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

[Trailblazer]

The Baha'i view of Jesus is irrelevant to Christianity. After all, Satan can quote Scripture.

I don't give a rip if the Baha'i view of Jesus is irrelevant to Christianity. The Christian view of Jesus is irrelevant to the Baha'i Faith.
The Bible supports the Baha'i view of the return of Christ. It does not support the Christian view. How ironic.

The Baha'i view is that there is no such being as Satan, and that Christians who believe in Satan are completely deluded.

 

[Link]

The Baha'i view is that there is no such being as Satan, and that Christians who believe in Satan are completely deluded.

Can you prove that from your scriptures or authority figures?

 

[ppp]

I don't give a rip if the Baha'i view of Jesus is irrelevant to Christianity. The Christian view of Jesus is irrelevant to the Baha'i Faith.

Well, duh.

The Bible supports the Baha'i view of the return of Christ.

The Bible supports the views of whatever god believer happens to be earnestly mouthing the words at the time. It is the big book of multiple choice.

 

[Trailblazer]

Can you prove that from your scriptures or authority figures?

Can anyone prove their scriptures or authority figures came from God?
I do not think that is subject to proof, but there is evidence.

 

[Trailblazer]

The Bible supports the views of whatever god believer happens to be earnestly mouthing the words at the time. It is the big book of multiple choice.

There is certainly some truth to what you are saying..... One can make the Bible say whatever they want to believe by cherry-picking verses and interpreting them to suit.

However, many Bible verses have to be disregarded or misinterpreted to support the belief that the same Jesus is going to return to earth.
Nowhere in the big book of multiple choice did Jesus ever say He was going to return to earth, not once.

Matthew 24 KJV​

​

3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?​

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.​

5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.​

Please note that Jesus did not answer the disciples and say what the sign would be of His coming. Jesus said that many men would come in His name, claiming to be Christ, and that is exactly what has happened. However, Baha'u'llah never claimed to be Christ. He came with a new name, just as the Bible prophesied.

Isaiah 62:2 And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.​

​

Revelation 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.​

​

Revelation 3:12-13 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.​

 

[Brian2]

There is no "principal of complexity of design needing a designer." It's just an assertion, as though complexity is the hallmark of good design when in actuality, simplicity is the hallmark of good design. You're just trying to smuggle in the very thing you need to be demonstrating, without actually demonstrating it. That doesn't fly.

I just made up that name "principle of complexity of design needing a designer" for what you were saying, trying to make complexity of design into a principle that should also be applied to God and that He might also need a designer. So you are turning it around onto me.
I did say that Antony Flew said that the genetic code was too complex to have been a product of chance. That is all.

Languages are symbolic codes that human beings use to communicate information with each other. DNA doesn't not encode a language, there is no symbolic meaning of the DNA in our genomes, and it has very little in common with human languages.

Encoded into the chemistry of genetics is information about the body of a plant or animal and how it works and what diseases it is prone to and what the animal might automatically know as that particular animal etc etc.
This coded information gets transferred to the chemistry of the body of the plant or animal.
This coded information can be altered for better survival and pick up information which brings a worse survival probability.
This coded information is turned on and/or off at various times in the development and life of an individual.
I said nothing about translating from a language to a code or back even though it is plain that the information gets transferred from genes to body etc.
Of necessity something like this has to be complex, but complexity is a relative thing. The complexity of the genes might be the least complex it could be for such a system and the information it carries and what it does.
So stop making stuff up about simplicity being the hallmark of good design as if the complexity of the genes actually shows that they were not designed.

But the real question is how did DNA and the genes become this fantastic information carrying and storage thing.
Either it was designed or it was chance. (and when I say "chance" I don't mean that there are no laws of chemistry to follow etc---I am looking at the big picture---eveything is a product of chance if there is no designer).

 

[Brian2]

Oh, of course it doesn't. Only answered prayers show whether God answers prayers, right?
That's irrational, my friend.

Science sends messages into space hoping to get a response that they can understand as being from an intelligent source. A billion signals that we don't see as intelligent responses do not mean that there is no life out there, it is that one response that we see as intelligent that we see as from life.

So we don't have any good evidence indicating that god(s) answer prayers. In other words, god answers prayers at the rate of chance. Which is the same thing as no god existing at all.
So why do you believe that god answers prayers/

You are the one who is saying that God answers prayer at the rate of chance. I am saying we do not know who God healed and that the prayer studies do not show that.
We do hear of things happening that look like miracles to us however and there are plenty of things that we cannot tell if they are miracles or not. The Christian response is one of faith hopefully in everything,,,,,,,,,,,,, in the ones that look like miracles and in the others also, whether positive or negative results,,,,,,,,,,,, knowing that it is God who is in charge and the one who decides on the outcome.

 

[Audie]

The pages still tend to catch fire when I try. How do you manage?

I look so innocent and harmless unlike some
grarnly old swabs.

 

[YoursTrue]

No it started with Hellenism and Persian myths mixed with Jewish theology. The soul is a Hellenistic idea.

The Resurrection in its Cultural Context [feat. Dr. Bart Ehrman]


5:00 No soul in Judaism. 1st Cor, very misunderstood. Paul is writing to a group of Christians who did not believe in a physical resurrection. A physical resurrection is a Jewish idea (from 2nd Temple Persian myth). In traditional Jewish thinking there isn’t a separation between body and soul. It’s all one thing. They did not have the idea that the soul would be rewarded because the body/soul was the same.


6:25 A Soul is Pagan not Jewish Pauls opponents in Corinth who were Christians were raised in PAGAN circles where there was separation of body and soul and were saying there was no physical resurrection of the body, just a soul. Paul was saying there must be a physical resurrection because Jesus was raised from the dead. So Paul argues there are different types of bodies to resolve this conflict. Paul argues Jesus rose in a spiritual body that looked like a human body but was an immortal body.


Clear proof that a soul living into afterlife IS PAGAN, or Hellenistic.

21:20 People have trouble getting their minds around how scholarship has developed since the Enlightenment that allowed technology to develop. Why didn’t earlier people develop similar advances. It happened when scientists decided not to try to understand everything from a religious philosophical perspective but from an empirical evidence point of reference.


Francis Bacon, Newton…… Historians started developing the same mindset at the same time and also made great leaps.


Someone who thinks Christianity is the exception to the rule is breaking the rule. Even if you are Christian you bracket your faith to study the past.


23:07 Anti Supernatural bias, Ehrman gets accused often of this bias. It is NOT an anti-supernatural bias, it’s how the discipline works. There are millions of historians, many of them are Christian, but when they do history they don’t import their beliefs into it.


You cannot have a resurrection without a miracle and you cannot have a miracle without God intervening. There is no historian who talks about God intervening in history.


27:05 You cannot have a resurrection without a faith commitment

The soul doesn't mean what you and others might think it means or may be interpreted as.

 

[Audie]

Al Pacino as Satan, V the holy water

 

[Brian2]

It is a matter of choice - Do you want to believe in as many true things as possible while not believing in as many false things as possible? Do you care about what's actually true? Then you go with the evidence. If you want to believe what you want to believe, then you go with faith.

I already know where science ends up and the only reason I would want to end up there is to not be restricted by a belief in a God who puts restrictions on my conduct.
If I believe only what science says is probabe according to the paradigms it works under makes no difference in anything except I would be able to think that I believe only what the best of human only research shows to be true. But woopee, who cares.
I would rather look further afield. Not to what I WANT to believe necessarily, but to where I see the best of other evidence and human experience pointing to and also to something that also offers some hope and not end up just in the grave.

 

[ppp]

There is certainly some truth to what you are saying..... One can make the Bible say whatever they want to believe by cherry-picking verses and interpreting them to suit.

However, many Bible verses have to be disregarded or misinterpreted to support the belief that the same Jesus is going to return to earth.

You are just about to launch into preaching your interpretation of the Bible and quoting Bible verses I am not going to bother to read. As I said before, I don't deny that your mouthing of the words in an earnest endeavor. There is simply no mouthing, or typing, or signing of texts that has the ability to support your (or anyone else's) god beliefs.

 

[Kenny]

The Baha'i view is that there is no such being as Satan, and that Christians who believe in Satan are completely deluded.

Jesus believed there is a Satan.

 

[Brian2]

You're trying to tell me that science isn't a "thing" then go on to describe it as just that ... a thing. "It just keeps going on blindly looking for a naturalistic answer." No, it doesn't. Rather, scientists continue to use the scientific method to discover how the world around us operates. And it has a damn good track record, which is more than we can say for religious assertions.

Science is a thing that scientists use and scientists have to go by the scientific method and not start just injecting God into science when the method has no use for God.
Scientists can see past the method and have a belief in God if they want however. Scientists can use other evidence for that belief which science is not able to use without thorough physical testing of that evidence,,,,,,,,,, something which it cannot do with the evidence we see for God and when we do not know what sort of tests can be applied to see if spirits exist.
Science works well when it sticks to it's area of expertise.

This avoids the point though, doesn't it?

I don't know, does it?

No, it's not. It's my way of illustrating to you that your claim is unevidenced and we could insert anything into it it in place of "god" and still end up with the same thing - an insufficient explanation that doesn't actually explain anything at all.

Your assertion was "that mechanism does not show that God did not do it for them." No, it doesn't. But it also doesn't show that anything else in the world you can come up with didn't do it for them either. You're still not understanding how reason and logic work here or that you need to demonstrate that your claim is correct, rather than expecting other people to disprove your claim.

There is the answer of how and why and who that science has not and cannot really answer. We need to recognise that and to admit that a God is the serious answer for these thing and not trying to dismiss even the questions or make light of them by equating a God with flying spaghetti monsters and magic pixies etc.

Again, science isn't a person and doesn't "see" anything. Human beings use the scientific method to discover what's going on around us.
Everything we can demonstrate about the world around us comes from our use of the scientific method.

As long as we can see past the science and not allow it to govern all that we believe or are able to believe or see about the world and our responses to it.

 

[Audie]

I already know where science ends up and the only reason I would want to end up there is to not be restricted by a belief in a God who puts restrictions on my conduct.
If I believe only what science says is probabe according to the paradigms it works under makes no difference in anything except I would be able to think that I believe only what the best of human only research shows to be true. But woopee, who cares.
I would rather look further afield. Not to what I WANT to believe necessarily, but to where I see the best of other evidence and human experience pointing to and also to something that also offers some hope and not end up just in the grave.

The idea that settling on godidit as was done for
hundreds of years of ignorance and superstition
is "looking further" is an even more remarkble whopprr
than your claim to " know where science ends up".

Science lectures from creationists. Honestly.
I should tell welders and pilots about their lack of
expertise, how to do theirjobs.

And you got a nasty swipe at the countless
Christians who do quality work, with no issues with the intellectual dishonesty you go,after- all the
while describing your own with such as: Believe
what you want to believe, believe only science that
conforms to your ideas, that offers hope.

This faith stuff looke worse with every post

 

[Trailblazer]

Jesus believed there is a Satan.

I do not believe that Jesus believed in Satan. I believe that when Jesus referred to Satan it was figurative, and he was referring to the lower selfish nature of man, the evil ego within, not an evil entity outside. For example:

Matthew 16:23-26 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?​

When Jesus said said unto Peter "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" Jesus was referring to worldly things that are not of God, things of the flesh.

In those verses, Jesus was saying to deny our selfish desires, things we want that are not of God, and to follow in Jesus’ Way. For whoever will live for self and the world shall lose his eternal life, but whoever will sacrifice his life for the sake of Jesus shall gain eternal life.

If we live for self and the worldly things, we gain the world but we lose our soul because we lose eternal life. The soul that gains eternal life is near to God so it is in heaven. The soul that loses eternal life continues to exist in the spiritual world (since all souls are immortal) but that soul is far from God, so it is in hell.

Man has two natures, a higher spiritual nature and a lower material nature. Those forces are man's lower material nature, the evil ego within that he always has to fight against. It is not an evil entity outside of man. In Matthew 16:23 Jesus was taking to His lower material nature which He was struggling to ward off. Jesus was not talking to an evil entity called Satan.

 

[Link]

Can anyone prove their scriptures or authority figures came from God?
I do not think that is subject to proof, but there is evidence.

I am asking you to quote your scriptures or authority figures about Satan not being real.

 

[Brian2]

It would be great if you'd present any of them.

I do and have and they are dismissed by people who want only the scientifically testable evidence and reasons. Occam's Razor is good enough in science to give a direction for research to proceed and it seems that Occam's Razor is also good enough for scientism people to dismiss anything that cannot be tested by science and to even say it is not actual evidence.

Nope, I don't. And it's not necessary, given the nature of scientific inquiry, as it stands today. Because it's evidence-based.
We can read through their published studies and their methodology, we can compare them with other studies, we can check their math, we can check if the study is replicable, we can carry out our own study. There are all kinds of things we can do to verify and test the conclusions drawn by scientists. There is no faith required in order to accept scientific findings. And the big major difference between this and religious beliefs is that if and when scientists present findings that may contradict or alter previous findings, we follow the evidence and change our views accordingly. You don't get anything like this with religion.

I for one don't become a scientist and do all the tests to see if the science is correct. And if I did that would not mean it was correct. I just trust the science, as we all do.
And religion (at least the Bible based religious) do change their understanding of the meaning of certain scriptures as evidence comes along that seems to demand that change in understanding.

I don't know what these are supposed to mean.

It just shows some of the information stored in the genes and which is transferred to the living individuals.
It is more than just deciding what proteins should be produced.

 

[Brian2]

True, but it points us in the right direction.

If all you see it the chemistry then that direction is already established from the start. If other things are on the horizon (such as the information stored in the chemistry coding) then the direction is expanded.

No, you have never done that. You have only used flawed arguments. Do you have an argument that has not been refuted a thousand times?

Of course, you only think they have been refuted.

Here is the problem. You probably do not even understand what is and what is not evidence. In the sciences you need a model to even begin to have evidence. Your model has to be falsifiable, that is if it is wrong it can be shown to be wrong by the predictions that it makes. So, what is your model? What predictions does it make? How could at least one of those predictions show that it is wrong? If you cannot answer these questions then you do not have evidence. You only have an ad hoc explanation. Those are worthless and are not supported by evidence.

Here is the problem. You seem to be a believer in scientism and only accept as evidence, the things that science can use and test.
My evidence is not restricted like that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

If all you see it the chemistry then that direction is already established from the start. If other things are on the horizon (such as the information stored in the chemistry coding) then the direction is expanded.

Tasty, science salad.

Of course, you only think they have been refuted.

No, I know that they have been refuted. Unfortunately you are the one that does not understand the difference between knowledge and belief here.

Here is the problem. You seem to be a believer in scientism and only accept as evidence, the things that science can use and test.
My evidence is not restricted like that.

Nope. I am not a believer in scientism at all. You are once again extremely confused. I am betting that you do not even know what "scientism" is. You use the term just as another excuse to break the Ninth Commandment. How ironic.