Hallo,
Ik ben op dit moment in discussie met een Amerikaanse Theist. Ik vond zijn reactie op mijn 'verhaal' nogal grappig dus ik dacht, laat ik het even ergens posten! Maar, er is natuurlijk nog een reden. Ik wil zeker zijn dat ik correcte antwoorden geef, daarom zal ik mijn antwoord (wel in het Engels uiteraard) ook hier posten. Ik hoop dat een aantal leden hier mij misschien kunnen helpen. Met name wanneer het neerkomt op passages uit de bijbel. Ik heb zelf nooit de bijbel gelezen. Ik hoop niet dat mensen dit opvatten als: "help ik kan niet nadenken, geef au.b. een antwoord voor mij" want dat is niet het geval.
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So, screw proof-reading. Here it is.
Well, if all you want to achieve is doubt, then congratulations: you won. Well, not you really. But your goal is met. The entire reason I am so knowledgeable is because I doubted and sought out information.
Christianity today is a perversion of what it once was. Matthew 22:37 - "And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."" People don't do that anymore. And I'm not just talking about hypocritical Christians that say they're Christians and then act otherwise (1 John 2:19 says they might not be Christians anyway). No, I'm talking about the sentimental garbage that is being taught in most churches and the complete lack of any intellectual basis for our faith. As a whole, it is a pathetic mess of sentimental idiots that mean well. In that sense, they don't deserve any intellectual respect.
M52 wrote:
I disagree. I do think that you bear the burden of proof. You are claiming the existence of something that can not be seen, can not be touched, can not be smelled, can not be heard or tasted. Now of course, there are cases where things exists outside of our senses, X-rays, UV, infrared, microscopic bacteria and other micro-organisms pop into mind. But in those cases it was always up for someone to prove it was real, not simply assert it.
And you are claiming that it does not exist. Both make claims. Neither is neutral. And naturalistic proof of a supernatural being is a categorical mistake. I don't understand why that is so hard to understand (Just about every atheist I've ever talked to has asked for this). If God does exist, he would not be made of Carbon, or any other element. He is not bound to any physical laws and as such it's kind of hard for me to make a prediction on something we have no way of understanding. I would give it to you if I could, but, alas, God doesn't like to be kept in a jar for study.
M52 wrote:
Any evidence that proves god's existence and can be tested over and over again yielding the same result and which yields a senseable (as in: hearing, smell, touch, seeing) result would qualify.
Evidence that we can verify time and time again and that integrates perfectly with our understanding of nature as we know about it today would qualify.
I'm assuming you also mean Naturalistic evidence here. Although, many scientific evidences are not of those senses or do they integrate perfectly. Science is about making new observations and adjusting theories accordingly the breakthroughs are the ones that DON'T fit perfectly. Just nitpicking.
M52 wrote:
Whilst I agree on the "problem" of knowledge I wonder what your "position" is. I personally think that the best position with respect to the factor of limited knowledge is to be agnostic.
Admitting you don't know would seem best and most neutral, in regards to the limitations of knowledge that is.
I believe in Revelational Epistemology. <I'll come back to this>
M52 wrote:
Why would that be the only explanation? I can think of several other options. How about the Big Bang for which we have testable evidence that it happened? How about the possibility that the universe is in an endless loop of creating itself and destructing itself? Perhaps even yielding the EXACT same universe everytime...
Most people believe a deity must have created the universe because the universe could not possibly create itself...right? Well the same applies to that very deity...how did he/she/it came to be? Don't give me the easy-way-out answer because you and I both know that, that answer (the deity always existed) can also apply to the universe itself.
There you have it. There is no logical reason to assume the existance of any deity whatsoever.
Big Bang just says there was something, which exploded into the rest. It doesn't account for the singularity at the beginning.
As for the infinite loop one, it has been more or less removed from consideration by prominent cosmologists and physicists. The physics isn't right for that kind of universe.
Well, I won't use that answer because I don't think God created Himself. Logically prior to time, God was. Therefore, there was no moment of creation for Him. He always has because he was before time was! He invented time and its very concept. The universe, however, is intrinsically bound to time. It cannot create itself because that is a contradiction.
M52 wrote:
Why trust one book? One book that your parents or grandparents (probably) introduced to you when you were younger? Why aren't you a muslim? Why aren't you a buddhist? Because you were raised a christian. Altough even in Christianity itself there are thousands of splintergroups who all take selective parts of the bible and interpret it in countless different ways.
Actually, it's a compilation of books in a common group. So, it's really not just one book. But, your point is irrelevant.
I'm not a muslim because their religion has so many contradictions it's funny. Not irrelevant one's like in the Bible. The Bible's contradictions are more or less completely unimportant and acceptable for 2 main reasons: The meaning is unchanged and any details changed to emphasize a particular meaning (small details, mind you) was acceptable Jewish practice. Now, they would not change anything relevant, but if you forgot about one of the blind beggars at the gate, what's the harm? The conversation is the same.
And Buddhism? Really? I can't take any non-mutually exclusive, relativistic religion seriously.
M52 wrote:
Why, out of the millions of books in existance, is this ONE book which has tons of contradictions in it, was written by anonymous authors, has several major translation errors in it and is over 2000 years old, why is this one book the "just" one?
Why?
You, sir, are vastly misinformed or uninformed. What contradictions do you speak of? There are some but they are almost entirely inconsequential most of the time. The authorship was rarely an issue as it was judged on it's content to be deemed canonical. Translation errors? I don't even know what that means. We have the original manuscripts within 100 years of Christ's death. In Hebrew, Greek, etc. Do you mean like ESV, NASB, etc? If so, I flat out disagree and if that's really a problem, I'll learn Hebrew. Also, it's age is also largely irrelevant. It deals with events of it's time and of metaphysical truths for all time. It's age is an interesting fact, but irrelevant in that sense.
Also, you seem unaware of the way religious issues were dealt with back then. Similar to the way that today we have scientific periodicals for people to publish their findings in, be disputed or verified, all of the books in the Bible were widely known and accepted by prominent church figures long before they were considered Canon. and not just regular believers, but the Apostles themselves approved many of them. Consider Gnosticism: it was pretty much the biggest heretical threat ever to the Church. You can look up the details, but suffice to say, it was SHUT DOWN by Irenaeus who took all their beliefs and showed how it was NOT true Christian faith.
People ACTIVELY kept Christianity intact throughout history.
Oh, and as for why "just this one"... That gets tricky. Technically, it's not. Scripture is anything considered to be God-breathed or Inspired by God. We largely limit it to those original canonical texts because claiming any of our modern to be God-breathed is kind of hard to verify. Especially today with so many different denominations. Back then, there was just one led by the original Apostles and their disciples and their disciples disciples. This discipleship kept the message of the Church intact almost perfectly. The differences were merely on the emphasis of certain things. Because of this, they could gather and all agree what was and wasn't God-breathed based on their faith and teachings from their mentors. Originally, our religion DEFINED the texts. Not the other way around. That's why it's just these books, because these books were found to match the principles and theology of the Christian Faith.
M52 wrote:
So I may assume that at one party you will tell me that the Earth was made old by god and at another party you will tell me that it is in fact 6000-10000 years old? I am nitpicking on the "usually" even though I find the idea of an "made old" earth ridicolous. Do you want me to believe that GOD put dinosaur fossiles into the ground just for the heck of it?
You will hear two answers from me: Mature Earth, where the earth was made old, or Theistic Evolution, where there was a distinct moment somewhere in antiquity that gave some human the first soul. ie, monkeys didn't have souls, Australopithecus didn't have a soul, Whatever the heck Adam was, did.
By the way, finding something ridiculous or just not liking an answer is not a category for determining truth. It fits both my religion and the scientific facts. It is a hypothesis made from factual analysis. Quantum entanglement is pretty ridiculous too. The idea that particles are actually waves or clouds of probability such that you can have an electron be on one side of an impenetrable wall, but if it gets close enough there is a chance it will exist on the other side is equally ridiculous.
And no I don't. He would have put them there to be consistent. Humans could not have survived on a sweltering molten rock of a planet. The only way we could survive is on a planet like ours. But with the physics he chose, such a planet could only exist being a certain age. So he made everything else old too.
By the way, I also believe God can be arbitrary sometimes. If you don't like that, then ask yourself why the Gravitational Constant is just so (not the constant but the meaning it's value represents). The Universe or God, either way, can be arbitrary.
M52 wrote:
I do not desire historical evidence. I desire testable and verifyable evidence. Whilst historically the bible is quite accurate, that I will give you, the rest of it is utter ****. Sure its ok to have slaves...sure its ok sell your daughter...The god described in the old testament (and even in the new one) is an utter psychopath.
I will not claim much knowledge of the Old Testament. One of the main ideas of the New Testament is that we are not bound to the Old Covenant. As for NT, why is the NT God a psychopath?
M52 wrote:
That may proof the existence of a historical Jesus (which I do not deem unlikely) but it does in no way prove that he was the son of god let alone that god even exists
'
Have you ever heard of C.S.Lewis' Trilemma? Jesus was either a lunatic, liar, or God.
M52 wrote:
I heard a few of those. The moral argument is complete crap in my opinion. I have never commited a crime and I am an atheist. I do have morals. Morals are not something that comes with religion. Such a claim is beyond ridicolous.
I didn't say I like them all. And you misunderstand the argument anyway. The argument is that we all have similar seemingly innate morals, which means there must be some objective absolute set of morals. Atheism may have morals, but they are not objective or absolute. They are entirely subjective and by convention.
M52 wrote:
You might want to enlighten me on those arguments though...
As for Transcendence...let me tell you one thing. As an ex-theist I have had some transceding experiences myself. None of which in retrospect were that unexplicable at all. But here is the thing. The world around me in the light of a scientific view towards life is WAY, way, way, way more transceding than the dull fantasies of religion.
Spiritual transcendence completely and utterly bleakens when compared to the beatifull and elegant reality of life.
Transcendence is not a leaflet for the existence of God.
I might have to since you misunderstood at least two. I don't like to use most of them for various reasons but they are good, at least for pedagogical purposes.
I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about with "transcendence." If you are talking about the "There must be a God because I feel him" argument, that is decidedly NOT it. I absolutely hate that.
I was referring to the Transcendental Argument for God's existence. Bahnsen uses it in the debate I mentioned and highly suggest. You will understand me MUCH better having read it.
The syllogism for the Transcendental Argument can be simplified as follows:
If there is no god, knowledge is not possible.
Knowledge is possible.
Therefore god exists.
The argument is then modified to support the Christian God. Obviously, you will disagree with the premise. This is where we will likely disagree at the axiomatic level and will both require the burden of proof as we are also both positively stating something.
If you think this is just a Christian sentiment, think again:
David Hume wrote:
In reality, all arguments from experience are founded on the similarity which we discover among natural objects, and by which we are induced to expect effects similar to those which we have found to follow from such objects. And though none but a fool or madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life, it may surely be allowed a philosopher to have so much curiosity at least as to examine the principle of human nature, which gives this mighty authority to experience, and makes us draw advantage from that similarity which nature has placed among different objects. From causes which appear similar we expect similar effects. This is the sum of our experimental conclusions.
Now, David Hume goes no further, but you can see that the idea that we can know things (especially via the scientific method) is entirely dependent upon the continuous consistency of the world, which is entirely unfounded (besides through experience which is circular reasoning). You will say that Hume says only a madman will doubt this, and I don't. But knowing that it is true does not prove it. I can prove it, while I do not think the Atheist can.
This, among other things, I would argue the Atheist cannot answer. However, I believe the Christian can with Revelational Epistemology.
M52 wrote:
I know I may sound very agressive in this reply but that is because I have little to no respect for religion. Most people somehow think that religion is priviliged to be respected. I do not think so. I think I may, can and will talk about the subject as I deem fit.
However do not take this as an offense towards you as a person. That is one of the things that usually occurs whenever I talk to theists. They feel rejected in a way....
Like I said earlier, my goal is to make you doubt and think for yourself. And just generally, don't be so arrogant as to say that ONE book holds all the answers...
I don't think that you should respect religion for it's own sake. I do think Christianity deserves some respect, because I think I'm right. It goes with the territory.
I am used to it. This isn't my first talk about religion online. I would ask only that you respect me and my beliefs on their merits intellectually, because I think they have great merit. By the way, even something wrong can be intellectually impressive.
I never claimed it held all the answers. Just a couple really important ones.
M52 wrote:
I just walked down to the kitchen and back to my room and asked myself this. Why do I care what you believe?
Here is why I care. If you are going to have kids and tell them that what you currently believe is the Truth and that your story is part of reality, that's when I start to care.
If you wish to continue to have the same beliefs as you currently have, sure, feel free. it's the 'imposing-it upon others' part that I care about. Or 'spreading the message'.
Now I do realize one could say the same of Atheism but I think there is a subtle difference. Atheism follows science.
Science, the same principals that got us to the moon, that makes sure your tellie works, that makes your cellphone works, that makes sure that we understand the human mind and all these countless other principals. That is the difference. Atheism teaches science as "the best reality we have". That is a slightly agnostic statement in itself which I deem good. Its humble and honest.
That is why I care. Because you might tell others a fairytale yet present it as the truth whilst there is a far better and more astounding approximate explanation available.
That is why I care.
And I respect you for caring. I too have a great fondness for science, math, and all the things that make our world go round. I spread this message because I think it is right. And, our results may be even more impressive than science, even if you can't see it. Christianity offers eternal life and above all, in my mind, Truth. It's not arrogant either. It is a personal belief of the metaphysical nature of the Universe and beyond.
Christianity and Pascal's Wager made me think of a funny comparison. Christianity is kind of like the E-cat: It'd be really nice if it were true, but we aren't betting on it. haha
well, I thought it was funny. (Side note: Pascal's Wager, while true, is a theological nightmare.