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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:16 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:13 pm)SteveII Wrote: How can you say that no one wrote down anything? Just because we don't have earlier writings than the gospels do not mean that there weren't any.
And that's what you're going to hang your "rational" beliefs on? "Just because we haven't found them doesn't mean they don't exist!"? If the earlier writings didn't exist, we wouldn't find any of them, and lo and behold, that is exactly the scenario we found them in. If you want to assert that they do exist, you're going to have to do a lot better than "maybe they exist anyway!"
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:26 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:13 pm)SteveII Wrote: How can you say that no one wrote down anything? Just because we don't have earlier writings than the gospels do not mean that there weren't any. That's a pretty big gap there, though, isn't it? God comes down to earth, performs miracles and gives talks that inspire, is crucified (an event that triggers an eclipse, an earthquake, and a zombie invasion) and brings himself back... and the best you can do is assume that all of the accounts written until the gospels didn't survive?
SteveII Wrote:Most of the church's growth happened outside of Palestine so that fact that Josephus didn't speak more on it is understandable. I'm referring to the Testimonium Flavianum, in which Josephus supposedly identifies Jesus as the Christ and tells of his resurrection. It's not the sort of thing one tells in passing before moving on to more mundane matters, nor is it the sort of thing you mention once and then never bother to return to, as if it wasn't any big deal.
Because other than that, the other references to Jesus are either vague or simply tell that there were Christians but don't say anything about Christ. God himself came to earth and people were just too busy to notice, it seems.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:27 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:05 pm)Esquilax Wrote: And the muslims have the first muslims, and the hindus have the first hindus, and the Thor worshippers have the first Thor worshippers. Every religion has the first practitioners of that religion, they didn't just pop into being fully formed in the modern era. Hell, we atheists even have the first atheists, so under your "logic" I guess that makes atheism correct. You spent a whole paragraph saying nothing.
Except with Muslims and Mormons, god was supposed to have imparted the basis of the religion to one man. With Christianity, God imparted the basis of the religion to a multitude of people, performed miracles, died, and rose again--not really apples to apples. The more witnesses to the God-->man communication, the better the quality.
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:30 pm
How do you know anything about these witnesses?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:32 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:27 pm)SteveII Wrote: Except with Muslims and Mormons, god was supposed to have imparted the basis of the religion to one man. With Christianity, God imparted the basis of the religion to a multitude of people, performed miracles, died, and rose again--not really apples to apples. The more witnesses to the God-->man communication, the better the quality.
And in christianity, god imparted his religion through one man, in the form of Jesus. There's no difference here, no matter how much you want there to be one; in islam, Mohammed preached the word of god and did miracles, and in christianity Jesus did exactly the same thing. Functionally, the spread of the message was identical, and just because you assume the conclusion of the christian message while equally assuming that the muslim one only existed in one guy and nobody ever believed his words or miracles, doesn't mean there's some fundamental difference between the two.
You're looking at two apples, and trying to pretend that one is an orange when comparing.
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:41 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:32 pm)Esquilax Wrote: (January 28, 2015 at 5:27 pm)SteveII Wrote: Except with Muslims and Mormons, god was supposed to have imparted the basis of the religion to one man. With Christianity, God imparted the basis of the religion to a multitude of people, performed miracles, died, and rose again--not really apples to apples. The more witnesses to the God-->man communication, the better the quality.
And in christianity, god imparted his religion through one man, in the form of Jesus. There's no difference here, no matter how much you want there to be one; in islam, Mohammed preached the word of god and did miracles, and in christianity Jesus did exactly the same thing. Functionally, the spread of the message was identical, and just because you assume the conclusion of the christian message while equally assuming that the muslim one only existed in one guy and nobody ever believed his words or miracles, doesn't mean there's some fundamental difference between the two.
You're looking at two apples, and trying to pretend that one is an orange when comparing.
It is not the same if you believe Jesus was God. Mohammad and Joseph Smith never claimed to be god, just passing on a message only available to them. People interacted with Jesus (God) and asked question and received answers dynamically.
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:43 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: It is not the same if you believe Jesus was God.
A baseless assertion for which there is no evidence except that which is written in a fictional mythology book.
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:47 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:41 pm)SteveII Wrote: It is not the same if you believe Jesus was God. Mohammad and Joseph Smith never claimed to be god, just passing on a message only available to them. People interacted with Jesus (God) and asked question and received answers dynamically.
Oh, okay: I guess we should just ignore the entirety of the old testament and every prophet of the christian god within, despite the fact that those prophets formed the basis of christianity before Jesus even showed up, and hence we can just dismiss anything Jesus claimed too, as he can't be the son of the obviously not real god who only had men be his spokesmen before that point.
Good job, you've just disproved your own religion, under that logic. 
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:47 pm
I have never seen God. He has not revealed himself to me. He has not given me any evidence of His own existence; you can claim that He did this years ago with Jesus. But, if he is omnipotent, why can't He go through the simple process of letting me know He exists? The burden of proof lays on Him to show Himelf.
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RE: A simple challenge for atheists
January 28, 2015 at 5:51 pm
(January 28, 2015 at 5:47 pm)Roxy904 Wrote: I have never seen God. He has not revealed himself to me. He has not given me any evidence of His own existence; you can claim that He did this years ago with Jesus. But, if he is omnipotent, why can't He go through the simple process of letting me know He exists? The burden of proof lays on Him to show Himelf.
Ah, but you have to have faith, the sign of a true believer. You must believe without any reason to, and good things will happen to you, if you cherry pick them.
Seems legit 
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