(March 7, 2018 at 4:37 pm)pool the matey Wrote: @OP,
See the great thing about Theists in general is we don't give a swish. No really, if you want to believe in Odin then believe in Odin, that's your personal and private business. As far as whether Odin is real or not.... I don't know.

That's not my experience with the majority of Christians and Muslims I've encountered.

Most want to get you to follow their religion.  Specifically, their VERSION of their religion.

Hence the number of door knockers, manic street evangelists, and threats of hell many atheists, and theists of other religions, have encountered.

(March 7, 2018 at 4:37 pm)pool the matey Wrote: @OP,
See the great thing about Theists in general is we don't give a swish. No really, if you want to believe in Odin then believe in Odin, that's your personal and private business. As far as whether Odin is real or not.... I don't know.

WOOOSH!

That was the point of the whole exercise going over your head.

(March 7, 2018 at 4:37 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: But let's face it... terms like "magic book" come about because people on the other side say things like "Holy and Inerrant Word of God" and refer to the Bible as a source of absolute truth.

If you're going to condemn atheists for using the "magic book" pejorative, you need to condemn theists for referring to it as "more than a book," as something beyond reproach as something that is a mortal sin to even doubt.

'Holy' literally means set apart in the sense that it some things are distinctly different in a profound way. The Declaration of Independence is "more than a political document". It is a piece of history and the embodiment of the founding principles of liberal democracy. At one time I had a letter written to me personally from the office of Senator Obama and signed by him. It may have been worth some money today, but no one would consider it with the same reverence as the D of I. Some things are sacred.

The Bible documents the ways by which God has revealed Himself through history, serves as a means through which He can communicate to believers, and has been one of the most important foundations on which Western civilization was built. So yes, it is more than just a book but no one thinks it is a 'magic' book and only a douche would call it that.

(March 7, 2018 at 4:36 pm)Aegon Wrote:

(March 7, 2018 at 4:07 pm)SteveII Wrote: Falsification is a scientific principle and does not apply here. What you mean is that no one can prove a negative. I agree. However that does not mean that one cannot have positive knowledge that supports the non-existence of Odin (or God for that matter).

For example, we can have reasonable certainty that the combination of Fire and Ice made drips that became giants and then they had children and one of them was Odin probably did not happen. So, we can offer metaphysical and historical defeaters to any combination of claims that Odin existed--making the cumulative case for his existence highly unlikely.

However, the same cannot be said for God. There are really no good arguments against the existence of God. The best one is the PoE--but even that has satisfactory philosophical counter-arguments. Hiddeness? Again, that has answers. You might not find them compelling, but the point is there is not any good positive arguments against the existence of God.

You dismissed the origin story of Odin as ridiculous not realizing that almost every Biblical story sounds just as ridiculous.

That is a wild generalization that simply is not true. I don't think there is anything in the Bible that couldn't have happened (metaphysically speaking). In addition, the Bible narrative has consistent themes throughout that do not contradict each other. It actually tells one big story that is certainly possible and in a lot of ways, makes sense of the human condition. Is there a parallel to that in Norse mythology? 

Before you go on about Gen 1-3, there are way way way more people that ever lived that believe Gen 1-3 was allegorical in nature than believed it to be literal.

(March 7, 2018 at 4:54 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(March 7, 2018 at 4:37 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: But let's face it... terms like "magic book" come about because people on the other side say things like "Holy and Inerrant Word of God" and refer to the Bible as a source of absolute truth.

If you're going to condemn atheists for using the "magic book" pejorative, you need to condemn theists for referring to it as "more than a book," as something beyond reproach as something that is a mortal sin to even doubt.

'Holy' literally means set apart in the sense that it some things are distinctly different in a profound way. The Declaration of Independence is "more than a political document". It is a piece of history and the embodiment of the founding principles of liberal democracy. At one time I had a letter written to me personally from the office of Senator Obama and signed by him. It may have been worth some money today, but no one would consider it with the same reverence as the D of I. Some things are sacred.

The Bible documents the ways by which God has revealed Himself through history, serves as a means through which He can communicate to believers, and has been one of the most important foundations on which Western civilization was built. So yes, it is more than just a book but no one thinks it is a 'magic' book and only a douche would call it that.

Wow. So much to refute in your statements. The "Declaration of Independence" may have significance beyond its particular epoch, but this is no way makes its contents any more or less valid than they are. If anyone tries to assert that the Declaration is somehow the master document which is the end-all-be-all of all political declarations, expect opponents of this assertion to start calling it "magic parchment."

Anyway, that settles it, I'm posting a thread about Keneinan's article in the next few days. If you're up to defending her statements, I hope to see you there.

(March 7, 2018 at 5:14 pm)SteveII Wrote:

(March 7, 2018 at 4:36 pm)Aegon Wrote: You dismissed the origin story of Odin as ridiculous not realizing that almost every Biblical story sounds just as ridiculous.

That is a wild generalization that simply is not true. I don't think there is anything in the Bible that couldn't have happened (metaphysically speaking). In addition, the Bible narrative has consistent themes throughout that do not contradict each other. It actually tells one big story that is certainly possible and in a lot of ways, makes sense of the human condition. Is there a parallel to that in Norse mythology? 

Before you go on about Gen 1-3, there are way way way more people that ever lived that believe Gen 1-3 was allegorical in nature than believed it to be literal.

If I recited back to you stories from the OT in their original form would you accept them as true? By original form I mean the ancient Babylonian and Sumerian mythology they are very obviously based on. If I recited back to you the story of Jesus in its original form - the story of Romulus... would accept that as well?

My point here is that the Abrahamic religions are not any different than older religions that we have arbitrarily deemed mythology.

(March 7, 2018 at 5:14 pm)SteveII Wrote: I don't think there is anything in the Bible that couldn't have happened (metaphysically speaking).

I was told that just the other day by a talking donkey and he took offence when I didn't believe that he existed. I tried to argue with him that he was a product of my brain and a shit load of drugs that I had just taken but he tried to convince me that seeing him was itself evidence.

I have to say though, it was more tangible than a temporal lobe seizure and a personal relationship with an invisible presence you cannot hear or touch.

(March 7, 2018 at 5:14 pm)SteveII Wrote: In addition, the Bible narrative has consistent themes throughout that do not contradict each other.

So does Shrek and its sequels. Which incidentally also contains a talking donkey.

(March 7, 2018 at 4:40 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:

(March 7, 2018 at 4:26 pm)Jenny A Wrote: The standard here is to prove Odin does not exist, not just to demonstrate that he is highly unlikely.  

No it isn't, the idea is to show if there more evidence for the existence of Odin or against the existence of Odin.

(March 5, 2018 at 7:33 pm)Cecelia Wrote: How about this... I present evidence that Odin exists and you present evidence that Odin does not exist and we'll judge based on who has the most evidence for and against.

Do you guys believe that more evidence for Odin has been presented than against?

If so, what evidence has been produced for the existence of Odin?

No I don't think there is more evidence for Odin than against him. The evidence for him is tradition, The Prose Edda, that many people did believe in him, and that some still do. Temples, place names, alters, jewelry etc. all attest to that faith. The evidence against him is primarily the lack of evidence for him and that his legends violate what we know about the physical world. So Odin is extraordinarily unlikely. But he is not absolutely disproven. That's the problem with trying to prove a negative.

That is is point of this thread. Your arguments for Odin's nonexistence are essentially the same as atheists arguments for god's nonexistence. They are very potent arguments whether applied to God or Odin. Like the Edda Prose's descriptions of Odin and creation, the Bible's description of him and our world violates what we know about the physical world, it too is based on earlier legends. Additionally, much of it violates what we know about history.

But the primary reason God is so unlikely is his lack of demonstrable interaction with the world. That's an Odin problem too, though one you haven't mentioned.

I can't disprove either one, but I can say both are ridiculously unlikely. It's hard to even rank them as to which is more unlikely.

LOL, if magic book is upset that I call it names- it can strike me with lightning, or send a plague of frogs, or whatever it's supposed to be able to do. If magic book worshipers, instead, want to bitch...well, I find their idolatry less than compelling.

@steve

The point of -all- mythology is to offer an explanation of the human condition. It's senseless to ask if any particular mythology does what they all collectively do. This, ofc, tells us absolutely nothing about whether or not the divine objects of their attention exist beyond the boundary of the story.

(March 7, 2018 at 5:14 pm)SteveII Wrote: Before you go on about Gen 1-3, there are way way way more people that ever lived that believe Gen 1-3 was allegorical in nature than believed it to be literal.

That's irrelevant. What matters is whether the author of Genesis intended it to be taken literally. It's consistent with both the time period and the genre that he did. Against that are incredibly weak textual arguments that it was intended as allegory. The fact that some body of people treat it as allegory is more an artifact of people realizing that holding to a literal interpretation of Genesis puts them in the position of defending things like the flood, which they realize they can't reasonably defend. It's a tactical retreat, unrelated to the facts of history which are that originally, it was accepted as literal. You're always going on about how the authors of the gospels "would have known eye witnesses," implying that their proximity to the events is a testament to their historical validity, yet when it comes to Genesis, you implicitly argue against that standard; you seem to have a double standard here.