Did Jesus Christ "argue" his existence ?
Did Christ try and convince anyone of anything ?

No !

He lead by "example" alone.

God asks you to have faith.

Faith = belief without proof.

If GOD wanted you to have proof there would be no need for faith .... which is all he asks for.

I ask both sides of this to seriously consider these words.

Fair enough. But the problem is that science is supposed to start with sound premises. Theistic logic starts with illogical unsound premises and moves from there. The starting point of the argument is non-sensical to anyone accept a believer. (and this is not restricted to Christianity of course.)

A theistic argument is then:
Christian says this is the world because Bible says this.
Islamic counters - clearly you are wrong because Mohammed says this.
Wiccan says - you're both wrong because nature goddess says blank.

None of them are starting with sound premises that have any more validity then one that says the universe was created by Marduk the giant turtle.

It is a mockery. The theist believes in a beautiful translucent cake, and the atheist pretends to eat it and says it tastes nasty.
But the second one only makes sense if you accept the premise that logic is only derived from science and philosophy, and is the only valid judge in assessing the situation, something which most atheists take for granted.

The atheists example I used maybe classic-logically derived. The theist example also follows valid classic-logical steps. It reasons from their premises, which include an objective moral God, if God exists.

This is a clear example of using the premise glasses of the opponent and saying: but look around you. If your premise was true, there is no reason to believe we don't live in an absurd world filled with competing Gods.

For me God has always been the God image. God is everything which we perceive to be a higher force. A fisherman praying that Zeus won't toss his boat or a farmer praying to Allah his crops grow healthy are both praying to the same entity or entity classes.

Fully agree. And I think we are moving in a dangerous direction if we allow theists to claim attacks on their religion, when they are ridiculed. Many only take offence if the ridicule holds a fragment of truth anyway, so ridicule helps to expose these truths. But feather and tar a person completely, and you can't see potential liberating truth from ridiculous nonsense anymore, the person just looks silly.

Talking with invisible sky demons again?

So that's where you get your information. That explains a lot.

[x] vicious mockery
[?] level

A valid point. My comment meets the broadest definition of mockery, ie.


I tend to think of mockery more specifically as

in which case I believe my comment would not fit the definition.

You need to watch some quality satire. Try Monty Python's flying circus. Life of Brian's a good place to start.

I think he was referring to vicious mockery, as I did, not lighthearted humour.

He frequently argued his divinity and doctrines.

Plenty of people, of plenty of things.

No, he led by telling others what to do. He occasionally healed them, but only after making them bow to him and declare their worship. He never sacrificed anything for anything until the end. Even then "humility" wasn't in his book.

You want people who don't believe in God to listen to what you claim God is all about?

This satire/ridicule vs. religion and needless offending-debate was subject of the TV-moment of the year 2007 in Holland. You can watch it here subtitled:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knRLJp-nqSg
It is an interview between 3 Muslim girls and 1 famous dutch comedian.

Life of Brian is hilarious. That bit about "What have the Romans done for us?" left me in stitches.

real new to this but fascinated. I remember when i was 19 and enamored of the Ayn Rand philosophy. Went from baptist to agnostic to presbyterian in forty years. A christian should expect mockeryand a god who has a sense of humor as genesis said we are made in his image. one of the posts talks about the relatively new concept of monotheism, but really, most ancient pantheons had a ruler, and many had one god. the sending of a son or a favorite to earth to try to tell humans how to live was not a new concept in jesus' time. because we have free will, we will "work out our own salvation in fear and trembling". I personally don't think many are real atheists, but rather should more correctly be called agnostic. the existence or non existence of god cannot be proved or disproved, and if so, using the scientific method it becomes hubris to say one or the other is so. i believe in god and am a christian. even if i am completely selfish, as defined in objectivist philosophy, it is in my interest in the long run to cover all my bases.

I do not "want" anyone to believe in anything, that they do not want to believe on there own.

Do I hope that others can feel the peace and happiness that GOD and Jesus Christ have blessed me with ?

Yes, of course I do BUT ultimately it's each persons individual journey and "their" own free will that they should follow.

I believe a time will come in every man's life that he will be faced with the truth and for some it happens sooner then later but GOD gives everyone a chance to choose and when it happens it is really no choice at all because the evidence will be obvious.

Peace out

Which information? I certainly get some information from there.

What does it explain? Both shows present real news of the day with insightful commentary.

I feel like you were trying to mock but I'm not sure you said anything particularly funny or hit any fundamental truth. But at least you're trying.

in the respect that we don't believe in the dogma of any religion, we are atheists. the modern atheist usually won't make the statement "i believe there is no god", because as you said that is not provable. the statement that can be made without a burden of proof is simply, "i don't believe there is a god", which implies that we have been shown no proof of a god, and thus have no reason to believe it exists. this doesn't say a god doesn't exist, just that there is no tangible reason to believe in one.

Perhaps we need to agree on what you mean by mockery. If you think all disagreement equals mockery then you are correct. The specific example you give is not a mockery in the sense that its said to make fun of the theists belief. Many examine the Bible and see a sick and twisted God. I would argue that theists ignore much of the Bible in order to maintain what they want to beleive.

Actually, I should correct what I said. You are right that there can be 'theistic logic.' In the sense that the logic can follow naturally from the setup. (the Bible for instance.) The problem is that there is no reason to accept the 'setup'. The premises itself is irrational. Theistic logical takes logical conclusions IF the irrational premise is true. The problem is there's very little to start with the premises offered by the various theists.

Is this an objection? I'm not sure I understand your point here. It is perfectly valid to say that.

But that is also problematic because then we're talking about an ill-defined concept. And when discussing the validitiy of the idea of something it has to be defined. If God to me is a magical bunny and to you its Zeus... we're not talking about the same thing. To have any meaningful discussion the people talking have to define their variables.

lol I think we're goingoff on a lot of tangents here.

shut up big nose

Make me.

Thank you for the clarification, furyshade. This is always the first question when we examine our life in the world: How did the universe begin? What is my reason for being? What is the prime mover in the universe? etc. I know you recognize this as freshman philosophy, but religion (including the way you are defining atheism) can and does serve as a useful paradigm while we interact and try to explain the unexplainable. To the subject of this thread, at least in the beginning, we should not mock the beliefs of others except maybe among people who believe the same as we do. But this has been said better by others here.

On the contrary. We should mock any belief that is harmful, dangerous, hateful, and/or unfounded.

Do you think we should avoid mocking the belief that the proper place of black people is in service to white people?

If not, then why do you tolerate the belief that the proper place of non-Christians is burning in a pit of pain?

First, I don't advocate a burning hell for christians or non believers. Nor do I proselytize in the usual sense of the word. I am not a literalist. Two partial quotations: there is no other name under heaven given among men by which you may be saved. Does this mean there might be a name in or above heaven? or : jesus saying: "i have other flocks". To the literalist there is no question what these mean. I simply don't know and don't claim to. I really don't think any serious historian disputes that there was a historical Jesus and that he was crucified. The real dispute for the past two thousand years has been was he the son of god or a great rabbi? There is at least as much historical documentation for him as,for example, Julias Caesar.
But to me, to speak to your other example, black servitude, yes we should speak up, ridicule, do what we can to stop this, whether we are christian or atheist. And we should not keep silent and run the risk of becoming the "good soldier". Slavery was a reality in New Testament times and before and after. It exists today as does the "tyranny of ideas". Paul said there is neither man nor woman and neither slave not free in Christ.

you want another visit from goliath's big bother?

Yes its doubtful theism will die out any time soon. Christianity is on the rise in Nigeria, Buenos Aires, Manila and quite a lot of 3rd World Countries. While Islam is on its way into Europe. Current projections are Islam catches Christianity by mid 21st century.

They even have Japanese Mormons. So quite a few churches are mobile.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/islam.htm

In the early days of poker players played badly. There were rushes. They played more badly against players perceived to be on a rush. In high/low split declare games some players wouldn't declare against the lucky player or at least was less willing to confront him. Lucky players would more likely receive free rides for their half of the pot.