Why does science always upstage God?

[HappySkeptic]

This is pure speculation. I'm not even going to respond to this.

That the gospels are "stories" is pure speculation?  Their very structure, time of writing, and the fact that many different ones were written proves they were at least stories. 

That Christians believe they were somehow accurate accounts of reality is the unsupportable idea.  When a story includes magic, recycled myth, has an omniscient narrator, was written far after the fact, and has been told in many different ways, the burden of proof is not on the skeptic.  Even my former Anglican minister called the Gospel According to John "the best fan-fiction ever written".

Why aren't you a Mormon?  Their stories are attested to by actual eye witnesses.

[brewer]

My original statement still stands. I don't live in a world where all fantastical things are dismissed. Worldview matters.
I actually have no doubt that Muhammad saw what he said he saw.
I already stated my many indicia of NT reliability in another post. Not sure who it was to, but it's out there.
I stated why I believe the reliability of the NT. if you want to change my mind I need something other than skepticism.
Skepticism just isn't compelling.

I don't care if you change your mind. I didn't sign into to a christian forum claiming that the christians there were wrong.

If you'd like to change my mind about god(s) existing produce something more than story that is only backed up by more story, something more than abstractions. Give me evidence that I will accept as evidence for these "fantastical things". Until that happens, for me, I will dismiss the fantastical things and hold that god does not exist as anything more than a mental construct.

You can believe in god(s) existence and religion all you want, as an atheist I don't really care. I don't need it (I'm not sure why you do) and I won't validate it.

[The Grand Nudger]

OK, I think that tired pitch goes both ways. As someone who seeks out atheists to talk to, I hear the same played out critiques over and over again from different atheists.

How I proved that God can't exist according to me, I don't know. I assume you're referring to the suppression conversation. If we are returning to that topic, let me ask you a question:
if you're sure there's no God and even if there was a God you wouldn't care then why do you account for 3% of the total posts on this forum?

Why have you spent the last 10 years posting about the God that doesn't exist that you don't care about? This makes me think 'Well, maybe he is concerned, I'll give him more time."

If I am a mealy mouthed bullshitter why even respond to me?

That's what most of my posts are.  Something of a trash man.  Been doing it for years.  I hope that answers the question you have, though it's just the same bullshit all over again.  I tell you something, it doesn't work for you, you insist it must be otherwise.  Your god is irrelevant to me for all the same reasons that zues is irrelevant to you.  It shouldn't be hard to understand, and it isn't, you're just an asshole.

So, how many atheists have you bothered with all this noise? Alot, or just a couple? I'd hate to think you'd been at it for awhile and didn't get any better than this.

How have I not put in the effort? What effort? Should I call you a nonsensical cretin, a mealy mouth bullshitting dipshit? Do you mean that kind of rigorous effort?

As far as the revolving door, I have no doubt that's true. This is a tough crowd in here. No one here has even asked me a question, except one disguised as a challenge. No one has been the least bit curious. It's challenges and insults. I'm sure people throw their hands up in frustration.

Maybe you think I'm condescending, I promise I'm not, but I'm certainly not insulting you or your worldview.

Third verse same as the first.

[Spongebob]

This is pure speculation. I'm not even going to respond to this.

@ayost This is precisely what I'm talking about.  You reject this out of hand yet there is a lot of evidence to support it.  Even the Bible verses and books support this view.  Of course there's no way to scientifically verify it but there is certainly enough evidence to take it seriously.  Yet you don't even want to hear it.  Bottom line is, you can't handle the truth.

[Ranjr]

Take Eusebius' word for who wrote the gospels?  The guy who made pious fraud a daily practice.  Next you'll tell me Luke was Paul's doctor.

I encourage everyone interested in the foundations of christianity to read the 2nd century apologists to get an idea of how all over the place the religion was at the time.  It took them 3 centuries to get their story straight.  We're lucky they preserved writers like Irenaeus so we have an idea of how disorganized and combative early christian preachers were.  You'd think if it was all based on one guy, sent from heaven, telling his followers the word of god, it would be cohesive from the start.

[vulcanlogician]

Take Eusebius' word for who wrote the gospels?  The guy who made pious fraud a daily practice.  Next you'll tell me Luke was Paul's doctor.

I encourage everyone interested in the foundations of christianity to read the 2nd century apologists to get an idea of how all over the place the religion was at the time.  It took them 3 centuries to get their story straight.  We're lucky they preserved writers like Irenaeus so we have an idea of how disorganized and combative early christian preachers were.  You'd think if it was all based on one guy, sent from heaven, telling his followers the word of god, it would be cohesive from the start.

That's the problem with heresies. It's like George Carlin's 7 words... you have to say them to know what they are.

The last page of this thread reminds me why I like this place so much... people doing their best to draw more accurate conclusions using facts and information. 


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Still, ayost thought people were trying to change their mind. Nope. Just asking important questions. Doing some critical thinking. If Mohammed actually saw what he saw, and every eyewitness account is real (including Arjuna's vision of Krishna and everything else) then IDK if Christianity is where a reasonable person would end up. There is some kind of quasi-Muslim prophet who declared all religions true. Maybe ayost wants to read up on that.

But I bet ayost doesn't want to read up on that. It was an argument made to sidestep the skepticism about believing eyewitness accounts. But they failed to follow the logic of that to its natural conclusion.

[The Grand Nudger]

Bahaullah. Bit of a misconception. Didn't declare all religions true, declared them all truly his.

My opinion, there pretty much has to be some future where christians can, on the one hand, appreciate the development of the christian religion for what it was in mere reality, and, on the other hand, still honestly believe in a savior. Otherwise, it's just another zues story, and it will be remembered as much in the not so distant future by a new group of religious people who have to start all over again - the real problem with humanity's endless schisms.

To hear christian fundies tell it, we're already there...and who's fault was that? The completeness with which intellectual bankruptcy and pure unabashed disinterest broke the back of their almighty god is stunning. It's a picture of the fall of the roman gods, the vacuum that christ filled that changed history.

[Ranjr]

God is hanging in there, not yet thoroughly upstaged.  Far too many people accept truth from dead prophets according to clergy to allow science to claim a working majority of minds.  It's necessary to concede that to the religious.

Yay, you.  Go, fight, and win for Jesus.

[ayost]

[quote='Spongebob' pid='2067665' dateline='1633706598']
There are real contradictions in there that cannot be explained in ways other than human manipulation and other shortcomings that don't agree with a bible that is divinely inspired.

What I mean is Christian scholars are not running from, hiding, or in fear of any contradictions or in the history of the transmission of the text. We don't have to be. History is what it is, let's talk about it. Pick a contradiction and let's talk about it.

Biblical scholars are people who have spent their life exploring the historical roots of religious texts.  Sure, there are differing opinions on some matters, but I'm calling out issues that are pretty solidly consensus. 

Ok, there are believing Christians that have spent their lives exploring the historical roots of Christian texts as well. Textual Criticism isn't a purely secular pursuit. The people that I have chosen to believe, and that's what you and I do, choose who we will believe, see the same information and come to a different conclusion. Now, you may say that their religious background gives them a bias, ok fine, but that same critique should be leveled at the secular scholar. So i say consensus from who? Secular and believing scholars?

Just to start with, you should understand all of the political alterations that were made during the formation of the King James Version of the Bible.  They are fascinating and without question intentional modifications.  When I was a Christian, this was never spoken of so as a young person I was told the KJV was the most accurate translation of the ancient Greek texts.  Turns out this was completely false.  The KJV is largely just British monarchical propaganda.

You won't hear me defend the KJV Bible. It's not the best translation. While they did the best the could, it can't be because translators of the King James version didn't have near the wealth of manuscript information that we have now. And with CBGM it's only getting better. KJV onlyism is bad theology, it's indefensible really.

understand all of the political alterations that were made during the formation of the King James Version of the Bible

I will look into this, but I can admit that I am skeptical of judging motivation without documentation of the motivation. We have to have 2 or 3 independent lines of contemporary testimony to the political alteration, otherwise its speculation. Maybe you could point me to those lines of testimony?

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[quote='HappySkeptic' pid='2067679' dateline='1633709526']
I'm not saying you are crazy.  I once believed in it as well.  But, if you are a bible believer, you must believe in 100% of the bible, or else admit that some of it is just people's opinion and belief, rather than "Truth".

In my religious journey, I tried to believe the whole thing.  That lasted only a short time.  I read and studied the entire bible.  The god of the OT is not the same god as the NT - not even close.  I also realized that the story of Mankind's fall, and redemption made no sense, especially in light of archaeology, history, cosmology, and evolutionary theory.

I became a "mainstream" Christian, accepting that maybe Jesus provided some method by which we could connect better with God, but realizing the limitations of all biblical text.

Even that came crumbling down about 10 years ago, partly from debating with others in forums like this, and partly from realizing that no gods do anything, ever.  The claims of God answering prayer is a testable scientific claim.  It has never been shown to be true, despite an absolute promise that from the bible that it would occur.

The universe doesn't need a god to operate -- in fact one would simply mess things up.  Morality doesn't need to god in order to exist (in fact, god-imposed morality makes actual moral choice impossible).  I don't need to pretend to talk to a god to get through my day (though if I did, I'd choose a far nicer one that in the bible).

Fair enough. I don't come to the same conclusion.

I don't understand how you can account for the universe, laws of logic, laws of nature, math, morality, or anything else without God. It seems, from my point of view, that you just accept that these things exist without explanation, and they always did exist and always will exist and that you don't have to account for them. That isn't compelling to me. Am I wrong? Do you want to take one of them and hash it out and see if maybe your worldview is weak in some of those areas?

[HappySkeptic]

I don't understand how you can account for the universe, laws of logic, laws of nature, math, morality, or anything else without God. It seems, from my point of view, that you just accept that these things exist without explanation, and they always did exist and always will exist and that you don't have to account for them. That isn't compelling to me. Am I wrong? Do you want to take one of them and hash it out and see if maybe your worldview is weak in some of those areas?

Saying "God did it" does not account for anything either.  It has no explanatory power.  I might as well say that fairies did it.  Invoking magic is the end of our ability to look deeper into the "why" of anything.

As a scientist, I accept that I do not know explanations for many things "yet", and there may be some questions for which no evidence can be found.  We don't know.  I am perfectly happy to live with uncertainty, as it is the only intellectually honest position.  To imagine a God-of-the-gaps has always been a fallacy.