I thought it was about being meek, now you laud it for being the most powerful. Well one thing is right, it is the most powerful religion (because of money), and being powerful also has nothing to do with being true.

I submit this above post facto to the Scopes Trial, as evidence of the purely and desperately indoctrinated mind twisting and turning reality on its ear to smuggle in its irrational supernatural claims, and doing it with pathetically transparent lust for authoritarianism to rule this realm utterly from some other.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Having said that, I thought even you would understand that since the context of this dialogue is the Francis quote, that you would understand that powerful, in context, means the power to transform individuals and nations in a positive way.

I would like to encourage you to actually read the posts that you are responding to, and, if you're up to the task, understand the context of what's being said.

False. Christianity thrives even in some places where being a Christian can literally mean a death sentence. Or at least jail and having all your property confiscated. Google "Christians in China" or "Christians in Iran" if you want to actually learn about reality.

False.

Psychological Reductionism is the last refuge for someone without an argument. - Dennis Prager

Many, if not most, of your responses to my posts, fail to engage in what was actually said in the post.

Since you seem to have no interest in dialogue, I'll let you get back to your blogging.

Because you can't prove that none of those gods are the ones that actually exist and that it's actually you that's right.

I'm genuinely curious about how you convince yourself that your god is real, and Allah, for example, being the closest god to your Christian beliefs probably, isn't real? If you don't think Allah is real, then how do you explain over a billion people believing in him?

Because arguments for gods rely on logical constructs that can apply to any god that meets the criteria you assign to yours, you have no way to know if you're right that it's your god that actually exists and not one of the others, and that matters. You could be worshipping the wrong god.

You ought to be as equally agnostic about your god as you are about all the other gods and yet instead you have certainty. That certainty is unreasonable, you haven't justified it.

I didn't say you did or that it's a fallacy. It's simply the last hiding place of god, the things that we haven't yet explained using a different method, like the scientific method for example.

I find 'yeah but why are we even here' (i.e. a 'gap' that science hasn't yet explained) to be the most unconvincing and dissatisfying, and I have to say, intellectually dishonest reason for believing in a god. I have higher standards for my beliefs.


I'm using 'trivially true' to mean that it's very easy to show as true. We can use 'axiomatic' if you prefer, the point is that if it were that obviously true, why would I be in any doubt about it? More likely than all the dodges like 'mysterious ways' used to explain why god doesn't simply make himself known, is that he doesn't exist at all and we invented him, like all those other gods that you don't believe in and you think were invented.

I think maybe posts 135 and 136 in this thread will address virtually all of the above.

Well, I'll stick with my position that most of the religions are trying to do the same thing (explaining origins and offering codes of morality), are both succeeding and failing in the task, that the "mine is true and your's is false" comes from pure market share cynical manipulations and "I'm in the good tribe" mentality, that the supernatural claims in them emanate from magical thinking, superstition, and myth, that to the extent they are dogmatic and unchanging they require dishonesty and are counterproductive, and that the role that being in the religion plays in consciousness is totally lost on the indoctrinated.

How can religions be "both succeeding and failing in the task?"

How do you measure the market share of martyrdom?

Do you believe that non-supernaturalists are "in the good tribe" and that supernaturalists are not?

Please define "magical thinking."

How so? How do you justify these claims? Thanks.

No they didn't, not in the slightest, every religion can produce similarly biased anecdotal 'evidence'.

Given the extreme certainty of your beliefs about something that it's actually not possible to be sure of which would make you reasonably an agnostic like me, I would hope that you have very very good reasons to believe, and those passages weren't good, so... are you saying that you don't have good reasons to believe and that you simply want to believe?

I could actually respect that more.

Well, I give it my best shot.

I don't believe that any educated student of Religious Studies would concur with your statement here (unless the quality and quantity of the evidence is completely ignored). Maybe you have an insight that no expert on the subject (that I know of) has.

How can you know that it is impossible for me to be sure of my beliefs? You are either a psychic or are arrogant (or both).

It might help this conversation move forward if you share with me why you found my reasons unconvincing.

As an aside, I have neither the ability nor the obligation to convince anyone that Christianity is true.

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. - 1 Peter 3:15

I'm commanded to give an answer; but I am not commanded to convince anybody.

Although I agree with you, I feel compelled to point out that ALL the believers have is their belief! If there were objective, verifiable, repeatable, evidence of a phenomenon then that would be science!

So.... all they can offer are stories in old books, anecdotes, and philosophical arguments on the limits of understandings (and insert the "god of the gaps" argument).

So it seems like this discussion is doomed to go on forever.
Seems like a waste of time to me.

That's just silly.

At least we agree that Darwinian Evolution is not science (since it is not repeatable).

So, if I offered stories in new books, that would be fine?

Not sure why philosophical arguments are problematic.

The discussion will certainly end at the Great White Throne Judgement (if not sooner).

Yet, here you are!

Wow!
If you are a denying the validity of evolution then this truly is a waste of time. Just read any of Richard Dawkins books. If arguments of comparative anatomy and genetic similarity across species doesn't convince you then a 5 second google search on current experiments (which are hard to do given the human life-span) yields some cool stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution
https://www.discovermagazine.com/pla...ur-view-of-how
https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej201769
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...riment/581521/

Pass

someone asked you how you know the god you saw was christian and not muslim, hindu, buddhist etc. you did not answer. how did you know it was christian god and jesus and all that? what were the identifying factors?

Wow!!

I am not denying the validity of evolution. I do deny Darwinism. Evolution within species occurs, and has been well-documented.

Please highlight the links(s) above that have a human being evolving from a prior species, since that was what I was specifically addressing. Thanks.

Which religions have succeeded in explaining origins and/or morality? (Your earlier post noted that religions have both succeeded and failed at various times to explain those two things.)

Thanks.

Problem is, none of the above is comparable to the type of martyrdom that Christians have endured at various times and in various places. Christian martyrdom involves being killed by people who oppose Christianity. Suicide isn't martyrdom.

I agree. We're on the same page here, because I have never argued that Christians are better than non-Christians; but I have argued that Christians are better off than non-Christians because Christians have been forgiven by God, while non-Christians have not. That distinction is important to dispel the "Good tribe" vs "Bad tribe" false dichotomy that you proposed earlier.

I think that is a good definition of "magical thinking." I am grateful that I don't personally know any Christians that are engaging in "magical thinking" (based on the definition that you just provided).


I thought one your criticisms of Christians was that we don't give sufficient reasons and/or evidence for our positions. Apparently you don't hold the same standard of criticisms for your own claims.

Well put.
If someone believes and they get comfort from it, whats the problem, I dont see any.

And when those beliefs are incompatible with the beliefs of others and they start to kill each other over them and force them on others? Still no problem?

I was generalising but it's moot since anecdotal evidence is unconvincing to me, especially for a claim of this magnitude. It's an extremely poor standard of evidence.

Or neither. If it's possible for you to prove your god exists then do so immediately and put this interminable disagreement to bed once and for all. Do something that no one else in history has been able to do and that it would appear your god doesn't want you to be able to do. I've heard so many excuses for why God doesn't simply make himself known, but the most simple, and convincing, explanation is that he doesn't actually exist.

Probably for the same reasons that you find Muslim's reasons for believing in Allah unconvincing. Why don't you find their reasons convincing?

You don't have the ability to prove it's true? Then why do you believe it.

Right there is my entire point, that in the face of not being able to prove your beliefs, you should reasonably be an agnostic, you haven't earned your certainty. And you appear to have just agreed with that LG.

Thats a human problem though lack of tolerance, it does not have to be that way and isn't in the great majority of believers.
By the way I have no time for mainstream religions.

Since science only deals with the physical and ignores the supernatural, and gods are supernatural, it's not possible for science to prove or disprove gods. It simply has nothing to say on the subject.

While there are 6 billion theists and multiple mutually exclusive incompatible belief systems that are still causing mayhem, violence, and suffering in the world, this is a conversation still worth having.

It is that way though, and that's a problem.

And by believing, spreading, and helping to perpetuate those beliefs systems, the peaceful majority are contributing to the problem. They are the problem.