A simple challenge for atheists

[The Grand Nudger]

The attestation of the crucifixion. Without that portion, it ALL unravels. Perhaps you are unaware of its importance. That God took on the form of a man to be a final sacrifice to bridge the gap so that man can have a relationship with his creator.

No, he didn't, and if he had, that would be about the best moral argument against that relationship that I can imagine.

[Cyberman]

This is the almighty god you're talking about, right? Apparently his only weaknesses are iron chariots and bureaucracy.

And reason.

[Cheerful Charlie]

So on a subject which might be the most important one ever for both the individual and the human race as a whole, you're satisfied with "seems likely to me"? You feel that it's sufficient to admit that the evidence is poor, but at least it exists?

I'm guessing (again) that you apply a far stricter standard of evidence and reason in most other areas of your life. But for the one that you consider the most important, you set the bar astonishingly low.

Tonus, it is a cumulative case including that God is not philosophically irrational, evidence of Jesus, how the basic Christian worldview makes sense of what we 1) see, 2) feel, and 3) experience, and the available personal relationship with God. I have seen the undeniable life-changing effect that God has on people in real life.

The problem is, God is irrational as a concept. I have posted here to the problem of God's super-omniscience. Then there is the unsolvable issue of God's omniscient and free will. The problem of God and time, the Problem of Evil and other conundrums. Ir has been an issue for many years that a chain made up of weak links is not a chain that can be used. The weak conjectures about God are not accumulative.

What is the basic Christian world view. Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" goes through the Bible and demonstrates that Biblically, free will is dogmatically impossible. But if so that means all we do is caused by God. And God than causes all moral evil. Doesn't that make God evil? Luther states he wishes he had not been born a man that had to deal with this terrible problem. How does Luther deal with the issue? Echoing Roman 11:33 he tells us God is inscrutable. That is logic and reason are abandoned for obscurantism. Calvin is not any better, and nobody else has solved the conundrum.

Natural religion, proving God exists has been a bust since Plato invented it in his "Laws - Book X". The literature on Natural Religion is vast and it has been admitted by philosophers of religion to date to have failed. There are no good proofs for God's existence and many good proofs demonstrating God is a doubtful idea.

[LostLocke]

Why would a god have to avoid infinite regression?
If it can't infinitely regress, it's omnipotence would have to come under serious question.

Huh??

If a being is truly omnipotent it should be able to infinitely regress.

[IATIA]

There was one healing a sick eye by spitting in it...I don't know.

Did not jesus spit in the sand and rub it into a blind man's eye to restore the man's vision?

Regarding the difference of Christianity, Jesus did do miracles, arguably more impressive than Mohammad--but that's not the point. The point was the resurrection AND the related message of atonement.

So your miracles are real because they were bigger and badder.

I realize you are trying to nail me down on was it even possible for Mohammad to do miracles. I would say no for the following reason: I don't think the Islamic religion/theology is the best explanation for our observations about God and reality. It seems illogical to me to think that God would work miracles in support of a religion that denies the basics of the one I believe in.

So your mythology is correct, but their mythology is bullshit.

[robvalue]

Holy fucking shit batman. My eyes are bleeding.

Why is it so hard for some people to grasp the concept that something being written down doesn't make it true. I mean, imagine how confusing it must be to live life like this. Each time you pick up a comic book...

Science would like to have a word about miracles. Assuming you say miracles are events caused by God, then it's currently impossible to establish any sort of supernatural causality, let alone that of an undemonstrated entity. To just announce what the cause is because no one has been able to demonstrate what the cause is, is an argument from ignorance and blatantly dishonest wishful thinking. It's an error in thinking I see and point out almost every day, but the theists involved just seem not to care. While your arguments contain logical fallacies like this, you have more chance of actually being jesus than convincing a sceptic; which I presume must be part of the motivation for being here. If anyone is actually interested in honest debate and doesn't understand how this is an error, or why it's so important, please ask so that we can sort it out. Otherwise it's the equivalent of someone presenting us with the same key over and over again to a door we already tried it in. "Same key dude. Seriously. This is the fiftieth time you've shown me that key."

The problem with miracles written down is even worse. You have the first problem that being written down doesn't mean anything remotely like it even happened. There's this thing called "making things up". You may be familiar with the concept in fiction. To say the book is true because the book says it is true is circular logic. Again, a very serious error in reasoning. Ask if you need more details instead of making the same mistake again.

Even if what was written down was not made up, what you have is a record of what people thought they saw. And this is assuming the whole thing didn't get distorted in the huge number of transitions of text, which is a huge assumption. So we have what they thought. We have the witnesses (at best) testimony. Witnesses can be wrong, they can be deluded, and they are also making an argument from ignorance themselves if they categorise it as a miracle. So the whole thing is utterly broken all the way through, and to actually believe these miracles not only happened but were undeniably the work of God is to be either exceedingly gullible or breathtakingly dishonest.

Please ask yourself, all theists, are you here to have an honest debate or just to continually reassure yourself even if it means using broken logic?

[SteveII]

I listed only qualities needed to be the first cause and creator of the universe--which is all that the cosmological/ontological/design arguments deal with. You tell me which characteristics are superfluous or which I might need to add.

The actual issue is twofold: my first problem is that you're a christian arguing for the existence of the christian god, and it's more than a little irritating to see you- and you're hardly the first apologist to do this- flip between the god you actually believe in and a vague deistic one whenever it's convenient. I thought I was having a discussion with you, about the things you believe in, not a discussion with you about whatever needs to be on hand for you to win, whether you believe it or not. Perhaps that's just a pet peeve of mine, but it's still there.

The much more relevant issue is that none of the five characteristics that you listed, either taken together or as individual parts, are exclusively characteristics of a god, the god, whatever. I can't tell you how many fictional narratives contain beings of immense power that satisfy all of the criteria you list, but are not god. What you're actually doing here is co-opting whatever we happen to think of, by assertion alone, in order to make it fit with your argument. If you want to say that any being that has the criteria you listed would be so close to your conception of god that you might as well just call it that, then that's fine, but don't forget that in doing so you're winning a word game, and not the actual question under debate here, and also that you're doing so by taking whatever concept is introduced to you and saying "no, that's not X. I'm going to call it god." I can't imagine why you'd find that compelling.

Additionally, we're here discussing your beliefs, and specifically you've said that you'd like to demonstrate that it's rational to hold such beliefs. Given that, you arguing for a concept of god that you don't believe in both does not address the topic of the debate, and also kinda hurts the core of your argument, because you're having to reach for things you don't believe in, rather than defending the things that you do.

I am not flipping between two definitions for God to help my case. A cosmological argument gives no indication that the creator of the universe is loving, just, or moral. All the philosophical arguments get you to is that God is somewhere between probable and necessary. After that, you would have to define God better to develop a religion. The truth of that religion would then be judged on the additional information about God.

You say you want to have a discussion with me as to why I believe. I will give you a little background. I am the eldest son of a Wesleyan minister. I grew up believing everything you would assume was taught to me. I went to college, got married, got a job, started having kids. Life was busy. Al Gore had not yet invented the internet.

Like some, I did not have an epiphany that all of it was bunk. I knew God was real, but now had the desire to test all the beliefs to make sure Christianity was 1) internally consistent and 2) rational. I developed a pretty good grasp on Christian theology.

I have changed my stance on evolution. Augustine had it right. Don't take a hard stance on things that don't matter. I have a better understanding of history (including the NT). I have a better understanding of free will, morality, the problem of evil and other contentious subjects. I enjoy discussing philosophy. Coming here once in a while makes me think and I learn every time I do. I am trying to improve my articulation of complicated things.

---

On Islam...

It seems that some cannot make the leap from my argument that Christianity is true because of the evidence of the resurrection to Islam is not true because of the evidence of the resurrection. While you might hold the opinion the evidence is weak, why would you think I have/want/need different reasons for thinking Islam is not true.

---

Science would like to have a word about miracles.

There is your problem. Science has nothing to say about whether miracles are possible or not. Science could only conclude that there is no naturalistic explanation of an event. The evidence of a miracle would be some sort of physical evidence and/or the testimony of witnesses--just like any other event that ever happened.

It is your philosophy that has a problem with miracles, not your science.

[FatAndFaithless]

On Islam...

It seems that some cannot make the leap from my argument that Christianity is true because of the evidence of the resurrection to Islam is not true because of the evidence of the resurrection. While you might hold the opinion the evidence is weak, why would you think I have/want/need different reasons for thinking Islam is not true.

It sure as hell is a "leap". You have absolutely no way of refuting the claims of Islam besides saying "I believe in the resurrection, therefore islam isn't true". Your reasoning is dishonest and baseless, and any further discussion with you is utterly useless until you can at least take a moment to view your claims from the point of view of a muslim or non-believer who doesn't believe in the resurrection.


Waste of my goddamn time.

[SteveII]

The problem is, God is irrational as a concept. I have posted here to the problem of God's super-omniscience. Then there is the unsolvable issue of God's omniscient and free will. The problem of God and time, the Problem of Evil and other conundrums. Ir has been an issue for many years that a chain made up of weak links is not a chain that can be used. The weak conjectures about God are not accumulative.

What is the basic Christian world view. Martin Luther's "Bondage of the Will" goes through the Bible and demonstrates that Biblically, free will is dogmatically impossible. But if so that means all we do is caused by God. And God than causes all moral evil. Doesn't that make God evil? Luther states he wishes he had not been born a man that had to deal with this terrible problem. How does Luther deal with the issue? Echoing Roman 11:33 he tells us God is inscrutable. That is logic and reason are abandoned for obscurantism. Calvin is not any better, and nobody else has solved the conundrum.

Natural religion, proving God exists has been a bust since Plato invented it in his "Laws - Book X". The literature on Natural Religion is vast and it has been admitted by philosophers of religion to date to have failed. There are no good proofs for God's existence and many good proofs demonstrating God is a doubtful idea.

You point out a teaching that I did not like either. There are different views than Martin Luther's. Check out Molinism

I posted this back a ways:

Free will is not the ability to choose differently in identical circumstances. It is not being caused to do something by causes other than oneself. God's knowledge of all the components that goes into your choice beforehand in no ways denies free will.

What I believe is that God considered every feasible universe in which he made man with free will, with his "middle knowledge" considered what every person would do in any circumstance, and actualized the one with the greatest good both now in in eternity.

Regarding omnipotence, we are unable to see the trillions upon trillions of causes and effects in the world AND eternity and therefore are not in a position to judge if God did not have morally sufficient reasons to allow an "evil" event to occur.

[Chas]

It seems that some cannot make the leap from my argument that Christianity is true because of the evidence of the resurrection to Islam is not true because of the evidence of the resurrection.

There is no evidence of the resurrection. Your foundation is quicksand.