B
Junior Member
Expect Us
Posts: 74
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Post by B on Jan 7, 2012 11:42:45 GMT
Jtp, concerning your "argument" or rather a pitiable sight of a response along with your past history of dodging and making up nonsensical rationalizations on WWGHA, I will not comment except for this:
Really, you were? Right. How does being an atheist relate to taking drugs and having presumably pre-martial sex along with the beautifully rugged sound of rock and roll? What are you, an old man from the 1960's?
WWGHA is down.
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Post by ferryman on Jan 7, 2012 23:24:46 GMT
Dang if it ain't! Appears they have had a crash....
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Post by flyingteapot on Jan 8, 2012 12:42:19 GMT
I think you may be confused. not believing and believing are two completely different things. Not believing is a passive process and cannot be in itself qualified as a belief. Belief is an active process in that you choose to believe something. When you walk into an empty room, do you believe it's empty, or full? If you don't believe in something, then you believe in its absence / nonexistence. You either believe in one state of things, or another. You either believe in a scenario in which something (ie god) is part of it, or one in which it is not. It's still a belief. Just because you don't believe in a creator that doesn't exempt you from having a belief about it. You believe that it does not exist. That's a belief. I don't know why atheists deny that. There's nothing wrong with having beliefs. First of all, as soon as I enter a room, I have concrete proof as to its emptiness or fullness. This is called knowledge, i.e, I KNOW that the room is empty or full. Also, if I don't believe in something, it doesn't mean that I believe in its absence. If you come to me with a claim, the default response is "I don't believe you unless you prove what you claim" and not "I believe you are wrong or lying" . I don't know whether you are wrong or lying. What I do know is that your claim needs to be believable, ie have proof, in order for me to believe it. Believing in absence of something is equivalent to KNOWING that the person making the claim is wrong. There is a difference in not believing "something"(passive) and believing not "something"(active). For example, if I came to you and said " there is an invisible man standing 100 feet away from you", would you say "I don't believe you" or "I believe you are lying"? If you said "I believe you are lying", then I would ask you what do you base that belief on? If you said "I don't believe you", then the onus is on me to provide the proof for you. Also, I never stated that I believe a creator does not exist. I do not KNOW that. All I can say honestly is that I don't believe a creator exists unless it is proven to me. This video explain why lack of belief is not a belief in and of itself:
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Post by flyingteapot on Jan 8, 2012 12:45:41 GMT
Atheism is just another belief system as far as I'm concerned. They believe that there isn't a god, and yet they refuse to acknowledge that it's a belief. Amazing. Agreed. The only truly logical position (i.e. Scientific Method) is Agnostic. There is no factual proof either way and, therefore, nothing to discuss. If you ask atheists, the majority of them would respond that they don't believe in a god, not that they believe there isn't a god, which is clearly a belief. Please check the video I posted above if you want to know more.
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Post by waymarker on Jan 8, 2012 16:12:03 GMT
So yeah....I also liked how you ignored everything that I had to say in response to your earlier posts... I thought i had mate, or perhaps your posts were too long for me to see your questions buried somewhere in them. If you care to post your questions again here in a brief sentence or two i'd be happy to answer them again.. PS- Does anybody know how we can get avatars? They'd make our posts easier to find.
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Post by waymarker on Jan 8, 2012 16:30:59 GMT
Also, I never stated that I believe a creator does not exist. I do not KNOW that. All I can say honestly is that I don't believe a creator exists unless it is proven to me.. Which is the most illogical thing to say- That a Creator created the universe, or that it just decided to create itself?..
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Post by flyingteapot on Jan 8, 2012 21:51:10 GMT
Also, I never stated that I believe a creator does not exist. I do not KNOW that. All I can say honestly is that I don't believe a creator exists unless it is proven to me.. Which is the most illogical thing to say- That a Creator created the universe, or that it just decided to create itself?.. You are presupposing that the universe was created in the first place. We do not know how the universe came into existence. The act of creation means that there was a thinking being behind it. Also, to answer your question, both statements are equally illogical, given that we do not know how the universe came into existence. The second argument is particularly offensive to logic since it effectively asks " Something that was not in existence in the first place decided to create itself." If something (the universe) is not in existence, it can hardly be capable of decisions.
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timo
Newbie
oyeme
Posts: 37
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Post by timo on Jan 9, 2012 0:36:14 GMT
So yeah....I also liked how you ignored everything that I had to say in response to your earlier posts... I thought i had mate, or perhaps your posts were too long for me to see your questions buried somewhere in them. If you care to post your questions again here in a brief sentence or two i'd be happy to answer them again.. Nah, I'm talking specifically about reply #11. You can go back to it and get into the details but the long and short of it is that your assetions in reply #5 are without basis. I argue that: 1.) There is no evidence outside of church tradition that argues for attributing the gospels to the names under which we now find them. What this means is that details that might be embarassing to the disciples really isn't evidence of their honesty or reliability since we don't know that they wrote the gospels in the first place. I also went on to remind you that the disciples were also figureheads for competing movements, which can account for some of the ways in which we find them treated poorly in various narratives. So, if you'd like a quick question it would be this: what is the evidence that argues for traditional authorship? It would seem that you would need to answer this question before you can make arguments that assume traditional authorship, like this one: And when his disciples and mates wrote the gospels, they were warts and all jobs that often showed him (and them) in an unflattering light, for example on the night before his execution he asked God to get him off the hook. And the gospels also tell how some of his disciples ran off and deserted him when he was crucified, for fear of the Romans. See, nobody ever tried to edit out jarring bits like that, which means we can trust the writers.. 2.) There is no independent, contemporary witness of Christ I guess you have addressed this one. Though as I see it, the fact that you're citing the Testimonium Flavium is a concession of this point as far as I'm concerned. It's a forgery. It also doesn't quite jibe with your baseless assertion that the Romans somehow scrubbed the evidence of Christ and his ministry. You wrote: When christianity began snowballing in popularity after Jesus's execution, the snooty Jewish priests and the posturing Romans said - "Oops better not let on it was us who killed him, quick shred all the documents implicating us or we'll have a Jesusgate scandal on our hands. Let's airbrush him out of history and start hassling christians, and people will soon quickly forget about him" But then they payed a Jewish historian to write a history in which he claims that Jesus was indeed the Christ? And they didn't "shred" it? Honestly I don't know how I didn't notice that discrepency. So the quick question is, supposing Jesus really was all he was cracked up to be, why is it that no one from the time sees fit to mention him or his mighty miracles outside of his followers. 3.) You're wrong about God not giving signs to those who ask for them. Or at least, the Bible is inconsistent on this point. My example was Gideon testing God in the book of Judges. Finally: PS- Does anybody know how we can get avatars? They'd make our posts easier to find. Click profile. Then modify profile.
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Bayes
Full Member
Posts: 206
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Post by Bayes on Jan 10, 2012 3:21:19 GMT
Also, I never stated that I believe a creator does not exist. I do not KNOW that. All I can say honestly is that I don't believe a creator exists unless it is proven to me.. Which is the most illogical thing to say- That a Creator created the universe, or that it just decided to create itself?.. That a creator created itself? Or that the universe did? Atheists generally don't ascribe motive to the universe.
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Post by waymarker on Jan 10, 2012 17:16:28 GMT
There is no independent, contemporary witness of Christ You could say the same about Buddha, Mohammed etc, so why try to single out Jesus? Anyway why should anybody want to write an account of Jesus bearing in mind Matt Mark Luke and John had already done it? Shall i go write an autobiog of Elvis? Nah, it's already been done by many other people.. Not so long ago atheists were squawking "Nazareth never existed!" but recent archaeological evidence left them looking sheepish, so as they were wrong about Naz, they're wrong about Jesus too..
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Bayes
Full Member
Posts: 206
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Post by Bayes on Jan 10, 2012 17:20:04 GMT
There is no independent, contemporary witness of Christ You could say the same about Buddha, Mohammed etc, so why try to single out Jesus? Anyway why should anybody want to write an account of Jesus bearing in mind Matt Mark Luke and John had already done it? Shall i go write an autobiog of Elvis? Nah, it's already been done by many other people.. Not so long ago atheists were squawking "Nazareth never existed!" but recent archaeological evidence left them looking sheepish, so as they were wrong about Naz, they're wrong about Jesus too.. Jesus gets singled out because Christianity is the predominant theist religion in the US. I am sure that Atheists in predominantly Muslim or Buddhist countries have similar arguments regarding the historical existence of Buddha or Mohammed.
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timo
Newbie
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Post by timo on Jan 10, 2012 20:18:17 GMT
You could say the same about Buddha, Mohammed etc, so why try to single out Jesus? I never singled out Jesus.. We just happen to be talking about the question of Jesus' historicity in particular because we've been discussing Christianity in particular. In fact, you were the first person to bring the question up. The historicity of Mohammed, Buddha, Socrates etc are interesting but seperate questions. Anyway why should anybody want to write an account of Jesus bearing in mind Matt Mark Luke and John had already done it? Shall i go write an autobiog of Elvis? Nah, it's already been done by many other people.. This doesn't really make a lot of sense as a reply. I think it's safe to assume that you didn't know Elvis and that your paths never crossed. You, therefore would have little to nothing to add to a discussion of Elvis. On the other hand, it would be safe to assume that if a figure loomed as large over Judea as the Gospel writers claimed, Christ would have had an impact on more than just the Christians. We would expect to find Roman records of him. We'd expect to find Roman and Jewish polemics against him that denegrade him and explain away the miracles attributed to him. We'd expect to find more accounts like Luke, which is third hand account presented as almost a reasearch paper. Instead we find no references to Christ save for the probably forged bit from Josephus a few decades later. Again, do you really think that people came out of their graves in Jerusalem? If so, don't you think it's strange that we don't find this recorded anywhere but the Bible? Do you think that Herod really ordered the murder of all male infants in Bethlehem? If so, don't you think it's strange that we don't find this recorded anywhere but the Bible? I could go on. Not so long ago atheists were squawking "Nazareth never existed" but recent archaeological evidence left them looking sheepish, so as they were wrong about Naz, they're wrong about Jesus too.. Now I know you're not reading my replies. I've already responded to this. To recap: As was the case when you originally posted this, I find your language to be a bit childish here. It's adversarial for no reason. More substantively: 1.) It is not the position of "atheists" or non-Christians that Nazareth never existed. There are plenty of non believers in academia like Bart Ehrman that argue in favor of the historicity of Jesus, Nazareth and all that. 2.) "Atheists" didn't "squawk" that "Nazareth never existed" for no reason. People claim that there was probably no Nazareth at the time because despite extensive records of the cities and towns of Judea there is no reference to a place called Nazareth when Jesus was said to have lived. This was never a statement of faith. It was an inference drawn from the evidence. And again, if the evidence changes then we need to reevaluate our positions. Peace
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Post by waymarker on Jan 14, 2012 17:12:08 GMT
Timo quote- if a figure loomed as large over Judea as the Gospel writers claimed, Christ would have had an impact on more than just the Christians. We would expect to find Roman records of him--------------------------------------------------------------- Think "Shredder" mate.. When Christianity began snowballing in popularity after Jesus's execution, the snooty Jewish priests and the posturing Romans said -"Oops better not let on it was us who killed him, quick shred all the documents implicating us or we'll have a Jesusgate scandal on our hands. Let's airbrush him out of history and start hassling christians, and people will soon quickly forget about him"..Nevertheless 27 books did slip through the net and get published as the New Testament.. And In the first century A.D. a Jewish priest by the name of Joseph ben Matthias (later given the Roman name Flavius Josephus) was commissioned by the Roman government to write a history of events in Judea. In his book, Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus makes reference to Jesus and his disciples - "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. If it be lawful to call him a man, for He was a doer of wonderful works. He was the Christ. And the tribe of Christians so named from Him are not extinct to this day." And In the Babylonian Talmud there are numerous references to the historical existence of Jesus. In the tractate Sanhedrin, 43A, there is a fascinating historical reference to Jesus - "It has been taught on the eve of the Passover they hanged Yeshua (Jesus). And an announcer went out in front of him for forty days saying, 'He is going to be stoned because He practiced sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and plead in his behalf.' But, not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of the Passover." And Dead Sea Scroll 4Q246 says "He shall be called the son of God, and they shall call him son of the Most High"And even the Koran written some 600 years later dare not deny Jesus was something special:- "Allah.. exalted some messengers above others and gave miracles to Jesus the son of Mary and strengthened him with the holy spirit" (Koran 2:253) And the anti-Jesus medieval Jewish 'Toledot Yeshu' talks at length about Jesus (Yeshu) PS- Hey guys, I'm a multi-forum person and am on several other boards besides Rational and am always on the lookout for more, so if you can recommend any please let me know..
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Post by Worldquest on Jan 15, 2012 0:08:22 GMT
Which is the most illogical thing to say- That a Creator created the universe, or that it just decided to create itself?.. You are presupposing that the universe was created in the first place. We do not know how the universe came into existence. The act of creation means that there was a thinking being behind it. Also, to answer your question, both statements are equally illogical, given that we do not know how the universe came into existence. The second argument is particularly offensive to logic since it effectively asks " Something that was not in existence in the first place decided to create itself." If something (the universe) is not in existence, it can hardly be capable of decisions. The universe may not have come into existence at all. Have you considered that possibility? It's just another way of looking at things.
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Post by flyingteapot on Jan 15, 2012 0:11:40 GMT
What do you mean it didn't come into existence? That it was always there? Sure that is possible. But what does always mean?
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