Suppose I had a wealthy friend. I tell him “There’s a large oil deposit under the Antarctic ice shelf. You should invest money in a company I’m starting to go drill there.” Naturally my friend is skeptical since I didn’t give any real evidence that the oil is there. I tell him to write an essay explaining why he doesn’t believe the oil is there?

What’s wrong with this picture? Obviously, I should be the one writing essays defending my assertion that the oil exists — the burden of proof is on me. It’s always on the one asserting existence of an entity, not the person denying existence. Tell your friend to write an essay presenting evidence God exists

OP:

first, define "god"

then, provide a justification for belief generally


those are the hard parts. the rest should write itself from there.



eta: timestamp ownage

Same reason you don't believe in other supernatural magic claims. Critical thinking, reality testing, eschewing superstition ...

What's the difference between a "supernatural claim" and a "supernatural magic claim?"

"Critical thinking" presupposes a number of things, including (but not limited to):

1. A fundamental order to our world.

2. People are somehow capable of making sense of the world to some extent.

3. That people are capable of making valid value-judgements (e.g. "it's wrong to publish the results of a research project that purposely omits or falsifies data.")

One could argue that the three points above argue in favor of some form of deism/theism.

Furthermore, "reality testing" presumes that one already has knowledge of reality.

How do you know that the OP doesn't believe in "other supernatural claims?" Many atheists believe in numerology, for example,.

Please stop talking to me.

I'll make you a deal: Stop posting in RGT and I'll never talk to you again.

Tip of the Week: The "Add to Ignore List" button is your friend.

Yeah I've used it. Are you a Christian?

Yes.

Well the religion, like them all, is a mythical, fablist, legendary type of dealing with origins and morality, etc. But, and this is what tilted me, to exchange it for scientific metaphysics is beyond dubious.

Here is what happened. I wrote a book about about metaphysics, origins, spirituality, mysticism, etc. The very day I had submitted the final edits I was playing PLO that night at the Hard Rock Tampa. Somewhat amazingly synchronistically, soon included in my next book on synchronicity, a guy at the table made a prop bet about the amount of atheists at the table. They bet on it. It came down to me 4-4, theist versus atheist. I told him my just submitted idea of quantum field as the best candidate for god (it's everywhere/omni-present, houses all knowledge/ommiscient, and creates all via amplification). He says, "Well, if you have quantum field, or anything as god, you are a theist."

No biggie, just lame on his part. Then began the debate soon after on forums, and I just ran headlong into, "Yeah but Jesus created the quantum fields, Jesus knew all about quantum mechanics, like duh obvious, Jesus designed the Big Bang and all the billions of galaxies ...'

And it's just fukkin ignorant dogma, like that. So it was an insult to the research and to honest discussion. And, in my 50's, having never been involved in theist/atheist debates, I just didn't know what I was getting into: a fairy tale, a "just so story," sitting in for ACTUAL metaphysics, in effect reducing the Great Mystery to an idiotic nursery rhyme, with 100% certainty no less, having never read a book on the subject, just on faith. And using this kind of faith as virtue signaling, more than anyone else, to themselves.

Please provide a link to a valid argument with true premises in which the bolded is the conclusion. (Alternatively, please tell us why you believe the bolded sans an argument.) Thank you in advance.

It comes from an era when myth, fable, legend, story telling, magic were the currency of reality. Other options were not available. Either all of the them but one are superfluous, or all of them are. I'll go with the 99+% "fallacy." You are free to take your pick from the tabloids or the science books. Either one might be right. What's the diff? "You can't prove Jehovah is just a story. Or Odin. Or Thor. Or Zeus ..." LOL.

You must be trying to imply, without realizing it, that your belief comes from such a valid argument and premises. Let's see it. Or is it rather, "No, we are suspending rationality for this belief system ..."

"In support of our religion, we recommend the suspension of rationality in order to believe. For non-theists, we demand logical premises and arguments for their positions. Because we are apologists like that."

I agree. Which is why that fact is evidence FOR the belief that the book of Genesis is indeed of supernatural origin.

Correct. There is only one correct answer to "2+2=?" and literally an infinite number of wrong answers.

One of the many evidences that the Bible is of supernatural origin is the sweet fruit that is still provides to this day. Jesus Christ is still the post important person in the history of the world. Show us universities dedicated to Zeus, if you will. Show us great hymns sung today to Odin, if you can.. Show us many millions of lives being turned around almost daily by Thor, if you're able.

I take that as your way of dodging my question.

More Strawmen. (Where's my shock face? Found it: )

Please cite even one poster in this Forum for whom the above is an honest representation.

Are you this dishonest "in real life"? I hope not.

The importance of Jesus Christ stems from the fact that Jesus is the central figure of the predominant religion of the civilization that came to dominate the world politically and culturally, namely the civilization that developed in Western Europe in the aftermath of the collapse of the Roman Empire. For better or worse, it is historical fact that European countries came to dominate the world via a program of colonization and exploitation. Part of this program included (often forcible) proselytizing the Christian religion around the world.

Had the Greeks successfully fought off the Romans and engaged in a similar colonization of the world (which was technologically impossible at the height of Greek civilization), we probably would have many universities, temples, etc. devoted to Zeus. Jesus Christ is influential more because of geopolitics than because of any underlying truth to the Bible or Christianity.

Please share with us the life and teachings of Zeus that would even today be inspiring hymns and universities had the Greeks won out over the Romans. Thanking you in advance.

AUTHOR: James Allan Francis (1864–1928)

QUOTATION: Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was his coat. When he was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life.

ATTRIBUTION: JAMES ALLAN FRANCIS, One Solitary Life, pp. 1–7 (1963).

https://www.bartleby.com/73/916.html

JESUS CHRIST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN WORLD HISTORY:

This is from Massimo Lorenzini’s book A Reason for the Hope, pages 199-200:

Who is the most influential person in the history of the world? Nobody knows the exact
date of His birth, but His coming into the world split history into B.C. and A.D. He never
wrote a book, but more books have been written about Him than anyone else in history
and the only eye-witness accounts of His life and teachings have been translated into
more languages than any other writing (2,000+). He never painted a picture or
composed any poetry or music, but nobody’s life and teaching has been the subject of
output of music, plays, and all other forms of art. He never raised an army, but millions
of His followers have laid down their lives for Him. Every year about 330,000 are
martyred for identifying with Him.

During His public ministry, His travels were limited to an area about the size of New
Jersey, yet today His influence is worldwide. He never spoke to more than a few
thousand people, yet today His followers make up the largest religious group the world
has ever known. He had no formal education, but thousands of schools, colleges,
universities, and seminaries have been founded in His name. He never owned a
property, He had to borrow a boat to sail in, a donkey to ride on, and even a coin to use
for an illustration, but all around the world today thousands of hospitals, orphanages,
churches, pregnancy centers, and other buildings have been erected to carry out his
work.

Who am I describing? Jesus of Nazareth, of course. Of Him Napoleon said, “I know
men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other
person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar,
Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our
genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour
millions of men would die for Him.”

JESUS CHRIST: LIAR, LORD OR LUNATIC?

Here is a quote from C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity (pp.54-56):

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about
Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be
God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of
things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the
level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You
must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon;
or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising
nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not let that open to us. He did not
intend to.

Why you don't believe in God is because you are wicked, evil, want to do things He doesn't want you to do, developed disapproval of His morality because Truth is not convenient for your selfish purposes; whereby you convinced yourself that such a God must not exist. Instead, you are proud of yourself, obstinate in your disobedience. You do evil and call it good. You worship yourself.

Any god who stands in between and denies fulfillment is not worthy of the position. Fulfillment is God.

Lewis the skeptic, before his arm was twisted into conforming at Oxford, knew very well that the one most reasonable interpretation of the Jesus phenomenon was he was simply another teacher, nothing supernatural ... like all the rest ubiquitous in history and of the day. So job 1 was to take away this obvious option that undercut the reality of the religion. So he set up this fallacious, presumptuous, bogus dichotomy that is deceptive and apologetic at its core.

Boy that sounds like the Inquisition. Good job.

If you don't know aggrandizing propaganda when you hear it, if you don't know fables and fiction when you hear it ... then you just don't. I think you need to detail exactly what the effects of this religion have been in history, instead of conveniently leaving it unmentioned.