The Bible is the claim, not the evidence

[Esquilax]

There is nothing in the Bible that would be of any interest or convincing value to an atheist as it was written with atheists in mind.

Atheists find one thing to be of interest, and that's the truth. If we're not coming away from the bible convinced, it's not because of a presupposition we made that it's wrong- many of us started out as believers, by the way- but rather the total dearth of demonstrable truth within its pages.

[Tonus]

Well the revelation of God was through a chosen people who were living in real history and this took place over a lengthy period of time, so what else would you expect?

I would expect it to sound like the revelation of a supreme and purposeful intelligence, and not the cobbled-together fables of ancient people that require lots of guesswork and "interpretation" to make it even remotely coherent.

[Crossless2.0]

Well the revelation of God was through a chosen people who were living in real history and this took place over a lengthy period of time, so what else would you expect?

I would expect it to sound like the revelation of a supreme and purposeful intelligence, and not the cobbled-together fables of ancient people that require lots of guesswork and "interpretation" to make it even remotely coherent.

This. Why is an unambiguous revelation such a problem for the supreme creator of all? And why would a transcendent, creative intelligence be so petty and provincial? It all seems so . . . human!

[Sword of Christ]

Atheists find one thing to be of interest, and that's the truth.

I don't think they're as interested as myself, they settle scientific facts of how certain processes work and stop there. That's a little bit of the truth there it's not the full coverage, what about all the other questions? Why does anything exist at all? Why are we here? And so on. Not how we how got here we know how the processes works, more or less I'm sure we will know much more in a thousand years but only about these relatively minor details and specifics of the universe. We're all interested in "truth" here you know.

If we're not coming away from the bible convinced, it's not because of a presupposition we made that it's wrong- many of us started out as believers, by the way- but rather the total dearth of demonstrable truth within its pages.

If you just base your belief in God on simply the what the Bible says (the Bible isn't the proof or the argument for Gods existence just the revelation/message) then you're very likely to lose your faith with any modest level of scientific and historical education. You will have to put some work into it if you're serious about wanting to know the truth.

[Mister Agenda]

Atheists find one thing to be of interest, and that's the truth.

I don't think they're as interested as myself, they settle scientific facts of how certain processes work and stop there. That's a little bit of the truth there it's not the full coverage, what about all the other questions? Why does anything exist at all? Why are we here? And so on. Not how we how got here we know how the processes works, more or less I'm sure we will know much more in a thousand years but only about these relatively minor details and specifics of the universe. We're all interested in "truth" here you know.

Part of being truthful is not accepting made-up answers. If the answer to a question is unknown, the most honest thing to say is "I don't know'. Just because you want an answer to a question doesn't mean that there is one, or even ever will be one. Clearly your need for answers has overridden your need for truth.

[Sword of Christ]

Part of being truthful is not accepting made-up answers.

No-one is deliberately making anything up though that doesn't mean there isn't a chance that they're wrong. The thing is there are good rational reasons to believe God even from scientific perspective and don't even start on the nature of morality and freewill, I feel that's the point when atheism/materialism falls apart. There certain good points atheists make here and there sure, certainly there is a case for a slightly less literal interpretation of scripture though that was always an element within the faith. You can also be open to some level of doubt if you can't be 100% factually certain though given the nature of what God is I don't think that level of certainty is possible for a regular human. You can't be certain the atheist/material view is correct either so by rights you will have to entertain some doubts over that.

If the answer to a question is unknown, the most honest thing to say is "I don't know'.

If we knew we wouldn't call it faith. Faith is what you believe to be true for what you regard as good reasons even if you don't and can't really know as a factual certainty. Bear in mind that you can't scientifically prove Gods existence so that's a non-issue.

Just because you want an answer to a question doesn't mean that there is one, or even ever will be one. Clearly your need for answers has overridden your need for truth.

You've got the question/s, you got the answer/s of some kind so you can well have the truth right there. You are going to be interested in knowing and experiencing this truth once you understand the likelihood of this truth. Atheism isn't true, or it's only true to a certain extent within the limits of what it covers which is the scientific knowledge we have.

[Mister Agenda]

Part of being truthful is not accepting made-up answers.

No-one is deliberately making anything up though that doesn't mean there isn't a chance that they're wrong.

I agree. I don't think the process of getting these particular answers was someone unilaterally throwing it out. But the first thing to ask someone who claims to have such an answer is 'how do you know?'. If their answer is scripture, the natural follow-up question is 'how did they know?'. If the method for knowing is something that can't be verified, like revelation, it can't truly be said to be knowledge, only belief, as evidenced by contradictory revelations.

The thing is there are good rational reasons to believe God even from scientific perspective and don't even start on the nature of morality and freewill, I feel that's the point when atheism/materialism falls apart. There certain good points atheists make here and there sure, certainly there is a case for a slightly less literal interpretation of scripture though that was always an element within the faith. You can also be open to some level of doubt if you can't be 100% factually certain though given the nature of what God is I don't think that level of certainty is possible for a regular human. You can't be certain the atheist/material view is correct either so by rights you will have to entertain some doubts over that.

As a rule, we DO entertain doubts over that.

If we knew we wouldn't call it faith. Faith is what you believe to be true for what you regard as good reasons even if you don't and can't really know as a factual certainty. Bear in mind that you can't scientifically prove Gods existence so that's a non-issue.

It's not possible to prove something is the tri-omni creator of the universe, but it would be well within the realm of science to prove the existence of a cosmically-powerful being that wasn't using its power to conceal itself from science.

You've got the question/s, you got the answer/s of some kind so you can well have the truth right there.

We might have the truth right here. But we don't have a way to know it's the truth. Without good evidence or strong arguments, any of us having the truth would be a coincidence. You can be correct in your conclusion even if you are wrong in your reasoning.

You are going to be interested in knowing and experiencing this truth once you understand the likelihood of this truth. Atheism isn't true, or it's only true to a certain extent within the limits of what it covers which is the scientific knowledge we have.

If you could prove 'atheism isnt true', by which I interpret you to mean that there is a real being who fits the description of what you mean when you say 'God', there would be no atheists. And all you need to do to 'disprove atheism' is prove God. You could greatly weaken 'atheism' (reduce the number of atheists) if you could prove the odds of God are at least 10%.

When you say 'atheism isn't true' that falls under the category of claims you make without having any way of knowing they're true.

Caveat: The phrase 'atheism isn't true' is confusing. Atheism is not believing in any God or gods. It's a state of mind. It is not the claim that there is no God or are not gods. Theism isn't the claim that there IS such a being(s), it's the state of believing it. Better just to say 'it's not true that there is no God', or better, 'God exists'.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Gotcha again.. but I believed in god when I was younger and never really read the bible. Then I finally did read the bible three times over and now I really dont believe theres a god...

You just ended up doing three revolutions of the wheel of atheist logic.

I've never paid attention to Dawkins, and he's not even a necessary figurehead for rational assessment of irrational beliefs.

You seem to be claiming its possible to skeptically read the Bible, decide rationally that it's bullshit, re-read and confirm your skeptical position. Is that in fact your argument?

[Esquilax]

I don't think they're as interested as myself, they settle scientific facts of how certain processes work and stop there.

Considering that I've repeatedly told you that my view of the world doesn't end with science, but rather with something I can actually experience for myself, I rather think you're off base here. The trouble is that none of the experiential proofs for god that people give me, have ever worked on me. If you can't give me something to experience, no way to test the claim that's actually falsifiable, then why would I believe it?

It's the falsifiability that's the important part, by the way; if one can't produce a failure state, then in what way could the test possibly be honest? That's not a science thing, it's just logical.

That's a little bit of the truth there it's not the full coverage, what about all the other questions? Why does anything exist at all? Why are we here? And so on. Not how we how got here we know how the processes works, more or less I'm sure we will know much more in a thousand years but only about these relatively minor details and specifics of the universe. We're all interested in "truth" here you know.

But how can you be sure your answer is right if you can't objectively demonstrate it? I understand that you've accepted your particular answer, but without being able to show it, how do you intend to confirm it? It can't just be inside your own head; that's the way crazy people get crazier.

If you just base your belief in God on simply the what the Bible says (the Bible isn't the proof or the argument for Gods existence just the revelation/message) then you're very likely to lose your faith with any modest level of scientific and historical education. You will have to put some work into it if you're serious about wanting to know the truth.

But the only thing you've really got that purports to be material from god is the bible. If you're discarding portions of that, how else do you divine the truth about him?

[Sword of Christ]

But the first thing to ask someone who claims to have such an answer is 'how do you know?'.

You don't know that's why it's called faith. You think it's true for what you consider to be various good reasons in the absence of certain knowledge you don't in fact have.

If their answer is scripture

You potentially know some details of Gods character and his relationship to humanity from scripture if the source of the revelation is God himself. You need to take it on faith/trust of course. You really can't just say "God exists because the Bible says so" to someone who doesn't believe it and expect them to believe in it based on that argument however.

the natural follow-up question is 'how did they know?'.

They knew because they had some kind of experience of God and God informed them through this experience of certain details about the nature of his reality/being. There's no way to know whether this happened or not but you can have faith in it God is a rational and reasonable proposition and basis for our existence.

If the method for knowing is something that can't be verified, like revelation, it can't truly be said to be knowledge

It will be knowledge if it's true but still have to apply faith if you choose to believe in it seeing as you can't know for certain whether it is or isn't.

only belief, as evidenced by contradictory revelations.

Atheism is only a belief which is contradictory to all other beliefs that claim the existence of something else.

As a rule, we DO entertain doubts over that.

So you're doing much the same thing as someone who has a faith in God then.

It's not possible to prove something is the tri-omni creator of the universe, but it would be well within the realm of science to prove the existence of a cosmically-powerful being that wasn't using its power to conceal itself from science.

God doesn't use his power to conceal himself from science he just isn't available to science given the nature of what he is. Science can only study physical, observable and detectable things.

If you could prove 'atheism isnt true', by which I interpret you to mean that there is a real being who fits the description of what you mean when you say 'God', there would be no atheists.

God is an entirely unfalsifiable proposition though seeing as science is unable study or observe him. It can study the effects of Go but that would cover the entirety of the observable universe which is the creation of God, so that's just what science already studies.

And all you need to do to 'disprove atheism' is prove God.

It will help if you a can appreciate the impossibility of this.

You could greatly weaken 'atheism' (reduce the number of atheists) if you could prove the odds of God are at least 10%.

You have to decide what the odds are yourself based on the arguments for and against. I'm putting the odds for God at 99.9%.

Caveat: The phrase 'atheism isn't true' is confusing. Atheism is not believing in any God or gods.

Theism is a belief in God and/or gods. You're saying this belief is wrong and shouldn't be held by anyone and I'm saying it's right and should be held by everyone, seeing as it's right. Therefore you have one kind of claim and you have the other claim, one will be correct and the other will be incorrect. There is no way to be able to know who has it right factually through science, at least as far as God himself is concerned. You would be able to prove something like Zeus with science but Christians and most other contemporary religions don't believe in those kinds of gods. They do virtually all believe in non-physical realm/s or layers of reality but this you can't scientifically prove this either. Near Death experiences are probably as close to a demonstration of this reality as you can get though an atheist could still claim it's some kind of a material based hallucination.

It's a state of mind. It is not the claim that there is no God or are not gods.

The claim that you don't or shouldn't believe in God/s and then is much the same difference.

Theism isn't the claim that there IS such a being(s)

Yes it is? You can't know God exists therefore some faith is involved but we're not talking gullibility or a wishful desire to believe something you kind of really know isn't true, as atheists tend to read interpret the word in this context. God is a perfectly rational and reasonable proposition and gives you a good basis for the universe and grounding in life.

Better just to say 'it's not true that there is no God', or better, 'God exists'.

Indeed it is better to say that though atheists would say the opposite, implying God doesn't exist! hock:

Even if you say something like there may or may not be a God, or that it doesn't matter or some kind of Deism is possible you will go about life as though God doesn't exist so God as far as you're concerned God may as well not exist.