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The Folly of Atheism

Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Catholicus said:
There's almost no evidence that Julius Caesar wasn't just a legend - the only direct evidence is a few scraps of parchment.

Most of the ancient writings about Julius Caesar are by hagiographical sycophants, power-worshippers and other Roman propagandists.

You are eager to believe in the claims made for Julius Caesar - even though he was a genocidal thug and perpetrator of many other atrocities.

Yet you sneer at the claims made on behalf of the gentle, pacific and harmless Jesus of Nazareth, who died in agony for your sake on the cross.
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I will defer to the expertise of an actual peer-reviewed historian on this. You're just plain wrong.

Is Evidence for Jesus Really as Good as for Caesar? • Richard Carrier
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
shunyadragon said:
Even adults are interdependent with the family and group. Without them they would likely perish. The issue is viability outside the womb.
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If you're a living being, what does it matter whether you're inside or outside a womb ?

Infanticide is infanticide whether it's inside the womb or outside.
 
Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Catholicus said:
Because it is more honest and reliable than academic history, that of the Romans especially.
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Laughably wishful thinking. Matthew is a riff on Mark, which is obvious myth that contains absurdly implausible claims throughout.
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
shunyadragon said:
Likely that like all humanity throughout history he is compassionate and understanding, but for those who arrogant claim that there way is the only way, like the Roman Church ((RCC) they may be in trouble,
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Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life"

Was He arrogant ? "In trouble" ?

The Catholic Church recognises that there are also people of goodwill - who will be saved - outside its own ranks.
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
Guitar's Cry said:
But don't you know, the ID created the Universe not God. Look around you: all this wonder and pattern. It could only come from a creator as magnificent as the Invisible Dragon.

At this point, "God" or the "Invisible Dragon" simply become placeholders for a person's relationship to their environment.
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People - many of them, especially in the 20th century. - have died for their belief in God.

No one ever has or ever will die for their "belief" in the Invisible Dragon.
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
osgart said:
There are certain religions that set up an Ultimatum. High pressure to avoid eternal doom. Right from the onset if you do not know God exists then you are the enemy of God and God's believers. So right away these God's set up War against new creatures who do not know God exists. 82 years of life is a drop in the bucket, and yet war is declared against the non believer.

Whether you are Christian, or Islamic, or Judaism, your God seeks to remove so called infidels from life. Infidels turn out to be non believers.

This religiosity is the cause of many wars throughout history. They say peace and love, but peace and love never come by force of such ultimatums.

Bottom line is these groups of people cannot accept that non believers are honestly non believing.

So in life they seek to make life hard, if not impossible for the non believer.

If a gun is pointed at your head, and the message is ' know that i exist, love me, do my commands or die forever ', how much love are you going to feel? That is the nature of the Ultimatum.
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Many of those who (often angrily) deny God's existence are dishonest - Liars - and will be so eternally - and thus justly condemned.

Those who honestly don't believe in God won't be condemned.

People must believe in something. When they cease to be religious, they merely kill for Politics instead - and more plentifully, witness Nazism and Communism.
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
Left Coast said:
God in the Bible directly revealed himself repeatedly to people. If it was good enough for them, why isn't it good enough for us?

And second of all, we're all compelled to believe what we believe, regardless of content. If belief means being genuinely convinced something is true, beliefs can't just be freely adopted or discarded at will. See my thread exploring this:
Do We Choose Our Beliefs?
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Answer: yes.

Otherwise, all debate is 100% futile.
 
Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Catholicus said:
Implausible only to those who choose to think them so.
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No, implausible full stop. If equivalent claims were made in any other religious or allegedly "historical" text, you would correctly write them off as obvious myth not to be taken seriously as history. Or do you take every miracle claim you come across as plausible at face value?
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
dfnj said:
More children die of poverty than do abortion. Why are the holier-than-thou Christians not marching for better wages from corporations to save our Children from being murdered by poverty wages.
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Many Christians around the world are social justice activists.

Some have been murdered for being so.
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
A Vestigial Mote said:
What could you possibly mean by this? Abortions happen in the real world, and can be witnessed. I can go and talk with any number of women who have had abortions. Abortions are based on real-world situations and involve interactions between inter-subjectively verifiable beings - doctors, patients and unborn children. How is this anything like a God claim? The fact that all parties being discussed exist within the case of abortion means necessarily that my "beliefs" about the issue of abortion move into the realm of opinion. I form an opinion as to whether abortion is good or bad for society, good or bad for the mother, good or bad for the unborn child, etc. - and these things can be based on actual effects I see in the world. In the case of "God", it doesn't even get to the stage of "opinion" about God specifically, because no one has demonstrated the reality of the claim in the first place. All I can possibly have opinions of, therefore, are the ideas I am given by other people, or I can have opinions of the people that talk about God and the texts that are written. That's all I've got. I don't have any concrete opinions of "God" because I don't even have a "God" to evaluate!


This is what you'd like to believe... but this simply isn't true. And it has been evidenced by isolated tribes whose mental meanderings never came up with a supreme being concept, but who have survived for generation after generation just fine. The Pirahã, for example:

From what I have read of them, there is no talk of their being morally bankrupt, but instead that they have strong kinship systems, elect no leaders (imagine that!) and actively do not tell one another what to do as an intrinsic part of their culture.
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Very isolated - and very few in number. Hardly suggests a lifestyle and culture that can be replicated.

Abortion is murder, whether God exists or not.
 
Left Coast

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Catholicus said:
An academic historian - therefore with a vested interest in the debate.
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...yes, a professionally vested interest. And more knowledge of the topic than either of us. Meaning if he makes absurd, unsubstantiated, or irrational claims, he loses credibility.

You have forgotten to mention that he is also an atheist activist !
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:eek:

What a brilliant way to not address any of the content of what he says!
 
C

Catholicus

Active Member
Left Coast said:
No, implausible full stop. If equivalent claims were made in any other religious or allegedly "historical" text, you would correctly write them off as obvious myth not to be taken seriously as history. Or do you take every miracle claim you come across as plausible at face value?
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Thee aren' "myth" whatever they may be.

They are true or false.
 
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