Augustus
…
Liking and believing may not be correlated in rational people, but then again as we know that people aren't rational it's of no practical consequence
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Too Many Extremes in Disbelief
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
Liking and believing may not be correlated in rational people, but then again as we know that people aren't rational it's of no practical consequence
Disbelief seems to make believing in conspiracy theories regarding religion stronger. I.e., the Romans invented Christianity; Paul was a fraud; Jesus never existed.
You don't need to believe in God to know that Christianity was started by Jews, Paul is highly unlikely to have been a fraud, and Jesus existed. So why do so many (at least online) atheists, feel the need to dispute things that are neither supernatural nor fantastic? Why believe that religion as a whole is some nefarious force and everything about it is a lie? What does Jesus' existence have to do with believing in God? Nothing.
Last edited:
Audie
Veteran Member
Some are started exactly for that purpose, more
are turned to base and ignoble ends.
You work out the percents.
The fallacy of the unstated logical argument, upon which a belief in God must rest, lies in the fact that life in this world (especially life among other people) demonstrates to us that we should only believe in things which: (a) we have experienced directly and personally, (b) are of a type not substantially different from things we have so experienced, (c) have been directly/personally experienced by other people whose reports are reliable, and if such experience may be continued contemporaneously, or (d) which conform to the processes of nature as we understand them to be. When someone tells me “there is a God…”, and further explains that this God is a being which is (conveniently?) incorporeal (a.k.a., is omnipresent), is able to defy the processes of nature as I understand them to be (a.k.a., is omnipotent), and is able to know all about all in the universe (a.k.a., is omniscient), then I am presented with something which violates the processes of nature as I know them to be…a being which seems to be fundamentally unlike any other type of being in nature, which violates the rules of nature as I know them to be, and which neither I nor anybody else can have any direct experience of. I am presented with a “magical” being which there is no apparent way for me (or for anybody else, for that matter) to experience directly. Since the criteria which I have set, and upon which premises for any argument regarding the attribution of my belief rest, are all violated by the proposed magical God, then an attribution of belief in this God must rest upon a logical argument which is fallacious in nature. You can see that this proposed being violates all three of the criteria which I have formulated for the attribution of belief to proposed objects. Why, then, should I attribute belief to this? It would seem that for my own correct thinking and my own safety, that I should not.
Despite the foregoing, people yet attribute belief to the magical God for clear reasons. One of the primary among these is the salvific role suggested of this God. Another reason is the human need to a narrative of purpose regarding reality, the universe, and their lives. In reality, the universe is almost certainly purposeless, mindlessly ignorant of humans and their concerns, but most people seem not able to psychologically deal with that fact. All human beings have a sense of their own importance, and so have a need for recognition of some type, of purpose, and of redemption from the insecurities of this world. The God of scripture is not proposed to people as a naked entity, but rather is propositionally clothed in this seductive narrative raiment of purpose and salvation. These narratives are like the icing upon the deific confection, which make it appear oh so irresistible to the prospective believer. These types of narrative accompany the magical God, and is adopted by the believer with his attribution of personal belief therein. I wonder if people would believe in a similar proposed being if the salvific role and the narrative of purpose were absent…we’re not accompaniments to this magical being?
Last edited:
Audie
Veteran Member
Seriously?Liking and believing may not be correlated in rational people, but then again as we know that people aren't rational it's of no practical consequence
Audie
Veteran Member
On what basis do you find it unlikely Paul was a fraud?
Only the assumption that "god" is real makes it
even possible that he wasn't a fraud. The extremely
improbable snake story doesn't help.
Why does anyone click " debate" ifn they doesn't
want a dispute???
Last edited by a moderator:
Why would Paul plant as many churches as he did if he didn't believe in Christianity? Why would he go to trial in Rome for something he didn't believe in? Wtf would be the point of this? You don't need to believe in God to understand that Paul believed in God. This is not difficult, which is why I'm so confused.
I think that a psychological study of Saul of Tarsus might prove fascinating. Though his writings seem to contain references to his Pharisaical roots, he seems to have been so thoroughly Hellenized in his culture that he sought to divorce what was essentially a movement within Judaism from every aspect of Jewishness. One can only conjecture why this might have been. Saul/Paul’s zeal for “church planting” within the Greek world seems to have been born of this drive. Don’t know if this might mean that he was a “fraud”, though!
Last edited:
Audie
Veteran Member
Only the reality of God would allow for the
possibility that he wasn't a fake.
As for his motives, behold Heavens Gate,
Branch Davidians, etc. Who knows motives?
Joseph Smith...did he really think he translsted
gold books?
Brigham Young was J. Smithx " Paul", the one who really
got LDS going. Was he anopportunitst, or a True
Believer?
Who knows.
I don't believe in God so I don't see any of this
as a Believer must.
Considering most people seemed to hate Paul and all he does half the time is **** people off, I'd wager he wouldn't have been a very good charlatan. It's clear from his letters that few people actually listen to him or do what he instructs.
The problem is people ascribing the basest motives to religious actions without cause (other than just hating religion).
Last edited:
Audie
Veteran Member
Once a person believes in God, they can believe anything.
Except that they might be wrong.
Apply that where it fits.
As for skI'll at charlatan, not everyone believes
Trump.
Brigham Young had to take his followers and flee unto the desert. But there's a awful lot if Mormons.
Would you risk a million dollar bet that he was a faker?
Why do you believe Paul was fake? What evidence do you have other than your emotional hatred of religion and bias against it? Why do you not believe that Paul believed in Christianity and therefore founded churches? It's the most logical conclusion yet you reject it.
Audie
Veteran Member
Sheesh. How it"s devolved from what thought was
going along as a respectful discussion.
Rhetorical questions that reflect that you didn't even read what I've said, and completely false charges of hatred, illogic and biss, and that i am deficient in intellectual integrity.
All of it goes far beyond anything remotely warranted by
evidence in anything i said ot you did read.
It's not me getting all emotional here.
I already said I don't believe in any " god",
how it follows that Paul's " vision" wasn't real, and
mentioned others with similar vision claims.
They sure are not all telling the truth. Some believe this
one. Some that one. Logic has nothing to do with choosing among those beliefs.
The thing you choose to assume and accuse me of
about hatred of religion is particularly mean spirited.
HATRED? Nonsense!
In China, religion infuses society everywhere.
It's our culture, it's my life.
Dragon boat races to burning ghost money to the
figure of the Kitchen God that graces my kitchen.
Aspects of Christianity, from Christmas to the great
Cathedrals and music, Handel's Messiah!
I like those too.
I burn ghost money as a way of showing respect.
It's not like I think mom gets to spend it in the afterlife.
There's transcendence in a cathedral or great music.
Dragon boats are great fun.
I don't believe in any gods. Their number and variety,
the 100% lack of evidence for any- speaking of logical-
disinclines me to believe in any god, or their self
proclaimed prophets.
Now, if you want to discuss, fine.
If you want to continue as in your last post,
let's drop it.
Last edited:
Say, @ratiocinator, how to you create the link to a particular post like that?
Belief in God has nothing to do with knowing Paul was a Christian who planted churches.
Now do you have evidence for Paul being a charlatan or not?
ratiocinator
Lightly seared on the reality grill.
The little post number starting with '#' (top right of post) is a link to it. You can either just copy the number and paste it into your post or click on it, copy the url and use the normal 'insert link' option.
When you ask whether Paul was a 'fake', what, precisely, do you mean?
Do you mean to ask whether he *believed* what is preached? Do you mean to ask whether he had reason to believe what he preached? Are you asking whether he knew anything that Jesus actually preached? Are you asking whether those who practiced Christianity before the arrival of Paul would have accepted Paul as a valid interpreter of Christianity? Are you asking whether the Jewish followers of Jesus would have regarded Paul as a 'fake'?
The answer to your question may depend on which question you are actually asking.
It is clear that Paul never met Jesus. It is clear that the Jewish followers of Jesus (many of whom had met Jesus) had major disagreements with Paul concerning the nature of Jesus' teachings. It is clear that Paul made some major changes to Christianity that made it more palatable to a Roman, Hellenized audience. I find it clear that Paul felt that what he preached was important.
So, it seems likely that Paul believed what he preached, but may not have been recognized as a valid interpreter of Jesus' thoughts. He made major changes to the belief system that allowed it to spread far wider than it would have otherwise.
Usually when I hear people making this claim they tend to mean that Paul was deliberately out to sabotage Christianity, either because he never truly stopped persecuting Christians or for some other reason. There are multiple flaws with this, imo, because:
1. You'd have to at least believe Paul when he says he persecuted Christians, so why disbelieve everything else he says?
2. You'd have to know what pre-Pauline Christianity looked like and we have almost no idea what that was in the first place (even the Apostles don't seem to know as they debate the circumcision issue etc.)
3. Destroying Christianity by planting Churches and introducing them to the 'real' Apostles seems incredibly counter-intuitive, especially as almost all the churches later go on to argue with Paul.
It's a claim I've come across a lot, and relies far too much on ideas of there having even been an early 'orthodox' Christianity for Paul to mess up in the first place, for which we have no evidence, and a hot/cold approach to trusting Paul/Luke (Acts). It seems to follow from the 'Romans invented Christianity' garbage, which puts nefarious causes behind the rise of Christianity.
Clizby Wampuscat
Well-Known Member
No, What I am talking about is like the example I already gave. Many people believe that Allah will heal people with prayer. If someone is prayed for and healed how do you rule out 100% that a god did not heal that person? There would not be a good reason to believe it but how do you rule it out 100%?
I guess I haven't come across the line of thought that attributes Christianity to a Roman invention. That clearly doens't fit with the historical facts.
I see Paul as making major changes to the belief system, and I doubt that previous followers of Jesus would have seen his views as legitimate.
As to whether Paul was a 'real Christian' or not, that seems like a strange terminology dispute. I very much doubt that previous followers of Jesus would have called themselves 'Christian' and I would not be surprised if Paul was the one that introduced the term 'Christ' into the mix. So, in that sense, Paul may very well have been the first 'Christian' and the defining person for 'Christianity'.
As a side note: saying that Paul persecuted *Christians* as opposed to saying he persecuted 'followers of Jesus' may be debated on these grounds.