Why atheism always has a burden of proof

[Esquilax]

There are multiple attestations of Jesus the Christ who was raised from death!

The gospels aren't evidence, the gospels are the claim. Claims can be written down too, you know.

Who would have made all of this up and what would be the motivation? Even if Jesus was just some kind of a wandering lunatic there's no reason to say he was a pure invention myths are generally based on something.

Power, money, control over people, varying other sociopolitical aims depending on context, and that's only accounting for the possibilities of outright deception. It's also entirely possible the writers were just genuinely mistaken, or terribly credulous, perhaps insane, or brain damaged in some way.

All of these possibilities are more likely than the claim you believe in, which falls victim to Occam's Razor quite spectacularly.

[Sword of Christ]

Prove my vehicle does not run on pixy dust.

I don't have an interest in believing your car runs on pixie dust but I'm interested in the ultimate truth of the universe. Either it's God/a purpose giving higher power and we know something about his nature and it's relationship with ourselves or it's...nothing at all.

Prove to me Allah does not exist.
Prove to me Yahweh does not exist.
Prove to me Vishnu does not exist.
Prove to me I am not fucking Angelina Jolie.

Prove the universe and everything in it merely exists for no reason at all. That's essentially where you get to with atheism. You can say you don't know but no-one would claim to know. If anyone knew for a fact then you would have no need for faith. Just because it is faith based it doesn't automatically mean it must be false or as ridiculous as a pixie dust engine in your car. You could say a universe that has no creator or reason for it's existence would be equally as ridiculous concept.

I don't care if someone wants to claim Jesus was Chinese or an Eskimo, there is no such thing as godsperm and humans don't survive rigor mortis.

Whatever actually happened the idea is through Christ death and sin have been conquered.

"O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?[a]”
56 For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. 57 But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. Corinthians 15:55-57"

Though if you prefer the idea that we're born, arse around a bit and then die and simply go into the ground the whole thing being a senseless accident in the first place then is an option you can believe. We don't know if what you believe is in fact true and the alternative/s isn't. There's no way to know so it's just a matter of what you have decided to believe or put your trust in. In your case think a certain materialist philosophy or "science" has all the ultimate answers. Not God not Christ not any other religion or belief.

The Egyptians who believed the sun was a god, had more to point at than you do.

"The sun is a medium-sized main sequence yellow star at the center of our solar system, about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from earth. Measuring about 865,000 miles (1,400,000 kilometers) in diameter, the sun could contain 1,300,000 earths. The sun is very big, very hot, and makes life possible on earth - but the sun isn't a god. God created the sun, and the over 200 billion other stars in the "Milky Way" galaxy, plus hundreds of billions of other galaxies throughout the universe. The sun was created by the Creator."

http://www.keyway.ca/htm2000/20000704.htm

Not created directly the process would be precisely mathematically coded into the laws of physics since the beginning of time. But you think it was an accident right?

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:1

[Doubting Thomas]

Some Christians may actually be black/brown you know, you think this is a religion for the white man?

Did I say that? I was, however, referring to all the white Christians who believe in a white Jesus. Your examples aside, most often Jesus is depicted as a white, blue-eyed northern European type, who would have been pretty rare in the Middle East 2000 years ago. Just google "Jesus" and click on images and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Most common depictions of Jesus

[Faith No More]

In your case think a certain materialist philosophy or "science" has all the ultimate answers.

You're doing it again.

Stop.

[Esquilax]

I don't have an interest in believing your car runs on pixie dust but I'm interested in the ultimate truth of the universe. Either it's God/a purpose giving higher power and we know something about his nature and it's relationship with ourselves or it's...nothing at all.

(I've said all this before, but: ) or, it's a time traveler going back and setting up the universe according to the constants he or she experienced from within the universe, or it was multiple creative intelligences designing different segments of the universe to antagonize one another, or it was one intelligence who was just curious, or time winds backwards outside of the universe and what we're experiencing is just the universe's death in reverse before it rewinds again, or we're a reflection of a mirror universe and all the things within are just reactions opposite to the mirror, or we're a long chain of randomly generated multiverse variants based upon a "prime" universe that was created, or it's a higher power that you don't know anything about, or...

See, I found a paragraph full of alternatives just off the top of my head. Why can't you?

Why do you insist on this false dichotomy even after you've been corrected on it?

[Sword of Christ]

The gospels aren't evidence , the gospels are the claim. Claims can be written down too, you know.

They're evidence that someone felt the need to write something about someone for some reason. If as you claim there is no God and there can be no miracles or revelation from God then what are they? You still have something you need to explain you can't just dismiss them away lightly by simply stating that they aren't evidence. You have your opinion do you have anything to back it up with?

Power, money, control over people, varying other sociopolitical aims depending on context, and that's only accounting for the possibilities of outright deception. It's also entirely possible the writers were just genuinely mistaken, or terribly credulous, perhaps insane, or brain damaged in some way.

They didn't get any of these things, quite the opposite they got persecuted and martyred. When the Roman Empire took as a state religion then you get that but they power, money, control over people to begin with they just adapted Christianity for their needs. But Jesus himself didn't support the use of religion for attaining power, wealth or control over others. So you can't use what you said there as the justification as it was nothing like that. A lot of religions and cults are like that but Christianity wasn't.

All of these possibilities are more likely than the claim you believe in, which falls victim to Occam's Razor quite spectacularly.

We can discount these possibilities based on what we historically know about have Christianity as a movement formed and grew. Once you get to Roman Catholicism then you can start pointing out the whole wealth and political authority dimension of it which was introduced and to some small degree is still there.

[Bad Wolf]

They're evidence that someone felt the need to write something about someone for some reason. If as you claim there is no God and there can be no miracles or revelation from God then what are they? You still have something you need to explain you can't just dismiss them away lightly by simply stating that they aren't evidence. You have your opinion do you have anything to back it up with?

Gigantic argument from ignorance.

[Esquilax]

They're evidence that someone felt the need to write something about someone for some reason.

How terribly conclusive.

If as you claim there is no God

You know that's not my claim.

and there can be no miracles or revelation from God then what are they? You still have something you need to explain you can't just dismiss them away lightly by simply stating that they aren't evidence. You have your opinion do you have anything to back it up with?

What Rationalman said.

They didn't get any of these things, quite the opposite they got persecuted and martyred.

Nope. Actually, what happened was a bunch of Jewish and Roman writers wrote a bunch of piety porn about people being persecuted and not losing their faith, and the modern church decided those fictions were real.

You know, it's like the ancient version of Passion of the Christ: you get all bigged up on how noble your religion is through what's essentially Saw, but on the cross, but all it is is entertainment.

When the Roman Empire took as a state religion then you get that but they power, money, control over people to begin with they just adapted Christianity for their needs. But Jesus himself didn't support the use of religion for attaining power, wealth or control over others. So you can't use what you said there as the justification as it was nothing like that. A lot of religions and cults are like that but Christianity wasn't.

Uh huh. And what would be the most effective method of masking the grab for power your bible represents? Why, it'd be to have a central figure in it decrying the accumulation of wealth, but if he's fictional too then all he does is serve a purpose for the writers. You know as well as I do that what's in the book and the way some christians act are two different things.

We can discount these possibilities based on what we historically know about have Christianity as a movement formed and grew. Once you get to Roman Catholicism then you can start pointing out the whole wealth and political authority dimension of it which was introduced and to some small degree is still there.

See, you're also mistaking the motives behind creating the religion, with whether or not those motives came to fruition; all you've proved, if you're right, is that if the religion was formed in a grab for power, it was an unsuccessful one.

[Brian37]

Did I say it did? On the other hand there are multiple attestations to Hannibal's life and works.

There are multiple attestations of Jesus the Christ who was raised from death!



Who would have made all of this up and what would be the motivation? Even if Jesus was just some kind of a wandering lunatic there's no reason to say he was a pure invention myths are generally based on something.

"In the Koran"

Come on now, it's in the Koran that Allah is real, so convert because it says so in the Koran.

[Doubting Thomas]

They're evidence that someone felt the need to write something about someone for some reason. If as you claim there is no God and there can be no miracles or revelation from God then what are they? You still have something you need to explain you can't just dismiss them away lightly by simply stating that they aren't evidence. You have your opinion do you have anything to back it up with?

Basically you're saying that the bible is true because it is true. Someone wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, so does that mean that everything that happened in that book was true?