I came across the image to the right today on the Friendly Atheist. As many people have pointed out, remove the word “magic” and you’re pretty much there. In case you can’t see it (click to enlarge) it says:
Atheism
The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
I’ve tried to come up with my very description of religion, well really Christianity, just to see how it fits in with the description of Atheism. I’ve posted it below.
How would your definition of Religion read?
Yup! I think you nailed it! 🙂 Good one. Now where is that invisible man? I’m still waiting for be shown. Did I mention I’m from the “Show Me” state? 😆
Missouri!
When you die and you will die, we will all die. When you take your final breath and leave those you love behind in grief, then you will see. But then it’ll be too late.
haha, well obviously thats ridiculous to think that there was a man in the sky who created everything! I wouldn’t believe in God either then. But the funny thing is, God says he is not a man. He is an all-powerful star-breathing, multi-faceted, intricate, infinite, complex being, and I think if you understood just who your talking about here, you would be terrified.
Of course, even that first image was a response to a picture of a crucified, bloody Jesus captioned:
http://www.voenixrising.com/images/christianity.jpg
Atheists pride themselves on being people who use reason and logic so lets…
Atheism- the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
The quote defining Atheism is pretty much accurate, as admitted by the blogger. The only word reasonably disputed in the atheism definition is the word magical, however magical can be defined as “having a special, mysterious, or inexplicable quality,” so it can arguably stay since atheism does not have an answer or a reason for creation so it is therefore “inexplicable.”
Now let’s rationally examine how accurate the Christianity definitions are:
Religion- the belief that there has always been an invisible man and the invisible man magically created the world and two people and those two people turned into billions of people and the invisible man threatened all the people with an eternity of torture unless they showered him with praise and built many things in his honor and the invisible man wrote a book through a ghost writer but the people change the book regularly so it means what they want it to mean. All this happened because the man was bored one day.
(1) This doesn’t define the word “religion” but rather it seems to be an ignorant diatribe on Christian belief. There are more religions than Christianity and not all of them, in fact none of them believe the things written here.
(2) Invisible man- God is not a man. Christians do not believe this. So replace with invisible God to be accurate.
(3) Magically- defined as “wonderful- so beautiful or pleasing as to seem supernaturally created,” so yes this is accurate.
(4) two people turned into billions of people- this word means “to change or be transformed into somebody or something different, or change or transform somebody or something into something different,” this word is clearly not accurate, Adam and Eve did not “turn” into billions of people, rather they multiplied and produced billions of people.
(5) threatened… I mean I guess, but I think warned is more accurate.
(6) “unless they showered him with praise and built many things in his honor” – neither of these things are the requirements that God put on human kind in order to avoid an eternity of torture, so the word unless and all that follows afterwards through the end of honor is invalid. Change to unless they accept his son as their savior and follow his example.
(7) wrote a book through a ghost writer- change to caused people to write many books through the influence of a holy spirit. Ghost in its traditional sense is wrong because a ghost is a spirit remaining on earth after death. The religious definition of ghost means a spirit or soul, so to distinguish between the secular and religious meaning (since in all fairness we are defining a religious term) we should use the word spirit.
(8) the part about the people changing the book to mean what they wanted is neither a belief Christians hold, nor could it be in any way relevant to defining or explaining what the term religion or Christianity is.
(9) All this happened because the man was bored one day- Christians do not believe this, nor does any other religion.
Lisa, There was no magic involved in the big bang. a) its called science and b) its just a theory, not an established fact. Atheism is not the same thing as evolution which is again different from the big bang theory. As an atheist, I don’t really believe in the big bang, no one knows for sure how life started.
Lets pretend there is a god though, who’s to say that he did not use the big bang and evolution to create life. God would be powerful enough to do that and you don’t know how he created the universe.
Mriana, have you noticed that when people who can see the invisible man he never shows up. Yet they can talk to him at will. Sounds almost like a utility company, the reps claim they have excellent customer service, but you never actually get it…
That’s fantastic Aerik. I thought I’d go down the crude route for mine.
Atheist,
You should do some research about the tens of thousands of Muslims coming to faith in Christ through supernatural encounters. If you can explain how a devout Muslim could walk into church hidden in a cave and already know verses from the Bible without ever reading one and knowing Christian theology without ever studying it that would be great! And it’s not only Muslims. Today there are hundreds of thousands of people coming to faith in Christ through supernatural encounters. About thirty years ago the ratio of black to white Christians in the world was 1:7. Now the ratio is 7:6. Christianity is exploding in places like Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, China and North and South Korea in the biggest numbers in history. Today there are more Christians than there have been people who ever lived on earth, and Christianity has only been around 2,000 years! Atheism, however, is steadily declining and that’s why you get people like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris who have to rant and rave, throw logic out the window and use arguments that have been refuted for hundreds of years. They’re desperate. When the Atheistic professors in the major university pass away they’re going to be replaced by pantheists and New Agers, both of which are on the rise in the Western World. In the 19th century people tried to proclaim the “Death of God” but now everyone’s realizing atheism is illogical and there’s a spiritual aspect to human beings. America is leaving Atheism and Agnosticism behind and putting in it’s place pagan religions. Once people realize the irrationality of pagan religions they’ll be back to monotheism. The last shouts of your dying atheism are being drowned out by the wonderful chorus of over a billion Christians, worshipping Jesus together, all over the earth. You can say the universe created itself, and you can ignore the evidence for objective morality and the resurrection of Jesus, but you’re not winning this fight and you never will. Humans are realizing that this wonderful, dramatic universe we live in couldn’t come from nothing. For nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever does. So while you and 5% of the world’s population get together to dismiss God, just be thinking of the billions of theists, and the over 1 billion Christians worshipping their wonderful Creator. Hopefully, one day, reason will outway the dogmatism of atheism but until then, we Christians will pray, and as we pray, we will know that Jesus Christ is Lord, no matter what the irrational atheist may say. We have a hope and a voice that won’t be drowned out by the last lash-out from the whimpering collection of Atheists, huddled together, closing their minds, and resting on “we just don’t know yet… we just need more time… science will vindicate us, you’ll see…” If we’ve learned one thing from these last one hundred years, it’s that science has done anything but vindicated atheism. Rest now oh atheists, don’t struggle, the more you kick and scream the less strength you’ll have, you’ll be gone soon, better save your energy.
Wow…i dont think Joel could’ve honestly state that any better, and the only thing i would have to add about Lisa’s comment is that i don’t know where YOU got it from, but we have in NO WAY changed the bible to what we want it to say…that’s ridiculous…and i’ll also bet you didn’t know that when a Bible is created, any flaw of the replication such as one word or ANYTHING, they are automatically subjected to trash it and start over again. no matter how much it’d cost.
Really Jay? how is it then that when I read the first few pages of a few different bible they were all different? Some say God created a man in his image, others say God created a man and a woman in his image.
Wait, how could there be more Christians than people who ever lived on Earth if a Christian has to be a person.
The first point I want to make is if all 95% of you believe this doesn’t make it logical. Second point all the countries you mentioned collectively have the IQ of a carrot, this is why they got persuaded in the first place. Third point most professors do not believe in any religion and ironically are put incharge to teach us since they are the smartest. Fourth point instead of religon being the answer to todays problems it is a the center of most of the problems. Fifth point as long as we segregate ourselves into different groups (religon, race, culture) we will be busy fighting amongst ourselves and not evolving as humans.
Yes, I have Atheist. Sometimes I wonder if those like say, oh Fat Robotson (Pat Robertson), have Schizophrenia.
Only an fool would say such, without making any deep research for the word Religion. Its Something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience. Atheist: Isn’t the point of conscience to not to believe in God which is called Humanism? Yes it does! Humanism is a Religion. Boy, You Totally Nailed It!
Have you ever seen “The case of Christ”. Lee Strobel, an Atheist journalist, went to the very end to see if Jesus was the Son of God, or an phony. Try to do more research than stalking the same wall shouting “Theres no God”. Matter of fact, we have this in our human nature, we are scared of the unknown. But guess what, That Atheist went to the END! He cracked the code!
The Bible HAS indeed been changed over years.
The most obvious change is the NEW TESTAMANT.
If people want to believe in God then let them. But don’t go trying to convert those of us that choose not to.
Nym, that is rather devious. In fact the “Bible” as such only came to being quite some time after the New Testament was already written. There was some debate as to which books were to be included (inspired by God) and after a time of discernment, the Church defined the canon (list of books). Once the books had circulated, however, no books have been changed, and once the canon was decided (obviously our Jewish brothers and sisters decided upon a different canon, which only included most of the books in our Old Testament) it has never been changed.
ya so the nothing that atheist believe in that nothing exploded into everything and everything arrenged itself perfectly for no reason and made redistributing bits that later became dinosuars. now that makes more sense.
I do agree with The Chritian down at the bottom… so your telling me that NOTHING which started, out made EVERYTHING…. oh yeah… that makes PPEEERRFECTTT sense..
I like the Christian theory a lot better…
IT MAKES MORE SENSE!!
you cannot disprove the existance of god, but you can make a convincing arguement for the existance of “Intelligence beyond our own” or something that transcends the limitations of time and space and holds everything together and brought everything into being. somehow random chance just doesnt explain why carbon levels, gravitational force, the degree of the tilt of the earth, the amount of oxygen, the percent of salt in our oceans and blood streams, the circular (as opposed to eliptical) orbit of earth, hydrogen converting its mass to helium, etc are so so so accurate just so earth can sustain life. if any one of these accurate measurements was just a little bit less accurate, the precision of all the other measurements would not matter. but its because EVERYTHING is just perfect that life exists on earth and that i am able to post this reply right now….. and i suppose the nothing that made nothing is why everything is so perfect?
But I CAN disprove the existence of God. DOROS, king of Bilthem, exists. DOROS created the universe. As the defining characteristic of this “God” is that he created the universe, this cannot be true. The burden of proof, heathen, is on YOU to disprove DOROS. If DOROS, king of Bilthem, is not real, then why are Dodos extinct? DOROS detests Dodos(as much as he loves humans) and it is ONLY through DOROS that Dodos could die(just as it is only through DOROS that a planet in the universe could wind up within the wide, general range needed to support one of many different life forms.)
It is clear that humans are pathetic , and that without DOROS morality cannot exist. Atoms are unstable , and without the will of DOROS they would fly apart. The only way to explain the universe is to resort to the supernatural. Nature is pathetic, as it is below the nature of DOROS. DOROS is the uncaused cause. DOROS exists beyond time, but was able to distinguish past and present from each other when there was no time. This is proof that DOROS is divine.
You’re confusing god with God; the DOROS you describe would be a god, so you just disproved your own point.
Religion isn’t perfect, but 1) (in reference to the objection to “magic”) refusing to use terminology that has existed for hundreds of years in favor of long-winded explanations in the oh-so-exclusive scientific dialect is just as silly as strict creationism; in either case you’re refusing to acknowledge that an idea has merit because you fear it may challenge your belief system, and 2) scientism (and yes, I realize this word is generally used in a negative sense, but until I’m presented with an alternative I will continue to use it), which has some (largely unacknowledged) crossover with atheism, is as much a religion as Christianity or Buddhism. Why? Because religion doesn’t require a god; Merriam Webster defines religion as “a personal set or institutionalized system of…attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” Under this definition, the belief that science explains/can explain everything is as much a religion as anything else – which makes atheism a *kind* of religion.
The Christian, Kheeli – The concept of converting energy into mass is currently being explored and will no doubt be proven through the experiments currently being carried out at CERN using the LHC. The Christian version makes absolutely no sense at all and has no merit.
Underoath – I’m afraid you can’t make a convincing argument for a higher intelligence. And while we can’t currently disprove the existence of God, we can, and are, systematically disproving many of the key facets of religion. Your argument, for example, has fundamental flaws. While life on this planet exists within certain tolerances, we have evolved to live within them. It’s not chance, it’s evolutionary science. You could say that life wouldn’t exist without oxygen, proof that God created us and provided us with something we required. However, life can (and does) exist without oxygen, it’s just not human life. Similarly, humans can only exist within certain temperatures, other forms of life can function outside of those boundaries. So yes, it is remarkable that the sequence of events required to put you in a position to write your reply occurred, but they did. And if some of those events happened slightly differently, you may not be in the position you are now. But no doubt life would continue, albeit in a slightly different form more suited to the environment it exists within. You need to move away from the “I was designed” idea and open your eyes to the world around you, and how we as a species, and other forms of life, have changed and adapted to better suit our environments.
so if amino acids say, magically arranged themselves to make a cell which was magically already “adapted” to the environment to make us, which we are also adapted to the environment, why is this theory not evident anywhere else? say venus? if we can adapt to 23% oxygen, 0.007% of hydrogen converting its mass to helium, 3.4% salt in the oceans, and temperatures close to the freezing/melting point of water around the globe, cant some life get used to the irregularities (of course only irregular to us, im sure life on venus functions just fine cus if there were life it would have sprang out of nowhere already adapted kinda like here)
of course you could also just say we were made unique and have a habitat that was designed uniquely for us. your choice
ever heard of the kalam arguement?
which of the following statements would you disagree with?
1) everything that begins to exist has to have a cause.
2) the universe began to exist.
Yes I’ve heard of the kalam argument and like most people I dissmiss it. Apart from the obvious problems with using it to prove the existence of a God, see Bertrand Rusell’s response, asking someone to disagree with two arbitrary statements based on unfounded assumptions doesn’t really count as an argument in my book.
As for the presence of life on other planets, given the timescale involved (billions of years) and the limited number of plan eta we have access to, it seems highly unlikely we would be aware of any extra planetary life. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist outside of our current reach, nor that it hasn’t existed in the past/will happen in the future. That’s the problem when you’re talking about a series of unlikely events happening over the course of billions of years. Of course, if you believe the bible you can substitute “unlikely events” with “God’s plan” and “billions of years” with “thousands of years”.
How much other stuff are we allowed to dismiss? The universe did have a begining, or so it is now believed by a majority of scientists. So what caused this big explosion of matter just appearing? And what about all the dating methods that do in fact suggest thousands of years as opposed to billions? Do we dismiss the fact that there are discrepancies in dating methods scientists claim to be accurate? Or the cambrian explosion? Or the fossil record which seems to be missing the whole bottom three quarters of darwins tree of life? How bout if i blended up a frog for you. How many billions of years do you suppose it would take for the frog to put itself back together an jump out again? You do have all the essentials for life. Or even come out as something else. And turn into a man.
@Underoath, even if God created the universe, where did God himself come from? ..
@nobody:
But that’s why he’s God! God is God because he is the only thing that doesn’t have to be made. He operates without any rules (he is infinite and has no beginning), and creates the rules that govern the world (everything else is finite and has a beginning). Being in the world, we can only think and operate within those confines, so we can’t measure God by them since he is not confined in the world like we are!
@nobody
Exactly what clearly said!! your question “where did god come from” implies that there was a starting point or a beginning to god which requires him to be stuck in a half dimension of time like we are. obviously such a powerful being, that we christians and other monotheistic religions beleive he is, would have control over his own creation, that being time in this case. he has no beginning, no end, there is no time line that starts or stops for him.
Where did the DNA come from that allowed the first simple cell to reproduce itself? What is the cause for the effect of life? What keeps protons from repelling each other? What is light? What are the requirements for life, and the statistical probability? What is the power source of a gravitational field that causes accelleration? What defined the speed of light? Why in history do we not find developing languages? Why did the human race wait until just 5 to 10 thousand years ago to produce language? Why in the last 50 years has techonology advanced so rapidly (about the time Isreal became a nation in a day . . .).
Answers to all this I could not find in my text books. I did however find them in the Bible. I then became a Christian, unable to maintain my atheism with science. Don’t confuse the truth with religion – they are not all the same. I was seeking the truth, not religion and the only way you will not find it, is if you exclude the possiblity before you look (how scientific!).
Exatheist – Are you seriously suggesting the answers to all those questions are in the Bible!?!? I’ve read the Bible, and I don’t remember any mention of quantum mechanics! And bear in mind, saying “God did it” isn’t an answer at all. Because, by that measure, who/what “did” God? This whole “well it’s God” position that many religious people take really confuses me. You’ve listed a number of areas in science where there may (or may not, I’ll come on to that in a second) be questions. Yet I’ve never met a single religious person who’s willing to even begin to question to creation of their respective God. Hence comments similar to Clearly’s above.
As for the “questions” you’ve raised, well why is the world only 3000 years old? Why is the earth flat? Why is there no reproducible evidence of evolution? Those were all questions at once point, questions that have now been answered by science. Your assumption appears to be that science has plateaued, that it has ceased to progress. But that’s not the case, science is advancing at a staggering rate. And no doubt will continue to answer questions. This is the complete opposite to the Bible, which isn’t changing (as much as people want the sexist, abusive and slavery condoning parts to be removed). Science will always seek out the truth, the Bible is a static work of fiction. And anyone who believes is holds the answers is deluding themselves, especially since many of the “answers” it provides have already been proven to be false.
I just have a couple of simple questions for atheist. Do you have real peace and joy deep down inside you at the core of your being? Do you have real hope for humanity without God? Do you really believe science is going to solve our world’s problems and bring about true peace on earth. Can science ultimately cure people of their selfishness? Can science heal the loneliness of the human heart? Science has accomplished many things for which we are truly grateful. (Thank God that He created such a magnificent and complex mind!) But science has unleashed much harm and suffering on many of the world’s peoples and continues to do so. Yeah, religion has too, which only proves the evil that the human heart is capable of. Question is, what is the true cure for the evil in our hearts? The Bible has an answer, Jesus was born into real human history and died on a real cross and came to life again. If His resurrection is true it changes everything. There’s certainly a lot of evidence it changed those who were his closest followers and spread out from them to change the lives of billions of people from all parts of the globe. You can believe it or reject it but those who humbly admit their sinfulness and need for Him find His help to learn to overcome the evil in their heart with good. I know that awesome news has radically changed my life and has given me tremendous hope and the motivation to live more and more unselfishly. I hope and pray that you will one day know Him & discover how He can fill your life with peace & joy and love and so much more.
simple-minded – In answer to your questions…
“Do you have real peace and joy deep down inside you at the core of your being?”
I am happy and content. More so, I am free to form my own opinions, unlike those who are religious, which gives me a fantastic freedom and happiness.
“Do you have real hope for humanity without God?”
If humanity can free itself from the shackles of the sham we call religion, stop waging religious wars and remove the need for one religious group to conquer another religious group, then yes. I have no hope for humanity with God, any God.
“Do you really believe science is going to solve our world’s problems and bring about true peace on earth. Can science ultimately cure people of their selfishness? Can science heal the loneliness of the human heart?”
It depends which problems you are talking about. The most intense selfishness I’ve come across has been brought about through religious belief, until people start accepting the evidence science provides, they will remain religious and ergo remain selfish. No doubt selfishness will remain, it’s part of the human condition, but it will be on a far more personal level, as opposed to the current selfishness we experience between religious groups. I’m not lonely, quiet the opposite in fact. And as for peace, I’m sure you’re aware of the impact religion has had on the peacefulness of people. Wars have been fought, invasions started, murders performed, all in the name of a God. The world would be unimaginably more peaceful without religion.
“Jesus was born into real human history and died on a real cross and came to life again. If His resurrection is true it changes everything.”
Not only has his resurrection never been proven, but the existence of Jesus has never been proven.
Judging from your comment, it’s easy to see why you are religious. You talk of selfishness and loneliness, no doubt you were brought to religion through a promise of friendship, something to fill the void in your life. Not all of us suffer this deficiency. And I don’t doubt that becoming religious has changed your life. Now you spend your Sundays repeating chants with the rest of the members of your cult. I can live unselfishly based on my own personal moral code, that I’ve been free to form on my own. I don’t need religion to force me to be a good person, I pity those that do.
The Atheist: “I’ve never met a single religious person who’s willing to even begin to question to creation of their respective God.”
Now you have, even if it is online. This is actually a very standard question.
What would it mean for the creator of the universe to have been created? Simply that there is another creator powerful enough to create a being who is capable of creating a universe. But then where would that being come from? The problem is simply that we can’t keep going further backwards. Either we have to (as Bertrand Russell did) simply state (without any reasons) that we must simply can’t think about this (there are atheistic beliefs after all) or we need a being who is necessary, that is not contingent on any other being to exist. Since something exists, this being must exist, because the chain must start somewhere or nothing would ever come into being.
I agree with your perceptive point that this tells us very little about the Creator (or Creators… it does not even rule out multiple gods, at least not initially), but simply that at least one must exist. It does not necessarily mean that this is the God described in the Bible, but then if it is a valid argument, it does mean that a-theism is wrong.
My apologies on the image use without credit. It was emailed to me by a friend as an attachment and I was not aware of its origin.
The post has been edited to give proper credit.
BGH
Thank you BGH. I’m particularly protective over that post as it’s one of the first I ever wrote!
The saddest thing about this ridiculous argument is that is seems neither the atheist not the theist can fathom the possibility that someone who disagrees with them can still be an intelligent and reasonable individual. That fact more than anything else proves there is something essentially wrong in the hearts of men. You both speak as though YOU have found some kind of great truth and yet the things you cling to are so flimsy that if anyone questions your beliefs you have to immediately tear them down.
If you take the time to speak with people who disagree with you you will eventually find that some people can exist in the middle of these two extremes and still be at peace and they aren’t all that different from you.
P.S. Jonathan Baker….is your third name Johnson? Greenville?
ok lets get this straight
the all loving? all knowing? all powerful? god
has a renegade angel he made and cant get rid of till later? ok so much for all powerful. that same angel does things he dosent see? so much for all knowing. according to you he kills or sends to torment any who disapprove of his book or doesnt follow it exactly. well ill be there goes the all loving part. look at the bible and count how many the devil directly killed then tally up gods score and see who is the genocidist?
i know there are people from both sides that are smart and good. why is it that one side always yells that if you dont have my beliefs you must be evil. when great evil has been done by every great religon in history and given the chance im sure the athiests will do the same.
and for a point dont call hitler an athiest he wasnt one pope pius wouldnt have visited him on his birthday if he wasnt a catholic.
have fun storming the castle.
ok underoath, i respect you, it seems as if you actually have some support, well that supports you, other christians are retarted and cant defend them selves because their retarted, not literally but anyway, the perfect conditions of the earth to make life was a coincidence, there ar trillions of different gallaxies, that means that there are numberless solar systems, and those conditions were bound to happen eventually, and they probobly happened hundreds of times, and will continue to happen, as for us, our traits are a result of adapting to the enviornment that just happened to be perfect for life, and who says life cant adapt to different coditions. and there is something deep athiests and agnostics beleive in, that is both the power of the human mind, which comes from a long line of humans evolving and adapting, and when you study early man and prehistory, you start to realize, it wasnt until the later species of man, that we were capable of creating abstract thoughts about things, unfortunately as culture evolved, one of those abstracts was religion, that even inhibited thoughts, that abstract thought,…religious ones, currupted free thinking, the other deep thing greater than us…nature. if “god” wanted us to beleive in these religions, he shouldnt have given us the power to think, or to question. Thats what the catholics want now, dont judge or question anything we say, just beleive it blindly. Or for us athiests, or those who use reason and knowledge, we can “burn in hell”, as we enjoy the freedom of our thoughts,the right, and the priveledge to think.
peace out, corbs
ok underoath, i respect you, it seems as if you actually have some support, well that supports you, other christians are retarted and cant defend them selves because their retarted, not literally but anyway, the perfect conditions of the earth to make life was a coincidence, there ar trillions of different gallaxies, that means that there are numberless solar systems, and those conditions were bound to happen eventually, and they probobly happened hundreds of times, and will continue to happen, as for us, our traits are a result of adapting to the enviornment that just happened to be perfect for life, and who says life cant adapt to different coditions. and there is something deep athiests and agnostics beleive in, that is both the power of the human mind, which comes from a long line of humans evolving and adapting, and when you study early man and prehistory, you start to realize, it wasnt until the later species of man, that we were capable of creating abstract thoughts about things, unfortunately as culture evolved, one of those abstracts was religion, that even inhibited thoughts, that abstract thought,…religious ones, currupted free thinking, the other deep thing greater than us…nature. if “god” wanted us to beleive in these religions, he shouldnt have given us the power to think, or to question. Thats what the catholics want now, dont judge or question anything we say, just beleive it blindly. Or for us athiests, or those who use reason and knowledge, we can “burn in hell”, as we enjoy the freedom of our thoughts,the right, and the priveledge to think.
peace out, corbs
I was wondering, in a pic u did on christianity you know that it isnt a religion right? A religion is man trying to reach god while Christianity is God trying to reach man through Jesus Christ. I get really pissed off when I see people try to clump religions together and when they put Christianity in there. All I want to know is why? Why do you insult Christians and Im a Christian and I am only 14 thats a HUGE insult to me. I really dont appreciate it.
Also there are serious problems with atheism, why do you people mock Christians saying that they have problems when you have your own and your too busy mocking a religion saying that we are wrong and Im not saying you are wrong I am simply wondering why this childish thing goes on? Why cant people stop mocking and start debating?
p.s.-that pic up there I’d look at it again. OH and you know whats freckin funny….the pic that is disagreeing with you guys is sooo small and unreadable and the thing on religion is all blown up. You guys are hailarous!!!!
Well ryan, i beleive we athiests are tired of the christians and other religions, because we see people’s thoughts being confined through them, we like to exersize free thinking and reason while christians don’t
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God.
It looks like I have been mussing out on a lot of fun here. Many of the points raised have been thrashed out in other threads so I don’t want to rehash them. There are a few interesting points.
Atheist says (about life on this planet): “It’s not chance, it’s evolutionary science… ” This is new to me. Surely for an atheist, evolutionary science does happen by chance. If not what (or who) makes it happen?
Exatheist I agree with Atheist that you will not find the answers to any of the questions you raise in the Bible, at least the proximate answers, ie the most immediate ones. It is these that science seeks to discover, and can be done by an atheist as well as a theist since the question of God does not make a difference. God is certainly the ultimate cause of everything, and that is spelled out in the Bible (and in common sense). In other words if you are looking for the ultimate causes, you need to step outside science and look to philosophy and religion.
Atheist rightly takes you to task for your questions, but then comes up with some rather silly ones that he thinks science freed us religious nutters from. The 3000 year old idea was the most scientific answer until relatively recently. It was flawed. That’s not unusual for a scientific theory because of its method, where new difficulties to a theory contribute to greater knowledge when they are resolved. But the “flat earth” thing is a hoax – no ancient cosmology presents the earth in that way. The fear that Columbus’s crew had, was not that they would fall off the edge of the earth, but by calculating the distance to the Far East going West, they realised that if there was no intervening land, they would run out of provisions before they got there. Also the question still remains about there being no reproducible evidence of evolution… if evolution means the change from one species to another. Noone has adequately explained this. Most of us are quite content that all the weird and wonderful varieties of dog all have common ancestry: that was not new with Darwin – variation within species has, of course, been known about for millenia.
Now to Atheists point: science advances “at a staggering rate” while the Bible “is a static work” (he adds rather nastily: “of fiction” which I will ignore). This need not concern us. The ultimate things and causes of things don’t change. Our knowledge about things around us and their immediate causes does change, because we are just a tiny speck in a huge universe full of incredible things we probably have no idea about, so of course science will change as these gradually become known just a teeny weeny bit better.
REB Jonathan Baker is my real name. I have no need to hide my indentity. I have no idea who “Johnson” or “Greenville” even are… should I?
I agree that debate can and should take place in charity, without name calling. Tempers sometimes flare, especially when people are insecure with their own arguments! The silly little signs are catchy because they’re short, and conceal important points that are discussible: the atheist needs to explain how something can come from nothing (I’m waiting). Atheist’s banner is rather more silly because it talks about invisible men who noone believes in. Nor does anyone say that God created out of boredom. The points that probably are up for debate in it are: 1) why would a creator create people just to torture them for all eternity; and 2) the Bible seems pretty human in many ways and is up for interpretation. Can we really take it to be the work of an infinite intelligence?
Morg. These are much better arguments. When stripped of the rhetoric, it boils down to this:
1) how can an infinitely good God create an evil creature (= bad angel = devil)? – he can’t be all that good after all
2) why can’t God get rid of this creature? – clearly his power is severely limited
3) that same angel does things God doesn’t see – so is he really all-knowing?
4) God kills/torments those who don’t like his book or obey it – doesn’t sound hugely loving.
Pretty good, if you believe that God is all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good as we Christians do. There’s no space here to answer them in detail. But here’s a start. As usual, I can’t wait for a response! As you will see it all comes down to the question of freedom.
1) God created a good creature that was free. Freedom means not being forced to only do what God wants you do. Hence any free creature (including us) can disobey God and God allows this, even though obviously he would prefer that we chose our freedom to do good.
2) God could get rid of the devil. But to annihilate any creature that did not do what you wanted it to do is really the same thing again… only apparent and not real freedom. God takes freedom much more seriously than we do!
3) I think that this is factually false. The Devil can not do anything that is unknown to God.
4) Again this is not correct. Hell is living in the absence of God. We believe that this is not very pleasant if you are created to live with him forever – it’s like a fish somehow surviving out of water. So, once again, it has to do with freedom. If you really don’t want to live with God forever, you can make that choice.
Ryan, I kind of agree with you, except I would put it the other way. I would say that Christianity is the true religion that the other genuine ‘religions’ are really ultimately seeking it. However, when in dialogue with atheists who don’t see why our religion should get any advantage over any other, it is necessary to be humble and accept the truths that there is in them (ie that we share) while also being able to point out and defend differences.
Joe (Atheist). You describe religion as an unfortunate by-product of abstract thought. It is also a natural one. To argue that it “currupted (sic) free thinking” or “inhibited thoughts” requires explanation. On the contary, it was precisely because we started to question, that we realised that the world is full not only of things but of meanings. Things are intellectual – they have a rationality about them. Behind this there must be an intelligence to make them so.
You then attack Ryan saying “we athiests (sic) are tired of the christians and other religions, because we see people’s thoughts being confined through them, we like to exersize free thinking and reason while christians don’t.” I’m pretty ready to think about anything you like… go for it – give me your worst! Are you ready to listen my thoughts, though? Or does free thinking not extend that far?
Epicurus. A classic restatement of the traditional debate that every student of the philosophy of religion faces – thank you. I think if you look carefully, it boils down to the same questions that Morg raises… let me know if you disagree.
“Hell is living in the absence of God. We believe that this is not very pleasant if you are created to live with him forever – it’s like a fish somehow surviving out of water. So, once again, it has to do with freedom. If you really don’t want to live with God forever, you can make that choice.” – So you are saying Hell is the same as earth but without all the religious people? Sounds great to me!
@joe(athiest)- i have done my own research right? cus im a firm beleiver in the fact that believing something and not knowing why you believe it is stupid. and i just can’t believe that something just came from nothing one day. like sure use all the scientific terms you want to make it sound more plausible but think about it logically! things don’t just come into being out of nowhere. like if a friggin car just **KABOOM** appeared right in front of you. logically would you be like “oh its no big deal. happens all the time, thats what happened with the universe”. personally id be like “WTF!!!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!!! HOLY CRAP” cus lets be serious here. this whole idea of a universe just exploding out of nothing without a cause is a fairy tale in itself, only with a lot of scientific terms. And im also a firm believer that god gave us free thought so that we arent robots who blindly follow him. he wants us to choose him using our logic. and i, as a christian, support free thinking as well.
Under(/)ath – You’re making a classic mistake. No one, except for theists, believe that the complex universe we currently inhabit (and are part of ourselves) suddenly exploded out of nothing. Rather, minute changes took place over massive periods of time. It may be difficult to comprehend changes that happen over billions of years when your holy book only suggests that the universe is a few thousand years old, but it’s a concept that’s important to understand. The creation of matter from energy (read up on Higgs Boson) was the start of the chain, and was followed by tiny changes that, over the course of billions of years, combine to make a big difference. We have scientifically solid explanations for these various tiny changes, from the start (The Higgs Boson particle and the formation of matter and time) through to Darwin and evolution (and natural selection). So yes, if a car suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of me, yes I’d be startled. But if i saw the constituent parts of the car being manufactured and then assembled, I would not be. And it is the exposing of processes that science does, so we don’t have to rely on unfounded, unproved and absurd explanations (like an invisible God suddenly creating everything) for events.
But didn’t you just define that atheism is “the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.” ?
But now you are saying that only theists believe that??? Check out Dr. William Lane Craig; he by no means believes that something came from nothing and is probably the most respected Christian theist of our generation. St. Anselm of the 11th century didn’t believe your claim either, and he was (and still is) highly respected as well.
And by the way, Darwin admitted that his theory of evolution would face serious fallacies when one just looked at the construction of the eye!
beleif is the absense of thought, an unthinking brain is clinically dead, beleif is suicide, and yes christians you’re religion is about not quetioning it, i used to be a devout christian and when i was old enough to listen to what the preist was saying, and the religion classes, they all at one point or another stated that merely questioning the religion, god, christ’s divinity, was wrong, now how strong of a religion can it be if its afraid to let people question, to think for themselves, i think thats pretty weak. So i did question it, i found it was bullshit. people seem to feel comfortable questioning science so i feel comfortable questioning that people can walk on water, raise the dead, im sorry ill take science over magic any day.
peoples next defense for religion is that it makes people better people, first i know this to be untrue, the only thing religion does is make people constrain their thoughts, and be closed minded, and it has nothing to do with morality because i there are immoral christians, athists, moral athiests/cristians, so that is bull as well, and if you need a religion to make you a better person then i honestly feel bad for you
UnderOATH,
Then why believe, all of a sudden, BAM! and then god existed. Thats just as stupid as kaboom! the universe appears.
and God can’t be eternal, because then the universe could’ve been eternal as well.
or something.
@Epicurus
everything that begins to exist has to have a cause that brought it into existence. god didn’t begin to exist. therefore he doesnt need a cause or a “kaboom”. and i don’t see how god not having a beginning point would effect the age of the universe….. perhaps you could enlighten me. and like i have said before- what if there was an entity (we’ll call it God) that had a 3 dimensional awareness of time, like we have a 3 dimensional awareness of space? or was aware of all or MORE of the 12-13 dimensions to reality proposed by string theorists? wouldn’t he find this all this talk of “THERE COULDNT POSSIBLY BE AN ENTITY THAT CREATED THIS UNIVERSE” and our pathetic attempts at trying to act so smart that we can make these claims….. wouldnt he find this whole debate somewhat naive….. elementary…. silly haha
@joe(athiest)
re]
priests>> therefore im assuming you were a devout catholic. i am not. i follow the pentecostal church, yet i think for myself. i am not a copy of their belief system, as there are things i disagree with them on. nevertheless, i am christian and i am free thinking enough to choose to be a christian. i find questioning a helpful tool for developing a deeper understanding. and what you call “magic” we call god excersizing his power over his creation.
well i was never devout, that was a bit exagerated, what i meant was i used to beleive in this bullshit. Dude what the fuck is wrong with you underoath, some religions are fine, but chritianity is a lost cause in my book, its full of ignorant fools, including yourself, you guys always hyave retarted answers to logic, “its not magic, its god exercizing his power over creation” its fucking magic, jesus was a nice man who was either deluded, a liar, or a magician, ive got news for ya buddy, there is no fucking god, and its just rediculus, what i listen to in my school, how dare you question evolution, we have facts, you’re entitled to your own veiws, but not facts, facts support evolution, facts don’t support what you stand for, im sorry but theres this thing called physics, and if you look at some rules of physics you cant walk on water when its in the liquid state, it can’t happen, neither can you raise the dead, well now we can sometimes, but in his time you couldnt do anything like that, the bible, its one fucking good fairytale, a piece of fiction that at best is 100% bullshit with a few good stories, and maybe a nice message here or there, and as ive said before if you need a religion to be a good person then you are a SAD PIECE OF SHIT! chrstianities philosophy on life is flawed as well, im sorry but christianity puts a low estimation on earthly life and thinks that everyone should be goody tootooos to eachother, HUMAN NATURE SAYS OTHERWISE, it is hardwired in outr brain to fuck people up that we don’t like, to kill, to steal, inside us all is an inner animal, that in our society, is choked, supressed, renounced, denied, and depressed, violence is part of us, we would be much happier to not submit, but empower ourselves by embracing our desires, for sex, for survival, for killing, whatever it may be, life is a jail cell with laws, iron bars are metaphoically speaking, inescapable, and if you have a religion, you are closing that box even tighter, that inner animal is strangling faster, as time moves on, death is enclosing on you, and you will find that as you lie in your death bed, praying to your fake god, you will realize all your life has ammounted up to nothing, you will once again be aware of a distant voice, that is your inner animal, the one you allowed to be strangled, and your ignorance is repaid…..with guilt.
@joe
in reply to -“ive got news for ya buddy, there is no fucking god, and its just rediculus”
there’s the influence of an already assumed pretense. its impossible to have a rational debate about the possibility of a god if you start out by saying “there is no god and that is fact”. im sorry but you have to leave the door open for an actual intellectual discussion. and um…. are you a naturalist? do you believe all we are is our minds and we need to do what we want to do because of “the beast inside us”? just wondering. oh yes. and you forgot to mention the possibility that maybe jesus was a good guy AND he was RIGHT. thats an option too eh?
but back to the original point. of course when you start out saying the supernatural is non-existant, walking on water is a fairy tale. but as soon as you yourself open your own mind and say the supernatural to be a MAYBE, then all of a sudden walking on water isn’t so much a fairy tale as it is an effect of the supernatural.
STOP CALLING US CLOSED MINDED AND TRY OPENING YOUR OWN.
@atheist
weren’t the minor gradual changes in relation the the development of our planet and species that inhabited it? something huge happened within the first second…. iv been told….. temperature changes? like something ridiculous like billions of degrees….. and it expanded from… nothing… to an orange size really fast…. then it wasnt exactly tiny changes after that… it just expanded like…. crazy…. personally (lets not use a car any more) id be kinda freaked out if an orange suddenly appeared, and it even changed the temperature around at all. like imagine you lived in canada in the winter and an orange appears and all the snow melts. and then it grows like exponentially…… and keeps growing….. kinda weird to say the least. you’d at least look for a cause. wouldnt you?
At one stage I thought Atheist blocked abusive language… it is sad to see supposedly mature adults swearing at each other in place of reasoned debate. I would like to suggest some moderation here between underoath and joe who should probably be made to live with each other for a week as their punishment. Even without the abuse, some comments deserve to be unanswered: eg (joe atheist) “beleif (sic) is the absense of thought, an unthinking brain is clinically dead, beleif is suicide, and yes christians you’re religion is about not quetioning it…”
The only point, therefore, I would like to take up is the Atheist’s regarding Underoath’s “classic mistake.”
To quote: “No one, except for theists, believe that the complex universe we currently inhabit (and are part of ourselves) suddenly exploded out of nothing.” I think that’s a bit strong. I think if you asked any thinking person in the street who had not encountered this debate, they would instantly say: “well it had to come from somewhere” and they would be right.
So the alternative explanation from Atheist? “…minute changes took place over massive periods of time.” Actually it’s not difficult at all to comprehend changes over billiions of years, but even minute changes must be from something to something else, not nothing to something. There is already the assumption that there was something to minutely change.
Nor is the theory of “the creation of matter from energy” sufficient. I quite happily concede that if Einstein was right, then matter and energy are readily interchangeable. But once again the real question becomes: “so where did the energy come from?”
I disagree, therefore, with Atheist, that time is the only difference between being startled or not by the production of a car. Rather, the absolutely crucial difference is a car manufacturer: some intelligent being that made the car. Surely we would all be surprised if we discovered that on some island in the middle of nowhere, steering wheels were being produced by an unintelligent process for no apparent reason (that appears to have started with the spokes and gradually joined up around the outside). I really don’t think anyone would find it intelligent to say: “oh well, we just need to wait another billion years and we’ll probably have a car.” The problem is that the steering wheel already needs explaining. Science is based on causality. When you see an effect you know there must be a cause, and science goes about discovering it. So then why steering wheels? It makes no sense to say: “well, because this is just a random process that may eventually lead to the car.”
Thus God is not such an absurd explanation for a meaningful world of causality. It sure beats “minute changes of energy that just are for no reason.” Or maybe I have misunderstood the Atheist?
im not an adult, im 15
jesus, good guy yes, but its not possible to do the things he did, and so he either was deluded, or deceived a mass amount of people, there really isn’t a possibility for a god, and im not closed minded, iv’e listend to all of it, from every christian, catholic, religious follower, and i heard them, i considered what they’ve said, im done with it, its all bullshit, few other words describe that. i have to go, peace out
@joe-
“there really isn’t a possibility for a god”
i thought on this thread, we are discussing the possible need for a god in the equation of the universe? i dont think anyone can accurately tell you for sure 100% there is no god (because you cant exactly check and see for yourself.)
@jonathan baker
………. that was well said. i even laughed out loud for one part. i probably look like an idiot at school laughing at the computer screen……
tool is all you need in life
Choices always were a problem for you
What you need is someone strong to guide you
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
What you need is someone strong to guide you…
Like me
Like me
Like me
Like me
If you want to get your soul to heaven
Trust in me, now don’t you judge or question
You are broken now, but faith can heal you
Just do everything i tell you to do
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
What you need is someone strong to guide you
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
Let me lay my holy hand a, hand upon you
My god’s will
Becomes me
When he speaks
He speaks through me
He has needs
Like i do
We both want
To rape you
Jesus christ, why don’t you come save my life, now
Open my eyes, blind me with your light, now
Jesus christ, why don’t you come save my life, now
Open my eyes, blind me with your lies, now
If you want to get your soul to heaven
Trust in me, now don’t you judge or question
You are broken now, but faith can heal you
Just do everything i tell you to do
Jesus christ, why don’t you come save my life, now
Open my eyes, blind me with your light, now
Jesus christ, why don’t you come save my life, now
Open my eyes, blind me with your lies, now
Deaf and blind and dumb and born to follow
Let me lay my holy hand a, hand upon you
My god’s will
Becomes me
When he speaks
He speaks through me
He has needs
Like i do
We both want
To rape you!
[long pause]
I had a friend once,
he took some acid,
now he thinks he’s a fire engine
It’s ok,
untill he pisses on your lighter,
kinda smells,
kinda cool,
kinda funny anyway
satan.
satan.
satan.
satan.
satan.
I had a friend once,
he took some extacy,
tried to marry me,
and everyone in the room.
He was sorta loving,
kinda caring,
kinda tried to fuck my lazy boy.
It got a bit messy,
all over the curtains,
armchair covers,
throw pillows,
and carpets.
getting bored,
I’m getting bored,
getting bored,
I’m getting bored,
getting bored,
I’m getting bored,
getting bored,
I’m getting bored!
there we go underoath/beleivers in retarted shit
argument over
Um… you can’t call christianity retarded because you wrote something retarded. or did you write that? Were you talking about tool as in the band? Because if so, their lyrics have never been considered scientific fact, or holy writings of christianity. just wanted to clarify. relient k wrote a song about marylin manson eating a girl. maybe we should start basing rational conclusions on those lyrics too.
He sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see
He tries to tell me what I put inside of me
Hes got the answers to ease my curiosity
He dreamed up a God and called it christianity
Your God is dead and no one cares
If there is a hell I will see you there
He flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line
He made a virus that would kill off all the swine
His perfect kingdom of killing, suffering and pain
Demands devotion atrocities done in his name
Your God is dead and no one cares
Drowning in his own hypocrisy
And if there is a hell I will see you there
Burning with your God in humility
Will you die for this?
@ Underoath,
Yes, it’s opiate by Tool. Sure, they’re not a scientific fact, but the song does describe organized religion.
first point of view from this song is about, the pope or someone, who says the people need someone to guide them. He says they will be alright if they believe in God.
Then he says God speaks through him. Which isn’t ofcourse. He just wants all the people to believe in HIM, he wants power.
We both want
To rape you! they/he just wants to rape the minds of people.
Second POV is probably from maynard: Jesus Christ why don’t you come save my life now, open my eyes, light me with your light now.
He thinks what the first guy said is bullshit, and the wants to see to believe. where is this so called jesus ? nowhere. so why believe in him?
Blind me with your light now*
which might mean that believing in it, will make him blind to see the real truth.
omg that was really disturbing epicurus, I literally feel sick!!! what is wrong with you? Do you think saying poems and this kind of crap makes you think you win???? I am really disturbed and I would like to know what in the world were you thinking???? Seriously you are a dark person, who must have had a sad life or you must have been…..in a satanic cult because atheists think that there isnt a god at all, and you are saying God is burning in hell and I will see Him there??? Do you know Im only 14 Ill take that as a threat you need to watch what you say or you could get in serious trouble (i have no problem reporting it to the authorities) so if you want to debate about thesim vs Chrisianity like an adult you can email me, but if you want to keep emailing me those disturbing songs Ill consider them a threat and you could get in serious trouble.
WATCH WHAT YOU SAY TO KIDS!!!!
Underoath – Of course, everything is relevant. And I was under the impression it was the concept of emerging complexity you were struggling with, as opposed to the rapid appearance of matter. Matter, strangely enough, can expand and contract very very quickly. It is the complexity that takes time.
The two options discussed between you and I are: –
Now personally, I know which idea I favor. It’s the one which explains, scientifically, the conditions we currently find ourselves in. Not the one which is rooted in pre-scientific understanding and ancient culture and has had many aspects convincingly disproved.
Jonathan – Unfortunately, i don’t have the time to moderate every comment left on the site, especially on older posts such as this one. I am entirely reliant on contributors remaining civil and respectful. If I spot any blatant and unfair violations, I do tend to step in, as much as it pains me to do so (I’m pro free speech).
Ryan at 14 you should have the basic reading comprehension skill to realize the only one making threats is yourself. I am aware that religion suppresses the anterior cingulate cortex portion of the brain causing error recognition problems and reactive jumping to conclusions. This leads to using the reptilian part of the brain that sees uncertainty or conflicting opinions and differences among other things as a threat.
Apparently you were to busy being offended to actually understand Epicurus’s point.
Underoath, ok, that song isnt accepted as fact, no, of course not, underoathm, why do you always have to walk around being a gay little bitch? that song clearly explaines christianity, sure its only a veiw point, but it is more than that, its a right veiwpoint, something that im sure youve only heard out of other peoples mouths, ahahhahahahhah
haha, its right, i posted tool, so the argument is over lol
i guess not really but it should end it, tool, thats it, its done, need we say more, or do you want me to go through line through line, and explain it to you, im sorry but i have a social life and i need to chill with some of my freinds, oh, freinds are people that you form connections with over time, and have a good time with, a good time is when you are doing something that you enjoy, enjoyment is against christianity so i guess it doesnt matter lol.
@joe
mychildren mybride- if seeing is believing, then they’ve gouged out all their own eyes, theyre confused by the love the hate, all of the hypocritical lies, their own misfortunes creating the selfish disguise that will seed the beginning of their spiritual demise.
if you consider tool “the right opinion” then i consider mychildren mybride to be the “right opinion”. does it make you happy knowing that this debate is officially irrational and will never go anywhere?
@ epicurus- of course i am still a christian, and iv tried to hold out saying what im sure every christian has already said to you. im in the awkward position of being totally convinced about the existence of “god” or “jesus” because of feelings and emotions that i claim you will never know until you feel them for yourself, and you claim are just BS. But however, how many christians are there in the world? and lets be conservative and say that half dont have these feelings. then are the other half (half billion? im not sure how many there are now) all crazy? there are some things science can’t explain.
@ atheist
whether or not god is needed in the equation for the universe still doesn’t prove or disprove his existence right? of course “god” would provide an explanation for why someday a universe was just born right? again, i could talk to you about feelings and nudges all day. in the end it comes down to the question-
is this all there is? or is there more than what we can physically document?
Joe – I’ve edited your comment to remove the defamatory remark. Please refrain from using such homophobic insults in the future. I have nothing against spirited debate, but please know where to draw the line.
The athiest, i apologize for using such insults, i was typing faster than i was thinking, i am not against homosexuality, but its still funny as hell using it in an argument, but i won’t anymore i guess
baker, of course religion gave us a boost of questioning and answering way back when we didnt have the answers, but now we do, and religion just doest hold up to that anymore, infact, its holding us back, and while it may have started with intelectual thoughts, intelectuals in religion are far and wide, yet full with foolish people who conform their thoughts within their religion
underoath – You’ve raised a couple of interesting points there. Firstly, “is this all there is? or is there more than what we can physically document?”. There is plenty that we currently can’t observe and therefore cannot document with any degree of certainty. We can hypothesise and test out theories, but that’s about it. As we advance, and our understanding of the world around us grows, as it has over the years, we will continue to explore and continue to document. So yet, at the moment there is more than we can document with any degree of certainty, but every year it shrinks in one way, and grows in another (we inevitably, in the act of exploring, discover more things we don’t know. For example, we had no idea we didn’t understand the sub atomic world before we discovered atoms).
Your other point really intrigued me. Just to quote what you said:
That’s really interesting (genuinely). If you are ambivalent as to whether God was involved in the creation of the universe, what would you consider as the definition of a (your) God? If he did not create all that we see, then is he really a God? Would you dismiss the idea that God, instead of being the great creator, was in fact a product of the “Big bang”? I’m intrigued by your answers seeing as you’re obviously sensible enough to at least partly accept the scientific explanation of “origin” (I’m in the middle of writing a post on this very subject by the way, so keep an eye out over the next few days).
maybe I was too woried about being offended and seriously is science all you atheists ever think about??? Science dosent determine whether there is a God or not. Science is everything that can be sensed with one of your five senses. And did you read epiof epicurus’ poemish thing??? It was disturbing and sorry I take lots of things a threats because my dad is in the FBI and I was raised like that, so dont call me stupid and offend me because of it I know most 14 year olds who debate with people like you guys and you know what? THEY WIN. most of them can beat people on this website and I might get them to come on because most of my emails have been insults because “IM JUST A KID” that kind of crap just is unexceptable to me I dont care if you thin kmy brain was too busy to think of the insult part of epicurus poem thing and most of it was an insult TO CHRISTIANITY!!! He basically said that I will burn in hell with my God and that is awful I thought this was an atheist website not for a satanic cult.
p.s.-HOPEFULLY YOU ARENT OFFENDED BY THIS SO YOUR anterior cingulate cortex PART OF YOUR BRAIN WONT MAKE YOU FEEL OFFENDED BY THIS!!!
@atheist- hm. this requires more time to think than i have to write this response but my first kinda reaction is a quote…… i cant remember exactly how it goes but its something like “the more we know, the more we realize that we don’t know”. the obvious point being, as we get smarter and more developed in the scientific world, will we (in trying to answer one set of questions) run into a whole new world of questions that lead to even more questions? perhaps right now when were feeling ever so smart, we’ll run into something else that brings us back to the realization that maybe weve just touched the tip of the ice burg?
i wouldn’t say (as a christian) that god had nothing to do with creation, and i wouldn’t say he was a product of the big bang. but (was it darwin that first started this?) science has been trying to disprove the existence of god by coming up with an explanation for our orgin that didn’t require god. because historically, it was always assumed god or gods were required in the making of the world. i think i was more trying to raise a point that even if science could explain our creation without the need of a higher power, that still doesn’t mean there isn’t a higher power.
my definition of god would be a being who could create and obviously is greater than his creation. like if we wanted to prove of disprove his existence, he doesn’t run on our schedule. i believe he is not trapped in forward time like we are, nor space, nor any other of the proposed dimensions of reality seeing as i believe he created them. and i hope i didnt write anything that im gonna regret later but theres my five minute thoughts for you.
ryan- epicurus wasn’t threatening you, he wasnt even adressing you, he was expressing his feelings and emotions/thoughts, there was nothing to explicet for him to write, since it is a poem, he can take poetic liscence on this one as well, you would epicaly fail in court if you were to bring this to a law situation, and instead of taking it personally why don’t you try interpreting his writing, and considering his point, perhaps he did mean that for you(which he didn’t) hell is a metaphoracal place, and therefore irrelavant in court, so stop being so sensitive, obviously if you live in the home of an fbi agent, you must be in a very sheltered enviornment, im just giving some advise to you, if your a guy, chill, be less sensitive, keep emotions like sadness on the inside, don’t cry easily, its bad for mating to be sensitive, if your a girl, thats fine, and don’t say thats sexist if you are, women are known to have thoughts more based off of emotion, and feelings, guys don’t, or at least show it as much or often, im only saying this because i know a few girls named ryan, as well as guys, so yeah just if ur a guy, be less sensitive.
Indeed, I wasn’t adressing anybody, I was just posting another song just like joe did with Tool.
It’s Heresey by Nine Inch Nails, and I posted it because I think the describtion is pretty accurate.
The song says, ‘he’, the (first) christian, didn’t want to see the real truth (sewed his eyes shut, not litterally).
He believes he got the answers to all those questions, why are we here, how did we exist, etc.
“He dreamed a God up, and called it Christianity.”
That’s the point, he dreamed it up. It’s not real, just imagination (note, this is what the writer and me think, i’m not saying it’s a fact)
“His perfect kingdom, of killing suffering and pain”
Earth was supposed to be the perfect kingdom for us humans, but there’s killing, suffering, and pain running rampant all over. We all feel suffering, and pain at one point. We all see killing happening somewhere, if not just the news.
“Demands devotion, atrocities done in his name”
If you’re not faithful, you’ll go to hell. Simple and done. That’s what the bible says.
Atrocities done in his name; What do we call Tornadoe’s, flash floods, typhoon’s, or any “natural disasters”? We call them “acts of god.” And they all kill, destroy, and cause pain in some form or another.
This is describtion is better and more clear than mine:
“He Sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see”
This is the person who made christianity, he’s afraid to see how the world is, he wanted it changed. He wanted it to be “perfect.”
“He tries to tell me what I put inside of me”
Well… Isn’t it true? Christianity tries to tell us what we’re all about. What our emotions should be.
“He Got the Answers to ease my curiousity”
People always have questioned: “Who, What, Where, When, How.”
Atheist. I still don’t understand why you insist on a dichotomy between science and religion as if they are intrinsically opposed. Science, in fact, has always been strongly promoted in a Christian culture. (Feel free to challenge that).
Thus, I agree with everything you say about the Big Bang hypothesis (proposed by a Christian scientist) up to the point about the universe expanding. But then you add in: “Within the space created by the expansion, and using the matter created, …” Too fast. Nothing is “created” by the expansion. The whole point of the theory is that matter/energy is conserved, and that whatever matter is now in the universe was present at the Big Bang as energy. There is no mechanism for creation after the Big Bang, as you seem to suggest.
I also disagree with some aspects on evolution, but that is secondary for this discussion. So far, our only fundamental disagreement is that you seem to consider creation (from nothing) to be possible in empty space.
All of this, you then contrast with your highly idiosyncratic version of the “God” Explanation as if it is not totally separate. Perhaps you don’t understand the difference between expanding (moving out from the center) and increasing (becoming quantatively more)? Also, the Big Bang equally “magics” something out of nothing. Where did it come from? What is it’s cause? As you rightly point out, “speciation, evolution (especially of our own species) is left unexplained, as is modern science.” Yes. A neat admission that religion and science are not the same thing. You don’t have to choose between them.
This also serves therefore to respond to…
Joe’s critique Briefly put, he argues that religion provided primitive answers until science came on the scene and so it is now defunct.
I would like to add, here, however, that even modern science provides “primitive answers” in one sense. As our knowledge improves some of our present ideas about matter and energy and the universe will look pretty silly in 100 years’ time. That’s the nature of science: it is nothing more than a model. It simply tends towards ever increasing accuracy…
Note to everyone:
Atheists should be greatful to the contribution that religious believers brought to science. Check out: History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages in the wikipedia if you don’t beleve me. Science and religion are not opposed, they are just different. You can’t prove (or disprove) one without the other. It’s like trying to prove evolution with nothing but mathematics.
Johnathan Baker- yes we still have things to answer but we need to keep moving foward to keep searching, to think about things, i doubt they will all look silly, maybe looking back some will be wrong, but they are at least born from logic and reason, but i doubt it, all of our ideas are born from logic, and have been tested extensively, and have been proven, we need to move foward in science, to keep searching for the unanswered, i’d say we moved pretty far, and if we tried to have these right answers of science conform to religions “explanations” then it would hold us back.
Well Epicurus, you could have told me that. I took it as if you really believed that as if you go by this, and honestly I dont care what the poems say, I dont care how accurate they are that was just disturbing to me. I want facts, how come Christianity is so…..fake to all of you peoples? Why do you mock it as if God is a coward? Why do you thinkk he dosen’t exist? What solid facts do you have to disprove Christianity?????
Jonathan said: “Atheists should be greatful to the contribution that religious believers brought to science.”
From my perspective “people” made scientific advances in spite of religion.
=”Also, the Big Bang equally “magics†something out of nothing. Where did it come from? What is it’s cause?”
Georges Lemaître proposed the Big Bang theory to inject Genesis into science, “let there be light”. It left open the answer to “What is it’s cause?” to be assumed that God did it. This was successful while the modern day Intelligent Design theory was not. The irony is the big bang is still accepted by a great number of scientist and rejected by a great number of religious people.
=”There is no mechanism for creation after the Big Bang, as you seem to suggest.”
One hypothesis or theory is that below Planck scale dimensional space can not be precisely measured as it fluctuates or oscillates.
The Casimir force was first measured in 1997 by one of my former high school class mates http://tinyurl.com/5prdgs and could be interpreted as a potential energy source for Fred Hoyle’s Continuous Creation theory or Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (Quantum fluctuation).
Joe, we agree that “if we tried to have these right answers of science conform to religions “explanations†then it would hold us back.” The point once again, is that science and religion are not opposed. They are ‘about’ different things. Religion should not impose on scientific ‘turf’ but accept the findings of objective science (I add that, since sometimes ideology gets caught up in it all). Likewise scientists should not try to pretend to pronounce on religious matters. Science, in itself, (because of it’s methodology) can say nothing about God.
Psy. I think you have misunderstood me. I accept that the “Big Bang Theory” needs to be a purely scientific one. It does seem to account for the facts pretty well from what I can gather, but I’m a rookie in that area and will have to leave it to the scientists to prove or disprove. It makes no real difference to my life/beliefs whether it turns out true or false. (ie I don’t think it affects Genesis either way). Thus, I don’t see any irony that some religious people don’t think it holds up while some non-religious people do.
It is merely ideology and arrogance to say that ““people†made scientific advances in spite of religion”… often the monks were the most educated (since they had the luxury of being able to dedicate time to this) and the ones who really brought scientific thought forward. They were of the mind that science (knowledge obtained from cause and effect) and religion (knowledge obtained from divine revelation) can not contradict each other since they are from the same source. They did not have any of the modern schitzophrenia that science would ‘prove’ religion wrong. All this is quite demonstrable historically, and I would be happy to answer any concrete questions on the topic, as usual.
ryan asked: “I want facts, how come Christianity is so…..fake to all of you peoples?”
Not just Christianity, but religion in general.
Where should I start? Duality, bipolar, God-Devil, love-hate, good-evil, us-them, fear-comfort, Old Testament-New Testament. Its emotion based thinking of absolutes for example your reaction to that poem I see as no different than the reaction of the Islamic follower to that Mohammad cartoon that set off riots in different parts of the world where over a hundred people were killed. This is religions way of oppression/suppressing the free expression rights of others through fear based threats and intimidation. Authoritarianism, fascism, collective slave mind.
I could ramble on and on about the evils of religion and its effects on the minds of people, but I think I will save the rest for others to answer for themselves for now.
Jonathan said: “Big Bang Theory†needs to be a purely scientific one. It does seem to account for the facts pretty well from what I can gather,
The facts are circumstantial at best. The background microwave radiation is not blocked or reduced by galaxies between the Earth and the background for example. The red shift suggesting galaxies are moving away as opposed to blue shift for moving towards us is in dispute. Red shift can also be accounted for by decay or distortion of light over great distances. Considering the latest measurement suggested that every cubic centimeter of deep space contained 1 hydrogen molecule and 2 for each cubic centimeter within the galaxies this would account for some of the red shift.
The predicted ambient temperature of the universe was predicted to be around 50 degrees Kelvin for evidence of the big bang, it was fond to be closer to 3 Kelvin.
Dark matter was made up also to support the big bang theory and the expanding universe theories while galactic magnetic fields are discounted for holding galaxies together as they rotate. The issue here is politics interfering with science in the US while Europe, Russia and other parts of the world are funding and exploring the other possibilities. As you know the last 8 years of politics in the US has been controlled by the religious right.
Johnathan baker- look, you say religious shouldn’t “impose” on science, yes your right but the religious fanatics, or deep beleivers do, the very bible, (genises) does, if it were to be taken seriously it would ruin evolution, the big bang theory, and many others, there is, the people who are intellegent and religious, they don’t question science so much, but most followers of religion arn’t, you cant take pretty much any of genisis as fact, i do at times study the bible, just for fun, (not beleiving in it) there is some good shit in there, stories, morals, if you use symbology in genesis you can actually see the being thrown from the garden as hunter gatheres becoming farmers, the switch, other symbology might say other things as well, but christianity, tries to use science as a means of proving their own theories from their book, or just completely deny it, how can they deny it, we have heavy support for it, they don’t have much in the way of that. but anyway, the fact is they do impose on science, by believing the bible fully, by trying to disprove it, by using it for their means. and thats what im getting tired of.
“Note to everyone:
Atheists should be greatful to the contribution that religious believers brought to science. Check out: History_of_science_in_the_Middle_Ages in the wikipedia if you don’t beleve me.”
Johnathan Baker- Seariously, the middle ages, their contributions to science were horrible…. with the exception of the part in the renaissance, they told us not to bathe often, like once or twice a year, the religios nuts then would have us beleive that the sun revolves around us, the world is flat. Ladies and gentlemen, i give you the religious contributions to science in the middle ages….. The sun revolves around the earth, the world is flat, jews chose the wrong religion, lets kill them in the inquisition, oh i don’t like my neighbor, shes a witch, a witch?…yeah….burn her. these are the religios accomplishments of the middle ages, and later, great.
Psy, I do infact see what you mean by this but Christianity is seperate from other religions, It isnt a religion, a religion is man trying to reach god, but Christianity is God trying to reach man through Jesus Christ.
Science is taught us things like, what is the sun, that the earth is not flat, to create computers, phones, all sorts of useful things.
what has religion braught us? wars. anything useful, No.
Why believe in Jesus, God, heaven and hell. If those things exist, Zeus, the third eye, Ra, Anubis, aliens, these things could exist as well.
If there is a God, why doesn’t he just remove all bad people so earth would be paradise?
Also I do believe Christianity was intended to be the opiate for the masses, so people wouldn’t dare to resist against their leader, they were ‘chosen by god’.
fuck. Don’t mind the spelling+grammar mistakes. I can do better than that.
has*
epicurus- do you not believe in the existence of a man named jesus? he has more historical references and background than zeus.
and if ‘god’ were to get rid of bad people, bad compared to whom? jesus? he’d have to kill us all. whose definition of good and bad would he be following.
now your mixing up the divine right of kings with christianity. popes are voted on i believe. and im not catholic. i question my pastor alot too.
Under(/)ath asked: “epicurus- do you not believe in the existence of a man named jesus? he has more historical references and background than zeus.”
As far as I know there are only 4 historical accounts Jesus outside of the Bible and they are all questionable accounts that have been refuted over and over. Please do your research before you make such claims.
Psy- thanks for doing my research for me. as far as i know 4>0. correct me if im wrong.
Under(/)ath, Yes there are 4 and written after the supposed time of Jesus, Its been a few years since I’ve research it debated it on other forums. Here are the 4 and the 5th is a Jewish writing if you would like to follow up a decide for yourself.
Josephus Flavius, Antiquities 93 C.E
Pliny the Younger
Tacitus
Suetonius
Talmud
Underoath-look to settle the jesus problem, i, though athiest, and as most athiests, i beleive jesus existed, there are infact more than four, i’m not entirely sure, but i beleive there was other gospels that the christians took out cause they didn’t like them, so there are more than four, and there are some available today, some are not, but anyway there is problobly a document of his execution, by the roman governer(or whatever his title was) of jerusalem, but im not sure, what i am convinced of is the existence of jesus, not the divinity, and i think thats what epicurus meant, not that he didnt exist, but that his divinity. So i guess it could have been worded better, but thats what i think he meant, unless epicurus says otherwise. so yeah, existed, but the christ title can still be discussed.
but science dosent determine whether there is a God or not.
that is not what i was talking about, but if you look at it one way it can, another it can’t,
Jonathan – Perhaps I worded it badly. Can you define the creation you so quickly dismiss? As I’m sure you’re aware there are mechanisms for “creating” matter in our universe, for example, colliding electrons and positrons in particle accelerators results in the generation (hell, let’s call it creation) of new particles. The flux and inherent instability (not to mention difficulty we have in recreating these conditions) involved in these experiments make it difficult for us to do anything with these particles (observing them is difficult enough), but that doesn’t invalidate their existence. Whether this counts as expansion or creation well depend on your definition of each term.
Regarding your other point, I’m sure you’re aware of the numerous theories regarding the period pre big bang and have suitable ways of dismissing each of them. At this moment in time we do not possess the tools to fully explore these theories, and until we do it has to be logged as an open question. Now, as is typical in these tit-for-tat exchanges between scientific and non-scientific explanations, the topic of infinite regression will come up (you’ve raised it yourself in this very forum). I’d rather take the time to fully address the concept of infinite regression in the post I’m currently drafting than squeeze it in here – you will, of course, have the right of reply.
As for religion’s contribution to science, I’m hesitant to attribute advancements that happened to occur in a religious society to the dominant religion in that society. While religion no doubt drove some scientific progress, the simple fact that progress was made in a religious society, by religious people, does not necessitate that religion was the driving force for the progress. It would be akin to saying Hitler carried out those atrocities in WWII because he was an Austrian-born German.
Joe – I’ve yet to see any irrefutable evidence of the existence of Jesus the person, hence I do not believe he walked the earth. The divinity of this person who may or may not have existed is a separate issue.
ryan – Your rejection of Christianity as a religion is false. The common and popular definition of the word religion is:
Source: http://www.askoxford.com:80/concise_oed/orexxligion?view=get although you will get similar definitions from all the major dictionaries.
Anyone who tries to convince you that Christianity is no not a religion is either trying to manipulate you to their own end or are delusional. The main tenets of religion are belief in a supernatural being and the following of a moral code. Christianity is just like all the other religions, there’s nothing special about it. It is based on a largely disproven book that has very little basis in history or reality. That is why an increasing number of people dismiss it as a fantasy and nothing more.
Psy. You define religion as “emotion based thinking of absolutes.” This is false, even if true of some people. I could say the same for many atheists: “there is no God” is just as absolute, and many people (especially those who wish to justify their immoral behaviour) accept it for highly emotional reasons. Of course, there are also atheists who have good (yes!) reasons for their beliefs.
Regarding the “Big Bang” theory, I have no investment in the theory either way and am happy to let science do its thing… my points are still valid: 1) it matters not at all to religion whether true or false 2) ‘science’ is still a work in progress. There is considerable debate among scientists about these sorts of things, and that is only to be expected. To say that “science has proved xyz…” is actually quite a rare possibility. Normally it works negatively, ie to dis-prove some hypothesis or other.
Joe Yes, there are those who think Genesis is a scientific textbook which is a particularly modern mistake to make. They should read the Fathers of the Church on Genesis to understand what the Church has continuously believed about it. It is a ‘myth’ in the proper sense, ie not just a made up story without any foundations, but rather a tale that illustrates in an effective way some religious truths. You are clearly aware of this, and in your debates with Christians you can do them a great favour by helping them see this.
However, your next response shows that you have fallen into the very trap I warned of: that somehow our own scientific advances should make us think of previous ages as stupid because they didn’t have them. If that is really the case, we should get ready now to being called stupid by the very next generation – science is advancing at a fast rate! To take some of your examples:
1) sure the Ptolemaic theory of the earth being at the centre was accepted, but not by religious nuts… by everyone! And actually it works as a model even though it’s a lot more clumsy than the one Galileo eventually proposed (and only proved in the last century – something to do with the bending of light as it passes big masses like planets) … but Ptolemy indeed was an ancient version of a scientist, and it was the best theory around for centuries. Galileo was a “religious nut” (yes he fell foul of the Church for a time, but died completely reconciled). As we know anyway, his theory was previously proposed by Copernicus… (a priest, so another “religious nut.”)
2) hygiene was not understood well until bacteria and so on were discovered this century. How can you blame people for not knowing this? The Pasteurs were “religious nuts”.
3) Noone in the middle ages believed that the earth was flat – that’s a modern howler which just makes us look foolish for not understanding our history better!
It is just wrong not to see all the discoveries of modern science being founded in the middle ages. Astronomy, medicine and maths in particular.
Here are some examples of progress:
a) The scientific method itself was developed at that time ie founding the ‘rules’ for systematic enquiry based on verification of hypotheses. eg Bacon and Grosseteste (both “religious nuts”). Actually it has its predecessors in the Muslim world!
b) advances in physics: eg discovering properties by analysis of momentum, forces, acceleration, inertia etc.. (Islamic and Christian “religious nuts”)
c) Surgery advanced: eg invention of double-edged scalpel, syringes etc… more “religious nuts”.
In fact, much progress was made by monks who often needed scientific solutions as non-scientific problems arose. For example, when they invented (yes) hospitals to look after the sick, they naturally started to study medicine and drugs etc…
The monks also invented universities (Oxford and Paris are among the earliest in the world) and these became the main centers of scientific learning.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg. I strongly recommend reading the wiki entry I mentioned before, which is also just the mere outline of the history of the close relationship between science and religion.
This brings us to…
Epicurus. I quote: “Science … taught us … all sorts of useful things. what has religion braught us? wars. anything useful, No.”
A good question on the face of it. I have already attempted to show, however, that science and religion are not an either/or. Our modern science stands on the shoulders of the work of highly religous people. Religion itself had an important part to play in it as I have suggested before. The Christian doctrine of creation allowed a clear distinction between the universe and the deity, which is what permits science to rise. Sure, pagans often confused them because of their pantheism (= god is in everything, which by the way is on the rise again!) Thus the explanation of an earthquake can no longer be that god sneezed, or something like that.
Apart from begetting modern science, religion has also advanced ethics, law (by the Church being the first to collect and analyse ancient laws and try to understand their foundations), the arts (eg harmony was invented by the monks, and religion has provided by far the greatest subject matter for all the arts even to modern times), history (as a discipline), philosophy, and of course, theology. All these are just from the top of my head. I’ve no doubt left out a lot…
The Atheist Sure. I can now see where some of our confusions lie. I take creation to be very strictly the coming to be of something from nothing. I know you think that this is a rather arbitrary or even nonsensical definition, but a term is needed to distinguish it from change. From this perspective, change is never creative if the conservation of matter/energy applies. It is only creative if you get out more than you put in.
In this case, I suspect you would now deny such a thing as creation. But that’s the whole problem. If there is no creation, how come there is a whole universe out there? What caused it to be? I think you can now see that any explanation that uses already existing matter/energy is not helpful, since that in turn needs to be explained.
In the case of the Big Bang, for example, let’s imagine that this is the same thing as creation. In that case it literally “came out of nowhere”. Suddenly “Bang!” (actually Big Bang is a bit of an understatement!) the whole universe appears… and time and space begin (both are relative terms so they only make sense if there is something for them to relate). The philosophical question is now: what or who caused the Big Bang? … this is the first step of the cosmological argument for the existence of God.
Let’s say, on the other hand, that the Big Bang was preceded by the Big Crunch or some other phenomenon. This would mean that it was not the moment of creation. Rather, it had its being from the “stuff” that crunched! All that has happened is that we now have a totally different universe from the one that made it. The question in that case is: where did the stuff for the Big Crunch come from? (ie the Big Bang doesn’t explain anything in terms of the existence of matter/energy at all). This would be the same question if, as Psy keeps insisting, the Big Bang theory is totally wrong in the first place.
I hope all this helps as you come up with your new post on infinite regression, which I’m looking forward to.
Regarding my points about religion’s contribution to science, let me know what you think about the points I made in my previous response.
I was intrigued by your parallel with Hitler. I really do think that his atrocities were carried out in large part because he was an Austrian-born German. Or spelled out more fully to avoid misunderstanding: Hitler responded in this way because of the way his culture was at the time. That is to say, the context of Germany’s overpunishment and consequent shame following WWI, the influence of the stormy and nihilistic philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzche (the superman) etc… all play their important part. Certainly his response was unique, but can not be isolated from the historical context. Nor can the rise of science from its Christian roots. Once again, I would like to point out that the church was not hostile to science as everyone seems to assume, given that the monks were its greatest advocates.
Atheist. Not you too! I thought Psy was just being perverse about claiming that Jesus never existed as a man. While I agree that his divinity is a separate question, hermeneutics (the scientific study of texts) confirms the former without doubt, while of course, there are additional disputes about how reliably the texts portray him. Still, only a few eccentrics deny Jesus’s actual human existence!
I thought Psy was just being perverse about claiming that Jesus never existed as a man.
If you want to associate Jesus with an actual person research:
Yeshu ben Pantera, and his mother: Miriam Megadela Neshaya, who many associate with Mary Magdalene. From there its a total rewrite.
Johnathan, i know what christians beleived about genesis for generations, i used to be one, and the jews, i beleive they have a different interpretation of it, and the muslims, they too have a different one, do the christain leaders get the final say in what it means? could it not be a metaphorical concept that describes a how the prehistoric people moved from a hunting and gathering to farming, i mean the bible can be interpreted, the man in robes has his, you can have yours, i have mine.
The athiest- i really could care less whether you beleive he was a real man or not, i happen to beleive that he is, but he is not divine, thats what matters, but its really hard to prove or disprove people from ancient times, would you like to disprove Marcus aurillius, with your attitude towards proving individuals human existence, you could disprove him as well, both their documents are similarly vague, so why not?
Psy I’m sorry, mate, but what happened to rational thinking? I can’t find any historians on any of the websites, just wackos like disreputable movie director, Paul Verhoeven. Someone tell Dan Brown about this for his next book. Come on!
=just wackos like disreputable movie director,
Well, there goes any last hope for Jesus having been a real person.
Jonathan, did you happen across an article titled:
Did a historical Jesus exist? by Jim Walker
Its a rather lengthily argument against Jesus’s existence, but he does list sources.
Honestly, the Jewish Talmud and Yeshu ben Pantera in my opinion is the last hope of proving a real Jesus figure.
arguing that a historical jesus never even existed is like arguing that the US never did land on the moon or that they bombed their own towers on 9/11. you might raise some interesting points, but in the end everyone knows the arguement is BS. keep in mind that back then, the average person was a little less than a scholar. so that leaves us with 4 main gospels, others that may or may not be relevant, and the 4 other accounts psy mentioned. the rest of the people probably passed their memories of jesus down to their children through storytelling.
You are right Underoath, and if it turns out that Jesus was base on Yeshu ben Pantera we still don’t know if Yeshu was a real person.
Psy Are you aware that this Walker article contradicts your original thesis that Jesus (son of Joseph) is the same as Jesus (son of Pantera)?
I am of two minds here. Do I carry on this charade and appear to give credence to this nonsense; or do I just shake my head in disbelief. I will take the former path for fear that I am accused of burying my head in the sand.
I freely admit that there are no complete writings about Jesus earlier than about 50AD (ie some 20 years after he died and rose again). This is not unusual in the ancient world. Now that we have computers and printing presses we assume that writing a book was just as easy back then. In fact we have remarkably rich information about Jesus compared to most other historical figures from back then.
Just to give some examples: hermeneutics (internal study of texts) indicates that credal statements in Paul’s letters (written in the 50’s) derive from earlier times. St. Paul’s letters do in fact have some biographical information about Jesus. They also state that he spent considerable time with the apostles. We also know that the apostles gave up their lives for the gospel. It makes no sense to say they made it up. For starters, they must have been geniuses to do so – despite being fishermen – they certainly portray themselves very clearly. Secondly, noone had any notion of writing for history as we do now.
There are also strong relations between the apostles and later bishops who also wrote: eg Jesus’s apostle John had Polycarp as a disciple, who in turn taught Ireneus…
I’m sorry to say it but people like Walker are just trouble-makers. It’s like trying to deny the existence of Socrates because Plato’s dialogues are not strictly historical texts…
It is just annoying to read silly statements like: “In all of Paul’s epistles, (about 80,000 words), he never mentions a historical Jesus! He never heard of Mary, Joseph, a birth in Bethlehem, King Herod, the miracles, ministry, no trial by Jews, or trial by Pontius Pilate. In other words, the man who invented Christianity had
no idea that Jesus walked the earth.” For starters many of these things are in St. Paul. In any case he is writing letters to people who already believe in Jesus and know the whole story. So who does Walker think Paul was writing about then? Too many unknowns. He just throws up muck and hopes it will land somewhere. Perhaps he should become a film maker too.
Jonathan, yes I am aware of the contradiction, I’ve gone through a lot of websites today looking for connections and found many contradictions, minor and not so minor. I just make note on the contradictions and move on.
But as you know I view Christianity as Sun worship and the 12 apostles as the zodiac, the Bible as creative writing personifying them in fables and the fishermen as the age of Pieces.
As I recall St. Paul never met Christ but saw his resurrection in a vision that left him blind for 3 days. Presumably from fasting and eating Manna. As for others knowing about Jesus (savior) Christ (Messiah, anointed one) its a title that was a prophecy known to others of the time.
don’t the muslims mention jesus too as a prophet? so if this jesus character was made up by a group of 12 who wanted to start a new religion, why would islam even pay tribute to him?
Psy. Of course they’re all full of contradictions! They are far more incredible than the simple story told in the gospels.
I wasn’t aware of your attibution of Christianity as “Sun Worship” or the 12 apostles as the zodiac, or fisherman as in the Age of Pisces… Don’t you think it weird, then that Christianity should find sun worship abhorent…. Don’t forget that it came very naturally out of Judaism (Jesus, all the apostles, and Paul all were). I am amazed you can’t see the simple fact that the 12 apostles would be reflective of the 12 tribes of Israel if anything! Also, if you go anywhere near the Sea of Galilee even today, you will understand that fishing plays a big part of their lives. It’s just quirky to find links just because the numbers fit… if the so-called “inventor” of Christianity wanted Sun Worshp, why not just promote that? This just gets more ridiculous.
Regarding St. Paul, you are right that he never met Christ. He was a Pharisee, and in fact a persecutor of the Christians before this dramatic conversion, which he recounts twice in his letters.
Of course the title “Messiah” (Greek: Christos) was known – all the Jews were awaiting and expecting one. What use is a prophesy if noone knows about it? I don’t get your point.
Underoath. Yes the Muslims refer to Jesus as a prophet, but Mohammed was only born in the 9th century, and Islam is a curious mix of Judaism and Christianity superimposed with his own philosophical ideas.
Jonathan- but he couldnt have been a prophet right? seeing as he said himself to be the messiah. why would a prophet lie to the people..
Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies that were promised, the Christians claim he will do that when he returns. If you google ” Jesus not Messiah ” you will find sites listing the unfulfilled promises.
When will he return? “a man bearing a pitcher of water” is assumed by some to mean the age of Aquarius. But you will have to look at the context of the quote for yourself to decide if it even fits.
“Galileo was a “religious nut†(yes he fell foul of the Church for a time, but died completely reconciled). As we know anyway, his theory was previously proposed by Copernicus… (a priest, so another “religious nut.â€)”
i realize that i have missed some things writte in the past, or let them slip past in my fray to answer as much as i can in as little time as possible, my mind works on many tracks, and i can create a few complex ideas at once, so i end up with some ideas i meant to write down being left out, because i am a relativelly slow typer. I probobly would let most small things slide, but this is to me, an insult to galilao
Ok, so Johnathan, to answer your statement about galileo, instead of giving inside information about myself, he really wasnt a religious nut, the facts are, in short, he proposed a theory that is right, the pope condemned galilao for saying something that does not align with the churches ideas, galilao was under a house arrest like thing, and threatened because of his theory, so was this galilao being “recounciled”, or was it him suppressing his beleifs so he wouldnt be brought to the chopping block?, I think galilao feared for either the quality of his life, or plainly, his life. I just think, looking at the big picture, most cultural, and scientific development and progress, though done by intelegent beleivers in religion, has been moving away from religion. Lets take the immediate concept, galilao, though he may have followed christianity, yet his theory was dissaproved by the pope, see moving away from religion. You want another? Through the renaissance we find thinkers apt to separate church and state, see, moving away from religion! These are just some of the many things that in the past have created leaps of scientific, and cultural progress, all moving away from religion, if you need me to cite more, i will, but now over the course of a few generations, we, maybe not in full, might have a chance to make that final leap away from ignorance, and that source of many problems, to largely abolish religion, not by force, as religions try to do to other religions, but by education, and learning, that is my hope, but some people just don’t like learning, they like beliveing, which is easy while keeping your eyes shut(ignorance).
joe, don’t forget the Monk named Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600) who also reconciled with the church by being burnt at the stake as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition. He suggested the Sun was the center of the Universe instead of the Earth and the infinity of the Universe. Wikipedia also says he may have been burnt alive for his pantheist view of God.
Psy. This is the last time I’m going to go running after nonsense. I did Google “Jesus not Messiah” and got a website claiming that Jesus faked his miracles. Now did he exist or was he a fake?
Another site suggested that in fact Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, but that others posthumously attributed it to him…
In the first page of results I did not see the list you talked about… no doubt someone has one, and someone else has another, and someone else ….
You need to stop churning the muck and come up with solid arguments and not just google searches that all contradict each other drammatically.
You even contradict yourself talking about a non-existent man possibly returning in the age of Aquarius because you interpret the non-inspired Bible to prophesy it…. what’s got into you? And then you say that your atheism is more reasonable because you don’t have to believe in anything but science!
Joe. Thank you for your marvellous contribution providing us with a few complex ideas at once. I had thought including Galileo might raise a few eyebrows. Everyone seems to assume that the Church is anti-science , but besides him and Darwin, noone can really come up with any other big names who have been censured. (Psy, Giordano Bruno was not condemned for heliocentrism nor his belief in the infinity of the universe, neither of which are heretical, but for his many theological errors).
Regarding Galileo, few people realise that he made a greater contribution to the fields of mechanics and dynamics than astronomy. In the field of astronomy he wrote to Kepler in 1597 that he had refrained from publically supporting heliocentricism (then called “Copernicanism”) because of the ridicule of his fellow scientists. Among the scientific problems was accounting for the irregular orbits of Jupiter, Mars and Venus. It was only when Galileo practically invented the telescope that he discovered the moons of Jupiter, that he reinvestigated Copernicanism. He (incorrectly) assumed that Mars and Venus were transparent to the Sun to resolve those discrepancies. Still his theories (far inferior to Kepler’s) were not convincing to fellow scientist, Tycho Brahe. Many of his ‘proofs’ were false: eg explaining the tides on earth.
Copernicus had dedicated his own thesis (with permission) to Pope Paul III, and none of the nine following popes raised any alarm. Indeed he arrived in Rome (in 1611) in triumph; priests and lay alike flocked to see him and his telescipe as he exhibited the sunspots (the core of his argument). As yet he had no proof.
To cut long stories short it was Protestantism that rejected the heliocentric theory on the grounds that it violated the Scriptures (sun standing still in the book of Joshua). Ironically there was an active sceptical party in Italy, which aimed at the overthrow of all religion, and this party lent Galileo all its support.
In these circumstances, Galileo, presented his arguments in Rome in December, 1615, and was courteously received. However he was told that it was false and heretical and he must renounce it, which he did. It is undeniable that the church authorities erred in acting thus. Still it must be remembered that no proof had yet been provided, and there was no objection to it being taught merely as a hypothesis. It certainly seemed simpler than the Ptolemaic system. Indeed Cardinal Bellarmine, the highest prelate in the investigation admitted that “we should rather say that we have misunderstood [Scripture] than pronounce that to be false which is demonstrated.” So much for hatred for science.
But there is more, alas. In 1624 he again visited Rome when the new pope Urban VIII, who had, as Cardinal Barberini, been his friend and had opposed his condemnation in 1616. Pope Urban gave Galileio a pension but insisted that the former judgment must stand: ie Copernicanism must be held as a theory until proven.
However Galileo at this time fragrantly wrote a work condemning the old theory and supporting the new. For this he was placed under house arrest until his death. In practise he was permitted to move around freely staying at the houses of friends, always comfortable and usually luxurious. Urban VIII sent his special blessing to the dying man, who was interred not only in consecrated ground, but within the church of Santa Croce at Florence. He continued his scientific work all this time and had many visitors, especially from the Vatican Observertory, still one of the most prestigious astronomical institutions in the world today (though I understand it has moved away from Italy because of the interference of artificial light).
This, then, gentlemen, is the story of the one man who is brought up time and time again as proof that the Church is anti-science. If anything, it proves the opposite. Why only one name? (and Darwin, I suppose, though he has never been formally condemned at all).
Now, you claim that this is nevertheless science moving steadily away from religion, and give church-state relations as another example. I think you need to read more to realise that this has a long history and that the separation of powers (both in Europe and in the foundational documents of the United States) was intended to defend religion from state interference not the other way around.
In conclusion I would like to suggest that “education, and learning” is not hostile to belief as you seem to suggest, but complementary. As I have said before, and it is a favourite quote of mine. At the time of Galileo, a Cardinal remarked that: “the bible does not teach us how to get the heavens into our head, but our heads into heaven.” Indeed if you look at the Church and its centres of higher education today (including prestigious scientific academies) you will find it engages much more readily and comfortably than you could ever imagine!
Im going to state the facts one more time, galilao had a theory, it was right, but went against what the pope thought, so he was punished for it, weather its fluffed up with all that unnessacary information or not, he got punished by the church for something that was right. And i attribute some or most of the flaws with what he said to the lack of technology at the time.
“(Psy, Giordano Bruno was not condemned for heliocentrism nor his belief in the infinity of the universe, neither of which are heretical, but for his many theological errors).”
Oh yeah, and that statement above:
Oh the church is great, right, they didn’t condemn him because of his scientific theories, but because his theology was veiwed by the pope as errored, well that makes everything better doesn’t it? no not really, he is still being killed because of his beleifs
which were that Bruno was deeply influenced by magical views of the universe inherited from Arab astrological magic, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism, so while it wasn’t about his science that he got killed, he still got killed because his beleifs conflicted with the church, that sounds just as bad.
And stop saying that only a few people have been punished by the church for their beleifs, many a person has been burned at the stake, or punished in some way or another, for their so called “heresies”.
Joe.
No, you got the facts wrong. Galileo had a theory that the pope, one of his friends, was very sympathetic to. However he had no proof. Politically it was a hot potato. He was told he could maintain it as a theory until proven, but he refused. Although you are right that the technology was not around for a proof, in fact Kepler’s research could have cleared up many of the issues, but he and Galileo were proud men and did not share ideas readily… happens among scientists sometimes. Both these men (and the Vatican astronomers) contributed greatly to the technology.
I did not mean to whitewash Bruno’s case at all, though he was the sort of man who just enjoyed making trouble. I am merely pointing out that in neither his nor Galileo’s case you can not point to any bias against science on the part of the Church.
I do not believe that I have anywhere denied that many have died for holding heretical opinions. At one time that was considered a crime, and I might say that given the turbulence, not altogether unreasonably, and it was an age where punishments were severe. There are two points that must be borne in mind, however. 1) The “Church” never condemned anyone to die. It did not have the power. It was the secular power who did so. 2) It is well documented that many accused people deliberately pretended to some heresy or other in order to be judged and sentenced under church law rather than the secular law since it was more thorough (more just) and more lenient.
Well, I don’t feel the urge to respect religious people based on their being illogical and judgemental.
Joe, u say that there is no God because if there was he would keep us from questioning? Ther simple fact is he wants us to believe in him (he gave us his son), but he will not force us to beiliev in him. One basic precept is the idea of free will….That even if we are controlled by a government, person, or even a religion, we will always have the right of choice. This is what allows God to send those who are deemed evil to “Burn in Hell” and those who are not deemed evil to live in eternal peace. We CHOOSE OUR ACTIONS, every single one of them.
God isn’t a man, silly! Man is man. That is the thing you fail to catch. As men, we constantly try to bring things we don’t understand down to our level. Well, God isn’t a man, and assuming such a being did create everything (including you), the assumption that you could explain Him is illogical even by the standards of non-believers. But hey, if you want to be your own god and have the audacity to believe you know how everything in the universe works, or at least the capability of knowing, then go for it. That makes just as much sense as an “invisible man”
nah heres a better one:
uhh ummmm some shit just blew up….
or wait wait here
cells turned into monkeys and monkeys turned into us
oh where did the cells come from you ask?
uhh ummm….
Adding on the free will thing; it says that God made us in His image. This doesn’t necessarily mean we physically look like Him, it means that He made us like him (to a lesser degree). And part of that is that we should be able to make choices that actually make a difference. If we were just a bunch of robots with no opinion we wouldn’t be at all like God; we would be tools.
God, if He exists, would be supernatural; I think we can all agree on this. So, since He would be supernatural, by the very definition of that description, we cannot possibly try to confine Him to anything natural. Since the laws of physics are natural, we can assume that He would in no way be restrained by these laws. Now that we’ve established that God would not be not bound by physics, is it so difficult to come to the conclusion that He would need no creator and could therefore be the beginning of all life?
Throughout the history of Christianity we see many atrocities committed in the name of God. The burning of so called witches and heretics at the stake, the crusades, the whole business with Galileo etc. I aknowledge these and many more. The problem is that throughout the history of Christianity is that people have tried to understand and interpret the Bible on their own. This can’t possibly work because people more or less think what they want to think. So they would come at the Bible and look at it through their ignorance and prejudices. They would very often come to their own conclusion on something and then twist the Bible to fit their ideas.
This has given rise to many ridiculous doctrines and denominations that are extremely far from what God originally intended. What God has and does want is to have a personal relationship with us. And what is absolutely vital to ever real relationship? Communication, talking to each other. With God telling us what’s right and wrong we don’t even have to worry about it and since He’s perfect we can act with complete confidence that what He tells us to do will work out for the best.
How is it fair to blame modern Christians for the evils of other Christians from hundreds of years ago? It’s like blaming Stephen Hawking for the nuclear bomb. Christianity has in general evolved way beyond the insanity of previous generations.
One other very fundamental thing that most Christians forget is that we are supposed to love EVERYone. Not everyone besides gays, or everyone besides people whose belief system is different than yours. Because God is love; if you can’t love someone then you don’t really have God with you.
No, I’m sorry. You could still have God with you, He’s just not quite getting through yet.
The turn the other cheek thing has become a cliche, but Jesus specifically made a point of telling it to us so it must be important. Revenge is something to avoid, not pursue. I think it was Gandhi who said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
Yea, im with you. How can a loving GOD will ask you to love your enemies and to forgive. Or what about not to cheat on your wife,kill or honor,your,parents.. Is thaaat!! A image of a loving and perfect GOD?? Lol