I am covering in this video some of the main talking points in debates between atheists and Christians.
83 Replies to “Atheists vs Christians: Who makes the better claims ?”
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These videos are creepy.
How do you judge “better”?
Better = more likely to be true.
Seversky, “How do you judge “better”?”
Sev, ought not you, a Darwinian materialist, ask yourself that very question? I mean really, under Darwinian materialism, where particles, the void, and selfish genes, run the show, there really is no way for you to judge whether anything is worse or better than anything else is. At the base of your worldview there is “nothing but pitiless indifference”
I mean really Seversky, the best you could ever hope to claim from your atheistic Darwinian worldview of ‘pitiless indifference’ is that evolution somehow gave you the ‘illusion’ that some things are better than other things.
In other words, your atheistic worldview is bankrupt as to ever providing a real and true standard to judge whether anything really is better or worse than anything else.
Whereas in Christian Theism, we do not suffer from such catastrophic epistemological failure. We have the infinite goodness of God as the real and true standard to judge whether anything is better or worse than anything else.
As Jesus himself said, “No one is good – except God alone”
In short Seversky, for you to even coherently answer your question “How do you judge “better”?” you must first presuppose the existence of an ultimate standard of goodness to judge by, i.e. you must presuppose the existence of God.
Honestly? Do you want my honest opinion? Atheists make the better claims, by far.
They are so rational, these atheists. That we theists all know, right? I mean, let’s be honest for once. They are so objective. Unlike us, they are driven by science and not by personal preference. For atheists, it’s about facts, science, logic, truth, and nothing else.
If there was any evidence of intelligent design in nature, a fight would break out among them to be the first ones to tell the world about it. The only reason this hasn’t happened yet is that there isn’t the slightest indication of intelligent design in biology. None whatsoever. Honestly. There is really nothing to report. Learn to trust science and reason, fellow theists.
Similarly, if there was any indication of our universe being fine-tuned, the slightest whisper of an indication would suffice, they would shout it from every rooftop they could find. However, it is simply not the case that there is any indication of the universe being fine-tuned. They tell us how it is with compassion. We should understand that they have to tell the truth, right? We don’t want them to lie, do we? Let’s get some self-control here.
The same thing with philosophy. Suppose that atheistic philosophers would experience even the slightest problem to come up with a naturalistic explanation of a rational free person, they would loud and clearly point out that this is the case. But the reality is that they don’t experience any such problems. Blind particles in the void easily explain the existence of rational free persons and all the rest. What problems could there possibly be? There are just no problems to report.
~ Good night all.
When man can only reference man then there is no higher standard. But man is not perfect, as we can see all around us. There are some who lead lives of virtue and criminals. But man has the capacity to learn and observe and make statements about what he sees to his fellow man. He might say ‘the world is like this’ while someone else might say, ‘no, the world is actually like this.’ Then men create scientific instruments and perform experiments. Why? To find out the truth. Deep down, most men prefer the truth. But some do not or would prefer an atmosphere of confusion.
Choice #1
In a world of “nothing but pitiless indifference,” what value does any claim for the truth have? Does anyone live in a world of pitiless indifference? Live or die, it’s all the same?
Choice #2
In an ordered world that is based on a standard that does not come from man but revelation, man has a context, a place from which to compare truths, including those from science, observation and Divine revelation. The natural man who excludes the latter is trapped in an environment where advances in science, for example, might help him live or do certain things, but that’s it. Death is the end and nothing lies beyond it. But we are told that death is not the end.
Summary: Much can be said about the work of men from ages past that inform our understanding of the present and the great scientists and inventors that made cars and computers possible. Yet there is something – a person – beyond ourselves.
Romans 2:15
“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them”
Otangelo/3
Good, now how do you assess which is more likely to be true?
Bornagain77/4
You are beating up a strawman of your own – dare I say – creation. Particles, the void, and selfish genes are a part of the picture but they do not run the whole show by themselves. Nobody really believes in that form of extreme reductionism.
Another strawman. The absence of a God does not prevent us from deciding which is the better of two alternatives by our own criteria. For example, military aviators might decide which of two fighter designs are better by comparing features such as speed, maneuverability, range and armament but those would not be appropriate to determining which of two medications is the more efficacious. Whether the Universe is one of pitiless indifference or a divine Creation is largely irrelevant.
As for our conscious awareness of objective reality, I don’t see it as an illusion but neither is it the whole picture. It is better understood as model in that it is created as a functional representation of what we observe via our senses but, like any model, it is not the same as the thing modeled. We know our senses can only abstract a limited range of data from all that is available out there but we use it to create a workable model that enables us to navigate that external reality reasonably well.
If by that you mean that atheism alone does not provide moral guidance, I would agree. That is something we have to work out for ourselves and we have the ability to do that whether or not there is a God.
Are you talking about epistemology or morality?
If you are referring to morality then, by the evidence of the Bible which is the only documentary record we have concerning God’s teachings and behavior, the picture is inconsistent and even contradictory. That is one reason why we have apologetics.
Are you saying that you only know whether something is good or bad is if your God tells you?
If one human being shoots and kills another is that good or bad? If the killing is committed in the course of a robbery or out of malice we would say it was bad but if it was done in self-defense or to protect the life of another we might judge it to be good. However, the Sixth Commandment is usually expressed as “Thou shalt not kill”. There are no caveats, qualifications or exceptions. It is we who choose the narrower interpretation of “Thou shalt not murder”
Unfortunately, there appears to be no God around today who we could consult directly to clarify the issue.
Relatd/6
Man can be set as a standard for purposes of comparison. We can conceive of beings that embody our worst aspects so are worse than we are on average but we can also conceive of beings that embody our best aspects and are thereby better than we are on average. The question is how do we decide what is better or worse.
That may be true or it may be a narrative we have developed over time to comfort ourselves in the face of a Universe that appears to be pitilessly indifferent to us.
This is the equivalent of the high school locker room game of “mine’s bigger than yours.” You just can’t make this stuff up…..
Sev: “Nobody really believes in that form of extreme reductionism.”
And yet I cited your hero Dawkins to show that Darwinian materialists, whether they honestly admit it or not, are inextricably wedded to “that form of extreme reductionism”
Sev: “As for our conscious awareness of objective reality, I don’t see it as an illusion but neither is it the whole picture.”
Of course you don’t believe that consciousness is a ‘neuronal illusion’ because it is blatantly obvious that consciousness can’t possibly be a ‘neuronal illusion’.
And in so far as you disagree that consciousness is a ‘neuronal illusion’ of the material brain you are in fact, whether you honestly admit it or not, disagreeing with the reductive materialism that lies at the foundation of your Darwinian worldview,,, a worldview which holds that consciousness is some kind of ’emergent illusion’ of the unconscious material particles of the brain.
Sev, you really need to get honest with yourself and realize just how insane your worldview actually is. You can’t keep reaching over into the Christian’s worldview, and, (ahem), ‘borrowing’ things, in order to make up for the gross deficiencies that are found in your atheistic worldview.
Bornagain77/9
That “pitiless indifference” passage is not a defense of reductionism, it is simply arguing that the Universe as we observe it appears to be indifferent to our existence. The following passage, however, shows that Dawkins takes the opposite view of reductionism to the one you impute to him.
Addendum:
One advantage to living a life of illusion (which is preferable to a life of delusion) is that BA77, Querius, KF, et al. aren’t real. Like Neil Young says: “I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream….”
Seversky @
Nonsense story. There is precisely no difference between a “hierarchical reductionist” and the good old reductionist.
If, as Dawkins says, units at level C are explained by smaller units at level B, and units at level B are explained by even smaller units at level A, then, in fact, level C units are explained by level A units. Old school “extreme” reductionism. It is that simple.
Who is Dawkins trying to fool here?
I can’t say it better than Origenes did.
BA77
Perhaps not, but you can definitely say it longer……
To add more clarity as to exactly where the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution fails, I think the George Ellis’s essay “Recognising Top-Down Causation” does an excellent job of clarifying exactly where reductive materialism fails,
Also of note to falsifying the reductive materialism of Darwinian atheists, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem has now been extended into quantum physics and demonstrates that, “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour”,,, The researchers further commented that their findings “challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
@14
Agreed, Dawkins’s “hierarchical reductionism” just is reductionism. It’s no different from Alex Rosenberg’s view, except that Rosenberg is consistent with regard to human behavior. Dawkins writes of a “robot’s rebellion” in order to reconcile his humanistic values with his reductionist metaphysics., but since he cannot explain how such a ‘rebellion’ is even possible, the result is just a mess.
Only those who share his own sneering condescension towards worldviews that don’t make people like themselves the culmination of human history.
At the same time, I certainly understand the impulse to make Dawkins and Rosenberg the representatives of “atheism” or “materialism” or “naturalism.” It’s easy to lampoon a view when the people taken to represent it are so absurd. It would be much harder to lampoon naturalism if one were to read a philosophical scientist who is actually good. But that would require reading, and who has time for that when there are so many people wrong on the Internet?
@17
Ellis’s essay (found here) is excellent. Unfortunately he defends emergentism, and since we all know that’s nonsense, Ellis is no friend to anti-naturalism. (Perhaps a frenemy?)
PM1, since, in my honest opinion, you had your philosophical head handed to you yesterday by Jblais over on the “god of the gaps” thread, it might behoove you to be a little more humble and circumspect in your own philosophical claims. I agree with you that materialistic reductionism is completely absurd, but your philosophy, from what I saw of it yesterday, can hardly be considered an improvement to the absurdity of reductive materialism, which, I note, reductive materialism happens to be the absurd atheistic philosophy which currently dominates science and our school systems
@20
Jblais and I are still having an enjoyable little sparring match, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
I wasn’t even attempting to articulate my own philosophical system. Jblais and I are just discussing whether a commitment to the principle of sufficient reason is consistent with believing that the universe has a transcendent Creator.
That’s just nonsense. It dominates neither.
PyrrhoManiac1/18
That was not the impression of Dawkins that I took away from his earlier books. In fact at that time I quite relished his take-no-prisoners approach to religious belief and his later elevation to one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism. I saw the movement – such as it is – as an almost inevitable response to the widespread oppression of atheism in the United States although it’s degenerated into a form of celebrity atheism more recently. Which is not to say that the cause is not still worthy.
That said I see that Dawkins’s written and spoken works could give the appearance of “sneering condescension” and that impression has become a little more more pronounced latterly. The problem for academics is that many of them give that impression – mostly unintentionally I think – to a lay audience simply by virtue of knowing a lot more about their specialization than that audience.
On the issue of reductionism, I read Dawkins’s response as a defense against the standard “nothing-buttery” attack on atheistic materialism. I should add that I first came across the phrase “nothing-buttery” in a critique of Dawkins’s philosophy by British Christian philosopher Michael Poole:
Origenes/
Is it?
Are you saying that there is no difference between methodological reductionism, which seeks to explain phenomena through a causal relationship with the next lower level in the hierarchy, and old-school extreme reductionism which is little more than a rhetorical device that alleges that reductive materialists are so dumb as to believe that everything can be explained entirely in terms of blind, fundamental particles in motion?
Seversky @
The extremity, you complain about, is built in. Materialism claims that everything is physical; everything can be exhaustively described and explained in principle by (particle) physics. You (and Dawkins) tell me that methodological reductionism gets to the fundamental particle level in a step-wise manner. What is the big news here? There seems to be nothing new in methodological reductionism nor in Dawkins’ hierarchical reductionism.
BA77: “which, I note, reductive materialism happens to be the absurd atheistic philosophy which currently dominates science and our school systems”
PM1, “That’s just nonsense. It dominates neither.”
Really??? Perhaps you can explain exactly why ‘bottom-up’ Darwinian evolution, which posits that mindless, unguided, material processes generated life, and all the diversity therein, via common descent, is mandated, by law, in schools. And/or perhaps you also can explain why ‘bottom-up’ inflationary cosmology is still the go-to explanation for why the universe has the macroscopic features of homogeneity and flatness?
Despite your denial, reductive materialism IS the dominate philosophy being promulgated in public school systems, universities and even in science as a whole.
Shoot, even questioning atheistic naturalism in public schools, and suggesting that life is best explained by ‘top-down’ Intelligent Design instead of ‘bottom-up’ Darwinian evolution, is enough to get you “EXPELLED”,
@22
My view on Dawkins’s “atheism” is precisely that of Terry Eagleton:
Dawkins, exactly like Stephen Pinker, conflates his specific cultural context with rationality as such, and is unable to appreciate how anyone might reasonably disagree with him. Since he doesn’t think there’s anything that theology could even so much as refer to, he doesn’t see the point of reading Tillich, Rahner, or Cone. But that doesn’t stop him from opining about how nonsensical theology must be. It’s an attitude just as anti-intellectual and reprehensible as that of conservatives who wax hysterical about “cultural Marxism” and “critical race theory”.
PM1: “Jblais and I are still having an enjoyable little sparring match, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
What tricks? Are you going to bite Jblais’ legs off? 🙂
Of course not. I’m going to turn him into a Scotsman. It’s the only way to win Wimbledon.
PM1@
Is truth among them? Do you hold that the Truth exists PM1? Do you hold that there is only one Truth and one Truth only?
Seversky at 8,
Problem #1: Military aviators do not design anything. A requirement is issued for an aircraft with a certain speed, range and bomb load plus a weight requirement. Aerospace engineers then hand in proposals. If something is selected, a test example is built. Regular pilots do not fly it, only test pilots. After various successful shake-down flights, it is ordered into production. Then regular pilots get to fly it.
Problem #2. NASA and Richard Dawkins would certainly like a word with you about this.
“Whether the Universe is one of pitiless indifference or a divine Creation is largely irrelevant.”
You have a worldview, it’s quite obvious. You live in Seversky Land where you, and only you, get to decide whatever. Anyone attempting to stop you from making your own choice is like a poison to be avoided.
Problem #3: Apologetics are to clarify and add explanatory material. It would not surprise me that anything you consider ‘contradictory’ in the Bible has been asked about and answered already.
Problem #4:
“Are you saying that you only know whether something is good or bad is if your God tells you?
“If one human being shoots and kills another is that good or bad? If the killing is committed in the course of a robbery or out of malice we would say it was bad but if it was done in self-defense or to protect the life of another we might judge it to be good. However, the Sixth Commandment is usually expressed as “Thou shalt not kill”. There are no caveats, qualifications or exceptions. It is we who choose the narrower interpretation of “Thou shalt not murder”’
You show again that you are no Bible scholar and, in at least this case, you want the Bible to say what you want it to say. Self-defense is legitimate. I have seen unpublished photos of American troops having Mass in the field during World War II.
Problem #5: Since you say there is no God around today to consult, what is your default position? The words of men? Books by men you admire that you’ve read?
Seversky at 9,
‘Maybe’ this or maybe that is not a good answer. If you are over the age of 30 I’m sure you have made plenty of decisions that did not involve maybe but a definite decision. And once again, men are not the best or highest standard.
CD at 10,
None of us could ‘make up’ your responses. Just sayin’.
Seversky at 12,
“Reductionism, in this sense, is just another name for an honest desire to understand how things work.”
“The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Richard Dawkins”
Do you think a blind man could invent and make a watch?
CD at 13,
And here folks, we have nothing worth noting or remembering.
PM1 at 18,
People on the internet can be wrong? Post nonsense? Illogical junk? Sure. But some people don’t. I keep track of those comments since they are worth reading.
Ba77 at 20,
The following should be realized by all.
“… reductive materialism happens to be the absurd atheistic philosophy which currently dominates science and our school systems”
PM1 at 26,
“Conservatives,” as you call them, have been watching the antics of the cultural manipulators quite closely. Watching their attempts to infect others, especially the young, with their “What WE prefer” talk. I read it, understand it and then reject it.
Right now, I am seeing another run at the ‘fake goals’ of the 1960s, relabeled and repackaged. The Total Strangers in charge of all this think no one is paying attention? We are.
Lol
“Reductionism, in this sense, is just another name for an honest desire to understand how things work.”
This absolutely blows my mind, what a cheery and optimistic way of looking at something that is used quite often simply to reduce and destroy meaning for things other people value.
Reductionism is a tool, so I don’t completely blame the tool, like I don’t blame a gun for the damage it does, but the people that use it are often enthusiastic nihilists of whom I do blame.
We have a plethora of examples of scientific individuals, miss using the idea of reductionism. This site alone has them posted all over.
How many times have we heard atheists like Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins reduce the values of life (particularly religion, and the consciousness) to chemical reactions
There’s no reason for them to do that, and it doesn’t help them get a higher understanding of them. They use it to strictly undercut religious concepts, love, and the mind (specifically in relation to the soul)
The tactic seems to be if you reduce it to nothing with explanations it will go away.
Helen Fisher is a good example of someone they got burnt by the concept of love (married 6 months and then divorced) and has made a career out of reducing the concept of love to biological chemicals in the brain.
Paul Zak is another good example of making a career out of reducing human mortality, love, and trust to oxytocin very like influence by his not great childhood.. His fallacious little Crusade finally came crashing down when we discovered the real functionality of oxytocin and it is most certainly not the love hormone.
Nancy Segal and her bazaar obsession with twin studies, stems directly from her fraternal twin and her need to reduce everything to genetics. She’s been called out for being a genetic determinist multiple times and tries to skate by that in interviews, misuses twin studies to support her personal view and her study methods are very sloppy.
People often use reductionism with an exceptional amount of bias. It can be helpful, but it is often abused by a certain type of philosophical atheist that really doesn’t like religion
Who remembers the logo of EA game company:” Challenge everything!”? We ,as kids, didn’t understand this was a self-defeating statement . All leftist ,progressive statements are self-defeating statements and we have plenty of examples here on UD : Seversky, PyrrhoManiac1, chuckdarwin , Viola Lee, JVL, etc.
@39
Just curious: can you actually identify any specific claim I’ve made as being “self-defeating”? Or are you just assuming that I must have made a self-defeating claim, because that’s what people with my kind of politics (or more precisely, what you imagine my politics to be) do?
(Apart from some arguments I’ve made about why it would be an error to judge Marx’s critique of capitalism based solely on the Soviet Union’s body-count, what have I actually said to reveal what my politics even are?)
PyrrhoManiac1/26
I think Eagleton’s acerbic review makes good points although it’s not helped when he veers towards ad hominem. That said, I find little to disagree with in his final paragraph except one claim.
The one allegation I would take issue with is Dawkins’ theological illiteracy, often expressed as a lack of familiarity with the fine details of modern sophisticated theology. I don’t know what Dawkins has read about theology, modern or otherwise, and the criticism might well be true but my question would be, so what? Belief in the existence of God is fundamental to Christianity. Pull that out from under and the whole apologetics edifice comes tumbling down like a pack of cards. Theological disputes become little different from Star Wars and Star Trek fans squabbling over whether a Galaxy-class starship could defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer in open battle. The only real difference is that the fans are – mostly – aware that the objects of their veneration are fictional.
And the antipathy felt by Dawkins and other atheists towards organized religion is understandable in the context of how atheists have been viewed and treated in the past and to a lesser extent now as illustrated by this article:
I would only add that when I saw Christian Evangelical clergy perform a laying-on-of-hands on then-President Donald Trump and claims emerging that he was anointed by God to lead the country back to greatness without any forthright repudiation of what, when I was still a Christian, would have been considered blasphemy, I could well understand how Dawkins and other atheists felt.
Seversky at 41,
Here’s the formula:
Create alleged victim group.
Collect the worst anti-victim group examples available.
Present to the public and hope for >> outrage <<.
Throughout my life, my first question to any strangers I meet is not "Are you an atheist?" However, during the 1960s, the U.S. Government told all Americans that we were in a struggle with "Godless Communism." Imagine that. A country where the official State "religion" was atheism.
So before you go after "Christian Evangelicals," who, as I understand it, are the embodiment of bad Christianity, consider the crimes of the Soviet Union where a neighbor could report a neighbor for saying something bad against the State.
I want to like everyone. I've always felt that way. But the Left's goal of creating groups of victims and groups of enemies is classic Marxist Class Warfare. Instead of working out our differences in a truly civil way, the Left has created the Enemies Class and the Victims Class. I'm sure you know who's on both lists.
The Left also believes, through self-appointment, that it is the ONLY means of solving problems. It has given itself a quasi-moral authority that denies to ALL religious leaders ANY moral authority.
It is Judge.
It is Jury.
And it is Social Executioner.
Because The Left – and ONLY The Left – knows that deep down, EVERYBODY is a Racist, Homophobe, Anti-this and Anti-that.
The Left is the self-proclaimed OFFICIAL ACCUSER of all men.
Don't look now friends, but we're talking about a Dictatorship here. The Left can and does act as a group of DICTATORS.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253394/harvard-scientist-the-wonders-of-the-universe-point-to-a-creator
Relevant to the question in the OP, one side has all the advantage.
No place in our universe is there a coherent discussion of why atheism is true. There are however thousands of coherent discussions for a creator. So the question in the OP is inane.
Aside: there is a rhetorical trick going on in the video. All the atheist supporters are made to look unappealing.
I am currently on a cruise, just closely passed KF’s Monserrat a couple days ago.
I have been going through old comments and organizing them. Here is one from almost 17 years ago that is relevant.
Agnostics.
Seversky at 46,
Ah, the middle-of-the-roaders.
I feel most of the arguments against God are just arguments of dissatisfaction, and really don’t have any bearing on God’s existence
Richard Dawkins argument about the left recurrent laryngeal nerve has no bearing on whether something was designed, or whether God exists. It’s honestly silly.
His argument is consistent with someone bitching about some feature on Microsoft Windows, declaring it’s poorly designed, and then claiming that Bill Gates doesn’t exist because of it.
Aaron @48
As to laryng. nerve thing.
(I said the following before, I will say it again.)
As you said, it is silly and beyond absurd.
Perhaps you know that I am a mechanical engineer (with decent background in IT).
There are 10,000,000 of kind of species on this planet.
Let’s say, that each of these species is made of 1000 of parts.
That means, 10,000,000 x 1000 = 10,000,000,000 parts.
How many design “flaws” did these Darwinian clowns find ? Out of 10,000,000,000 parts ?
Laryng. nerve? :))))))
This alone should rise eyebrows :))))
Each species is an engineering masterpiece.
Seriously, these people are not normal … that is for sure.
— Bertrand Russell (1947)
Smart, yet he was so screwed up on his thinking.
Zeus makes more sense than his beliefs.
It comes down to a matter of brain programming.
Die and find out what’s really going on. Afterlife/priorlife/no-life. We’ll all see.
It’s that simple.
Everyone has their view and you can argue till the cows come home.
Not going to settle the matter.
I’m a theist/creationist, of no particular religion, and I really hope I’m wrong.
Die and find out what’s going on.
Everything else is chin music.
RAM (I love you all!)
P.S. a good friend of mine died suddenly Sunday from heat failure at 63. Probably a good idea to be ready. At any age. At least for anyone who cares about death.
Death. It’s coming for you.
Ram at 52,
For the sake of others here, finding out after death will mean some will not repent and ask Jesus to come into their lives. Our lives are not our own. Judgment, not Death, is the key thing to think about.
Hebrews 9:27
“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”
Wiki on Bertrand Russell:
Question to my fellow forum members: what is the problem with uncle Bert’s opening sentence? What did he overlook?
O
“None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error. …”
If true at least one of our beliefs, not “none”, are true.
Vivid
Ram
“Die and find out what’s really going on. Afterlife/priorlife/no-life. We’ll all see.
It’s that simple.”
Yes it is!
Love ya back!
Vivid
Vivid @55
Right.
Jim Slagle puts it like this:
Stupid uncle Bert ….
Ram @52,
Condolences for your friend and your friend’s family!
Here are some thoughts. The world is filled with astonishing design of incredible complexity and beauty. Is there design or purpose for humanity beyond that of the great apes? If so, HOW would one expect to find out?
For some reason, humanity is able to recognize beauty, justice, and evil. Are these real or simply neural illusions?
Quantum mechanics demonstrates that human choice and consciousness can alter reality by collapsing probability waves into particles, so it would seem that consciousness and choice transcend the reality that it’s able to minutely control. so . . .
Is it possible that what we consider reality is a filter, a stage, or a sandbox of some kind? If so, what might its purpose, especially considering your theism.
Are we being filtered on IQ, athletic ability, business acumen, philosophical achievement, killing the most people in the name of social justice (kidding) or something else?
Definitely! So, that’s not the route to take.
Or maybe someone who died and came back . . . if you trust their story.
Kind regards,
-Q
Origenes at 54,
Bertrand Russell is a man who prefers vagueness. Such people should not be allowed to drive.
Bertrand Russell is a man who is honest enough to confront the reality that there is a lot we don’t know about the world – including ourselves – and strong enough to live with that unavoidable uncertainty. You can see the world in binary black-and-white if you prefer the simplicity – if it makes you feel better – but don’t kid yourselves that it’s more accurate because there is a whole lot you’ll be missing out.
Bertrand Russell is a man strong enough to want to project his own befuddlement onto others and lecture them on the “uncertainty” of their beliefs while baselessly arrogating a position of alleged superior understanding to himself.
O 61
Well stated.
“but don’t kid yourselves that it’s more accurate because there is a whole lot you’ll be missing out.”
Black and white much?
Vivid
Oh thanks Sev for reminding me of the atheist argument of intellectual arrogance and the delusion of being brave, because you believe in an unpopular idea.
Was Bertrand Russell a person to justify his beliefs?
No. Nor is anyone who challenges ID.
Seversky at 60,
“… but don’t kid yourselves that it’s more accurate because there is a whole lot you’ll be missing out.”
Tell us about this ‘whole lot.’ A list of what I might be missing out on would be helpful.
AaronS1978/63
President George H W Bush, in an interview in 1987, was asked if he recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists. He replied, “No, I don’t know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”
Is that what you believe?
Relatd/59
Would you prefer the arrogance of pretending to a certainty you don’t have?
Seversky at 66
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/12/02/did-george-h-w-bush-really-say-atheists-shouldnt-be-considered-citizens/
Seversky at 67,
I disapprove of the arrogance of the Woke Mob who believes that they are perfect and are THE ANSWER to all social problems. I was taught right and wrong along with my contemporaries. I have no reason to change what I was taught since it’s all been proven true.
I’m waiting for your list of “things I might be missing out on.”
OhReally/68
George Bush on atheists as citizens or patriots
Seversky at 70,
If those statements about George Bush senior, and others, are true, why didn’t atheists go to the Supreme Court or the ACLU?
Seversky is upset about a very questionable quote denigrating atheists?
If Seversky is really concerned with equal treatment between Christians and atheists, then why is Seversky not even more upset that atheists persecute Christians in academia with impunity? Or is it only OK for atheists to ruin a Christian’s livelihood, whilst even saying anything derogatory about atheists is to be punished and strictly forbidden? That’s a pretty unbalanced scale of justice you have there Sev.
relatd, the New Testament is loaded with false prophecies, false proof texting, and contradictions.
Maybe you should be a little humble.
Ram at 73,
Your claims about the New Testament are not supported by Catholic teaching. Humility is not required. Avoiding error and false accusations is required. I first became aware of attempts to discredit parts of the Bible through an ad in a late 1950s magazine.
Ram @73,
As you and I both know, this subject has been debated for nearly 2,000 years. Let me again make the points that
• Yeshua Ha’Nazaret was an orthodox Jew. He was not a “Christian.”
• The only scriptures Yeshua used was the Tanakh. The B’rit Chadashah hadn’t been written yet.
• The term “Christian” was used as a derogatory name for the disciples of Yeshua until as late as 170 C.E.
Both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud mention something miraculous that happened around 30 CE (which also happens to be when Yeshua was crucified):
Isn’t that strange?
Do you believe that the Tanakh is also loaded with false prophecies, false proof texting, and contradictions? Surely you must scoff at absolutely crazy prophecies claiming
• That there will be an invasion of Israel from the North from what’s now called Iran, Turkey, southern Russia, and several other countries.
• That the countries of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria are missing from the invasion.
• That the southern Arab States will be suspicious and object to the plan.
The prophecy goes on to state that there will be a massive earthquake and that Hashem will step in and annihilate the attackers on the mountains of Israel.
Another prophecy says that Jerusalem will be surrounded and that the weakest of the defenders will fight like David and the strongest like Hashem.
Surely you would agree that such an attack against Israel could never happen in this day and age, right?
-Q
:)) A clown would do anything to be noticed.
related: Your claims about the New Testament are not supported by Catholic teaching.
Who gives a crap about that?
Querius, if you’re really interested, let’s go elsewhere and discuss the problems.
Ram @79,
Thanks for the offer. Please know that
* Over several months, I’ve completed a class in Judaism at a synagogue involving at least a half dozen books on the subject, including all the objections raised against Yeshua as Moshiach.
* I’ve also spend at least as much time studying the Tanakh as the B’rit Chadashah. Some of that time is spent in researching the Dead Sea Scrolls and comparing the Greek Septuagint (c. 250 BCE) with the Masoretic text and its Rabbinic recensions.
* I’ve listened to a number lively scholarly debates between Orthodox Jews and Messianic Jews.
Thus, I hope you will at least grant me that the grounds for my trust in Yeshua is not cultural.
Realistically, I have no doubt that you cannot be convinced either of the teachings of the Rabbis nor the reality of the Messiah without some profound intervention for several massive reasons. In the meantime, consider this passage written to you by one of your own prophets:
Let me suggest that your own eyes will see this day.
Yes, this is more appropriately covered in a different forum.
Kindest regards,
-Q
Querius,
This kicks the teeth out of the Christian views of Zech 12 in two difference ways:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcWXDZdoxcQ
https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/analysis-of-zechariah-1210
Enjoy,
Ram
Ram @81,
Again, I’m well aware of 2,000 years of controversy that began with an orthodox Jew named Yeshua Ha’Nazaret, his Galilean disciples, and the Judean Rabbi Sha’ul from what is now modern-day Turkey.
There are a number of hotly contested passages in the Tanakh, some of which I checked directly from online images of the dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek translation of the Tanakh authorized by the Sanhedrin roughly 300 B.C.E.
Such arguments remind me of an argument between two farmers:
Farmer 1: “My farm is so large that it takes me an entire day just to drive all the way around it.”
Farmer 2: “Yeah, I had a car like that once.”
Regardless of the arguments, when your eyes see the fulfillment of what your prophets wrote, you will then decide for yourself.
Kind regards,
-Q
Querius is so taken in by arguments of reality and philosophy, and (contradictory) notions of bronze age philosophy and theology, when the Reality is a “black box” beyond time and space.
No humility at all. Querius is the worse kind of ridiculousness.
Enjoy.
It’s quite funny.
Those of us who know just laugh. Thanks for the amusement, Querius.
But don’t worry, you won’t be tortured forever. Or anyone else.
–RAM