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

[Trailblazer]

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

“God is loving to all. Shall we be unjust or unkind to anyone? Is this allowable in the sight of God? God provides for all. Is it befitting for us to prevent the flow of His merciful provisions for mankind? God has created all in His image and likeness. Shall we manifest hatred for His creatures and servants? This would be contrary to the will of God and according to the will of Satan, by which we mean the natural inclinations of the lower nature. “This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satan—the evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside.”
The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 287

“The reality underlying this question is that the evil spirit, Satan or whatever is interpreted as evil, refers to the lower nature in man. This baser nature is symbolized in various ways. In man there are two expressions, one is the expression of nature, the other the expression of the spiritual realm…. God has never created an evil spirit; all such ideas and nomenclature are symbols expressing the mere human or earthly nature of man. It is an essential condition of the soil of earth that thorns, weeds and fruitless trees may grow from it. Relatively speaking, this is evil; it is simply the lower state and baser product of nature.”
Abdu’l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 294–295.

The Evil One, which is symbolized by Satan, is the lower nature of man, which is waiting to entrap us, if our thoughts are centered on our own selves, rather than on the Well-Beloved, which is God.

“Say: O people! The Lamp of God is burning; take heed, lest the fierce winds of your disobedience extinguish its light. Now is the time to arise and magnify the Lord, your God. Strive not after bodily comforts, and keep your heart pure and stainless. The Evil One is lying in wait, ready to entrap you. Gird yourselves against his wicked devices, and, led by the light of the name of the one true God, deliver yourselves from the darkness that surroundeth you. Center your thoughts in the Well-Beloved, rather than in your own selves.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 167-168

 

[Subduction Zone]

“God is loving to all. Shall we be unjust or unkind to anyone? Is this allowable in the sight of God? God provides for all. Is it befitting for us to prevent the flow of His merciful provisions for mankind? God has created all in His image and likeness. Shall we manifest hatred for His creatures and servants? This would be contrary to the will of God and according to the will of Satan, by which we mean the natural inclinations of the lower nature. “This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satan—the evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside.”
The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 287

“The reality underlying this question is that the evil spirit, Satan or whatever is interpreted as evil, refers to the lower nature in man. This baser nature is symbolized in various ways. In man there are two expressions, one is the expression of nature, the other the expression of the spiritual realm…. God has never created an evil spirit; all such ideas and nomenclature are symbols expressing the mere human or earthly nature of man. It is an essential condition of the soil of earth that thorns, weeds and fruitless trees may grow from it. Relatively speaking, this is evil; it is simply the lower state and baser product of nature.”
Abdu’l-Baha, Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 294–295.

The Evil One, which is symbolized by Satan, is the lower nature of man, which is waiting to entrap us, if our thoughts are centered on our own selves, rather than on the Well-Beloved, which is God.

“Say: O people! The Lamp of God is burning; take heed, lest the fierce winds of your disobedience extinguish its light. Now is the time to arise and magnify the Lord, your God. Strive not after bodily comforts, and keep your heart pure and stainless. The Evil One is lying in wait, ready to entrap you. Gird yourselves against his wicked devices, and, led by the light of the name of the one true God, deliver yourselves from the darkness that surroundeth you. Center your thoughts in the Well-Beloved, rather than in your own selves.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 167-168

Very nicely done.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Then I'll source my statements.

Yes, that would be acceptable, from sources that aren’t biased. Unlike from “Lloyd Evans, ex-JW”? Come on!

And once again, we have no belief in a “rapture”. That’s what I called you on.

These other things….

Watchtower incorrectly promoted teachings on the following dates that they no longer accept:

539 A.D.
1780
1798
1799
1829
1840
1844
1846
1872
1874
1878
1880
1881
1891
1906
1910
1914
1915
1917
1918
1920
1921
1925
1926
1928
1932
1935
1940s
1951
1975
2000

Where did you get this GISH?!
There’s only one date on here that was thought to be the “end of the world”….1914. However, it did turn out to be an important date — the beginning of the Last Days. Many historians & world leaders, who were contemporaries of the time, recognize that date as a turning point in human affairs:

“Ever since 1914, everybody conscious of trends in the world has been deeply troubled by what has seemed like a fated and predetermined march toward ever greater disaster. Many serious people have come to feel that nothing can be done to avert the plunge towards ruin.”—Bertrand Russell, The New York Times Magazine, September 27, 1953.



The London Evening Star commented that the conflict “tore the whole world’s political setup apart. Nothing could ever be the same again. If we all get the nuclear madness out of our systems and the human race survives, some historian in the next century may well conclude that the day the world went mad was August 4, 1914.”–London Evening Star, quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 5, 1960, and The Seattle Times, August 4, 1960, p. 5.



“Half a century has gone by, yet the mark that the tragedy of the Great War left on the body and soul of the nations has not faded . . . The physical and moral magnitude of this ordeal was such that nothing left was the same as before. Society in its entirety: systems of government, national borders, laws, armed forces, interstate relations, but also ideologies, family life, fortunes, positions, personal relations—everything was changed from top to bottom. . . . Humanity finally lost its balance, never to recover it to this day.” (General Charles de Gaulle, Le Monde, Nov. 12, 1968, p. 9)


“Those who lived through the war could never rid themselves of the belief that one world had ended and another begun in August 1914.” (The Generation of 1914, Robert Wohl, Professor of History)



“The whole world really blew up about World War I and we still don’t know why. Before then, men thought that utopia was in sight. There was peace and prosperity. Then everything blew up. We’ve been in a state of suspended animation ever since . . . More people have been killed in this century than in all of history.” (Dr. Walker Percy, American Medical News, November 21, 1977)



“Everything would get better and better. This was the world I was born in. . . . Suddenly, unexpectedly, one morning in 1914 the whole thing came to an end.” (British statesman Harold Macmillan, The New York Times, November 23, 1980)


“The last completely ‘normal’ year in history was 1913, the year before World War I began.” (Times-Herald, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1949)



“In 1914 the world lost a coherence which it has not managed to recapture since. . . . This has been a time of extraordinary disorder and violence, both across national frontiers and within them.” (The Economist)



“The Great War of 1914-18 lies like a band of scorched earth dividing that time from ours. In wiping out so many lives which would have been operative on the years that followed, in destroying beliefs, changing ideas, and leaving incurable wounds of disillusion, it created a physical as well as psychological gulf between two epochs.” (Foreword to The Proud Tower, by Barbara W. Tuchman)

Ironic, considering the Watchtower specifically said the end would come in 1914 and then 1925.

No….only 1914.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Plain and simple. Jesus is not coming back to earth to rule as King.
Jesus never promised to return to earth, not once in the New Testament. Jesus said His work was finished here and He was no more in the world.

Did I not say, it’s a “Heavenly kingdom”?

You’ve misconstrued what I said.

I never once said, or indicated, that Jesus was coming back to earth.

 

[joelr]

Yes... it can go both ways and that is why you and I have the discussions. Nothing is new under the sun, just different names in different eras.

There is some new stuff.

There are many. Here's is one of them.

One of the World's Most Powerful Scientists Believes in Miracles

NIH director Francis Collins, winner of the 2020 Templeton Prize, answers questions about God, free will, evil, altruism and his Christian faith in a 2006 interview

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Perfect. A man has a mystical experience. ll religions and cults have had people experience mystical experiences. Studies have been done recently, oxygen deprevation can reproduce the feeling of floating, the sense of being with a prescence, feeling bliss, love, compassion, all brain states.
So he picked the religion he grew up with and associated it with that. If he were in an Islamic or Hindu country he would be in that religion.

But scholars who actually learn the religion isn't what it claims, were folk tales passed on from older folk tales and likely were not even meant to be literal, when they learn the historical truth, they realize it's all mythology.

There are many. Dr Miller documents his journey from theologian and NT scholar to historian and leaving the religion

He explains the consensus opinion on apologetics

Christian Apologetics Is A Grossly Dishonest Game of Ignorance | Dr. Richard C. Mille​

"It's a grossly dishonest game"

A lot of what you are giving such as "a bit of a mess" is more about you looking at it with eyes that don't know everything. An example is the appendix. At one time we thought is was "leftover of evolution" but now we know it has a purpose.

That is a red herring. Science is never perfect and it grows, learns, accepts new evidence. I don't know everything, science doesn't know everything. But Zeus and Krishna are not suddenly going to be real. Nor is Yahweh. The more we learn about Near Eastern deities the more we see Yahweh is 100% typical God of his time. He changed with the times into Greco-Roman Yahweh later.

Who made the "one unified law"? Naturally buy whose standard? Man's who still know nothing in comparison to what there is to know? Nature creates? Does that negate the possible existence of God?

The answer is we don't know. But we have models, and evidence. Many worlds, infinite universes, we know laws can create themself as they did after the big bang started, the cooling caused a symmetry break and the unified force split up. Nature does this, Nature works with probabilities. Doesn't need a conscious being at all.

Is there a creator deity, who knows? I'm not really arguing deism. The big problem with cosmological arguments is you have to posit a conscious creator at some point and that does not make sense. It's a leap and it's bizarre. A being just existed as all reality? What?
But Theism is what is extremely unlikely and the evidence demonstrates that as well. I highly doubt Krishna is real. Same for all theism.

No... you have opinions based on your paradigm of beliefs which we all do.

I have beliefs based on evidence and based on philosophy and cosmological arguments, nature and so on.

Who said He isn't helping? This sounds more like a victim mentality where man has no responsibility

Last I checked I don't have infinite God power. 10,000 children every day doesn't sound like a creation, it sounds like a natural phenomemon following probabilistic laws.

Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day | United Nations

During the past two decades, population growth, improvement in incomes and diversification of diets have steadily increased the demand for food. Prior to 2000, food prices were in decline, largely through record harvests. At the same time, however, public and private investment in agriculture...

www.un.org

Losing 25,000 to Hunger Every Day​

I'm saying he isn't helping because there isn't any theistic deity watching over people. Prayer was studied with controls by scientists. It doesn't work. But mortality rates being stable show the same percentage of people die from the same diseases every year. If a deity helped them survive those stats would demonstrate it. Doesn't rule out theism, rules out prayer.
There is no evidence for theism.

 

[joelr]

Faith isn't collective. So blanketing doesn't work but conceptually with this question. One person, one faith (ie, repository of evidence).

Then give what evidence you can. I didn't say blanket it with faith?

 

[joelr]

Sorry but that post is too long for me to read and dwell on. Maybe you can highlight a few sentences that bear out your point.

I highly doubt that statement. You got schooled on your response and you found out Revelation is just an ancient Persian myth.

If you are telling the truth, then sure, here is a shorter version:

1) smack down

2) Revelation is using Persian legends

for further details see previous post.

 

[joelr]

But infants and pregnant women die in earthquakes, etc. Or disease.

Yes, from a natural disaster. I'm talking about a God who ordered the murder of 6 cities of women, babies, elderly, children, men, women, pets, because they might teach the Israelites their evil religion.
First, why are the Israelites so easily swayed when Yahweh has been showing up in person?
Yahweh could show up in person to those cities as well and the babies could have a chance to grow up and be in the correct religion.

But, it was written by men who hated those cities, that is why it says that, otherwise it makes no sense and is immoral.

Children generally want to know who their parents are and inherit not just genes but often psychological characteristics as they grow.

Right but what is the point?

It all goes back to Adam and Eve. I figure you don't believe that.

Adam and Eve is a 100% mythic tale. Most modern Christians do not take Genesis literal.

It's taught this way in Biblical historical classes, because it's true.

John Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible 3rd ed.
“Biblical creation stories draw motifs from Mesopotamia, Much of the language and imagery of the Bible was culture specific and deeply embedded in the traditions of the Near East.
2nd ed. The Old Testament, Davies and Rogerson
“We know from the history of the composition of Gilamesh that ancient writers did adapt and re-use older stories……
It is safer to content ourselves with comparing the motifs and themes of Genesis with those of other ancient Near East texts.
In this way we acknowledge our belief that the biblical writers adapted existing stories, while we confess our ignorance about the form and content of the actual stories that the Biblical writers used.”
The Old Testament, A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, M. Coogan
“Genesis employs and alludes to mythical concepts and phrasing, but at the same time it also adapts transforms and rejected them”
God in Translation, Smith
“…the Bibles authors fashioned whatever they may have inherited of the Mesopotamian literary tradition on their own terms”
THE OT Text and Content, Matthews, Moyer
“….a great deal of material contained in the primeval epics in Genesis is borrowed and adapted from the ancient cultures of that region.”

The Formation of Genesis 1-11, Carr
“The previous discussion has made clear how this story in Genesis represents a complex juxtaposition of multiple traditions often found separately in the Mesopotamian literary world….”
The Priestly Vision of Genesis, Smith
“….storm God and cosmic enemies passed into Israelite tradition. The biblical God is not only generally similar to Baal as a storm god, but God inherited the names of Baal’s cosmic enemies, with names such as Leviathan, Sea, Death and Tanninim.”

 

[joelr]

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

The soul is a concept taken by Christianity from Hellenism. Paul did this.

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.






"

only in Hellenistic times (after c. 330 BCE) did Jews begin to adopt the Greek idea that it would be a place of punishment for misdeeds, and that the righteous would enjoy an afterlife in heaven.[8]"

wLee, Sang Meyng


Sang Meyng Lee, Born 1963; 2005-2008 Adjunct Professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary, P



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............................

(Sanders)
Wright , Hundley


If you have a different idea of the soul and where it came from and how you know, then source it etc....

 

[joelr]

Yes, that would be acceptable, from sources that aren’t biased. Unlike from “Lloyd Evans, ex-JW”? Come on!

I'm not entering Lloyd as a PhD however he has experience in JW and he presents documents that were given to him on the Rapture and talks on the general beliefs.
I am sure I can find an episode where he speaks on this.
He also has many ex-JW guests, some high up. Yes he is bias but he has no reason to lie about that?

And once again, we have no belief in a “rapture”. That’s what I called you on.

You are being oddly vague. I don't care what you call it, or how you frame it, 2nd coming, whatever. It's the Persian myth in a Christian form.

These other things….

Where did you get this GISH?!
There’s only one date on here that was thought to be the “end of the world”….1914. However, it did turn out to be an important date — the beginning of the Last Days. Many historians & world leaders, who were contemporaries of the time, recognize that date as a turning point in human affairs:

“Ever since 1914, everybody conscious of trends in the world has been deeply troubled by what has seemed like a fated and predetermined march toward ever greater disaster. Many serious people have come to feel that nothing can be done to avert the plunge towards ruin.”—Bertrand Russell, The New York Times Magazine, September 27, 1953.



The London Evening Star commented that the conflict “tore the whole world’s political setup apart. Nothing could ever be the same again. If we all get the nuclear madness out of our systems and the human race survives, some historian in the next century may well conclude that the day the world went mad was August 4, 1914.”–London Evening Star, quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 5, 1960, and The Seattle Times, August 4, 1960, p. 5.

Bertrand Russell said it because it was the beginning of a War which set off another war. Not the end times.

And WW1 is cherry picking to make your date work. There is the Trinity test, 1945 among MANY other dates that would relate to nuclear war. The start of WW1 is a huge stretch to involve nuclear war.

“Half a century has gone by, yet the mark that the tragedy of the Great War left on the body and soul of the nations has not faded . . . The physical and moral magnitude of this ordeal was such that nothing left was the same as before. Society in its entirety: systems of government, national borders, laws, armed forces, interstate relations, but also ideologies, family life, fortunes, positions, personal relations—everything was changed from top to bottom. . . . Humanity finally lost its balance, never to recover it to this day.” (General Charles de Gaulle, Le Monde, Nov. 12, 1968, p. 9)


“Those who lived through the war could never rid themselves of the belief that one world had ended and another begun in August 1914.” (The Generation of 1914, Robert Wohl, Professor of History)



“The whole world really blew up about World War I and we still don’t know why. Before then, men thought that utopia was in sight. There was peace and prosperity. Then everything blew up. We’ve been in a state of suspended animation ever since . . . More people have been killed in this century than in all of history.” (Dr. Walker Percy, American Medical News, November 21, 1977)

And people say the same thing about WW2. This has nothing to do with a Persian apoctalyptic myth.

“Everything would get better and better. This was the world I was born in. . . . Suddenly, unexpectedly, one morning in 1914 the whole thing came to an end.” (British statesman Harold Macmillan, The New York Times, November 23, 1980)


“The last completely ‘normal’ year in history was 1913, the year before World War I began.” (Times-Herald, Washington, D.C., March 13, 1949)



“In 1914 the world lost a coherence which it has not managed to recapture since. . . . This has been a time of extraordinary disorder and violence, both across national frontiers and within them.” (The Economist)



“The Great War of 1914-18 lies like a band of scorched earth dividing that time from ours. In wiping out so many lives which would have been operative on the years that followed, in destroying beliefs, changing ideas, and leaving incurable wounds of disillusion, it created a physical as well as psychological gulf between two epochs.” (Foreword to The Proud Tower, by Barbara W. Tuchman)


No….only 1914.

Yes only 1914 because all of the other predicted fails of the Rapture were not on a year the great war started.

Now this site has many failed predictions about JW, so 1914 can easily just be known as a small coincidence. You asked what this site was. It's a list of the failed predictions. They may not speak of them since they were wrong but they can be researched

Failed date predictions of Jehovah's Witnesses

Failed Watchtower date predictions and changed date doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, including lesser known ones such as 1799, 1844, 1874, 1878, 1918, 1920 and the 1940's.

www.jwfacts.com

1914 was not supposed to be the start of ww1 it was supposed to be the fall of false religion. You also forgot the actual meaning that was said to have happened.
"1914 has been a pivotal date for the Watchtower. The expectations prior to 1914 included it being the end of the Gentile Times, the end of Armageddon, the fall of false religion, the end of all governments, the resurrection, the start of Jesus 1000 year reign and paradise on earth. See 1914 for a in-depth article regarding this date."




There is a WIki page about failed predictions

Unfulfilled Watch Tower Society predictions - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Armageddon to come within 20th century[edit]​

Watch Tower Society literature of the 1970s and 1980s repeatedly claimed that the "end" had to be expected before the turn of the century. The 1971 book The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah – How? stated: "Shortly, within our twentieth century, the 'battle in the day of Jehovah' will begin against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom."[59] A 1980 Watchtower article described the notion that "the wicked system of this world" would last "until the turn of the century" as "highly improbable in view of world trends and the fulfillment of Bible prophecy".[60]

A similar statement in a 1984 Watchtower article suggested that some members of the 1914 generation "could survive until the end of the century. But there are many indications that 'the end' is much closer than that!"[61] Until its October 22, 1995 issue, Awake! similarly included the statement, "this magazine builds confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away."[62]


expectations of end times was definitely a big thing.




Let's check the Britannica article on JW:

Jehovah’s Witness | History, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica

A Jehovah’s Witness is a member of a Christian-based new religious movement that developed within 19th-century millennialism and the Adventist movement in the United States. Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for their rejection of certain religious and secular practices as well as for their evangelism.

www.britannica.com

Jehovah’s Witness, member of a millennialist denomination that developed within the larger 19th-century Adventist movement in the United States and has since spread worldwide. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are an outgrowth of the International Bible Students Association, which was founded in 1872 in Pittsburgh by Charles Taze Russell.

Witnesses believe that they are living in the last days, and they look forward to the imminent establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, which will be headed by Christ and jointly administered by 144,000 human corulers (Revelation 7:4). Those who acknowledge Jehovah in this life will become members of the millennial kingdom; those who reject him will not go to hell but will face total extinction. New members are baptized by immersion and are expected to live by a strict code of personal conduct. Marriage is considered a holy covenant, and divorce is disapproved of except in cases of adultery. Witnesses participate in the annual commemoration of Christ’s death, celebrated on 14 Nisan of the Jewish calendar (March or April of the Gregorian calendar); Witnesses pass around bread and wine, symbols of the body and blood of Christ. Only those thought to be among the 144,000 corulers eat and drink the bread and wine.



The Watch Tower Society publishes millions of books, tracts, recordings, and periodicals in more than 700 languages. Its chief publications are a semimonthly magazine, the Watchtower, and its companion magazine, Awake!. Work is carried out throughout the world by more than eight million Witnesses.


So it seems in fact the end times is a part of the theology as were many failed dates.
Lloyd actually has many of those periodicals, books and recordings and plays them often. I do not believe he is making it all up. And yes it's based on Revelation which is the NT version of a Persian myth.
You just said "come on"? Why can't an ex-JW explain his experiences? Do you believe he is making it up? I can ask him where he practiced, I'm sure he gives all the information about his church and leaders.

 

[joelr]

But the real question is how did DNA and the genes become this fantastic information carrying and storage thing.

The formation of DNA was covered in recent threads. Some good evidence, DNA comes from RNA, RNA is made of things that are self replicating.

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).

You are arguing fiction again. Genes that are heredable have NO CHANCE but to evolve, to pass on slightly different copies. Sometimes it results in a better change.

Nothing is chance in the way you put it. That is incorrect. If there is no designer everything is probabilistic. And it is. QM is and everything built from it also is. We see probabilities play out with everything.
Things with small probabilities take longer. Evolution had billions or trillions of chances, on trillions of planets, over billions of years. Self replicating nucleotides, amino acids, all exist. Basic RNA was a matter of time once enough advanced compounds self replicated. DNA was the nextstep.
In fact they now believe RNA started more than once, so it's very possible and probable.
The laws of physics allow for all these possibilities with enough time.
Once the genes are heritable, evolution has to happen unless all life ends.
There is no designer here except the forces of nature. No mind. A mind isn't needed with probability. Inherent in reality. Why, we don't know.

Chance is an apologetic trick to make religious people think a designer is needed. Because chance is random. But in reality if something is possible it can and will happen. Clearly life was possible and given enough time it happened in this universe.

 

[joelr]

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.
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.

That is a modern reading, changing the meaning. In the religion Jesus believed in the devil.
Jesus exorcized demons out of pigs as well. He believed the demonology of the day. In the story they are real. But it's a story and like revelations are not actually true. No matter who makes the claim.

David Hume -

Which is more likely - that a man should be used as a transmitter by God to deliver some already existing revelations, or that he should utter some already existing revelations and believe himself to be, or claim to be ordered by God to do so?

What Jesus Said About Satan​

Jesus said a good deal about Satan.​

He called him:

"the enemy", Matthew 13:39.
"The evil one", Matthew 13:38
"The prince of this world", John 12:31; 14:30
"A liar", and "the father of lies", John 8:44.
"A murderer", John 8:44.

He said that he "saw him fallen from heaven", Luke 10:18.

That he has a "kingdom", Matthew 12:26.

That "evil men are his sons", Matthew 13:38.

That he "sowed tares among the wheat", Matthew 13:38,39.

He "snatches Word from hearers", Matthew 13:19; Mark 4:15; Luke 8:12.

The he "bound a woman for 18 years", Luke 13:16.

That he "desired to have Peter", Luke 22:31.

That the has "angels", Matthew 25:41.

That "eternal fire is prepared for him", Matthew 25:41

The Bible represents Satan as:​

"The tempter", Matthew 4:3

"The prince of demons", Matthew 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15.

"Source of demoniacal possession", Matthew 12:22-29; Luke 11:14-23

That he put the betrayal into the heart of Judas, Jn 13:2,27.

That he perverts the Scripture, Matthew 4:4; Luke 4: 10,11

That he is "the god of this world", 11 Cor. 4:4.

That he is "the prince of the power of the air", Ephesians 2:2

That he "fashions himself into an angel of light", 11 Cor. 11:14.

That he is our "adversary", 1 Peter 5:8.

He is "the deceiver of the whole world", Rev. 12:9; 20: 3,8,10.

Calls him "the great dragon", "the old serpent", Revelation 12:9; 20:2.

The "seducer of Adam and Eve", Genesis 3:1-20.

That he will "flee if resisted", James 4:7.

That he caused "Paul's thorn in the flesh", 11 Cor. 12:7.

Hindered Paul's missionary plans, 1 Thess. 2:18.

Caused Ananias to lie, Acts 5:3.

That Gentiles are under his power, Acts 26:18.

That he blinds the minds of unbelievers, 11 Cor. 4:4.

False teachers are "a synagog of Satan", Rev. 2:9; 3:9.

Can produce false miracles, 11 Thes. 2:9.

Is the moving spirit of the ''Apostasy'', 11 Thes. 2:9

As a roaring lion seeks to devour Christians, 1 Peter 5:8

Is overcome by faith, 1 Peter 5:9.

Is wiley, Ephesians 6:11.

Is the spirit that works in the disobedient, Ephesians 2:2

Moved David to sin, I Chron. 21:1.

Caused Job's troubles, Job 1:7-2:10.

Was the Adversary of Joshua, Zech. 3:1-9.

Gets the advantage of Christians, 11 Cor. 2:11.

Evil men are his children, 1 John 3:8,10.

Is there really a devil? The language of Jesus certainly indicates his own belief in the existence of a personal devil. Jesus knew what He was talking about. If Jesus was merely accommodating himself to popular error, His words are no revelation of truth at all, for who, then, can discern between the actual truth that He is aiming to teach and the error that He speaks of as if it were truth?

(Halley's Bible Handbook pg.400)

 

[Kenny]

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.

An interesting take...

How do you interpret these two with that understanding

? Mark 3:22-24
22 And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
23 And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?
24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

Luke 13:16
And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?

 

[Brian2]

No, it's not. If the designer is more complex than a design that is said to need a designer because of its complexity, the argument fails right there due to a special pleading fallacy.

So you are claiming that God has to be more complex than His design and that God is just like everything else and is not a special case even if He is the creator and everything else is the creation, even if He is a spirit and everything else is physical etc etc.

The genetic code is NOT a code in the sense of Morse Code.

But is code in the sense of the genetic code and carries information from molecule to molecule to a life form from generation to generation.

Nope, just the literal codes using symbols with agreed-upon meanings.

The genetic code has agreed upon meanings. The code passes information in a way that the molecules do what the code says.
However I know what you are saying. That you cannot see any intelligence in the molecules involved in the use of the code.
The intelligence however is in the one who invented and set it up to work as an information collection and storage and use system.
This is something that is not a scientific proof for anything, and science will look for what some scientist says is a possible naturalistic way that this system began until the end of the world if necessary. IMO a designer is more likely than chance for this system to have happened.
It you demand science then it is through Occam's Razor that we can see a designer is more likely than chance.

Science doesn't call a mechanism correct without confirming it.

Science cannot confirm mechanisms that happened millions of years ago. Nobody was there to see what happened. It is believed by faith.

It takes humans to do and understand science. It takes those humans willing to believe without sufficient justification to claim that gods exist.

They have sufficient justification for themselves. Who are you to say they have not sufficient justification?

And that is evidence that his prayer was for nought.

No it isn't.

Actually, some do. From Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer - PubMed

"Conclusions: Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications."

The STEP study revealed no benefit to prayer, but worse, demonstrated a deleterious effect of being a cardiac patient and a believer going for relatively dangerous surgery and knowing that you were prayed for.

Interesting, but it does treat prayer as the thing being studied and leaves God, as a being who makes decisions, out of the equation.

We all have access to the same evidence if we use the same senses. You can see what I see, hear what I hearts, feel what I can touch, and smell and taste what I can. The difference is whether we apply valid reasoning to it to arrive at sound conclusions. That is, we don't have different evidence. We use different "logics." Only rogue logic connects the evidence theists offer with their beliefs about what it implies.

It is faith that sees the connection. Faith joins the dots where the evidence has not gone. Some see the evidence and end up saying it points to a God and others see the evidence and want an in depth scientific study to see if the evidence points to a God, because they want to think they believe things without relying on faith. But everyone uses faith, but some want to use it less than others will.

It means that he doesn't care if all of his beliefs are demonstrably correct, and I have no other definition for truth (or fact or knowledge) than that, so he doesn't care if his god belief is true.

If someone believes in God and acts on that belief, then they see their God belief as true but of course know they are using faith more than the person who waits for the results of the in depth scientific study,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, which does not even see God as a possible answer or hypothesis, and does not even know how to study and test for an invisible spirit. Maybe the one who waits is the one who does not care for belief in God or whether God is true or not. Maybe the one who waits does not want to believe in a God. Maybe the one who waits just has not considered God deeply enough and that nature points to a God.

The Abrahamic theist is always offended when any known fictional entity is compared to his god, even other gods, and pretty uniformly attempts to dismiss the comparison with an emotional response, but of course, that accomplishes nothing. Pick whatever you like to stand for a character for which there is no evidence and compare your god to that. I think you'll find that you find the very exercise offensive a priori whatever is chosen. God isn't all that differently from Santa, who is also nowhere to be found, who is also allegedly reading your mind and making lists of naughty and nice which will result in presents or coals. Does this also offend you? If so, ask yourself why.

If you are serious about all those fictional characters being equivalent to belief in God then it is emotional because of the demonstration of the stubborn ignorance of evidence for God shown by those who use such comparisons.
Maybe it is like a Richard Dawkins hearing the evidence for creation and a world wide flood from a young earth creationist.

Happens in eggs and wombs every day.

As a perception of the physical yes, but it is also a faith based on the denial of the evidence of many people who have experienced God and miracles.
It's stubborn ignorance but seen by it's believers as enlightenment in a modern scientific world.

No, we don't. I don't. One can learn how to justify belief and choose to not believe unjustified claims.

Justified belief is just using less faith than those who believe with less justification.

That's evidence-based, not faith. I trust the science because I'm familiar with their humanistic culture and values as well as their stunning successes. That's evidence the theist doesn't have when he trusts Bibles and holds a god belief anyway. That's why his beliefs can be called faith, and the output of science called evidenced.

Yes we trust the scientists and their science and sometimes do that on things where that trust is not warranted imo.

 

[Kenny]

Perfect. A man has a mystical experience. ll religions and cults have had people experience mystical experiences. Studies have been done recently, oxygen deprevation can reproduce the feeling of floating, the sense of being with a prescence, feeling bliss, love, compassion, all brain states.
So he picked the religion he grew up with and associated it with that. If he were in an Islamic or Hindu country he would be in that religion.

Nice interpretation through your lenses. - Please don't misunderstand me - the Bible states that there will be those who don't believe that there is a God. I have no problem with you believing that - it doesn't negate my position though and certainly you can't show me evidence that your position is right.

That is a red herring. Science is never perfect and it grows, learns, accepts new evidence. I don't know everything, science doesn't know everything. But Zeus and Krishna are not suddenly going to be real. Nor is Yahweh. The more we learn about Near Eastern deities the more we see Yahweh is 100% typical God of his time. He changed with the times into Greco-Roman Yahweh later.

Hardly a red herring. I never said science was perfect, what I said is that it is so minuscule in comparison that has yet to be discovered that you certainly have no basis to say that God doesn't exist. On the contrary... the more you learn, IMV, the more one must come to the conclusion that a conscience being had to be involved.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=athiest+scientist+to+christian

The answer is we don't know. But we have models, and evidence. Many worlds, infinite universes, we know laws can create themself as they did after the big bang started, the cooling caused a symmetry break and the unified force split up. Nature does this, Nature works with probabilities. Doesn't need a conscious being at all.

Is there a creator deity, who knows? I'm not really arguing deism. The big problem with cosmological arguments is you have to posit a conscious creator at some point and that does not make sense. It's a leap and it's bizarre. A being just existed as all reality? What?
But Theism is what is extremely unlikely and the evidence demonstrates that as well. I highly doubt Krishna is real. Same for all theism.

OK... I hold to the opposite end of that spectrum. I think it makes sense.

However, we can live together and still continue the scientific discoveries holding a different point of understanding.

I have beliefs based on evidence and based on philosophy and cosmological arguments, nature and so on.

Yes... those are natural law beliefs. I'm ok with that.

Last I checked I don't have infinite God power. 10,000 children every day doesn't sound like a creation, it sounds like a natural phenomemon following probabilistic laws.

Again... that sounds more like a victim mentality. Of course, I do assume that you hare helping at least 1 or more of those 10,000 children.

 

[Brian2]

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".

Sureky you know where the science only approach ends up.

 

[Kenny]

Yes, from a natural disaster. I'm talking about a God who ordered the murder of 6 cities of women, babies, elderly, children, men, women, pets, because they might teach the Israelites their evil religion.

You need to go to Bible school if that is your view.

 

[McBell]

Sureky you know where the science only approach ends up.

I would have thought you would be thrilled that the science only approach will never address your favourite chosen deity.

 

[Audie]

Sureky you know where the science only approach ends up.

Surely you know that's unresponsive.
Or maybe not.

 

[Audie]

I would have thought you would be thrilled that the science only approach will never address your favourite chosen deity.

We've detected powerful waves of confusion.