Why be good?

[Randy Carson]

But what I'm driving at is this: we DO believe people all the time based upon our inclination to accept what people say at face value unless we have some reason to doubt them. I quoted Professor Richard Swineburne previously precisely because he makes this point: we accept what knowledgeable and reliable people say ALL THE TIME without fact-checking them.

"We"? Not everyone thinks like that.  Just because you reach for superstition when the shit hits the fan doesn't mean everyone does.

"We"! You got a mouse in your pocket, kid?

Fair enough. But it was pretty obvious that not only you three but Stimbo and others were getting pissed that I asked if you would be willing to testify in court, etc.

I wasn't pissed, myself, just irritated at a puerile approach coupled with a vapid comparison.

Parkers, I think that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would say they HAD documented their accounts pretty well. Luke is pretty emphatic about having researched the whole thing carefully, for example.

You think that.  But that carries little weight, because you're reporting hearsay of hearsay of hearsay. I don't care if that satisfies you; you've already demonstrated that you have a low evidentiary threshold, at least insofar as your pet beliefs are concerned.

But what I have done is to show the entire forum that the reason people got bent out of shape yesterday when I asked how far you would be willing to go to defend your written statements, is because the natural human response to someone saying something is belief. Not disbelief.

That depends on what is being asserted, obviously. If I told you that I won $82 million in the Powerball last month, you may or may not be skeptical.  If I told you I'm the Son of God and that you need to pray to me for forgiveness, I'm pretty sure you'd be asking for evidence ... if you didn't simply wave away my claim.

This idea of yours that we automatically lend credence to any belief no matter the claim being made is silly.  It has been pointed out to you plenty of times already.  Quit tiptoeing through the horseshit, 'cause it's still sticking to your boots. You're not fooling anyone. You don't lend credence to every claim you hear.  No one does.

When you approach the historical accounts of Jesus with a hermeneutic of suspicion, you are off to a bad start.

When you assert your faith prior to beginning your investigation, you have filters in place that are obvious to everyone ... except, apparently, yourself.

Your comments have been noted, Parkers. Thanks.

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I clearly stated, what seems like hundreds years ago now in the other topic, that I instantly disbelieve my own wife as soon as she mentions anything supernatural. I trust her more than I trust anyone in the world, and I can ask her questions about her experience. I believe she believes, but I don't believe her beliefs are accurate. Given that perfectly reasonable (I would say) stance of me rejecting eye witness testimony from an incredibly reliable, trustworthy source who I really believe is not lying to me... why the living fuck would I take at face value even more ridiculous claims by people I know nothing about? You can add into that another ten people I trust who were also there and give the same account as my wife. Sorry, still don't believe it, for the same reasons. I have no evidence to examine, and I have extraordinary claims being made. The only logical thing to do is reject the claims until such time as evidence can be provided. Now, if my wife makes a mundane claim, I will almost certainly believe her unless I have a reason not to. That is the difference.

Of course, this was not addressed. I just got more of why they were reliable, which is already more than covered in my example. This continued ridiculous false equivocation between fairly mundane claims that can be investigated and unverifiable wild claims is doing us atheists a great service to show the level of dishonesty needed to even justify the beliefs to the believer themself.

Does Randy even believe what he is saying anymore? This is what happens when you have the conclusion pre-drawn, instead of starting at the beginning and working up. "My argument must be valid because the conclusion must be valid."

Could somebody let rob know that I am aware of the fact that he has put me on his ignore list. Consequently, although he is mentioning me by name, there isn't much point in responding. Thanks.

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I didn't actually scroll down through the list...I was merely illustrating a point to another poster that in about 60 seconds, I came up with a list of names that he could easily research for himself. He had asked me for a list of names, and i showed him how to do his own homework. Get it?

That member obviously being me asking you for proving your claim that "countless famous" former atheists converted after studying the bible. So you had to do some searching, however short, to prove a claim you pulled out of your ass obviously.

To the contrary. As an amateur apologist, I am aware of the significant number of atheists who are swimming against the tide and finding their way back to belief in God - their stories pop up from time to time on the various blogs that I read daily. However, I did not have an EXACT number...still don't...who would? But I thought the fact that Wikipedia has an entry specifically for this might be useful information for you to know.

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Sure. That's why there are all those Temples to these gods on the street corners of most major cities...because everyone appreciates all that validation. 

Theres a temple to a god every few blocks where I'm from.  /shrugs  In any case, I think that it may be callous for a catholic to poke fun at the dearth of other gods temples.  Y'all had a had in that, a rather bloody hand,  you know?  Often enough -your catholic temples- ARE the pagan temples.  Just food for thought.  I wonder whether your head would explode if you left your comfy corner of the world and went to a place like India?  Would you suddenly need to reassess your faith and come to terms with hinduism?  Doubtful.

A trip to India would give me a lot to pray about that's for sure.

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But what I'm driving at is this: we DO believe people all the time based upon our inclination to accept what people say at face value unless we have some reason to doubt them.

Hey Randy? Supernatural claims are a reason to doubt somebody.

"I had lunch with my wife yesterday."

"I had lunch with Tom Hanks yesterday."

"I had lunch with the entire cast of the Avengers yesterday."

"I had lunch with a dragon yesterday."

Four claims. Please point to the claim on that list that is, as far as all the evidence you have shows, impossible. Now, let's take a step back: please point to the claim on that list for which you would require additional evidence before believing out of hand.

If I were trying to be completely sure, I would require additional proof for ALL of them. After all, you might be single and lying about a wife or about having lunch at all. How do I know? It's more common, of course, but people lie for all sorts of reasons.

BTW-Is this a standard argument from an "Atheist-in-a-Box" kit or something? It's been posed about four times.

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But more importantly, fifty years goes by...one hundred years goes by...two hundred years. And then an amazing thing happens: we find that the churches which are scattered all over the Roman empire and the Mediterranean DO have names for the gospels - AND THE NAMES ARE THE SAME WHEREVER YOU GO. 

It's not as if the Church in Thessalonica called the first gospel, the "Gospel According to Matthew" while a Church in Alexandria referred to it as the "Gospel of Andrew". The Church in Rome did not refer to the last gospel as the "Gospel of Phillip" while that same book was known as the "Beloved Disciple's Gospel" in Antioch.

Holy shit -- you mean that in addition to bringing salvation, Jesus taught us about title pages? The things you learn online!

Seriously, the works had to be conveyed by a written copy. Why would an individual church change the title of a holy book?

Do you realize exactly how lame this argument is?

Um...

You're exactly right, Parkers. There is NO reason whatsoever to think that any individual Church, whether in Rome or some far-flung corner of the empire, ever changed the title of one of the Gospels.

Instead, they have been known universally and unanimously by all the congregations as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John from the moment the ink dried on the papyri, and we still know them by their original names to this very day.

Thanks for pointing that out to everyone.

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The Church - all of the individual congregations included - has ALWAYS known who the authors of the gospels were: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

-and you don't have a problem with the fact that what the church "knows" is wrong?  Doesn't set off any bells for you?

It might...if this were more than your personal opinion.

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In the first case, the deities return but have not died; in the second case, the gods die but do not return.

Yes, and in your Catholic mythos, with its Trinity, the first instance seems appropriate.

Jesus cannot have died if he was simultaneously God, if God has lived eternally.

Jesus is God.
Jesus died.
Therefore, God died, and we killed Him.

How is this possible?

Jesus is fully God and fully man, and He really and truly died; his heart stopped, His brain functions stopped, and He was not breathing.

However, when ANY of us dies physically, our spirit or soul lives on eternally.

Just so, Jesus' spirit lived on, and on the third day, His spirit re-animated his physical body.

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Randy,

You asked in this or another thread if I was seeking "the truth."  The answer is that if by the truth you mean some vast cosmic truth that explains everything, I am not.  I want to believe true things and not believe false ones.   How much time I spend trying to decide what is true and false depends on the importance of the fact.  China's current GDP, for example, doesn't hold much current interest for me.  

What makes us want to be good is an interesting question, but your answers depend on the highly improbable, so I move along to the more probable and rather more mundane answers which have to do with physiology, culture, and evolution.   I'm not sure the answers are perfect just much more probable than god.

Thank you, Jenny.

Your posts are always polite and thoughtful.