If you cannot prove your statement you are making a statement based on faith rather than logic.
Wether or not god exists doesn't really matter you can't prove either way and despite all available evidence pointing one direction neither side has proven anything.
Therefore if you state that God exists or does not exist with certainty as you have it is a statement of faith.
If you state that based on all available evidence a God which interacts with the universe is highly unlikely to exist that is a statement based on reason.
And if you state the universe does not require a deist god to exist that is a statement based on reason.
Excluding all possibility of god is an act of faith.
Last edited by GGG; 09-15-2014 at 10:39 PM.
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Why would anyone respond to your posts? Your personal jabs at people are not needed and quite petty.
Why? because I'm an educator for a greater society...the one without the "evil" religions that stink up our planet. And it's not a personal jab, If you preach you should be able to back it up...no?
FYI: When anyone debates a case for a religious god I just feel the need to argue 10x. If it bothers you or anyone else there is always the magic button to stop your anguish.
As long as I'm breathing I will spread the word that religion is mankinds doom.
1. That wasn;t my case.
2. Yes, I reject the existence of any and all Gods. My proof is the lack of proof to prove anything different, after 2, 20, 200, 2,000, 20,000, 200,000 2,000,000 20,000,000 200,000,000 2,000,000,000 or 20,000,000,000 years.
Just wanted to say that I'm going to take a step back and consider my view point and response. As Textcritic pointed out, I'm very likely overloading the word "atheism" and quite potentially speaking to a belief system where atheism is a central part, but perhaps not atheism itself, so I'd like to think about it before I make a response. Thought I'd let you know I did read your post and am considering it despite no verbose response from myself
Chill Cosby, feel free to comment. doubt you'll watch it though.
First off: Thank you for your permission to comment. I'm consciously trying to ensure my comments are first authorised by you before I post. Sorry if a few haven't gotten the OK, it was likely an honest mistake.
Second: I did watch the video, from start to almost finish (I stopped with about 20 seconds left). I'd ask you to explain why you thought I wouldn't watch it, but...
Quote:
Originally Posted by T@T
Why? because I'm an educator for a greater society...the one without the "evil" religions that stink up our planet. And it's not a personal jab, If you preach you should be able to back it up...no?
FYI: When anyone debates a case for a religious god I just feel the need to argue.
Ah, there it is. So you assume me to be a preacher of the faith, someone making a case for a religious god, do you?... Let's go over some of my preaching:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chill Cosby
Religion is contradictory!
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Originally Posted by Chill Cosby
Not just silly, ridiculous and idiotic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chill Cosby
I'm not defending religion or god, but one's simple right to a belief system and what might cause one to choose "god" over the much more logical combination of "science + things we've yet to discover".
...
I'm well aware of the atheist argument, and I take zero issue with it.
...
I don't believe in God ... It is ... exhausting to hear someone preach about god
...
The problem with religion is when people feel the need to force their belief onto others
...
What is relevant to me is that religion is as harmful on a global scale as it is helpful on an individual scale. The amount of bad that comes from it will never outweigh the good. A lot of that comes from the need to be "right", the need to turn an unknown into "fact", for their to be "one truth". If you're going godless, at least have a mind not to be part of the problem.
I guess, my best suggestion would be that you actually read before you form your views and interpretations of the views of others. I get the appeal of not reading and making snap judgments, but we'd be able to have a considerably more interesting discourse if you showed interest in being on the same respectful level as Thor, photon, MarchHare or Textcritic who have all sought understanding and debate, rather than a fight filled with straw men and a lack of understanding on the subject.
You've been blatantly wrong (nothing wrong with that if you're seeking understanding), inflammatory, and off topic in most of the contributions of yours to this thread (that I've seen), so perhaps it's time to tap-out? After all, once you interject yourself into a conversation about the specific nature of atheistic belief with a comment about how bad religion is and accuse an anti-religious agnostic of being a preacher of god, it's probably time to re-evaluate your value as an "educator" for the greater good.
Last edited by Chill Cosby; 09-15-2014 at 11:36 PM.
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LeRon is giving a talk based on his book on Thursday night here in Kristiansand at a meeting of the local humanists society, entitled: "Where do gods come from — and why do we keep them around."
Any chance he's going to have a kindle edition, I'd love to read it, just $90 USD is a bit much
Any chance he's going to have a kindle edition, I'd love to read it, just $90 USD is a bit much
I'll ask him. Unfortunately, the exorbitant prices of books is a sad consequence of academic publishing. It's better than my new book, which retails for (*gasp*) €126! You may need to be content with trying to find it in a library.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
No scholar, and no direct evidence, which is not at all a problem for the historical argument of Jesus' existence. You should know that the absence of any third party corroboration is even accepted by mythicist Richard Carrier as unproblematic and irrelevant to historical Jesus claims.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Yeah I haven't read it yet, it looks dense. But the reviews I've read have had some positives, and Carrier isn't saying his book is the end of discussion but wants it to be a beginning partly by looking at things that have been used to support the idea and seeing if they're valid. I'm interested more in his alternative theory which he says fits all the available evidence.
Ultimately I think this blog post has the right idea.. the entire topic isn't overly useful in terms of broader discussion:
Dan sums that up nicely, not only is it a bad strategy to argue Jesus was not a real person, but ultimately is not really something we could ever be certain of in any real sense.
For me Jesus is likely to have existed, or a person of whom Jesus is based on, either way to me its irrelevant as he says as to the criticism of the faith and dogma.
Dan sums that up nicely, not only is it a bad strategy to argue Jesus was not a real person, but ultimately is not really something we could ever be certain of in any real sense...
I agree. That was very good. I have but one quibble:
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Originally Posted by Daniel Fincke
"Jesus is just too controversial, self-contradictory, mediated through the words of others, distanced from us culturally and historically, and important to people theologically and philosophically to take anyone’s reading as totally unbiased and straightforward. The stakes involved in interpreting him are too high and there are too many divides between us and the ancient world for me to have much confidence that any one can pull out an authoritative account of what he did or thought."
He premises this observation with George Tyrell's famous 19th cent. criticism of the historical Jesus "quest," but I do believe that we can have more confidence in modern methods for uncovering an historical Jesus than he believes is possible. There have been many important historical developments since the time of Harnack and Schweitzer that have in turn made a dramatic impact on what we know and those things that we can confidently claim about the "cultural and historical" distance. There has been an explosion of information in Syro Phoenician and Palestinian archaeology in the last century that provide scholar's with much more sure footing for positing both the existence of Jesus, and for developing a consensus about who he was and what he did.
My problem with Carrier and other mythicists claims regarding the origins of Christianity are grounded in their extremely cultural and religious implausibility. I would still go as far as to argue that it is exceedingly improbable that Jesus did not exist, because virtually all efforts to construct a Christianity apart from a founding historical Jewish messianic martyr utterly fail. Carrier has mounted a passionate defense, and I would agree with him that his is the most scholarly robust argument for the mythicist position, but even then, he must still depend on an unsustainable string of logical, cultural, historical and religious leaps to continue to promote the idea that Jesus was an historicised cosmic figure.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Yeah with Richard you get the feeling he's taken up a premise that he's married to, and works with that assumption when approaching the question. So in a sense he's doing what he so often criticizes with his counterparts, ultimately being slightly dogmatic in his approach to the question of Jesus historicity.
I think the point you have made about how could Christianity have started without the Jesus figure, seems highly improbable all things considering. Again, I claim a great deal of ignorance on the subject matter, you and Carrier spend a great amount of time and have a lot more knowledge than I, so for me its not just a question of your argument makes more sense to me, but also that I feel totally unqualified to have a strong opinion on the subject.
But ultimately to me the question of if Jesus was indeed a real historical figure does not concern me much, my problems lie in the dogma and the actions of religious followers not so much that they hold beliefs in a higher power.
If you cannot prove your statement you are making a statement based on faith rather than logic.
Wether or not god exists doesn't really matter you can't prove either way and despite all available evidence pointing one direction neither side has proven anything.
Therefore if you state that God exists or does not exist with certainty as you have it is a statement of faith.
If you state that based on all available evidence a God which interacts with the universe is highly unlikely to exist that is a statement based on reason.
And if you state the universe does not require a deist god to exist that is a statement based on reason.
Excluding all possibility of god is an act of faith.
Unicorns don't exist.
Now is that statement based on faith, logic or reason?
Yeah with Richard you get the feeling he's taken up a premise that he's married to, and works with that assumption when approaching the question. So in a sense he's doing what he so often criticizes with his counterparts, ultimately being slightly dogmatic in his approach to the question of Jesus historicity...
Exactly.
Something else that is important to point out in discussions of the historical Jesus that I don't think I have mentioned in the past is that the development of the mythicist theory itself occurred in an era when the growing consensus among scholars was that Christianity was a Graeco Roman movement with little connection to Second Temple Jewish culture and religion. It was MUCH easier to make mythicist claims in this climate, but in the past fifty years, that idea has been totally debunked. I have in the past criticised Carrier for having a poor understanding and inadequate training in Jewish culture and religion, and I wonder if his own theory is itself heavily influenced by the fact that his background and training is in Graeco Roman literature.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Now is that statement based on faith, logic or reason?
Faith,
Based on all available evidence to date no evidence of unicorns has been shown to exist however given that there are new speicies uncovered regularly a horse like animal with a horn is possible to have existed at some point in our evolutionary history.
Unicorn whales do exist and if currently we had never seen a Nar Whale I would bet your statement around whale unicorns would be that they do not exist. Or pick any other very interesting species that has been recently discovered. Prior to finding them and them being completely unknown did they not exist or did evidence of their existance not exist.
or how about
Life on other planets does not exist
Statement of faith, logic or reason?
Now your statement about an interventionist God requires a lot less faith than not believing a possiblility of a deist God and a lot less faith then believing in either God but when you make an absolute statement it requires faith.
