Why are other civilizations ignored in the Bible?

[discipulus]

I guess the question remains: What would you do if you saw me raise someone from the dead in Jesus' name?

Is this something you are likely to do during the debate?

I'll definitely tune in for that one.

Do you take requests? Could we choose who you bring back?

I might ask that you bring Jesus back - I have some questions for him.

Finally - and I don't know if you can do other things - but bringing someone back from the dead is kinda mundance in the grand scheme of things. Now if we could choose a miracle that would be something.

How about changing the morphology of the mosquito so that the female no longer sucks blood, passing on Malaria - perhaps switching to a fruit diet like the male?

That would convince me. I'm free next Monday so if you could do it then that would be lovely.

If I did that, would you give your life to Christ and seek to live moment by moment for Him? Would you worship and love Him with all your mind all your heart and all your strength?

---

Now that I think about it, it seems to me only right that we debate that one thing, that one misgiving that you feel is your biggest objection to Jesus Christ.

Whatever it is, if we can debate it and talk about it like civil, respectful human beings and I can give you thoughtful, sincere, respectful answers, then I will have done what was right.

Some skeptics might answer in four words: There is no proof.

Personally, I'm more concerned with the consequences of this belief system. Let me not mince words, Christianity is a dangerous, destructive belief system that has been the greatest disaster to befall humanity and is wholly maladaptive to the survival of human civilization in the future.

Ok. We can debate that. I believe the exact opposite.

---

You are still asking questions which proves my point.

Why ask why?

Because it's not a common sight...people coming back to life after being a corpse for days.

If you were alive in Jesus' day, and you saw all that He was doing and saying and you saw Him raise a man from the grave that had been dead for three days you still seem to insinuate that you would be in doubt....

No...I'd probably have no doubt that he was some extraordinary person...

Why would you be so reluctant to confess that Christ was indeed who He said He was?

I wouldn't... but I'd still require some sort of backup of the event...10 witnesses, at least...and a "do it again, please".

What is the issue here? I really fail to see it.

Maybe............it is because you just do not like the idea of Christ coming on the seen and making the claim that it is He who is Lord of All......

Maybe the problem lies in the fact that all we have of that time is a tale.
A tale written well after the fact and possibly written with some sort of agenda... it is then of little reliability.

But I thought we were talking about your ability to bring people back from the dead, not the alleged a ability of some guy who lived 2 thousand years ago... continuation of the ability through time, jumping from person to person...that would be great...but if Hollywood is anything to go by, then those people would rather hide, than help people live a bit longer, risking exposure to the public.

The Pharisees loved the honor of men. This prevented them from believing.

---

Now you know why I have been saying all along that there exists no type of evidence for the existence of God that cannot be explained away by them that are unwilling to believe.

I think I have proven my point. All I have to do is refer to your own posts to prove it.

Dude, I'm the most willing person you'll meet...but I'm not gullible and require something more than "there's this book..."
And I'm fully aware of the possibility of brain trickery, so I'll always require independent confirmation...and the more the merrier.
And I find amazing the amount of people who fail to meet this simple requirement and end up sounding like delusional folk.

And if after seeing Jesus raise a man from the dead you approached Him and asked Him to do it again and He did, then what?

---

If you were alive in Jesus' day, and you saw all that He was doing and saying and you saw Him raise a man from the grave that had been dead for three days you still seem to insinuate that you would be in doubt....

If we were alive in Jesus' day, we'd probably see that he seemed to be the exact same as a disheveled, slightly unhinged homeless person like we see on street corners today.

I do not know of any unhinged homeless people who have power over nature so as to be able to calm a storm with a word.

Christ came to His own and they did not receive Him despite the many evidences and proofs He provided them.

Being skeptical of claims of divinity is one thing. Refusing to accept the claim in the face of attending evidence and proofs is another. The later is a matter of the will.

If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

[pocaracas]

And if after seeing Jesus raise a man from the dead you approached Him and asked Him to do it again and He did, then what?

[...]
If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

If you were among the crowd that witnessed David Copperfield misplace the Statue of Liberty, while claiming it to be magic, would you believe him?

Of course the "do it again" request would lead to investigation of how this ability works and into a possible replication of it through technology!

Would it be proof of the claim?... errr... perhaps...
But we must keep the real world and the fictional world in their proper realms... has anyone ever performed such a raising of people from death?

[max-greece]

Is this something you are likely to do during the debate?

I'll definitely tune in for that one.

Do you take requests? Could we choose who you bring back?

I might ask that you bring Jesus back - I have some questions for him.

Finally - and I don't know if you can do other things - but bringing someone back from the dead is kinda mundance in the grand scheme of things. Now if we could choose a miracle that would be something.

How about changing the morphology of the mosquito so that the female no longer sucks blood, passing on Malaria - perhaps switching to a fruit diet like the male?

That would convince me. I'm free next Monday so if you could do it then that would be lovely.

If I did that, would you give your life to Christ and seek to live moment by moment for Him? Would you worship and love Him with all your mind all your heart and all your strength?

---

---

Some skeptics might answer in four words: There is no proof.

Personally, I'm more concerned with the consequences of this belief system. Let me not mince words, Christianity is a dangerous, destructive belief system that has been the greatest disaster to befall humanity and is wholly maladaptive to the survival of human civilization in the future.

Ok. We can debate that. I believe the exact opposite.

---

Because it's not a common sight...people coming back to life after being a corpse for days.
No...I'd probably have no doubt that he was some extraordinary person...
I wouldn't... but I'd still require some sort of backup of the event...10 witnesses, at least...and a "do it again, please".
Maybe the problem lies in the fact that all we have of that time is a tale.
A tale written well after the fact and possibly written with some sort of agenda... it is then of little reliability.

But I thought we were talking about your ability to bring people back from the dead, not the alleged a ability of some guy who lived 2 thousand years ago... continuation of the ability through time, jumping from person to person...that would be great...but if Hollywood is anything to go by, then those people would rather hide, than help people live a bit longer, risking exposure to the public.
Dude, I'm the most willing person you'll meet...but I'm not gullible and require something more than "there's this book..."
And I'm fully aware of the possibility of brain trickery, so I'll always require independent confirmation...and the more the merrier.
And I find amazing the amount of people who fail to meet this simple requirement and end up sounding like delusional folk.

And if after seeing Jesus raise a man from the dead you approached Him and asked Him to do it again and He did, then what?

---

If we were alive in Jesus' day, we'd probably see that he seemed to be the exact same as a disheveled, slightly unhinged homeless person like we see on street corners today.

I do not know of any unhinged homeless people who have power over nature so as to be able to calm a storm with a word.

Christ came to His own and they did not receive Him despite the many evidences and proofs He provided them.

Being skeptical of claims of divinity is one thing. Refusing to accept the claim in the face of attending evidence and proofs is another. The later is a matter of the will.

If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

---

If you did which? The mosquito thing?

A spontaneous change in the nature of the female mosquito that suddenly moved it from spreading malaria to a fruit diet?

HELL YES!!!

---

Couple of things to add, just to make sure:

1. No tricks - you understand what I am asking for - a fundamental change in the nature of all species of mosquito such that they no longer spread malaria. Malaria becomes a dead disease. No more infections, no more dying from it - the whole 9 yards.
2. Have to ask this - if you could do this - why wait for me to convert? Surely the simple reduction in human suffering would be enough reason to do it anyway?

Suffice to say, do it, do it properly and I will Join you in worship at any Church you care to name. I will sing the loudest and go out and spread the word. I will be a model Christian. I will be tireless in my support.

[Rahul]

I do not know of any unhinged homeless people who have power over nature so as to be able to calm a storm with a word.

Christ came to His own and they did not receive Him despite the many evidences and proofs He provided them.

Being skeptical of claims of divinity is one thing. Refusing to accept the claim in the face of attending evidence and proofs is another. The later is a matter of the will.

If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

There is no evidence anyone ever did these things. They're just fables with no proof.

It has as much evidence behind it as the Harry Potter series.

I've seen David Copperfield do some really shocking things on TV. I never presumed that his tricks made him the son of God.

David Blaine, would you follow him as your Christ if he claimed what he did was not tricks but powers from his divinity?

[Tonus]

I guess the question remains: What would you do if you saw me raise someone from the dead in Jesus' name?

What if you saw someone raise the dead in the name of Allah? Or Zeus? Or Peter Pan?

I'm not sure I understand the reason behind this hypothetical. I get the impression that the intent is to show that the atheist is so unwilling to consider the evidence for god that even proof would not be sufficient. Thus, the inability of the theist to make a convincing case is blamed on the atheist's 'unwillingness to accept the truth' and not on the theist's lack of convincing evidence or arguments.

However, this also shows the glaring problem that many theists have struggled with here: the lack of any clear convincing evidence of A god, much less THE god that any given theist is promoting as being true. Their gods demonstrated themselves to people many times and performed great and notable miracles many times... in the past. And they left no evidence, just written accounts that the theist insists are different from all of the other written accounts of gods and miracles. The best they can do is some form of "you can't prove it didn't happen" and "you wouldn't believe even if you saw."

"It could have happened, but only the stuff I believe" just isn't convincing, especially to those of us who were once Christians and saw just how poor an approach it is. You've got to come up with something better than "the problem is you guys" to make any kind of impression.

[discipulus]

You are still asking questions which proves my point.

Why ask why?

Are you seriously insinuating that because we would want to do additional investigation rather than just leaping to the preferred answer that you offer, we're somehow displaying proof that we actually just don't want god to exist, and are being unfair?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Requiring additional investigation is called being intellectually honest, because historically, leaping to the easiest conclusion without thinking results in incorrect conclusions. And I know you know this, because all those other religions that stayed with the first conclusion they had, a different god than yours, got it wrong, according to you! Flat earth? First conclusion we had, dead wrong. Oh what, why won't you just accept that the earth is flat, Disc? Why do you keep asking questions? That just proves my point: you're just unfairly biased against the earth being flat!

This is the most intellectually anemic, childish argument, and yet you keep bringing it up. You should be ashamed of yourself: you notice how we're not going around forcefully reinterpreting your motives so that we no longer have to defend our position? At no point has anyone here decided to tell you what you believe, what the fuck gives you the right to do different to us? Grow. Up!

You fail to take into account the background information accompanying the accounts of Christ's miracles.

Christ did not do one miracle and then say believe in Me. He did not do two miracles and say believe in Me. Or three or four.

If I were a Jew living at that time and witnessed what Jesus was doing I could not justify not believing who He said He was.

With each miracle, the probability of it all happening via some naturalisitc explanation diminishes. Assuming the accounts are true it is more probable that the explanation for these occurrances is that Christ was actually who He said He was.

Wanting evidence for claims of divinity is not wrong. It is right. But denying what is obvious is a matter of the will.

Do you agree?

---

Were you there to see Jesus raising people from the dead? Then how do you know what he did is what you propose you would do in the present? You don't. You're just begging the question.

I take it for granted that the act of raising someone bodily from the dead would be indisputable evidence for claims of divinity.

It seems to me now that this is not so self-evident.

---

I do not know of any unhinged homeless people who have power over nature so as to be able to calm a storm with a word.

Christ came to His own and they did not receive Him despite the many evidences and proofs He provided them.

Being skeptical of claims of divinity is one thing. Refusing to accept the claim in the face of attending evidence and proofs is another. The later is a matter of the will.

If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

There is no evidence anyone ever did these things. They're just fables with no proof.

It has as much evidence behind it as the Harry Potter series.

I've seen David Copperfield do some really shocking things on TV. I never presumed that his tricks made him the son of God.

David Blaine, would you follow him as your Christ if he claimed what he did was not tricks but powers from his divinity?

David Copperfield to my knowledge has never claimed to be The Son of God. Nor has He ever, to my knowledge caused people who were blind from birth to see. The lame from birth to walk. Or the dead to be raised to life. Nor has He done anything that I am aware of that is the fulfillment of a prophecy written about Him hundreds of years prior to His birth.

The same is true for David Blaine or any other magician.

So why would I believe them if they claimed to be The Son of God?

---

And if after seeing Jesus raise a man from the dead you approached Him and asked Him to do it again and He did, then what?

[...]
If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

If you were among the crowd that witnessed David Copperfield misplace the Statue of Liberty, while claiming it to be magic, would you believe him?

Of course the "do it again" request would lead to investigation of how this ability works and into a possible replication of it through technology!

Would it be proof of the claim?... errr... perhaps...
But we must keep the real world and the fictional world in their proper realms... has anyone ever performed such a raising of people from death?

Has David Copperfield ever actually moved the statue of liberty? No

Even if He were able, he still has not claimed to be God in the flesh.

As I have stated, Christ and David Copperfield have very little in common.

Assuming for the sake of argument Christ did all it is recorded He did, it seems more probable that the best explanation is that He actually was who He said He was as opposed to Him being some sort of magician.

I am aware of no magician who has been tortured and killed because they claimed to be the Son of God and whose mighty deeds had been prophesied years prior to Him being born.

[Ryantology]

If I were a Jew living at that time and witnessed what Jesus was doing I could not justify not believing who He said He was.

With each miracle, the probability of it all happening via some naturalisitc explanation diminishes. Assuming the accounts are true it is more probable that the explanation for these occurrances is that Christ was actually who He said He was.

Wanting evidence for claims of divinity is not wrong. It is right. But denying what is obvious is a matter of the will.

So, all it takes for you to believe a claim of divinity is to see someone appear to do something you personally lack the intelligence or education to understand?

The answer, of course, is 'no'. Your threshold of credulity isn't even that high. You're willing to accept those claims based on extremely sketchy second-hand claims that such things happened thousands of years ago and were recorded nowhere except in a single series of sources of, to say the very least, dubious authenticity.

Ironic how the preponderance of 'miracles' has an inverse relationship with the advancement of communications, observation and recording, isn't it?

As I have stated, Christ and David Copperfield have very little in common.

Absolutely. David Copperfield is a real person.

[discipulus]

If I did that, would you give your life to Christ and seek to live moment by moment for Him? Would you worship and love Him with all your mind all your heart and all your strength?

---

---

Ok. We can debate that. I believe the exact opposite.

---

And if after seeing Jesus raise a man from the dead you approached Him and asked Him to do it again and He did, then what?

---

I do not know of any unhinged homeless people who have power over nature so as to be able to calm a storm with a word.

Christ came to His own and they did not receive Him despite the many evidences and proofs He provided them.

Being skeptical of claims of divinity is one thing. Refusing to accept the claim in the face of attending evidence and proofs is another. The later is a matter of the will.

If you were among the crowd and saw with your own eyes those things which Christ did as evidence of His claims....what would your response be.

---

If you did which? The mosquito thing?

A spontaneous change in the nature of the female mosquito that suddenly moved it from spreading malaria to a fruit diet?

HELL YES!!!

---

Couple of things to add, just to make sure:

1. No tricks - you understand what I am asking for - a fundamental change in the nature of all species of mosquito such that they no longer spread malaria. Malaria becomes a dead disease. No more infections, no more dying from it - the whole 9 yards.
2. Have to ask this - if you could do this - why wait for me to convert? Surely the simple reduction in human suffering would be enough reason to do it anyway?

Suffice to say, do it, do it properly and I will Join you in worship at any Church you care to name. I will sing the loudest and go out and spread the word. I will be a model Christian. I will be tireless in my support.

If you are so concerned about human suffering as you seem to imply you are, why is it that you are waiting for some type of evidence or proof before you become a model Christian?

For what is it to be a model Christian but to be as Christ? One who cared for the sick and poor. One who loved and blessed His enemies and persecutors? One who always put other's needs before His own...

It seems to me that if you are so despairing of the ills that exist in the world, you would not be sitting around waiting for a reason to do something about it.

You essentially are saying: I will follow Christ and imitate His life and be a selfless self sacrificing person IF you prove this or that....

If you were indeed so heartbroken about people having river blindness and other numerous ills, you would not need a proof to persuade you to do something about it.

[Brian37]

Maybe because the bible wasn't a news paper?

The way believers act you'd think they claim it was. It is not a newspaper or history book much less a science textbook. It is a comic book, just like any other holy book of myth.

It starts off with the naked assertion of a sky parent. Not even a moral sky parent. An asshole who treats humans like toys, property, cattle. Gives us a nasty home to live on, gives us weapons to murder each other in his name, then blames us for the crap he didn't have to set up in the first place.

That book is not moral at all. It is a comic book that is unfortunately used as an excuse to create Mafia tribes.

The only place that book belongs as a story is in "The Weekly World News" right next to stories about Bat Boy.

[Chad32]

If you did which? The mosquito thing?

A spontaneous change in the nature of the female mosquito that suddenly moved it from spreading malaria to a fruit diet?

HELL YES!!!

---

Couple of things to add, just to make sure:

1. No tricks - you understand what I am asking for - a fundamental change in the nature of all species of mosquito such that they no longer spread malaria. Malaria becomes a dead disease. No more infections, no more dying from it - the whole 9 yards.
2. Have to ask this - if you could do this - why wait for me to convert? Surely the simple reduction in human suffering would be enough reason to do it anyway?

Suffice to say, do it, do it properly and I will Join you in worship at any Church you care to name. I will sing the loudest and go out and spread the word. I will be a model Christian. I will be tireless in my support.

If you are so concerned about human suffering as you seem to imply you are, why is it that you are waiting for some type of evidence or proof before you become a model Christian?

For what is it to be a model Christian but to be as Christ? One who cared for the sick and poor. One who loved and blessed His enemies and persecutors? One who always put other's needs before His own...

It seems to me that if you are so despairing of the ills that exist in the world, you would not be sitting around waiting for a reason to do something about it.

You essentially are saying: I will follow Christ and imitate His life and be a selfless self sacrificing person IF you prove this or that....

If you were indeed so heartbroken about people having river blindness and other numerous ills, you would not need a proof to persuade you to do something about it.

You don't have to be a christian to do good in the world. You can even be better than christ by doing good in the world AND not condemning people for thinking something bad while not doing bad. Jesus apparently believed that if you consider murdering someone, or raping someone, it's the same as doing it. That's obviously wrong.

You can be good without being a christian, so I can live my life doing good while waiting for some clear evidence to point towards christianity being any different from other religions. Of course I'd want more than just evidence that Yahweh/Jesus exist. I'd also need proof that they're actually paragons or virtue and goodness. Something that I don't think the bible shows all that well.