for their neighbour...who is more likely to live the happier life?
AdamjEdgar
Active Member
I only report what Bart Erhman himself said on this topic of Jesus that Jesus really existed. You have added the other stuff outside of my statement about him. Bart does not believe that Jesus was a myth. That was and is my point!
Would you like me to provide video reference to Barts own statements on this? I have a very recent youtube evidence where he was in an open discussion with High School students and this was one of the question put directly to him!
Another option for you is to purchase Barts book
"Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium"
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Religious
"In this book, written to counter the idea that there was never such a person as Jesus of Nazareth at all, Ehrman sets out to demonstrate the historical evidence for Jesus' existence, and he aims to state why all experts in the area agree that "whatever else you may think about Jesus, he certainly did exist."
At the end of the day, if you were purchasing the house of salvation vs secularism, which one offers the best long term investment, a religious view where you can live forevermore, or an atheistic one that says after you have pillaged this life its "kaput"?
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Viker
Your beloved eccentric Auntie Cristal
Yeah. The first three, being atheism is a default position and not an actual belief system. I was thinking about how many make a straw man atheism and make claims about it that aren't true.At least 30% of the items is true
stvdv
Veteran Member
Yes true, some humans love it to point and smear others