There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[ElishaElijah]

Yet you have expected us to take your word for this? I have turned my life around more than once, and I am an atheist. One assumes you will extend me the same courtesy I have to your unevidenced claim?

It’s a lot more than turning your life around, with God this was immediate, seems like takes you more than once like maybe back and forth.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Because it's life from another life which is what we observe happening now.

But it's your view that everything came from nothing.

 

[Sheldon]

Because it's life from another life which is what we observe happening now.

All we have ever observed, so your claim it originated for a deity, using inexplicable magic, is not very compelling. I have no particular desire to speculate, but it seems obvious that since we know natural processes are possible, why would an as yet unknown natural process not be a more likely speculation?

Known to be possible, vs not known to be possible? I mean, come on.....

 

[Sheldon]

It’s a lot more than turning your life around, with God this was immediate, seems like takes you more than once like maybe back and forth.

You mean with your unevidenced claim that it was immediate, and your unevidenced claim this was down to more than simply your belief in a deity.

My life was turned around, and no deity was involved or required. You are now shifting the goalposts. However in both instances the change commenced at a fixed point (call that immediate if you want), so it appears you have again shown only an empty bag.

 

[Sheldon]

Not if there's just not enough information available to me to allow that to happen.

So by your argument, powered flight, antibiotics, computers, etc, etc are not possible because at some point there was not enough information to allow them to happen.

You are really reaching.

Nonsense, that is precisely what your claim implied.

 

[Sheldon]

And I will test your claim that god and Jesus changed your life rather than you doing it yourself.
So, first up - demonstrate that your god exists.
When you have done that we can move on to the nest stage...

Exactly, he is citing correlation not causation, and they are two very different things.

 

[ElishaElijah]

You seem to have entirely ignored the point, and simply quoted biblical text?

An applicable text

 

[Sheldon]

Nope. Those voices are just psychotic episodes. Delusions.
I recommend not telling people irl that god tells you to do stuff.
Also, think carefully about what god is telling you to do. It might not all be in anyone's best interests.

These "voices" would necessarily have had to have started before he became sober as well, so again his claim seems even more unreliable. I have close friends who are functioning alcoholics, and one close friend gave up drinking and ended up in A&E, and the attendant Dr explained the kind of withdrawal symptoms one might expect when stopping taking any substance one was addicted to.

Vivid hallucinations were top of the list incidentally.

 

[Sheldon]

An applicable text

Nope, you just entirely ignored the point, and simply quoted biblical text. You have done this before as well, and offered no context or explanation.

 

[Sheldon]

But the evidence I brought for the Exodus was waved away because it didn't come from a secular peer reviewed publication.

That may be the case, but more likely it is because decades of archaeological evidence scrupulously gathered by respected scientists from Israeli universities looking to validate Exodus, instead falsified the Exodus myth, which of course had no objective evident to support it anyway, and more importantly involved unevidenced clams for supernatural magic. So it fails as fact and as allegory. It is of course a credit to the scientific ethics of those involved that despite the evidence contradicting their own religious beliefs, they published the results for peer review, knowing what it meant for the Exodus myth, having accepted that conclusions themselves, based on the scientific evidence.

 

[Sheldon]

Oh I see, well liberal socialism is just taking someone else’s money and spreading it around, isn’t voluntary but forced giving where God says as everyone purposes in their heart let them give, not grudgingly or of necessity because God loves a cheerful giver.

Tell that to the largest Christian church, it also happens to be the richest and oldest, make of that what you will.

Personally whilst I have no direct opposition to wealth, I'd prefer it if we dedicated ourselves to eradicating (not alleviating), poverty first and foremost. Most especially to ensure children are lifted out of poverty, regardless of the accident of their birth. Of course this is just a subjective opinion, as are all moral assertions, and without insisting any help requires indoctrination into any religious sect. lets let them grow up and be able to think critically first I say.

 

[dybmh]

That may be the case, but more likely it is because decades of archaeological evidence scrupulously gathered by respected scientists from Israeli universities looking to validate Exodus, instead falsified the Exodus myth, which of course had no objective evident to support it anyway, and more importantly involved unevidenced clams for supernatural magic. So it fails as fact and as allegory. It is of course a credit to the scientific ethics of those involved that despite the evidence contradicting their own religious beliefs, they published the results for peer review, knowing what it meant for the Exodus myth, having accepted that conclusions themselves, based on the scientific evidence.

I appreciate what you're saying; but, in the context of the conversation the claim was made "There is no evidence of the exodus." Any evidence regardless of whether it comes from secular or religious archaeologists should be enough to refute this claim. There is evidence but it comes from biased sources is more accurate?

 

[Sheldon]

According to the scriptures, everyone falls short and we have all failed.

So a rather meaingless claim

Yes but there's more. I have experienced God personally.

People claim to have experienced many other deities personally, so this claim is not much use is it? Also mermaids, and space ships...are we to simply believe all unevidenced anecdotal claims? What happens then, when these inevitably contradict each other?

 

[ElishaElijah]

Tell that to the largest Christian church, it also happens to be the richest and oldest, make of that what you will.

You mean the Laodicean Church?

 

[Sheldon]

In C,S. Lewis’ view, “The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens — at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences".

“We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.”

Well perhaps you could further extrapolate this idea, as a heathen myself I am aware there is some evidence that a historical preacher existed, with a name not uncommon to the epoch, and was crucified, a not uncommon punishment of the epoch. Beyond that I can't see what myths, connected or not have to offer?

If my subjective opinion, that a belief ought to be supported by sufficient objective evidence, I have not heard a rational reason? If I am to abandon the efficacy of logic, or more accurately ringfence come beliefs from it, then what rationale beyond the subjective can be offered to support this position?

Even if I were forced to abandon the notion that objective facts exists, or event any objective evidence, I don't see how this validates any belief at all? Quite the opposite, it suggests one could believe anything, in which case what value would such beliefs have, beyond what we subjectively and arbitrarily assign them?

 

[Sheldon]

You mean the Laodicean Church?

Are they the wealthiest Christian church, or the largest? Do they still exist? Come on, this is desperate sophistry.

 

[Five Solas]

That's on you.

And it's not unexpected that you would simply blow it all off without any evidence that you even read it, much less understood it (I could give your answer to any post whatever it said, even without reading it). I addressed that phenomenon a few hours ago on this thread to InChrist.



Your experience is not evidence of a god, meaning that your presupposition that you are experiencing one is faith-based. The argument in support of that was in the text you couldn't understand. You haven't tried to rebut it, nor to support your own position except with unevidenced claims that have no persuasive power with those who require supporting evidence before believing, so why would my position change?



And I've already addressed this, too. If you're not going to look at what is written to you, why respond? Why should I? You have no argument, you talk about having evidence but offer none, and you ignore what is written to you before repeating yourself.



Actually, it seems like it is you that doesn't understand the scriptures.

Theists claim that this book is too difficult to understand in order to try to disqualify dissenting opinion from skeptics, but it's the skeptics who understand it and its flaws, not the believer, who reads it through a faith-based confirmation bias that filters out the internal contradictions, moral and intellectual failings of an allegedly perfect deity, failed prophecy, and errors of science and history. Why would anybody be interested in what people committed to seeing the Bible as the word of God see when they look? We already know what it will be, whatever the words actually mean.

A literate, educated person has no difficulty understanding anything written in a language he is fluent in. I would have trouble understanding Chaucer in the original English, and wouldn't understand technical language in a field I'm unfamiliar with, but other kinds of books, not so much. One simply never see this kind of argument with any other text - "you don't understand the words even if you think you do."

That definition of faith is very close to my own: unjustified belief. You seem to think it means something else, likely because you want it to mean something else. You are arguing that faith based beliefs can be evidence based, and citing a scripture that doesn't support you, then claiming others don't understand what it means. Like I said, this is evidence to me that YOU don't understand what the words mean.

You and I are engaged in part of a larger conversation going on between Christians and atheists since atheists got a voice, which happened in our lifetimes with the rise of the Internet and the respectability of atheism as a tenable alternative to theism. This kind of thing rarely happened in the past, where at one time, it could result in the death of the skeptic. In my lifetime, the church hasn't had that power, but when I was born, atheists were so marginalized and demonized that they couldn't adopt, coach, teach, or serve on juries for being morally unfit, and there was virtually no recourse for such people except to silently accept that only theists were entitled to an opinion without having to pay a penalty.

That's all changed much to the chagrin of the church and its apologists, who can now be challenged, and who are now expected to defend their claims knowing that they can't.



None of that is evidence that their faith was evidence based or that their beliefs were correct.

Again, many paragraphs to say very little.

My presupposition stands...

 

[Sheldon]

I already gave a list of scholars verifying the Scriptures as authentic as well as Daniel, you must’ve missed all that. So much evidence

Nonsense, you are misusing the word scholar here, in an unabashed attempt to pretend that claims by biased religious apologists, both real and fictional, like the gospel authors Mathew Mark Luke and John, are scholarly claims. A scholar can make a claim that stands up to the objective scrutiny of other scholars, and also hold subjective beliefs which would not.

 

[Sheldon]

Would recommend this Bible for anyone, it’s excellent with so much great information.
https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Illustr...5300c3b8aac09baec89cf2b948cda8&language=en_US

Pictures too, had one like that as a child, it was fascinating, but then magic has that appeal to children.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Are they the wealthiest Christian church, or the largest? Do they still exist? Come on, this is desperate sophistry.

Who are you referring to “ the wealthiest church”.’You don’t know what I mean “the Laodicean church”?