Mclean's - Do atheists care less?

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

Did I?

Unfortunately you wont get a response from that either, they call me arrogant because I don't let up on their BS, I challenge them to debate and they tighten up tighter than a frogs arse and their only response is I'm arrogant and they chose not to respond to people like me.

It's sad really, that people can't debate what they think they believe in and live their lives by.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

The OP's suggestion was that there is some chance that there is a God that Created the Universe (and the natural laws and whatnot) and started things off with a Big Bang and then everything from the formation of stars and planets to life and eventually humanity is a consequence of those natural laws and the process of Evolution.

Personally, I expect that is the same as saying God causes the Sun to rise or the seasons to change or the rains to come. The honest scientist's answer is we don't yet know how or why the universe is the way it is so we can't rule out that there is some entity controlling it or creating it.

My one question in these debates for the Religious side (especially those who argue that the burden of proof is on the Atheists to prove that there is no God) is this:

Applying your own logic, how do you know the other world religions are wrong? Rephrased my question is: how do you know that the Classic Greeks or the Ancient Egyptians or the Norse or the Hindus or the Buddhists or the Muslims are wrong and your brand of faith is right when they can all (selectively) claim allegory in their mythologies and can all be proven by the same methods you use to support your faith?

I'm on the side that god exists but to say one religion is wrong and so another is right, doesn't sit well with me. I believe all religions sprung from a common experience and the resultant differences came about because of different societies trying to explain the unexplainable and as time goes on they became corrupted. As for the different gods that the Greeks and Norse had, these are just different aspects of the one god.

I don't particularly like religion, I was raised as an atheist but watching a program about the hopelessness of prostitutes in India and how they prayed to their god, I thought it is good that they retained some hope. We are lucky we have some control of our lives, so we can approach these matters with a more open mind.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

Applying your own logic, how do you know the other world religions are wrong? Rephrased my question is: how do you know that the Classic Greeks or the Ancient Egyptians or the Norse or the Hindus or the Buddhists or the Muslims are wrong and your brand of faith is right when they can all (selectively) claim allegory in their mythologies and can all be proven by the same methods you use to support your faith?

I can think of two reasons that make Christianity unique:

Firstly, Christianity is historical. It isn't a collection of a some man's philosophies or a legend told long after the fact. It is about a man who claimed he was the Messiah; the Son of God. We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye. To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them. If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

As an example just think of the miracles surrounding Jesus' death. It was reported that darkness covered the earth for 3 hours; There was an earth quake powerful enough to rend Rocks in two; The thick curtain that separated the mercy seat in the temple from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom. None of these events could have been staged by either Jesus or his followers. It makes no sense to have fabricated these events because the whole city who would of called them on it. They did happen and along with the other recorded events of Jesus' life make up the most remarkable 3 1/2 years of history. And we havent even touched on the fulfilled prophecies or the evidence of his resurrection. Jesus stands alone by backing his words with deeds.

Secondly, Christianity/Judaism alone provides a first cause. God the great "I am" created the heavens and the earth: The self existent one. The creation myths around the globe start with gods or creatures with no explanation of their origin. Even evolution only imagines their improbable series of events back to a cloud of gas or dust. What caused the gas or the dust? How much gas or dust would it take to produce all we know?

We know from the observable world that every effect has a cause. We also know that the cause must be equal to or greater than the effect. Of course a series of small causes can bring about one larger effect but, than you have to explain the source of all the small causes.

Is it reasonable to think the universe is perpetual and that the causes are equal to the effects somehow, at some point? That would mean the expanding universe would for unforeseen reasons eventually collapse having drawn back in all its dispensed energy without any loss and then reverse course by some other natural cause contained within its fabric to begin expanding again.

I believe it is more reasonable to conclude that there is a first cause who by necessity would have to be self existent. Moreover this first cause would have to have both volition and creativity or else nothing would ever have changed. It would have simply continued to exist. This first cause is the God of the Jews. No other religion describes anyone with His necessary attributes. No secular theory offers a more reasonable explanation of how all we know began.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Youtube or it didn't happen.

[Day Tripper]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

We know from the observable world that every effect has a cause. We also know that the cause must be equal to or greater than the effect. Of course a series of small causes can bring about one larger effect but, than you have to explain the source of all the small causes.

No, actually, you're wrong. As photon stated earlier, the net energy of the universe is heavily theorized to being ZERO. "Positive" forms of energy seem to be exactly balanced by the negative, specifically gravity. Imagine you're trying to launch a rocket from the earth into space...You're expending energy to break free of the earth's gravitational field, and so it acts as a counterbalance to the positive energy. Now, lets bring the uncertainty principle into our sights. At a submicroscopic scale, there will not be an absolute energy at any absolute time, according to one formulation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle:



So the product of the uncertainty in energy and the time elapsed over a certain period is equal to a constant (h/2pi), and the uncertainty in energy is inversely proportional to the time elapsed. Therefore, over a very short time period, energy may be created spontaneously for absolutely no reason at all in the form of a particle-antiparticle pair, but as time goes on these effects will smooth out (the particle-antiparticle pairs will annihilate with each other) and classical conservation of energy will prevail. Classical physics is in many areas shown to be perfectly valid as limiting cases of the constructs of quantum physics.

Inflationary theory deals with this idea - that our universe is the result of a few quantum vacuum fluctuations, which you can read about if you like. But the main point of this is that events without causes can and in fact do occur very regularly in this reality.

Is it reasonable to think the universe is perpetual and that the causes are equal to the effects somehow, at some point? That would mean the expanding universe would for unforeseen reasons eventually collapse having drawn back in all its dispensed energy without any loss and then reverse course by some other natural cause contained within its fabric to begin expanding again.

We can't know for certain at the time what the eventual fate of the universe will be. It depends on if the mass of the universe is enough to make it collapse back in on itself - but dark matter, dark energy, and perhaps things undiscovered need to be accounted for before this can be known for certain.

I believe it is more reasonable to conclude that there is a first cause who by necessity would have to be self existent. Moreover this first cause would have to have both volition and creativity or else nothing would ever have changed. It would have simply continued to exist.

Why "who"? Why not a "what"? What makes you think that a first cause would necessarily have to be a sentient being?

This first cause is the God of the Jews. No other religion describes anyone with His necessary attributes.

Name any attribute, and I can make up a religion that claims a god with those attributes. But of course you'll claim that since I made it up, it's not valid. I'm really interested, however, to hear why you think that Judaism/Christianity/Islam explains the universe better than any other.

No secular theory offers a more reasonable explanation of how all we know began.

Secular theories offer evidence and mathematical arguments for how it all may have began. You've made an extraordinary claim right here. Step up to the plate and deliver evidence and mathematical arguments for the creation of the universe by the god described in the bible to substantiate this claim.

[Vulcan]

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I can think of two reasons that make Christianity unique:

Firstly, Christianity is historical. It isn't a collection of a some man's philosophies or a legend told long after the fact. It is about a man who claimed he was the Messiah; the Son of God. We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye. To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them. If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

As an example just think of the miracles surrounding Jesus' death. It was reported that darkness covered the earth for 3 hours; There was an earth quake powerful enough to rend Rocks in two; The thick curtain that separated the mercy seat in the temple from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom. None of these events could have been staged by either Jesus or his followers. It makes no sense to have fabricated these events because the whole city who would of called them on it. They did happen and along with the other recorded events of Jesus' life make up the most remarkable 3 1/2 years of history. And we havent even touched on the fulfilled prophecies or the evidence of his resurrection. Jesus stands alone by backing his words with deeds.

Secondly, Christianity/Judaism alone provides a first cause. God the great "I am" created the heavens and the earth: The self existent one. The creation myths around the globe start with gods or creatures with no explanation of their origin. Even evolution only imagines their improbable series of events back to a cloud of gas or dust. What caused the gas or the dust? How much gas or dust would it take to produce all we know?

We know from the observable world that every effect has a cause. We also know that the cause must be equal to or greater than the effect. Of course a series of small causes can bring about one larger effect but, than you have to explain the source of all the small causes.

Is it reasonable to think the universe is perpetual and that the causes are equal to the effects somehow, at some point? That would mean the expanding universe would for unforeseen reasons eventually collapse having drawn back in all its dispensed energy without any loss and then reverse course by some other natural cause contained within its fabric to begin expanding again.

I believe it is more reasonable to conclude that there is a first cause who by necessity would have to be self existent. Moreover this first cause would have to have both volition and creativity or else nothing would ever have changed. It would have simply continued to exist. This first cause is the God of the Jews. No other religion describes anyone with His necessary attributes. No secular theory offers a more reasonable explanation of how all we know began.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I can think of two reasons that make Christianity unique:

Firstly, Christianity is historical. It isn't a collection of a some man's philosophies or a legend told long after the fact. It is about a man who claimed he was the Messiah; the Son of God. We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye. To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them. If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

As an example just think of the miracles surrounding Jesus' death. It was reported that darkness covered the earth for 3 hours; There was an earth quake powerful enough to rend Rocks in two; The thick curtain that separated the mercy seat in the temple from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom. None of these events could have been staged by either Jesus or his followers. It makes no sense to have fabricated these events because the whole city who would of called them on it. They did happen and along with the other recorded events of Jesus' life make up the most remarkable 3 1/2 years of history. And we havent even touched on the fulfilled prophecies or the evidence of his resurrection. Jesus stands alone by backing his words with deeds.

Secondly, Christianity/Judaism alone provides a first cause. God the great "I am" created the heavens and the earth: The self existent one. The creation myths around the globe start with gods or creatures with no explanation of their origin. Even evolution only imagines their improbable series of events back to a cloud of gas or dust. What caused the gas or the dust? How much gas or dust would it take to produce all we know?

We know from the observable world that every effect has a cause. We also know that the cause must be equal to or greater than the effect. Of course a series of small causes can bring about one larger effect but, than you have to explain the source of all the small causes.

Is it reasonable to think the universe is perpetual and that the causes are equal to the effects somehow, at some point? That would mean the expanding universe would for unforeseen reasons eventually collapse having drawn back in all its dispensed energy without any loss and then reverse course by some other natural cause contained within its fabric to begin expanding again.

I believe it is more reasonable to conclude that there is a first cause who by necessity would have to be self existent. Moreover this first cause would have to have both volition and creativity or else nothing would ever have changed. It would have simply continued to exist. This first cause is the God of the Jews. No other religion describes anyone with His necessary attributes. No secular theory offers a more reasonable explanation of how all we know began.

I appreciate your explanation but I feel your first two paragraphs are bunk.

[Azure]

So, this is exactly the problem. CB explained his opinion, and 3 posters made driveby posts offering absolutely nothing of substance outside of just trying to 'slam' him.

And then we're accused of being the ones that just ignore certain posts.

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Azure

So, this is exactly the problem. CB explained his opinion, and 3 posters made driveby posts offering absolutely nothing of substance outside of just trying to 'slam' him.

And then we're accused of being the ones that just ignore certain posts.

Well, if I can speak for myself, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful. I most certainly do not agree with many of Calgaryborn's positions, but I agree that a "slam" or "driveby" type post isn't a very helpful way to show that disagreement. I just happened to come across that image a few minutes before reading his post and thought it would be funny because it's a pretty good application of the "cool story bro" meme.

For the record, I'm on the the atheist "side" of this debate, but I tend to agree with you about some people being overly antagonistic or in your words "ignorant." It just isn't very helpful and doesn't get us anywhere. If anything it just makes one side more bitter and mistrusting of the other side.

Anyway, sometimes it's just good to have a laugh. That was the intent of my post, rather than disrespect toward Calgaryborn or hindering the level of debate as a whole.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye.

The NT authors weren't eye witnesses. Paul wasn't an eye witness (and deliberately distances himself from the disciples), and the gospel accounts are written anonymously in a language and style obviously not of anyone around Jesus's time and location.

And while the general consensus is that most if not all the books in what eventually became the NT were written in the first century, they were also written decades to more than a generation after Jesus' life. And the original manuscripts no longer exist so we can never be sure what exactly was written in them, since the manuscript tradition we do have (5700+ manuscripts in Greek) contain more differences than words in the NT itself.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them.

To think that such events happened without anyone recording them is what is unreasonable. The first accounts of those events being written 40 years later?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

Others did call them on it, there was plenty of writing at the time which gave different accounts of Jesus' life and formed the foundation for some Christian groups.

As for non Christian writings, well the lack of non-Christian writings about Jesus and the events of his life is what one would expect if the events didn't actually take place or if the events were embellished and changed when they were finally put to paper a generation later (as one would expect of an oral history).

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

As an example just think of the miracles surrounding Jesus' death. It was reported that darkness covered the earth for 3 hours; There was an earth quake powerful enough to rend Rocks in two;

That's pretty crazy to happen, yet no one thought to write it down until 40 years later?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

The thick curtain that separated the mercy seat in the temple from the rest of the temple was torn from top to bottom.

This one is interesting, again no account of this anywhere else except in the gospels. And even Mark and Luke disagree as to when it happened, according to Mark it happens after Jesus dies (Mark 15:38) while according to Luke it happens while Jesus is still alive (Luke 23:45-46).

This would appear to be a discrepancy and makes no sense if one's goal is to try to patch together an exact history from the different gospel accounts (thereby creating a new gospel account that no one wrote).

However consider that Luke used Mark as a source, so when Luke changes details from Mark the question is why. With the temple veil ripping (which is likely symbolic since there's no other record of that happening as a historical event) Mark sees Jesus' death as an end to Temple sacrifices. Jesus' death is an atonement for sin, god is available to all people because he is no longer separated from them by a thick curtain.

Luke on the other hand has the curtain rip before Jesus dies, so for Luke it's not about atonement. Rather for Luke it's the hour of darkness referred to earlier (Luke 22:53) and shows the judgment of god against the Jewish people; by ripping the curtain Luke indicates god is rejecting the Jewish system of worship.

Mark and Luke wanted to make different theological points.. Luke changed the details from Mark to make his point. So from that point of view the discrepancy doesn't matter and in fact makes sense.

If instead one tries to reconcile the discrepancy with some kind of verbal gymnastics not only does one come up with a an account that was never actually written down, it also robs the original authors of their theological points.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

None of these events could have been staged by either Jesus or his followers. It makes no sense to have fabricated these events because the whole city who would of called them on it.

Why would they have called them on it? The gospel accounts weren't written as historical treatises, they're gospels.

And the gospel authors were writing from the accounts they had been told, 40 years is a long time for an account to grow and change, why would someone call them out for writing down an account which is commonly spoken of?

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

They did happen and along with the other recorded events of Jesus' life make up the most remarkable 3 1/2 years of history.

3 1/2 years comes from John, which refers to three separate Passover celebrations. But if you go by Mark, the earliest gospel, in Chapter 2 the disciples are in the wheat fields eating the grain (which the Pharisees don't like since harvesting violates the Sabbath), so that takes place in the fall (harvest time). After that the account of Jesus' ministry is a constant string of the Greek word euthus which means "immediately". Jesus did something then immediately did something else then immediately went somewhere, all the way up to Chapter 11 which is the last week of Jesus' life and during the Passover feast in Jerusalem. Which is in the spring, which seems to say Jesus' ministry was only a few months, from harvest to spring time. Unless Mark didn't actually mean all the "immediately"ies he wrote.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

And we havent even touched on the fulfilled prophecies

If one is writing the account, one can easily fulfill prophecies.

A good example of this is Jesus coming to Jerusalem. One can ask "How many animals did Jesus ride when entering Jerusalem". Mark 11:7 says one. Matthew though has it different.

Matthew in general goes to extremes to point out things that were fulfillment of prophecy, sometimes with strange results. In Matthew 21:5 he quotes Zechariah 9:9:
"See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

The last two lines are a poetic prophecy called a synonymous parallelism, the last line restates what the second line says, something known to Hebrew Bible scholars.

Matthew apparently didn't know about this poetic style. But prophecy still needs to be fulfilled so Matthew has the disciples get two animals, put their garments over both, and Jesus rides into Jerusalem straddling two animals (Matthew 21:7).

When one is writing the account and is reading the prophecy it's easy to ensure the account fits prophecy. Or to misinterpret prophecies, or fulfill them if you know of them, or have prophecies generic enough they're easy to fulfill, etc.

I've never seen a prophecy about Jesus that is clearly such.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

or the evidence of his resurrection.

What evidence? The only contemporary accounts are those in the NT.

I know you won't agree with pretty much anything I posted, and I don't expect you to, I just wanted to put forward what centuries of biblical scholarship has found. Everything I've mentioned is standard material for prospective pastors attending seminary.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

Well, if I can speak for myself, I wasn't trying to be disrespectful. I most certainly do not agree with many of Calgaryborn's positions, but I agree that a "slam" or "driveby" type post isn't a very helpful way to show that disagreement. I just happened to come across that image a few minutes before reading his post and thought it would be funny because it's a pretty good application of the "cool story bro" meme.

For the record, I'm on the the atheist "side" of this debate, but I tend to agree with you about some people being overly antagonistic or in your words "ignorant." It just isn't very helpful and doesn't get us anywhere. If anything it just makes one side more bitter and mistrusting of the other side.

Anyway, sometimes it's just good to have a laugh. That was the intent of my post, rather than disrespect toward Calgaryborn or hindering the level of debate as a whole.

Fair enough.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by Azure

So, this is exactly the problem. CB explained his opinion, and 3 posters made driveby posts offering absolutely nothing of substance outside of just trying to 'slam' him

His rather long-winded argument essentially boils down to "the bible is true because some folks who've been dead 2,000 years say so."

People get banned on the Fire and Ice forum for posting trade "rumours" with far more plausible substance.

[SeeBass]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgaryborn
We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye.

The NT authors weren't eye witnesses. Paul wasn't an eye witness (and deliberately distances himself from the disciples), and the gospel accounts are written anonymously in a language and style obviously not of anyone around Jesus's time and location.

And while the general consensus is that most if not all the books in what eventually became the NT were written in the first century, they were also written decades to more than a generation after Jesus' life. And the original manuscripts no longer exist so we can never be sure what exactly was written in them, since the manuscript tradition we do have (5700+ manuscripts in Greek) contain more differences than words in the NT itself.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgaryborn
To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them.

To think that such events happened without anyone recording them is what is unreasonable. The first accounts of those events being written 40 years later?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgaryborn
If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

Others did call them on it, there was plenty of writing at the time which gave different accounts of Jesus' life and formed the foundation for some Christian groups.

As for non Christian writings, well the lack of non-Christian writings about Jesus and the events of his life is what one would expect if the events didn't actually take place or if the events were embellished and changed when they were finally put to paper a generation later (as one would expect of an oral history).




This is fairly similar to my thoughts. when I mentioned that I thought the first" two paragraphs are bunk"

I didnt mean to do a "drive by smear" I really thought that Photon's points were common sense. I didnt think it was necessary.

[Pastiche]

Firstly, Christianity is historical. It isn't a collection of a some man's philosophies or a legend told long after the fact. It is about a man who claimed he was the Messiah; the Son of God. We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye. To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them. If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

You would have to expand on this point further. As I understand, Islam is historical as well. What are the differences?

[Thor]

Can we pay textcritic to jump in here, he knows way too much about biblical writings.

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I can think of two reasons that make Christianity unique:

Firstly, Christianity is historical. It isn't a collection of a some man's philosophies or a legend told long after the fact. It is about a man who claimed he was the Messiah; the Son of God. We know the authors wrote the New Testament in the first century. We know they were eye witnesses and what they witnessed and heard primarily was in the public eye. To deny the events happened is unreasonable given the crowds who witnessed them. If the Authors weren't telling the truth others would have called them on it. Obviously the Jews weren't very happy with this new upstart religion and would of exposed the lies.

This is no different from the Hindu Veddas, The Norse Prose and Poetic Edda, The Muslim Qur'an and Hadith, the Book of Mormon to name a few. They all are accounts, some written by "first hand witnesses", with the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon both written within the context of a skeptical audience.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Secondly, Christianity/Judaism alone provides a first cause. God the great "I am" created the heavens and the earth: The self existent one. The creation myths around the globe start with gods or creatures with no explanation of their origin. Even evolution only imagines their improbable series of events back to a cloud of gas or dust. What caused the gas or the dust? How much gas or dust would it take to produce all we know?

1) There is no account in the Old Testament esplaining the origin of God.

2) Every one of the creation mythologies I cited in the post you responded to (with the exception of the Buddhist teachings which do not address Creation as an issue worthy of contemplation) contain an account of the creation of the universe before there were human records, including an account for what happened before the first God(s) came to be.

Classic Greek - Chaos existed and from that 5 entities were formed - Earth, The underworld, Desire, Darkness, and the Darkness of the underworld were formed.

Hindus - believe in cyclical time. Imagine a wheel where the universe exists as a permanent cycle of creation, growth and destruction.

Norse - In the beginning there was Fire and Ice etc.

[Cheese]

Yes textcritic would be welcome...but Im certain he is as weary as most when trying to discuss common sense with CalgaryBornAgain. How many times have we given CB a response and simply asked for a common sense discussion only to be ignored or simply handed more biblical bunk.
Drivebys are welcome.

[DionPlett]

I'm not a theolgian or a bible scholar but I'm still learning and if I could say one thing here,it is a bit difficult to gauge exactly where people are at and where they're coming from.
I think it's easy to say, "okay, I'm an atheist and don't believe in God so prove to me he exists".
It almost always seems to be about Atheism vs Christianity. So what is your opinion on other religeons such as satanism, New Age, The Occult,etc..
What about good vs evil or is there just one medium? What about people like Hitler, Saddam and others, or even mass murderers and serial killers. Do you think that when they die or kill themselves that that is the end of them. I really don't because that would be to easy and I do believe they get justice somewhere someplace.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by photon

To think that such events happened without anyone recording them is what is unreasonable. The first accounts of those events being written 40 years later?

Great point.

Whereas you've got an event in Pompeii, which took place in 79AD, but you've got a lot more eye witness testimony, which is fairly well documented. Granted Pompeii was on a scale much larger, but at least someone wrote something down close to the date the event happened.