Evidence God Exists

[tavarish]

@tav- How much Dogma (by your definition)do you believe Christianity has and what are some of them?

Here's a few examples of dogma within Christianity:

The Ten Commandments
There is only one true God
The Bible is the word of God
Moral absolutes
The only way to receive salvation is to accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior
The Nicene Creed

There are many, many more.

[RedFish]

Re: Dogma...http://www.the-reality-check.com/Dogma.html
Ok, some of it is nonsensical and inaccurate(hitler). But there's enough here to convince me you are just as dogmatic as me.

[leo-rcc]

Re: Dogma...http://www.the-reality-check.com/Dogma.html
Ok, some of it is nonsensical and inaccurate(hitler). But there's enough here to convince me you are just as dogmatic as me.

Some of it? Try all of it.

Atheism has nothing to say about the age of the earth, the origin of the universe, the validity of the Theory of Evolution through natural selection, science, philosophy, morality, or any other of that garbage that site spews.

Atheism deals in only one thing, not believing in deities. End of. It is up to every atheist individually to sort out what they do and do not accept as true or false or withhold judgment on.

[RedFish]

Methinks you doth protest too much...I've read plenty of postings on this forum doing just that, using science, evolution etc to disprove the existence of God, and would not have made the reference had I not.

''Atheism deals in only one thing, not believing in deities. End of. It is up to every atheist individually to sort out what they do and do not accept as true or false or withhold judgment on.''
Belief in God deals in only one thing, believing in God. End of. It is up to every believer individually to sort out what they do or do not accept as true or false or withhold judgement on.
We are the same. I can at least admit it.

[leo-rcc]

Methinks you doth protest too much...I've read plenty of postings on this forum doing just that, using science, evolution etc to disprove the existence of God, and would not have made the reference had I not.

Great, then you can easily point one out to me.

An atheist does not have to believe or follow any of the "doctrines" that page portrays, but naturally some atheists accept these things as accurate. You on the other hand therefore come to the conclusion that all atheists have to accept these things as accurate (hence the "doctrine"), and that is just blatantly false.

Belief in God deals in only one thing, believing in God. End of.

I wish.

It is up to every believer individually to sort out what they do or do not accept as true or false or withhold judgement on.

Show me where I ever made a statement that we were different.

We are the same.
I can at least admit it.

I can also admit to a lot of things, but believing in a certain particular gods also carries implications. Belief in Allah means you have to follow a specific set of rules. So does belief in the Christian god and what you need to do even varies in which particular form of the Christian god you believe in.

You cannot deny this.

[tavarish]

Re: Dogma...http://www.the-reality-check.com/Dogma.html
Ok, some of it is nonsensical and inaccurate(hitler). But there's enough here to convince me you are just as dogmatic as me.

What the hell?

That site presupposes that all atheists somehow default to science. Atheism has no say in scientific matters, it does not presuppose a common set of beliefs. We have people who are scientific, as well as people who are unscientific on here, and made their atheism as a product of purely emotional responses.

Here's what it says:

Here is the short list:

*

The universe is self-existing and self created.
*

The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
*

Life began as a result of spontaneous generation.
*

Mankind is a result of organic evolution.
*

Morality is an artificial construct of humans-there is no transcendent moral standard
*

Religion and religious belief/dogma is harmful to human development
*

Religion is antithetical to reason

There are two others that are not universally accepted by atheists/agnostics, but a misunderstanding of them will taint the later topics, so I want to deal with them first.

*

Science is an authority
*

You can only rationally believe in that which can be scientifically proven.


And where exactly are they getting this information?

They refer throughout the entire article to SCIENTISTS, then somehow try to make that the necessary case for atheism. They also say things like :"Abiogenesis (the theory that life can arise spontaneously from non-life molecules under the right conditions) is foundational to atheism. "

That's just asinine. Abiogenesis has its own issues, and although is a viable theory, is nowhere near the "foundation" atheism apparently needs. Show me any definition of atheist, in any legitimate dictionary, anywhere, that says anything about abiogenesis, the world being billions of years old, or that it defaults to science.

It takes the opinions of a few and makes it into some kind of atheist manifesto, which all atheists must adhere to. This article could not be more wrong.

---

Methinks you doth protest too much...I've read plenty of postings on this forum doing just that, using science, evolution etc to disprove the existence of God, and would not have made the reference had I not.

Provide references to those posts which try to disprove God.

''Atheism deals in only one thing, not believing in deities. End of. It is up to every atheist individually to sort out what they do and do not accept as true or false or withhold judgment on.''
Belief in God deals in only one thing, believing in God. End of. It is up to every believer individually to sort out what they do or do not accept as true or false or withhold judgement on.
We are the same. I can at least admit it.

Here's where you're losing grip.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a God or Gods. That's it. It says absolutely nothing about anything else. No presuppositions, no dogma.

Theism, particularly monotheism, on the other hand, DOES:

Definition:
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theism

The Oxford dictionary also adds:

Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of a god as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe.

This brings about many questions, such as how does the ruler wish for us to live? How did he create us? Why did he create us? What should I do to worship/please such a deity? Does it require worship? ...You know, reasons to back up your belief.

Subscribing to a particular God, such as the ones described in various Judeo-Christian holy books, bring on a whole new list of traits and doctrines.

This establishes dogma and is the crux of a cohesive worldview.

[RedFish]

I have come to no conclusion, I was pointing to evidence that atheism has dogma. If even one of those things can be applied to atheism, which I believe one or more can, and you yourself just conceded as much, then atheism is dogmatic.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113.html
This thread contains numerous references to evolution. This may be a consensus, it cannot be proved fact.
Belief in God, for me, deals in only one thing. Your flippant response demonstrates your unwillingness to deal with a fact, preferring your Dogma. You treat my information with scorn, thus revealing your true level of understanding of Faith in an individual.
I deny nothing about Islam, or Christianity. I do not claim to be either, therefore you are guilty of the offence you accuse me of.
I claim nothing about the similarities between atheists, merely that atheism has Dogma.

[Thor]

Yes religion has cost many innocent people their lives and yes people have killed in the name of God and wars have been fought in the name of christianity and none of this makes it right. What I want to know is why you think that true christians caused these horrible events.You are the ones making the assurtions give me your proof?

You need proof that Christians caused "horrible events" like wars? Really? The Pope himself was responsible for launching the Crusades. Unless you want to argue that the Pope is not a "true Christian".

Josephus a Jewish historian born in 37 AD.The Antiquities is one of his greater works and it is the history of the Jewish nation from creation to his present time.In this work he writes about James being killed and refers to James as the brother of Jesus,who was called the Christ.Another work of Josephus called the Testimonium Flavianum refers to Jesus as a wise man that wrought suprising feats.He also states Pilate condemned Him to be crucified.Josephus also states in this passage that His followers loved Him and never abandoned His teachings.

Yes, believers often reference Josephus in an effort to prove that Jesus truly existed. Problem is, Josephus was born AFTER Jesus supposedly lived. Anything Josephus writes about Jesus is hearsay. There are NO first hand accounts that record the activities of a man named Jesus.

Tacitus a roman historian tells of Jesus receiving a death sentence of crucifiction from Pontius Pilate.

Tacitus was born in the year 64. Over three decades AFTER Jesus supposedly lived. Anything he writes about Jesus is also hearsay. Next.

Pliny The Younger writes of the executions of the followers of Christ.These executions were ordered by Pliny The Younger.

Pliny the Younger was born in the year 62. Anything he writes about Jesus is also hearsay.

The New Testament says a great darkness fell over the land as Christ hung on the cross.There are historic records by Thallus,Tertullian that a great darkness did occur in the Mediterranean area in 33 AD.

Thallus, huh? We don't know when he lived, but it's estimated that his writings date to the mid to late 1st century. So it's POSSIBLE that he was an eyewitness at the time Jesus supposedly lived. Problem is, all of his writings have been lost. There is NOTHING in existence that was written by his hand. All we have are a few fragments from writers that lived hundreds of years later. Hardly concrete evidence there.

I wrote this last part in response to a statement made that there is no evidence that Jesus was a real person when indeed there is evidence out side of the Bible that supports the claim of the Bibical Jesus.

And all you have done is to present hearsay and undocumented extrapolations of fragmented writings. This is extremely weak evidence. Ya got anything first hand? Any writings from historians who actually lived at the time Jesus was supposedly alive? Strangely, writers who were recording events during the alleged life of Jesus never mention him! Philo Judaeus, Pliny the Elder and Seneca all lived at the same time and place as "Jesus", yet they make not one mention of him! The Romans were meticulous record keepers, yet there is nothing in their records about a man named Jesus who was executed. All writings of "Jesus" are found decades after he allegedly died. This is strong evidence that "Jesus" never lived at all and is nothing more than a myth.

I'd say nice try, but it wasn't.

[leo-rcc]

Before we continue this, lets put this out here first:

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.

Now then:

I have come to no conclusion, I was pointing to evidence that atheism has dogma.

But it's not evidence for dogma in atheism. And yet you fail to realize that.

If even one of those things can be applied to atheism, which I believe one or more can,

If it is, then show me what can be applied to atheism. How does the age of the earth have any bearing on the belief in gods? Or evolution? Some atheistic groups believe in Transpermia, I don't.

and you yourself just conceded as much, then atheism is dogmatic.

I did no such thing. Where did I do that? I just said that if some atheist holds these thing to be true, that needn't apply to all atheists. Which for a dogma it would need to be.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113.html
This thread contains numerous references to evolution.

I'm sure it does, so what? Just because someone uses the ToE to point out that it's evidence is much more compelling than a 2000 year old book does not mean that every atheist needs to accept the ToE. It still says nothing about accepting evolution as truth to be a tennent of atheistic dogma, in fact I know several atheists who do not accept the ToE at all.

This may be a consensus, it cannot be proved fact.

Even if that is true, that still has no bearing on the belief or non belief in gods and is therefore no dogma of atheism.

Belief in God, for me, deals in only one thing.

And?

Your flippant response demonstrates your unwillingness to deal with a fact, preferring your Dogma.

You have not even seen flippant yet. And what dogma would that be?

You treat my information with scorn,

I would treat all misinformation with scorn. When something is so obviously flawed what other choice is there then to treat it for the garbage it is?

thus revealing your true level of understanding of Faith in an individual.

I've made no statement about the faith of any individual, including yours.

I deny nothing about Islam, or Christianity. I do not claim to be either, therefore you are guilty of the offence you accuse me of.

And what would it be that I accuse you of, apart from ignorant about atheism?

I claim nothing about the similarities between atheists, merely that atheism has Dogma.

I know you claim that, but if that site is what you base your claim on, consider that claim rejected. Now either provide some evidence for your claim or admit that you can't.

[tavarish]

I have come to no conclusion, I was pointing to evidence that atheism has dogma. If even one of those things can be applied to atheism, which I believe one or more can, and you yourself just conceded as much, then atheism is dogmatic.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-3113.html

I urge you to read what you wrote. The fact that something CAN be applied to something doesn't mean it's a necessary part of it. Can I apply the importance of science to a polytheistic point of view? Of course I can. Does that now mean that polytheism presupposes science?

I don't know how else to say this to you. There is no rite of passage or methods to see if you're a "real" atheist or not. Do you believe in God? If your answer is anything but "yes", then you're an atheist. That's it. you can think the world appeared yesterday, you can think aliens seeded our planet, you can think science is horseshit. You'll still be an atheist by any measure.

I took a look at the site you posted, and in their links section they link to http://www.answersingenesis.com

Yeah, they seem really unbiased with a description like : Creation, Science and the Bible...they don't disagree.

Not to mention they link Intelligent Design, Bible study and the C.S. Lewis society. So much for reality checks.

Their commentary section also links to Loose Change. I don't think you can get further from reality than that, except maybe the lizard Illuminati conspiracy.

It's an obvious Christian apologetics site. Every fucking post has to do with Jesus.

What you're essentially doing can be described by very common logical fallacies - hasty generalization and biased sample.

This thread contains numerous references to evolution. This may be a consensus, it cannot be proved fact.

First off, scientific theories are based off of mountains of facts, so get that straight.
Second, the fact that people refer a notion does not mean it somehow is a dogmatic presupposition of a disbelief in God. Would you say that your acceptance of the theory of gravity is a dogmatic presupposition to your disbelief in dragons?

Belief in God, for me, deals in only one thing. Your flippant response demonstrates your unwillingness to deal with a fact, preferring your Dogma. You treat my information with scorn, thus revealing your true level of understanding of Faith in an individual.

OK, you believe in God. What qualities does that God possess? How do you know this to be true?

I deny nothing about Islam, or Christianity. I do not claim to be either, therefore you are guilty of the offence you accuse me of.
I claim nothing about the similarities between atheists, merely that atheism has Dogma.

So how can you not deny either, but do not subscribe to either ideology? Does that make any sense?

I'm not denying that I'm a basketball, but I don't claim to be a basketball. Either you're a basketball or you aren't.

Your claim that atheism has inherent and necessary dogma is false and built more on assumption and logical fallacy than anything of any rational basis.