Pull up a chair

[Whateverist]

Using the dictionary is fine for most purposes, but with regard to Christian faith you must account for the particular meaning faith has in the Christian religion.

Interestingly I think this thread's intent was to establish that atheists too experienced faith. Chad if you want to argue that xtian faith is different than the kind of faith atheists experience, I don't think you'll find any of us that want to argue with that. I agree. It is different. Our faith may involve abstract concepts like love and value, but it also tends to apply to nouns everyone can see and touch. I agree with you.

[Neo-Scholastic]

How easily you “free” thinkers avoid challenges to your atheistic worldview by falling back on your irrelevant clichés. Let’s count those made since my last post, shall we?

1) There is no evidence. For general revelation, the whole of reality is the evidence from which we deduce a basic understanding of the Divine. For special revelation, the various artifacts, and accounts serve as the subjects for interpretation and dispute. Asserting that there is no evidence is simply wrong. The only questions are whether the evidence applies and how strong that evidence is.

2) You assume the conclusion in advanceEvery hypothesis is an advanced conclusion for which you test. Positing divine action in the beginning is no guarantee of the final interpretation. Some miracles prove to be naturally occurring or fraudulent. That is not to say that some believers search for and cling to anything they feel supports their hope. This fault also applies to atheists that instantly dismiss any supernatural claim because it does not fit within a naturalistic paradigm.

3) The original Christians weren’t very bright, i.e “primitive goatherders”.Clearly some members of the early Christian community were highly literate and educated, a rarity for the times, since they produced written accounts. Anyone that argues that Saint Paul wasn’t very bright cannot be taken seriously.

4) The many ‘conflicting’ religious traditions proves they are all bullshit.There is some truth to this, but not much. For nearly all major religions and the late pagan ones, the results of general revelation are overall consistent. Moreover, the mystical traditions within each religion tend to converge on key concepts, like Huxley’s “perennial philosophy”. With respect to special revelation my own denomination is very ecumenical, focusing on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. What people do with their beliefs is much more important than the beliefs themselves. An atheist that rails against “In God We Trust” is being every bit as much of an asshole as a loudmouthed bible-thumper.

5) Religious believers resort to special pleading.It is not special pleading to approach something according to the nature of the thing under consideration. When it comes to God, He is not just another thing within a world of things, but is the One that serves as the very basis for and unity of the plurality.

Please. Atheist twaddle is SO annoying.

[pocaracas]

You know, Chad, I agree with you.

Except on the detail where it seems plausible to use god as a hypothesis.
As you say, it's no guarantee of the final interpretation, but, as we may find on numerous locations of this forum alone, it can be twisted to fit anything. And so it becomes almost guaranteed that if you start with a god, you end with the same god, or one even more powerful.

I am aware that that's how it looks from the believer's POV, but what the people around here are trying to convey is that that POV is skewed by limitless possibilities of magic.... too skewed to be trustworthy... too skewed for logic and reason to arrive at a correct conclusion.

[Rampant.A.I.]

How easily you “free” thinkers avoid challenges to your atheistic worldview by falling back on your irrelevant clichés. Let’s count those made since my last post, shall we?

How easily you "Christian" thinkers fall back on your irrelevant stereotyping of an atheistic worldview, when you're unable to support your own.

1) There is no evidence. For general revelation, the whole of reality is the evidence from which we deduce a basic understanding of the Divine.

Now there's a claim with no evidence! You are demanding we presuppose <God exists> to support <God exists> as self-evidence. This is circular reasoning.

For special revelation, the various artifacts, and accounts serve as the subjects for interpretation and dispute. Asserting that there is no evidence is simply wrong. The only questions are whether the evidence applies and how strong that evidence is.

This is simply rephrasing the first claim: <everything is evidence God exists because God exists, therefore everything is evidence>

2) You assume the conclusion in advanceEvery hypothesis is an advanced conclusion for which you test.

Untrue, see above. You assume your unsupported claims to be true, and are throwing a hissy fit because others don't.

Positing divine action in the beginning is no guarantee of the final interpretation.

It's also begging the question, and unsupportable, untestable, and an irrational claim you seem unable to provide evidence for.

Some miracles prove to be naturally occurring or fraudulent. That is not to say that some believers search for and cling to anything they feel supports their hope. This fault also applies to atheists that instantly dismiss any supernatural claim because it does not fit within a naturalistic paradigm.

Again, you are presupposing <miracles exist>, and then looking for events to substantiate your claim, usually in the form of an argument from ignorance. "We don't know: therefore Miracle."

3) The original Christians weren’t very bright, i.e “primitive goatherders”.Clearly some members of the early Christian community were highly literate and educated, a rarity for the times, since they produced written accounts. Anyone that argues that Saint Paul wasn’t very bright cannot be taken seriously.

They also had thirty or more years after the fact of the supposed events to build their stories. The average novelist takes 4-6 years to produce a novel, given 30 years anyone could produce a literarily compelling work.

4) The many ‘conflicting’ religious traditions proves they are all bullshit.There is some truth to this, but not much. For nearly all major religions and the late pagan ones, the results of general revelation are overall consistent.

This shows a dramatic lack of understanding of world religious traditions, and you seem to be claiming that because certain mythological archetypes are fulfilled, it adds to the veracity of the text. I don't know many Star Wars literalists, but the same could be applied.

Moreover, the mystical traditions within each religion tend to converge on key concepts, like Huxley’s “perennial philosophy”. With respect to special revelation my own denomination is very ecumenical, focusing on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy.

Surely you realize this implies that Buddhism, which predates Christianity by hundreds of years, is not only equally divinely inspired, but bears greater veracity being closer to original divine inspiration?

What people do with their beliefs is much more important than the beliefs themselves. An atheist that rails against “In God We Trust” is being every bit as much of an asshole as a loudmouthed bible-thumper.

Why? Do you dislike the separation of church and state?

5) Religious believers resort to special pleading.It is not special pleading to approach something according to the nature of the thing under consideration. When it comes to God, He is not just another thing within a world of things, but is the One that serves as the very basis for and unity of the plurality.

There you go, back to unsupported presupposition, and advancing additional claims on top of presupposed validity. And you wonder why no one takes you seriously.

Please. Atheist twaddle is SO annoying.

It's annoying because people aren't willing to accept your assertions carte blanche, and ask you to provide support you're clearly unable to.

And that makes you uncomfortable, so you revert to tantrum throwing and rambling stereotypical diatribes, instead of paying attention and participating in the discussion.

[Neo-Scholastic]

@ Rampant, thank you for conforming to the stereotype and thereby supporting my opinions.

[Rampant.A.I.]

@ Rampant, thank you for conforming to the stereotype and thereby supporting my opinions.

Thank you for crying wolf, and refusing to respond, per the usual. It must be awful to be a member of the repressed majority.

[Fromper]

Chad, while I certainly agree with some of your points, Rampant's response to your point #1 is exactly the same as what I was about to say.

the whole of reality is the evidence from which we deduce a basic understanding of the Divine.

The whole of reality proves that reality exists, nothing more. Science attempts to go into more detail as to how and why, although it doesn't have all the answers yet. But it proves nothing about the existence of any god. It's only if you go into it assuming God exists that you see everything as proof of God, even when there's not reason to see things that way. Circular logic, as Rampant pointed out.

[max-greece]

How easily you “free” thinkers avoid challenges to your atheistic worldview by falling back on your irrelevant clichés. Let’s count those made since my last post, shall we?

OK - lets go!

1) There is no evidence. For general revelation, the whole of reality is the evidence from which we deduce a basic understanding of the Divine. For special revelation, the various artifacts, and accounts serve as the subjects for interpretation and dispute. Asserting that there is no evidence is simply wrong. The only questions are whether the evidence applies and how strong that evidence is.

I take it that means you are happier with the statements: 1/ The evidence presented is not applicable and, 2/ The evidence is weak.

OK - I'm happy with that - how does it help your case exactly?

2) You assume the conclusion in advanceEvery hypothesis is an advanced conclusion for which you test. Positing divine action in the beginning is no guarantee of the final interpretation. Some miracles prove to be naturally occurring or fraudulent. That is not to say that some believers search for and cling to anything they feel supports their hope. This fault also applies to atheists that instantly dismiss any supernatural claim because it does not fit within a naturalistic paradigm.

Except that when we are dealing with something that by its nature is not provable assuming God exists will never yield a negative answer as it is impossible to prove a negative. That is why the default has to be no God with the onus of proof being on the claimant - or theist in this case.

3) The original Christians weren’t very bright, i.e “primitive goatherders”.Clearly some members of the early Christian community were highly literate and educated, a rarity for the times, since they produced written accounts. Anyone that argues that Saint Paul wasn’t very bright cannot be taken seriously.

Paul wasn't a goat-herder. There is more of a question as to whether he actually existed at all. Apparently several of his "letters" are disputed in terms of their actual authors and origins.

4) The many ‘conflicting’ religious traditions proves they are all bullshit.There is some truth to this, but not much. For nearly all major religions and the late pagan ones, the results of general revelation are overall consistent. Moreover, the mystical traditions within each religion tend to converge on key concepts, like Huxley’s “perennial philosophy”. With respect to special revelation my own denomination is very ecumenical, focusing on orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. What people do with their beliefs is much more important than the beliefs themselves. An atheist that rails against “In God We Trust” is being every bit as much of an asshole as a loudmouthed bible-thumper.

I'm glad you see some truth to it although I would dispute the "not much." Enough for those of differing beliefs to go to war on a regular basis. Of course, this is glossing over the fact that often-times those wars are between different factions of the same religion. I imagine you never visited Ireland during "the troubles" for example.

5) Religious believers resort to special pleading.It is not special pleading to approach something according to the nature of the thing under consideration. When it comes to God, He is not just another thing within a world of things, but is the One that serves as the very basis for and unity of the plurality.

Special pleading does come in where Christians (and others) attempt to come up with logical proofs of their faith citing all encompassing rules which handily bypass their creator. The cosmological argument is a typical example.

Please. Atheist twaddle is SO annoying.

Odd then that theists are so unable to address it.

[Whateverist]

How easily you “free” thinkers avoid challenges to your atheistic worldview by falling back on your irrelevant clichés.

I have to admit I don't understand what you're saying here. Okay so when confronted with what seems to an atheist to be very strange claims you find our responses to be cliche. How is that avoiding a challenge to our worldview. Personally I haven't registered any challenge because I find nothing persuasive in any of this. Essentially you are making the claim that there is a case for belief in the biblical God but I don't understand anything that has been put forward to make that case.

I don't start with god belief. So that isn't really a positive feature of my worldview. It is only one of many possible worldviews which aren't mine. All I can tell from what you say is that you very earnestly believe what you say and you believe others should too. That isn't working. Seems like we should agree to disagree.

I don't feel the need to degrade your worldview but neither am I tempted to make it mine. I don't feel the need for you to abandon your belief in gods. Why can't you just accept the diversity of our points of view and let it go at that? To insist that your choice should be everyone's choice isn't very neighborly.

[fr0d0]

I didn't think Chad was intending that you abandon your world view without reason. His objection is to the tired and illogical clichés that people insist on repeating without any intention of supporting what they're saying. If you have any original thoughts, great, let's hear them. Anything else is annoying spam.