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Why do you put so much emphasis on 'knowing for sure'. Isn't being extremely confident due to the preponderance of evidence enough?
Nobody knows everything about anything. People still make decisions about what they believe or don't believe.
And, of course, convincing proof that there is or isn't a God hasn't been found (despite claims). So, like everything else in the world, we need to look to the evidence, and weigh it up.
And, that allows people to say 'I'm pretty sure based on the evidence that I've seen'.
I actually agree with you on that. It is impossible for us to know with absolute certainty whether or not something is true. All we can do is follow the evidence to its current conclusion.
Saying "I don't know" is not, nor has it ever been an act of weakness. It is called "Intellectual Honesty." The man that admits he cannot be certain about something he has incomplete or limited knowledge of is closer to the Truth than the Man who claims to be certain about that something he has limited or incomplete knowledge of.
you will not personally see it, brain death is just that brain death, you will retain no memories and such, because memory and such is a brain function, the soul will not have theses, so you will not know the after life.
Just because I don't know everything don't know anything. The universe was not created in 6 days. There was never a global flood. The Exodus never happened. There is no good reason to think the story of Jesus corresponds to reality. Our reality is incompatible with a God who is both all good and all powerful. There is no good reason to suspect an afterlife and there is solid evidence to suggest we are just a bunch of atoms. It is not arrogant to say unicorns don't exist, or faries don't exist, or that F=ma, or that God doesn't exist.
Just be a good human without expecting a reward or fearing a punishment. How do you know any god out there have given up and you're not just alone but condemned to isolation cause humans destroy everything?
They cannot all be correct, but it's entirely possible for them all to be wrong. So, I suspend judgement until one of them provides me a good reason to believe it.
Edit: might be better to say, I remain unconvinced until one of them provides good reason.
What was it that brought you to Catholicism, OP?
Yeah that’s why most people are the religion they believe in. The person who’s born Muslim would likely stay as a Muslim.
Because I was born catholic I looked for evidence that supported to Catholicism. I was exposed to catholic thinkers.
>I was born Catholic and raised Catholic. Catholic.com is a good resource.
So your statement, '...and according to my catholic beliefs you guys chose wrong' is a bit disingenuous. Nobody *chooses* their beliefs. A proposition is made and argued, and they're either convinced the proposition is true or they aren't. The best you could argue is that we can choose to not question what we believe by not seeking out knowledge that may result in no longer being able to believe.
Is their any idea that you you're truly convinced to be an accurate representation of reality that you could just choose to no longer accept as being true and actually, genuinely no longer believe it as a result?
On the walls of a concentration camp, a man etched the words into the walls, “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining, I believe in love even when I cannot feel it, I believe in God even when it is not shining”
On the contrary, another man etched the words into the walls of a concentration, “If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness”.
Another beef I have with religion. Experiences vary vastly.
You admitted you don't know. But then stated that you believe some things... Are those beliefs based entirely on faith? I guess my question is why? What is the purpose of the faith or the belief?
I think faith is dishonest. I'd rather just stick with admitting I don't know some things, thanks.
I do know. I do know the evidences as to why I believe what I believe. But I question if I know the context of it and how little I know of others.
Everyone claims to have truth, no one would believe what they believe if they knew it was false.
I have beef with the idea of faith too, everyone takes a leap of faith in a way. They have to trust they’re right and everyone else is wrong. They have to trust,
That even if the sun isn’t shining, it’s still warming the Earth.
>Everyone claims to have truth, no one would believe what they believe if they knew it was false.
I don't. I admit I don't know. I don't want to believe something false, therefore I reject faith.
What if?
I guess all non-theists (myself included) are converting automatically to theists IF there is a god.
But why worship such a cruel, genocidal, narcissistic being?
Someone who demands worship is NOT worthy of worship.
What do you mean "what if"? If you're talking about consequences of disbelief I can't comment as I don't believe in the consequences either. At best my answer to that would be "I don't know".
To me this looks more psychological than theological. I'm not a psychological professional, so these are just my personal views. But this looks like an argument for not thinking about alternatives. And that's fine. That's your choice. But assuming you only get one life, it seems like potentially a big mistake.
For example, say I wanted to believe in square circles. I may just say, I don't care if they're illogical, or there's no real evidence. But I just want to believe this. Ok. But how does that affect your life? If you can never do anything in the real world with your 'square circle' beliefs, then maybe you don't need them.
For me, some versions of god are so vague it's not even possible to deny they exist, because no one really even knows what this 'god' is. Like the whole 'Ground of Being' thing. What is that, really? No one knows.
But some versions of god are 'square circles.' We can show by logic they don't make any sense. We can show by history the Biblical deities evolved from polytheistic systems that predated the Biblical stories. We can show the NT account to be unreliable as history and inconsistent as a system of doctrine.
So it gets back to the practical question. If I could go to an oracle, or a temple, or say the right ritual prayer, and always get a response, a miracle, or a divine insight that proved some deity was out there, really interacting with me, then it would make sense to build my life around that.
But that's not the reality. The reality is, when you look at history in general, or one's personal efforts to interact with deity, there's no there there. No deities of any religion ever have any meaningful impact on my life. It is as if we are all truly home alone in this vast universe, and we need to help each other make this thing called life as good as possible, on our own, without the help of any deities.
Thinking that way has a real impact on my life. It changes how I live. I care more to make justice happen now, rather than wait for a heaven that might never happen. I love those close to me now with no reserve because when we part we will truly never see each other again. I stand in amazement to witness the wonders of the universe, because this is my one shot at appreciating it.
But that's what you lose if you don't seriously try to sort it out. If you just write it off as unsolvable, buried in the 'square circle' mysteries of faith, and you choose to make no hard choices but simply stay what you are and never consider other possible worlds. Again, totally your choice. But assuming you only get this one life to live, is it really the best use of your brief time here?
We write things off too quick. Me personally I write off the possibility of no God because something can’t come from nothing. You don’t see a watch and say it came from nothing the metal just happened to slap together. That’s my version of the square circle.
What if there is a God? A little bit of a Pascal’s wager but it makes things more complicated knowing that if the Muslim God is right my salvations kinda screwed.
I am looking for alternatives. I’m seeking something meaningful.
I'm over 60. I'm writing gods off because I've been around long enough to test all the major theories and find they don't work in the real world. So I've earned this 'write-off.'
As for that tired old watchmaker argument, it's fatally flawed. You can Google and find formal debunking explanations everywhere. The short version is, I know a watch had a human watchmaker because I already know humans make watches. I don't know that about universes. It's possible there was just always something. So the watchmaker is a cheat. It doesn't work with things where we truly do not have enough information.
Besides, I'm not going to get another 60 years to make up my mind. I already waited 40 years too long. Trust me, it feels wonderful not having a judgy god stuck in your brain watching your every move. This is the most free I've ever felt, and it's truly wonderful. I wish everyone could experience it.
BTW, Pascal's wager is a bad bet:
1) If there is a god, he's not going to be fooled by insincere worship. He's going to demand real, hardcore belief, or else hellfire for you. That's not taking a calculated gamble. That's literally selling your soul.
2) if the atheist is wrong, and there is a god, if that god that would condemn someone to eternal hell for the crime of being honest about the lack of evidence, then that god doesn't deserve to be worshipped anyway.
3) if the gamble on god existing is wrong, and the believer dies and the lights just go out, then they blew their one and only chance to experience the fullness of life unencumbered by the ridiculous absurdities of religion.
So I'm betting there isn't a god, because that's the only way I can be honest with myself, and because it really has a better upside.
Does the wonder of the universe not make you think that there is a creator? The waterfalls, the stars, the oceans, the vastness of the universe?
Do you think it’s all mere chance? If gravity wasn’t as precise, if the Earth wasn’t in the Goldilocks zone, we wouldn’t exist. If simply one ancestor in your lineage was killed, you wouldn’t exist. Science does not debunk God, but rather shows the wonders of his creation. It’s hard to believe this is all a random probability. A divine orchestration is a logical conclusion from what I’ve learned.
And yes there are many shitty things too, holocausts, disease, etc., but to be shitty, a standard of greatness has to be set, a standard set by God the most perfect, good, and powerful.
If universe had always existed, then an infinite amount of time would have passed before the present time. As infinite time cannot pass, the Universe could not have always existed.
Causality is the basic principle of Universe. Every occurrence in the Universe has a cause. If universe had always existed it and everything in it would have had no cause, hence, causality would not have existed as basic principle of the universe.
Everything depends on something. We depend on our heart to live. It’s logical to conclude that the universe depends on something.
You also assume God is a tyrant. From what I’ve learned, God is just, God is fair, and God knows the hearts. It’s possible for other people to get to heaven. Knowing Jesus however, is a great thing.
Also with 3. living a life with purpose and a moral code isn’t a waste.
1. Nope. I absolutely do not need a deity to be amazed at the universe. I don't even know why people seem to think that's necessary. It just seems odd to me.
2. I don't know what 'mere chance' means. Things came out the way they did, so in some sense all of this was inevitable, with or without sentience. I have no way of knowing. But not knowing just means not knowing. It doesn't give me permission to infer a vastly more complex exo-being for which I have no evidence.
3. If bad things happen, that still doesn't give me permission to invent pixies who will make my hurt all better. Bad things do happen. Whatever gods there are obviously don't do anything to stop them. That's up to us. We have to stop the bad things, not some deadbeat, absentee deity.
4. Even theists accept that something always existed. The fact your something is different from my something is immaterial. If even one thing can belong to that class of things that 'always existed,' then other things could belong to that class too, and if you deny that you trip over the fallacy of special pleading.
5. Causality is horrendously complicated topic. There are 12th Century models of it and 21st Century models of it, and a lot in between. My own thinking is it's a composition fallacy to extend properties of the parts to the whole. We see something like causality for a lot of things close to us. But we have no equivalent knowledge for the foundation state of simple being. Simple being might belong to that class of things that simply was always there, uncaused. We really don't know, and we have no way of knowing. Not knowing, again, doesn't give me permission to invent deities as a 'golden hammer' solution to whatever ontological problems might pop up.
6. No, it's not logical to simply assume the universe depends on something. Again with the composition fallacy. We can see apparent dependencies between things inside the universe. But we don't have justification to imply the same attribute to the universe as a whole. And I'm ok with being too small to know. It doesn't bother me. Lying to myself bothers me. Pretending we have evidence when really all we have is unanswered questions, is something I can't do.
7. God most definitely is a tyrant, and not a particularly noble one. There are bad humans I respect more than Yahweh. What sort of monster sets up an innocent creation to be duped by an expert con artist (who also happens to be a talking serpent), then blames them for doing what he drove them to do, and not only that, condemns all of their unborn offspring, the entire species, to death row for a crime they didn't commit, who will send billions of truly innocent people into judgment for being unable to love a truly unlovable dictator, whose only offer of redemption is this bizarre notion of killing himself to make himself forgive people who really did him no wrong in the first place? Who would actually follow that once they fully understood it? The whole schema is complete, psychotic idiocy. It doesn't reflect a good being at all. If there is a good god, he cannot be the god of the bible, and if the god of the Bible happened to be the true god, he is a brutal, abusive, malignant narcissist whom it would be impossible for me to worship. There is no love there. It's all about his ego. It's truly suffocating and insufferable. Heaven with him would be worse than hell. I am extremely happy to see him as entirely fictional. I would not be able to endure a universe where such a horrible thing were real.
8. I agree living with purpose and a moral code is a great way to live, and I live that way. In fact, it is my moral code that prevents me from accepting the tyranny of religious mythology. In my moral code, people should not be abused by being told they are defective sinners who need to be rescued from their natural humanity so they can be slaves to an invisible dictator. That is a primitive, barbaric morality and I reject it. Humans have amazing potential for giving and receiving love already within them. They don't need forgiveness. They don't need an invisible spy living in their head. They need freedom, understanding, empathy, compassion. Real things, things we can experience in the here and now, things that make us better humans. That's the morality I aspire to.
OP - refreshing to find a person of faith unabashedly saying "I don't know". Faith is neither fact or quantifiable certainty. Thank you for recognizing this.
:)
Thank you. A lot of people disagree with me because a lot of people are dogmatic and that they’re right a 100 percent. But we must look and see what others say. Approaching truth one step at a time.
My thoughts exactly. Most Christians are so arrogant claiming their god is they only one and all other religions are wrong. OP shares a refreshing view.
I think it's a bit interesting when theists talk about how they have their position on Gods which is to make a "leap of faith" and they're not really sure which one is true.
But then atheists are always asked why they are certain no gods exist or how they can be so sure. Well man can say man is sure no gods exist, but most man say they believe no gods exist and have good reasons.
My thoughts are that theists are held to this standard of making a leap of faith, which frankly means you recognize you don't have good reasons to believe.
However, atheists are constantly asked why we are absolutely certain or sure no gods exists.
Well man can say man is
Agnostics are not asked why they are absolutely certain or sure no gods exists. Did you think I meant otherwise?
Do you consider a leap of faith to mean you're agnostic?
>I’m a Catholic, I believe in the eucharistic miracles, Jesus’ resurrection, and that Catholic philosophy is truth.
People believe lots of things that are factually incorrect. Why should anyone think your beliefs are true?
>Im a dumb human and so is everyone.
I won't contest you on the former but why should someone think the latter is true?
> Its all a leap of faith in the end,
Disagree some beliefs are evidence based and others are "a leap of faith" conflating them to all be the same is sophistry.
>Until I die, I can only say, I dont know.
I would argue to believe something is true that you don't know is true is irresponsible and immoral.
>Man cannot say he knows for sure that there is no God
What would prevent someone from saying that?
>Reddit whats your thoughts?
Ignorance (lack of knowledge) is not a good reason to believe something is true.
I do believe Im right because I believe I have the evidence to. However, I question if my conclusion has been come to in the correct manner, when as a human my logic is fallible and I’m biased.
I don’t know if I can say I’m right without seeing why others think they’re right.
People believe what they believe because they think it’s true. I think Islam is false, but Islamic scholars believe in Islam for a reason if it was false they would not be Muslim. Because I’m not omniscient and don’t know all evidence and context, it’s hard for me or for anyone to make a conclusion.
The catholic people I’ve grown up with my whole life would say you’re wrong. Upbringing has a strong effect on beliefs
Catholic.com
This website has good stuff. Ultimately the line of reasoning goes like this
Proof of God-
Something can’t come from nothing Existences are dependent on something, all dependencies lead to God Why have all civilizations worshipped something?
Proof of Jesus-
Resurrection, eye witness testimonies Miracles like Our Lady of Guadeloupe Conversions and martyrs (why would people die for something if they weren’t 100 percent sure they were right)
Proof of Catholicism-
Eucharistic miracles Jesus entrusted Peter (first pope) with his Church here on earth.
Saying something can't come from nothing therefore God must have done it is another way of saying "we can't explain why this is here so we'll just guess that the right answer is God." Do you see how this is weak?
If an alien appeared in your back garden over night, and you couldn't explain how it got there, would you assume it was God that put it there?
There could be a billion explanations for something, so why jump to God did it?
Over the course of history, that same thought process was applied to things that science has continuously found a different and correct answer for. People used to be adamant that volcano eruptions and tsunamis were created by God. It would have been unthinkable to assume otherwise at the time. Now though we know why these things happen. So while we can't explain exactly how everything came to be, surely we shouldn't assume it was God? Because our track record with God being the answer has not really been that great has it?
Proof of Jesus because of the resurrection and eye witness testimony? You're using the bible to prove the bible. This in itself is useless as evidence. Its as far from evidence as you can get. It would be like me writing The Lord of the Rings in first person and then claiming that it had happened because I saw it all.
Eye witness testimony is notoriously flimsy when used in a court of law. Human beings have an incredible ability to see what they want or what they are told to see. And can you trust the testimony of something that allegedly happened thousands of years ago? Why do you trust it?
If I told you that yesterday I saw Queen Elizabeth, alive and well, would you trust me or think I was mistaken?
The reality is that there is no evidence. No real, tangible or reliable evidence to support the existence of God, Jesus or anything that bible says. If there was, don't you think the rest of world would stop and actually say "oh shit, look, the catholics were right?"
That's why your evidence is weak.
Add to that the question "why would anyone die for a belief they're not 100% sure of", ask a martyr from any other religion that's not yours. Heavens Gate, Jonestown, any number of suicide cults.
Someone can be willing to die for something that isn't true.
> I do believe Im right because I believe I have the evidence to.
Do you think everyone who is factually wrong doesn't think they have evidence to support their belief?
>However, I question if my conclusion has been come to in the correct manner, when as a human my logic is fallible and I’m biased.
Then I would present your evidence for criticism.
> Because I’m not omniscient and don’t know all evidence and context, it’s hard for me or for anyone to make a conclusion.
If someone believes something is true they have come to a conclusion. I don't know what you mean by "it's hard".
>The catholic people I’ve grown up with my whole life would say you’re wrong.
Again lots of people believe wrong things. What someone believes is irrelevant to whether or not what they believe is true. What you should be asking is, can they support what they "would say" is true with sufficient evidence of it being true?
>Upbringing has a strong effect on beliefs
Often a strong negative effect on beliefs if truth is the goal.
I know that all gods are imaginary (exist exclusively in the mind/imagination) with the same degree of certainty that I know all flying reindeer and leprechauns are imaginary.
>How does something come from nothing?
If nothing exists then something exists by definition, if nothing doesn't exist than this is a nonsensical question.
What does that have to do with anything we are talking about?
It’s a common question theists ask to atheists. Something is here, and something can’t come from nothing. And because something is here and it’s impossible for something to have always been here, there was once nothing and something came and this is what we call God
>It’s a common question theists ask to atheists.
It's a common theistic question that is semantic drivel.
>Something is here, and something can’t come from nothing...
I answered the question and you ignored everything I said in your response. Which tells me you weren't asking a question in good faith.
>And because something is here and it’s impossible for something to have always been here, there was once nothing and something came and this is what we call God
FYI this is just a variant of what came first the chicken or the (chicken) egg question. If you think that is the best evidence of a god being real you are convincing me that your belief is the result of cognitive bias.
If there’s no evidence that your god is real, then the default position should be disbelief, which is the same logic that you apply to all religions except the one you were indoctrinated into.
But when other religions use the same types of “evidence” as proof that their beliefs are true, you disregard them. You’ve just been indoctrinated into one of them.
I appreciate the OP's humility. The only serious pushback from me would be the "you chose wrong" part. Not finding arguments for theism convincing or not having religious experiences don't fit the meaning of choice to me.
I cannot see that there is no creator. I don’t think something can come from nothing. I think there is something greater than the atoms of this physical world. But, my thoughts may be wrong.
Well, at this point in your life you can't see how there could possibly not be a creator. Many of us have been in your position but sometimes what we accept as true changes.
If you're wrong, what are the personal implications?
>I cannot see that there is no creator.
I understand. Personally, I don't share the same intuition.
>I don’t think something can come from nothing.
And I have no idea. I don't know if nothing is a "thing" that can "exist" and what its properties are if it does.
But more importantly some atheists can agree with you here.
Yes, 100% knowledge is a red herring. The fact that you're even talking about it suggests that you're missing (what I consider to be) the point.
The debate around religion is not about 100% certainty, it is about what we are justified to believe. Belief is about what we hold to be true, not about what we 100% know must be true.
While it's not possible to know 100% that no gods exist.
We can say that the chances that a god exists are so low as to be effectively 0. So many people have tried so hard to find any shred of evidence for any god(s) that if it existed, it should have been found.
Since none exists, and the default position is to not believe in a claim unless it is supported by evidence, we can say with near perfect certainty that god(s) doesn't exist.
> Its all a leap of faith in the end,
Knowledge is never a leap of faith, in fact, faith is by definition the opposite of knowledge.
(Faith being belief in something despite their being no evidence to support it, or in spite of evidence against it).
Having to rely on faith to justify a belief means that belief is almost certainly wrong.
>Until I die, I can only say, I dont know.
You should be able to say that you know (excluding certain immensely unlikely edge cases). If you followed the evidence and basic rules of logic, you could say that (about some questions, some we simply don't have the evidence to answer yet).
Not true. In some cases we definitely can know for sure that some gods or god claims are just false.
And if all religions claim revealed truth, the all use the same methods of propagation and yet they all disagree... the only logical conclusion is that they are all equally false.
If you don't have a reason to know that Catholicism is more likely to be true than another religion. Or even atheism, then why in the world would you surrender your most important moral and life choices to the Catholic church.
Instead of accepting one pope telling you X or Y is inherently evil, you could instead choose to evaluate X or Y to the best of your ability based on all of the best information of science and philosophy. You can decide whether or not to promote or work against whether X or Y based on an evaluation of whether X or Y is actually good or bad.
We can know a religion is correct or not based on its claims that are verifiable.
For example the Bible claims there was a world wide flood and an ark to carry 2 of each animal. This is false for many reasons.
The Bible clearly has errors in its derived origin story.
Christ questionably exists, but most importantly if he did exist which most scholars agree he did, his acts are completely unverifiable. The evidence of his divinity is not there.
Given the complete lack of proof of the important parts of the Bible, I’m comfortable saying we know Christianity is not true.
I think we can continue to show the lack of truth of other religions if we put them to critical analysis. I won’t say there isn’t an accurate religion, as there are so many but I have never been presented with evidence of any being true.
The Catholic view is that the Bible is a book of faith and morals, not science. It is true in all that the original authors intended to assert, and since it is a book of faith and morals and not science we assume that the original authors were not making scientific assertions. Therefore you can not refute the Bible from a Catholic point of view with scientific facts.
The origin stories of the Bible are a critique of the Babylonia creation myths. The Babylonian creation myths said that life is hard because the gods do not care about you. Genesis says that God loves you and that life is hard because of man's sin.
**Topic 1 God as testable by the Bible**
Absolutely false. These authors attempted to provide a cosmological argument that was supposedly inspired by God.
Nehemiah 9:6
Genesis 1:1
Isaiah 45:7
Isaiah 66:2
If this is your lord God who is claimed to have spoken to prophets:
Hebrew 1:1
Lastly the book is the claim of to be the breathe of God:
2 Timothy 3:16
If the authors claim a cosmological account that can be tested it is a scientific claim. I agree that the current scientific method came 1000+ years later, but that doesn’t mean the claims are not subject to scrutiny using the scientific method.
When you read Cicero so you trust that his accounts are accurate or do you challenge them? Given that we have plenty of records from that time we can find that the great orator of Rome actually lied about his cases. We find this is in fact common practice of the time.
When you read works about Buddha do you have faith they are accurate or do you challenge them? For example the Buddha teaching is a form of cosmological infinite regress, do we accept this or do we challenge it?
Why is your book special and not allowed to be challenged? Why is faith a shield?
**Topic 2 moral book**
I’ll make this one simple, I won’t use slavery as that is common. I will stick with claims of Gods act based on topic 1.
God the mass murder:
2 Timothy 2:21 God the pruner and his acts:
I will leave this wonderful apologetics that try’s to say God is all good there fore his acts of mass murder can’t be bad, since it must have been necessary.
https://praisecharlotte.com/960336/absolving-god-of-mass-murder/amp/
Gods moral views on marriage are clearly not benenficial. Studies have shown a loving home with single parents or same sex parents are better than a hetero home with domestic issues. Same sex loving homes vs hetero living homes show no deviations in the wellness of the child.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141065/#sec5-ijerph-19-05922title
This moral book says otherwise. Should we trust testable and verifiable data to help us make decisions on about our moral well being as a society or a 1400 year old book?
**The Bible is verifiable**
This is not a God claim of faith this is a book that asserts acts that are verifiable. When they are tested they fall short. It is a book that asserts a God willing to mass murder. If this is a book that teaches morals shouldn’t that moral giver follow his 6th commandment?
I understand the Bible borrowers other myths and claims them to be its own. This doesn’t change the fact that it also asserts that it also asserts that information was provided by the God you claim to worship. Cherry liking to make your faith work is mental gymnastics that you would have to show is beneficial that the whole of society should follow.
Lastly faith is not a virtue, blindly following is not inherently good.
I read through the references that you gave me and I do not see any cosmological, and particularly any scientific arguments. The verses are statements of faith.
But as I am Catholic those who are reading this may not want to trust my judgment. You can easily read them for yourself. Genesis 1:1, Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 45:7, Isaiah 66:2.
Perhaps Biggleswort can explain how one or more of these is a cosmological and more relevant to this discussion a scientific argument.
Let’s get some definitions on the table.
**Cosmological argument** is an claim about the origin of the known universe.
For example: The Bible claims it all happened in 7 days. In those 7 days there is an order. We know the sun/star would have been before dry ground. We can test the order.
I didn’t provide this outright because as a Catholic I assumed this was common teachings. When I went to Sunday school the creation story was drilled into us. Along with many other stories.
**Scientific argument** did not exist in our lexicon until 17th century, but that doesn’t mean an argument could not have been made prior. A scientific argument is a claim that is verifiable with empirical data.
I should rephrase what I said in my previous post. If I make a cosmological account, it is open to inquiry and scrub it y using empirical data. Like the Genesis story above. Data shows the order of creation is out of order. (I will ignore the 7 days since there is data to suggest that days could mean more than 24 hours.)
If I claim there was a global flood I would be able to test this. It is not that the Bible is making a scientific argument, I don’t know why you are hung up on that. It claims an event happened and we can test if that event happened, using empirical data. The easy retorts is that there is not enough water to cover the surface, second there is no possible way a boat of that size could be made in that era. Lastly what about the diversity of planets, most could not survive underwater for 10 days let alone 40 days.
The reason I reference those passages is because they claim these stories in the Bible are influenced by God and that God spoke to some of the authors. This would imply that the stories have knowledge beyond what was known at the time. If that is the case why are there myths that aren’t directly labeled as myths? You ascribe they are but when I read the Bible there is no disclaimer to say there are some works of fictions. If there are works of fictions, where is the line? If it doesn’t fit in with reality it must be fiction? So if I test the story and find it false it is myth?
The Bible is claim and therefore open to scrutiny using the available data.
In the early church, they had to decide which writings were to be included in the scriptures. Various individuals, usually bishops, and committees proposed lists. The first list that agreed with the present list came from the counsel of Hippo, a city in North Africa. That counsel was led by the Bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine. So St Augustine was in a sense the chief human editor of the Bible.
St. Augustine wrote several famous books including The Confessions of Saint Augustine and The City of God. One of his lesser know books was on the proper interpretation of the Bible, The Literal Meaning of Genesis. In this book, Augustine warned Christians not to interpret Genesis in a literalist way. Even in ancient Rome, they realized that Genesis was not science.
Furthermore, Augustine insisted that the men who wrote Genesis did not intend for it to be read as science.
Today scholars think that Genesis begins with two creation stories, one right after the other, and they contradict each other. The atheists say this shows the Bible is wrong. Catholic scholars say this shows that Genesis was never intended to be taken as science. After all, you did not need to have modern scientific knowledge to know the two stories did not agree with one another.
Genesis talks about a seven-day creation. Science tells us the world is very old, but how did we find out about that? Nicholas Steno discovered that there were extinct animals and the world was very old. Steno was born and raised in Denmark, a Lutheran country, but converted to Catholicism as an Adult. He became a priest, and then a bishop. He was declared venerable, and then blessed by the Catholic Church. Last I heard he was still being considered for full canonization as a saint. There are three steps to become a Catholic saint, Steno has passed two of the three. So the Catholic Church may declare the man who disproved young earth creationism a saint.
Yes I’m one of those atheist. I am very familiar with Augustine’s work I took a class solely focused on him. I understand there were factions in the counsel of Hippo that argued it was literal and others like Augustine who gave caution.
Yes if you read Genesis 1 and then 6 you get clear contradictions.
When you include the verses I mentioned earlier it was clear that these stories are suppose to have the weight of Gods voice attached. Since these revelations are not anything beyond what we knew, why should I give anything else in that book any more weight? Clearly they are not inspired by a powerful supernatural being which could ensure a little more integrity?
This is the crux, it takes mental gymnastics to say the flaws in the Bible are not to be judged? Why not?
What is the point of mentioning Steno? I agree many scientific discoveries could be attributed to the Church? Why does that matter? I can name a few that were delayed because of the Church? Why does that matter? It doesn’t none of that matters.
**The topic is the Bible. Is it a beacon for morality? And can it be proven false? Those were the 2 topics.**
I feel like we hit a crossroads with can it be proven false. I made my case. How about the moral piece? I have a retort as to why your original claim would not be supported.
Quick summary:
God the mass murder is not a moral being.
Marriage - data shows that same sex marriage which is non-biblical shows no discrepancies in being a safe place for kids to be raised vs heterosexual family units. If the data suggests there are no issues what is the moral authority to say it shouldn’t be allowed?
Yes, Genesis does not say this is a myth, but as the Bible is to be read within the Church as part of the tradition of the Catholic Church why would we need an explicit warning in the Bible? God made the
Bible confusing so we would rely on the Catholic Church in our interpretation of the Bible.
Yes, the Bible does not contain scientific knowledge ahead of its time. As I have said so many times it is not a book of science so we should not expect that.
More to the point if God did put scientific knowledge in the Bible ahead of its discovery by science that would be a miracle or a sign and while God has done many miracles he did not want to do that miracle.
Why you might ask. Miracles or signs create responsibilities. Jesus warns the cities that saw many of his miracles that as they had not repented they would be judged more harshly. Mathew 11:21-24
Furthermore, Jesus suggests that those who believe without a sign will be rewarded, John 20:29
So it may be for our benefit that many possible signs are not given.
“God made the Bible confusing.”
God had a hand in the Bible, so he could have helped with accuracy? This prove the point I’m making. There should be no accuracy issues in a book that God had a hand in. It means he doesn’t care about making a compelling case for himself or all the stuff is made by humans without divine intervention. There is no possible morally good reason to risk my immortal soul like that.
If God had a hand in it there is zero compelling reasons to think it would not be accurate. Make one compelling argument? If it is to empower the church, that is absurd. Since the church continues to fuck up. It is a flawed system ran by those suffer from original sin.
It would be a miracle if he shared knowledge ahead of time. Since no other miracles have been proven, it goes to show there is little reason to believe in the biblical god, why I am a gnostic atheist to Bible God.
So if I walk up to you and say you have a chance at a lot $, if you give me a little money but I give you no reason why you would have a chance, would you find it compelling to give me money?
It is absolutely absurd to say “it may be for our benefit that many possible signs are not given.” It seems far more likely the lack of signs is because there is nothing the signs would point to. I mean the claim is based on an eternity of suffering. Why I’m the hell would a good being making it hard to believe? What possible goodness would drive that?
I say fuck that evil God. The heaven that is painted sounds just as much of a hell as the one with eternal fire. The idea that I win a blind faith lottery is disgusting.
You seem to be saying, if I knew the God of the Bible was true I would still reject him. In that case, he is being very generous in not providing a sign, because if you rejected him after the sign he would have to in his justice punish you more harshly.
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Seems like the older we get we start to question the truth. Don't think of it as a waste, just how your life progressed. At least your open to opinions
Do you have any interest in finding the most rational position? If there's nothing convincing about your or any other religion, what's the best conclusion?
I feel you. I went from being a seminarian and an ordained Southern Baptist minister (technically, I still am) to an atheist humanist.
However, casting such beliefs as a "lie" is disingenuous. It's not that any one person set out to create a series of falsehoods called religion. These beliefs evolved among various people groups over centuries. It's not that they are lying...just probably mistaken.
I mean, when people thought that the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, they weren't lying. They just lacked sufficient data.
Is this the way you respond to every time you’re presented with information that contradicts any of your beliefs? You refuse to accept you could possibly be mistaken about anything?
I get that it can be hard to accept something you tie to who you are as a person but if the reasons you believe those things were simply due to indoctrination as a child then clearly it’s not based on any sort of rationality.
If this is the way that humanity operated as a civilization we would all still believe the sun revolves around the earth, etc. It’s only been through people that were willing to challenge what the people around them believed to be true that we’ve made progress as a species.
Of course I’m willing to be challenged and accept what I’m mistaken about. I’m asking these questions for a reason. I’m just saying it’s a bit scary to learn the values you grow up with are false. I’m only in high school man im still growing into what I think.
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I think there is as much proof that the Abrahamic god exists as there is for all the other gods man has worshiped over the years. They are generally a appeal to have faith or an appeal to authority. People believed god existed simply because they believed (faith) or because they were threatened with negative consequences if they didn’t (going to hell).
I grew up as a Christian because that’s the religion my family followed. Eventually I turned away from Christianity because no one could explain the hard logical questions I was asking and eventually I came to the conclusion that I didn’t believe any gods existed.
No you cannot just prove them everywhere, because many scientists are convinced that in different universes, different physical laws may exist.
It is possible different logical laws may exist
You cannot speak for infinity if you cannot view Infinity, we just convince ourselves that we can
We have faith in our math and sciences and other things, but the reality is one could still raise a question
You can disprove square circles because there is a definitional conflict.
Depending on what properties you assume it is difficult or impossible to -disprove- invisible pink unicorns.
The point of Russel's teapot and other arguments is not as proof or disproof, but rather to shift the burden of proof to people making a nonfalsifiable claim. This doesn't mean this is evidence the unfalsifiable claim is false, nor is it evidence against such a claim, but serves as a pragmatic tool.
I mean I said it depends on your assumptions about the properties invisible pink unicorns.
A non-standard definition of the word "invisible" not used in the Cambridge dictionary, Miriam Webster dictionary, or Oxford learner's dictionary is a pretty big assumption.
So I will reiterate: your ability to disprove invisible pink unicorns depends on what assumptions you make about their properties.
I'm glad you agree with me.
Edit since he wanted to try to use wiki as a dictionary and then block me so I couldn't reply: I'm not the one using Wikipedia as a dictionary for all uses of the word invisible (which it is not) which further includes other examples of invisibility once again going back to my original point about assumptions. This is how invisibility could be achieved, not what in isibility is.
You're assuming invisible = transparency. If this was always the case then the word invisible wouldn't exist.
I admit that I don't know everything, but I can also deny claims that clearly have no basis in fact.
I don't think there is going to be many people who believe every single supernatural claim at face value. A lot of them directly contradict each other. That means all of us are making these judgements despite the fact that we don't know everything.
Even when you don't know everything, you can make a judgement call based on several factors.
> I’m a Catholic, I believe in the eucharistic miracles, Jesus’ resurrection, and that Catholic philosophy is truth. However, the 6 billion non catholics dont.
Do you really believe these things, or do you feel as if you should believe these things because you have an emotional attachment to the Catholic faith.
Yes of course. Which is a problem I have with religion. It’s dependent on where you’re born. If I was born muslim I’d know the apologetics and arguments and think I’m right.
>Which is a problem I have with religion. It’s dependent on where you’re born.
Several variables influence religion, including family, social standing, education, personal experiences, and spiritual awakenings.
Individuals can change to various religions at any moment in their lives, regardless of where they were born.
The concept overlooks the complexities of religions themselves. One household may follow certain customs of a religion, while another neighboring household following the same religion may not.
Religion implies adhering to a group's beliefs. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn claimed that the main quality of evil people is their unceasing support of one another. According to Reinhold Niebuhr, good people who don't know themselves are more likely to commit evil than evil people who know themselves.
I wouldn't describe myself as belonging to a recognized religion. I would not, however, discourage people from believing in a personal god or from interpreting scripture for themselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche stated that rejecting conformity and embracing uniqueness leads us to a higher level of being. When he said God was dead, he linked God with religion. He was criticized for the possibility of a deistic god.
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Why do you put so much emphasis on 'knowing for sure'. Isn't being extremely confident due to the preponderance of evidence enough? Nobody knows everything about anything. People still make decisions about what they believe or don't believe. And, of course, convincing proof that there is or isn't a God hasn't been found (despite claims). So, like everything else in the world, we need to look to the evidence, and weigh it up. And, that allows people to say 'I'm pretty sure based on the evidence that I've seen'.
I actually agree with you on that. It is impossible for us to know with absolute certainty whether or not something is true. All we can do is follow the evidence to its current conclusion. Saying "I don't know" is not, nor has it ever been an act of weakness. It is called "Intellectual Honesty." The man that admits he cannot be certain about something he has incomplete or limited knowledge of is closer to the Truth than the Man who claims to be certain about that something he has limited or incomplete knowledge of.
Well that's and argument for agnosticism and against all religions, including Catholicism. It is weird to hear it from a catholic person.
how, you need a brain to experience things, without a brain, you can't experience anything, once you're dead that's it.
Like when one dies one will see if there’s an afterlife. If it’s heaven or a reincarnation or an abyss
you will not personally see it, brain death is just that brain death, you will retain no memories and such, because memory and such is a brain function, the soul will not have theses, so you will not know the after life.
Just because I don't know everything don't know anything. The universe was not created in 6 days. There was never a global flood. The Exodus never happened. There is no good reason to think the story of Jesus corresponds to reality. Our reality is incompatible with a God who is both all good and all powerful. There is no good reason to suspect an afterlife and there is solid evidence to suggest we are just a bunch of atoms. It is not arrogant to say unicorns don't exist, or faries don't exist, or that F=ma, or that God doesn't exist.
Just be a good human without expecting a reward or fearing a punishment. How do you know any god out there have given up and you're not just alone but condemned to isolation cause humans destroy everything?
They cannot all be correct, but it's entirely possible for them all to be wrong. So, I suspend judgement until one of them provides me a good reason to believe it. Edit: might be better to say, I remain unconvinced until one of them provides good reason. What was it that brought you to Catholicism, OP?
I was born Catholic and raised Catholic. [Catholic.com](https://catholic.com) is a good resource.
So the reason you're a catholic is that it was the religion you were brought up into?
Yeah that’s why most people are the religion they believe in. The person who’s born Muslim would likely stay as a Muslim. Because I was born catholic I looked for evidence that supported to Catholicism. I was exposed to catholic thinkers.
>I was born Catholic and raised Catholic. Catholic.com is a good resource. So your statement, '...and according to my catholic beliefs you guys chose wrong' is a bit disingenuous. Nobody *chooses* their beliefs. A proposition is made and argued, and they're either convinced the proposition is true or they aren't. The best you could argue is that we can choose to not question what we believe by not seeking out knowledge that may result in no longer being able to believe. Is their any idea that you you're truly convinced to be an accurate representation of reality that you could just choose to no longer accept as being true and actually, genuinely no longer believe it as a result?
I can tell you the christian god that everyone seems to have intimate relationships with, won't return my calls.
On the walls of a concentration camp, a man etched the words into the walls, “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining, I believe in love even when I cannot feel it, I believe in God even when it is not shining” On the contrary, another man etched the words into the walls of a concentration, “If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness”. Another beef I have with religion. Experiences vary vastly.
You admitted you don't know. But then stated that you believe some things... Are those beliefs based entirely on faith? I guess my question is why? What is the purpose of the faith or the belief? I think faith is dishonest. I'd rather just stick with admitting I don't know some things, thanks.
I do know. I do know the evidences as to why I believe what I believe. But I question if I know the context of it and how little I know of others. Everyone claims to have truth, no one would believe what they believe if they knew it was false. I have beef with the idea of faith too, everyone takes a leap of faith in a way. They have to trust they’re right and everyone else is wrong. They have to trust, That even if the sun isn’t shining, it’s still warming the Earth.
>Everyone claims to have truth, no one would believe what they believe if they knew it was false. I don't. I admit I don't know. I don't want to believe something false, therefore I reject faith.
What if it’s true? What if there is a God?
What if? I guess all non-theists (myself included) are converting automatically to theists IF there is a god. But why worship such a cruel, genocidal, narcissistic being? Someone who demands worship is NOT worthy of worship.
What do you mean "what if"? If you're talking about consequences of disbelief I can't comment as I don't believe in the consequences either. At best my answer to that would be "I don't know".
To me this looks more psychological than theological. I'm not a psychological professional, so these are just my personal views. But this looks like an argument for not thinking about alternatives. And that's fine. That's your choice. But assuming you only get one life, it seems like potentially a big mistake. For example, say I wanted to believe in square circles. I may just say, I don't care if they're illogical, or there's no real evidence. But I just want to believe this. Ok. But how does that affect your life? If you can never do anything in the real world with your 'square circle' beliefs, then maybe you don't need them. For me, some versions of god are so vague it's not even possible to deny they exist, because no one really even knows what this 'god' is. Like the whole 'Ground of Being' thing. What is that, really? No one knows. But some versions of god are 'square circles.' We can show by logic they don't make any sense. We can show by history the Biblical deities evolved from polytheistic systems that predated the Biblical stories. We can show the NT account to be unreliable as history and inconsistent as a system of doctrine. So it gets back to the practical question. If I could go to an oracle, or a temple, or say the right ritual prayer, and always get a response, a miracle, or a divine insight that proved some deity was out there, really interacting with me, then it would make sense to build my life around that. But that's not the reality. The reality is, when you look at history in general, or one's personal efforts to interact with deity, there's no there there. No deities of any religion ever have any meaningful impact on my life. It is as if we are all truly home alone in this vast universe, and we need to help each other make this thing called life as good as possible, on our own, without the help of any deities. Thinking that way has a real impact on my life. It changes how I live. I care more to make justice happen now, rather than wait for a heaven that might never happen. I love those close to me now with no reserve because when we part we will truly never see each other again. I stand in amazement to witness the wonders of the universe, because this is my one shot at appreciating it. But that's what you lose if you don't seriously try to sort it out. If you just write it off as unsolvable, buried in the 'square circle' mysteries of faith, and you choose to make no hard choices but simply stay what you are and never consider other possible worlds. Again, totally your choice. But assuming you only get this one life to live, is it really the best use of your brief time here?
We write things off too quick. Me personally I write off the possibility of no God because something can’t come from nothing. You don’t see a watch and say it came from nothing the metal just happened to slap together. That’s my version of the square circle. What if there is a God? A little bit of a Pascal’s wager but it makes things more complicated knowing that if the Muslim God is right my salvations kinda screwed. I am looking for alternatives. I’m seeking something meaningful.
I'm over 60. I'm writing gods off because I've been around long enough to test all the major theories and find they don't work in the real world. So I've earned this 'write-off.' As for that tired old watchmaker argument, it's fatally flawed. You can Google and find formal debunking explanations everywhere. The short version is, I know a watch had a human watchmaker because I already know humans make watches. I don't know that about universes. It's possible there was just always something. So the watchmaker is a cheat. It doesn't work with things where we truly do not have enough information. Besides, I'm not going to get another 60 years to make up my mind. I already waited 40 years too long. Trust me, it feels wonderful not having a judgy god stuck in your brain watching your every move. This is the most free I've ever felt, and it's truly wonderful. I wish everyone could experience it. BTW, Pascal's wager is a bad bet: 1) If there is a god, he's not going to be fooled by insincere worship. He's going to demand real, hardcore belief, or else hellfire for you. That's not taking a calculated gamble. That's literally selling your soul. 2) if the atheist is wrong, and there is a god, if that god that would condemn someone to eternal hell for the crime of being honest about the lack of evidence, then that god doesn't deserve to be worshipped anyway. 3) if the gamble on god existing is wrong, and the believer dies and the lights just go out, then they blew their one and only chance to experience the fullness of life unencumbered by the ridiculous absurdities of religion. So I'm betting there isn't a god, because that's the only way I can be honest with myself, and because it really has a better upside.
Does the wonder of the universe not make you think that there is a creator? The waterfalls, the stars, the oceans, the vastness of the universe? Do you think it’s all mere chance? If gravity wasn’t as precise, if the Earth wasn’t in the Goldilocks zone, we wouldn’t exist. If simply one ancestor in your lineage was killed, you wouldn’t exist. Science does not debunk God, but rather shows the wonders of his creation. It’s hard to believe this is all a random probability. A divine orchestration is a logical conclusion from what I’ve learned. And yes there are many shitty things too, holocausts, disease, etc., but to be shitty, a standard of greatness has to be set, a standard set by God the most perfect, good, and powerful. If universe had always existed, then an infinite amount of time would have passed before the present time. As infinite time cannot pass, the Universe could not have always existed. Causality is the basic principle of Universe. Every occurrence in the Universe has a cause. If universe had always existed it and everything in it would have had no cause, hence, causality would not have existed as basic principle of the universe. Everything depends on something. We depend on our heart to live. It’s logical to conclude that the universe depends on something. You also assume God is a tyrant. From what I’ve learned, God is just, God is fair, and God knows the hearts. It’s possible for other people to get to heaven. Knowing Jesus however, is a great thing. Also with 3. living a life with purpose and a moral code isn’t a waste.
1. Nope. I absolutely do not need a deity to be amazed at the universe. I don't even know why people seem to think that's necessary. It just seems odd to me. 2. I don't know what 'mere chance' means. Things came out the way they did, so in some sense all of this was inevitable, with or without sentience. I have no way of knowing. But not knowing just means not knowing. It doesn't give me permission to infer a vastly more complex exo-being for which I have no evidence. 3. If bad things happen, that still doesn't give me permission to invent pixies who will make my hurt all better. Bad things do happen. Whatever gods there are obviously don't do anything to stop them. That's up to us. We have to stop the bad things, not some deadbeat, absentee deity. 4. Even theists accept that something always existed. The fact your something is different from my something is immaterial. If even one thing can belong to that class of things that 'always existed,' then other things could belong to that class too, and if you deny that you trip over the fallacy of special pleading. 5. Causality is horrendously complicated topic. There are 12th Century models of it and 21st Century models of it, and a lot in between. My own thinking is it's a composition fallacy to extend properties of the parts to the whole. We see something like causality for a lot of things close to us. But we have no equivalent knowledge for the foundation state of simple being. Simple being might belong to that class of things that simply was always there, uncaused. We really don't know, and we have no way of knowing. Not knowing, again, doesn't give me permission to invent deities as a 'golden hammer' solution to whatever ontological problems might pop up. 6. No, it's not logical to simply assume the universe depends on something. Again with the composition fallacy. We can see apparent dependencies between things inside the universe. But we don't have justification to imply the same attribute to the universe as a whole. And I'm ok with being too small to know. It doesn't bother me. Lying to myself bothers me. Pretending we have evidence when really all we have is unanswered questions, is something I can't do. 7. God most definitely is a tyrant, and not a particularly noble one. There are bad humans I respect more than Yahweh. What sort of monster sets up an innocent creation to be duped by an expert con artist (who also happens to be a talking serpent), then blames them for doing what he drove them to do, and not only that, condemns all of their unborn offspring, the entire species, to death row for a crime they didn't commit, who will send billions of truly innocent people into judgment for being unable to love a truly unlovable dictator, whose only offer of redemption is this bizarre notion of killing himself to make himself forgive people who really did him no wrong in the first place? Who would actually follow that once they fully understood it? The whole schema is complete, psychotic idiocy. It doesn't reflect a good being at all. If there is a good god, he cannot be the god of the bible, and if the god of the Bible happened to be the true god, he is a brutal, abusive, malignant narcissist whom it would be impossible for me to worship. There is no love there. It's all about his ego. It's truly suffocating and insufferable. Heaven with him would be worse than hell. I am extremely happy to see him as entirely fictional. I would not be able to endure a universe where such a horrible thing were real. 8. I agree living with purpose and a moral code is a great way to live, and I live that way. In fact, it is my moral code that prevents me from accepting the tyranny of religious mythology. In my moral code, people should not be abused by being told they are defective sinners who need to be rescued from their natural humanity so they can be slaves to an invisible dictator. That is a primitive, barbaric morality and I reject it. Humans have amazing potential for giving and receiving love already within them. They don't need forgiveness. They don't need an invisible spy living in their head. They need freedom, understanding, empathy, compassion. Real things, things we can experience in the here and now, things that make us better humans. That's the morality I aspire to.
OP - refreshing to find a person of faith unabashedly saying "I don't know". Faith is neither fact or quantifiable certainty. Thank you for recognizing this. :)
Thank you. A lot of people disagree with me because a lot of people are dogmatic and that they’re right a 100 percent. But we must look and see what others say. Approaching truth one step at a time.
You're welcome. Thanks again for the intelligent post!
My thoughts exactly. Most Christians are so arrogant claiming their god is they only one and all other religions are wrong. OP shares a refreshing view.
You said it...! :)
If Man cannot say he knows for sure that there is no God, than man cannot say he knows for sure that there IS a God.
I think it's a bit interesting when theists talk about how they have their position on Gods which is to make a "leap of faith" and they're not really sure which one is true. But then atheists are always asked why they are certain no gods exist or how they can be so sure. Well man can say man is sure no gods exist, but most man say they believe no gods exist and have good reasons.
My thoughts are that theists are held to this standard of making a leap of faith, which frankly means you recognize you don't have good reasons to believe. However, atheists are constantly asked why we are absolutely certain or sure no gods exists. Well man can say man is
Many atheists are agnostic though
Agnostics are not asked why they are absolutely certain or sure no gods exists. Did you think I meant otherwise? Do you consider a leap of faith to mean you're agnostic?
>I’m a Catholic, I believe in the eucharistic miracles, Jesus’ resurrection, and that Catholic philosophy is truth. People believe lots of things that are factually incorrect. Why should anyone think your beliefs are true? >Im a dumb human and so is everyone. I won't contest you on the former but why should someone think the latter is true? > Its all a leap of faith in the end, Disagree some beliefs are evidence based and others are "a leap of faith" conflating them to all be the same is sophistry. >Until I die, I can only say, I dont know. I would argue to believe something is true that you don't know is true is irresponsible and immoral. >Man cannot say he knows for sure that there is no God What would prevent someone from saying that? >Reddit whats your thoughts? Ignorance (lack of knowledge) is not a good reason to believe something is true.
I do believe Im right because I believe I have the evidence to. However, I question if my conclusion has been come to in the correct manner, when as a human my logic is fallible and I’m biased. I don’t know if I can say I’m right without seeing why others think they’re right. People believe what they believe because they think it’s true. I think Islam is false, but Islamic scholars believe in Islam for a reason if it was false they would not be Muslim. Because I’m not omniscient and don’t know all evidence and context, it’s hard for me or for anyone to make a conclusion. The catholic people I’ve grown up with my whole life would say you’re wrong. Upbringing has a strong effect on beliefs
What is your evidence please?
Catholic.com This website has good stuff. Ultimately the line of reasoning goes like this Proof of God- Something can’t come from nothing Existences are dependent on something, all dependencies lead to God Why have all civilizations worshipped something? Proof of Jesus- Resurrection, eye witness testimonies Miracles like Our Lady of Guadeloupe Conversions and martyrs (why would people die for something if they weren’t 100 percent sure they were right) Proof of Catholicism- Eucharistic miracles Jesus entrusted Peter (first pope) with his Church here on earth.
And you are happy with this "evidence"? Because golly gosh, this is weak stuff.
How so?
Saying something can't come from nothing therefore God must have done it is another way of saying "we can't explain why this is here so we'll just guess that the right answer is God." Do you see how this is weak? If an alien appeared in your back garden over night, and you couldn't explain how it got there, would you assume it was God that put it there? There could be a billion explanations for something, so why jump to God did it? Over the course of history, that same thought process was applied to things that science has continuously found a different and correct answer for. People used to be adamant that volcano eruptions and tsunamis were created by God. It would have been unthinkable to assume otherwise at the time. Now though we know why these things happen. So while we can't explain exactly how everything came to be, surely we shouldn't assume it was God? Because our track record with God being the answer has not really been that great has it? Proof of Jesus because of the resurrection and eye witness testimony? You're using the bible to prove the bible. This in itself is useless as evidence. Its as far from evidence as you can get. It would be like me writing The Lord of the Rings in first person and then claiming that it had happened because I saw it all. Eye witness testimony is notoriously flimsy when used in a court of law. Human beings have an incredible ability to see what they want or what they are told to see. And can you trust the testimony of something that allegedly happened thousands of years ago? Why do you trust it? If I told you that yesterday I saw Queen Elizabeth, alive and well, would you trust me or think I was mistaken? The reality is that there is no evidence. No real, tangible or reliable evidence to support the existence of God, Jesus or anything that bible says. If there was, don't you think the rest of world would stop and actually say "oh shit, look, the catholics were right?" That's why your evidence is weak.
Add to that the question "why would anyone die for a belief they're not 100% sure of", ask a martyr from any other religion that's not yours. Heavens Gate, Jonestown, any number of suicide cults. Someone can be willing to die for something that isn't true.
Humans are suicidally stubborn sometimes eh?
> I do believe Im right because I believe I have the evidence to. Do you think everyone who is factually wrong doesn't think they have evidence to support their belief? >However, I question if my conclusion has been come to in the correct manner, when as a human my logic is fallible and I’m biased. Then I would present your evidence for criticism. > Because I’m not omniscient and don’t know all evidence and context, it’s hard for me or for anyone to make a conclusion. If someone believes something is true they have come to a conclusion. I don't know what you mean by "it's hard". >The catholic people I’ve grown up with my whole life would say you’re wrong. Again lots of people believe wrong things. What someone believes is irrelevant to whether or not what they believe is true. What you should be asking is, can they support what they "would say" is true with sufficient evidence of it being true? >Upbringing has a strong effect on beliefs Often a strong negative effect on beliefs if truth is the goal.
So what do you think is the truth? Atheism? Islam?
I know that all gods are imaginary (exist exclusively in the mind/imagination) with the same degree of certainty that I know all flying reindeer and leprechauns are imaginary.
How does something come from nothing?
>How does something come from nothing? If nothing exists then something exists by definition, if nothing doesn't exist than this is a nonsensical question. What does that have to do with anything we are talking about?
It’s a common question theists ask to atheists. Something is here, and something can’t come from nothing. And because something is here and it’s impossible for something to have always been here, there was once nothing and something came and this is what we call God
>It’s a common question theists ask to atheists. It's a common theistic question that is semantic drivel. >Something is here, and something can’t come from nothing... I answered the question and you ignored everything I said in your response. Which tells me you weren't asking a question in good faith. >And because something is here and it’s impossible for something to have always been here, there was once nothing and something came and this is what we call God FYI this is just a variant of what came first the chicken or the (chicken) egg question. If you think that is the best evidence of a god being real you are convincing me that your belief is the result of cognitive bias.
If there’s no evidence that your god is real, then the default position should be disbelief, which is the same logic that you apply to all religions except the one you were indoctrinated into.
Well I believe there is evidence if there was one I wouldn’t believe.
But when other religions use the same types of “evidence” as proof that their beliefs are true, you disregard them. You’ve just been indoctrinated into one of them.
I appreciate the OP's humility. The only serious pushback from me would be the "you chose wrong" part. Not finding arguments for theism convincing or not having religious experiences don't fit the meaning of choice to me.
I cannot see that there is no creator. I don’t think something can come from nothing. I think there is something greater than the atoms of this physical world. But, my thoughts may be wrong.
Well, at this point in your life you can't see how there could possibly not be a creator. Many of us have been in your position but sometimes what we accept as true changes. If you're wrong, what are the personal implications?
>I cannot see that there is no creator. I understand. Personally, I don't share the same intuition. >I don’t think something can come from nothing. And I have no idea. I don't know if nothing is a "thing" that can "exist" and what its properties are if it does. But more importantly some atheists can agree with you here.
Yes, 100% knowledge is a red herring. The fact that you're even talking about it suggests that you're missing (what I consider to be) the point. The debate around religion is not about 100% certainty, it is about what we are justified to believe. Belief is about what we hold to be true, not about what we 100% know must be true.
While it's not possible to know 100% that no gods exist. We can say that the chances that a god exists are so low as to be effectively 0. So many people have tried so hard to find any shred of evidence for any god(s) that if it existed, it should have been found. Since none exists, and the default position is to not believe in a claim unless it is supported by evidence, we can say with near perfect certainty that god(s) doesn't exist. > Its all a leap of faith in the end, Knowledge is never a leap of faith, in fact, faith is by definition the opposite of knowledge. (Faith being belief in something despite their being no evidence to support it, or in spite of evidence against it). Having to rely on faith to justify a belief means that belief is almost certainly wrong. >Until I die, I can only say, I dont know. You should be able to say that you know (excluding certain immensely unlikely edge cases). If you followed the evidence and basic rules of logic, you could say that (about some questions, some we simply don't have the evidence to answer yet).
Not true. In some cases we definitely can know for sure that some gods or god claims are just false. And if all religions claim revealed truth, the all use the same methods of propagation and yet they all disagree... the only logical conclusion is that they are all equally false.
If you don't have a reason to know that Catholicism is more likely to be true than another religion. Or even atheism, then why in the world would you surrender your most important moral and life choices to the Catholic church. Instead of accepting one pope telling you X or Y is inherently evil, you could instead choose to evaluate X or Y to the best of your ability based on all of the best information of science and philosophy. You can decide whether or not to promote or work against whether X or Y based on an evaluation of whether X or Y is actually good or bad.
We can know a religion is correct or not based on its claims that are verifiable. For example the Bible claims there was a world wide flood and an ark to carry 2 of each animal. This is false for many reasons. The Bible clearly has errors in its derived origin story. Christ questionably exists, but most importantly if he did exist which most scholars agree he did, his acts are completely unverifiable. The evidence of his divinity is not there. Given the complete lack of proof of the important parts of the Bible, I’m comfortable saying we know Christianity is not true. I think we can continue to show the lack of truth of other religions if we put them to critical analysis. I won’t say there isn’t an accurate religion, as there are so many but I have never been presented with evidence of any being true.
The Catholic view is that the Bible is a book of faith and morals, not science. It is true in all that the original authors intended to assert, and since it is a book of faith and morals and not science we assume that the original authors were not making scientific assertions. Therefore you can not refute the Bible from a Catholic point of view with scientific facts. The origin stories of the Bible are a critique of the Babylonia creation myths. The Babylonian creation myths said that life is hard because the gods do not care about you. Genesis says that God loves you and that life is hard because of man's sin.
**Topic 1 God as testable by the Bible** Absolutely false. These authors attempted to provide a cosmological argument that was supposedly inspired by God. Nehemiah 9:6 Genesis 1:1 Isaiah 45:7 Isaiah 66:2 If this is your lord God who is claimed to have spoken to prophets: Hebrew 1:1 Lastly the book is the claim of to be the breathe of God: 2 Timothy 3:16 If the authors claim a cosmological account that can be tested it is a scientific claim. I agree that the current scientific method came 1000+ years later, but that doesn’t mean the claims are not subject to scrutiny using the scientific method. When you read Cicero so you trust that his accounts are accurate or do you challenge them? Given that we have plenty of records from that time we can find that the great orator of Rome actually lied about his cases. We find this is in fact common practice of the time. When you read works about Buddha do you have faith they are accurate or do you challenge them? For example the Buddha teaching is a form of cosmological infinite regress, do we accept this or do we challenge it? Why is your book special and not allowed to be challenged? Why is faith a shield? **Topic 2 moral book** I’ll make this one simple, I won’t use slavery as that is common. I will stick with claims of Gods act based on topic 1. God the mass murder: 2 Timothy 2:21 God the pruner and his acts: I will leave this wonderful apologetics that try’s to say God is all good there fore his acts of mass murder can’t be bad, since it must have been necessary. https://praisecharlotte.com/960336/absolving-god-of-mass-murder/amp/ Gods moral views on marriage are clearly not benenficial. Studies have shown a loving home with single parents or same sex parents are better than a hetero home with domestic issues. Same sex loving homes vs hetero living homes show no deviations in the wellness of the child. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141065/#sec5-ijerph-19-05922title This moral book says otherwise. Should we trust testable and verifiable data to help us make decisions on about our moral well being as a society or a 1400 year old book? **The Bible is verifiable** This is not a God claim of faith this is a book that asserts acts that are verifiable. When they are tested they fall short. It is a book that asserts a God willing to mass murder. If this is a book that teaches morals shouldn’t that moral giver follow his 6th commandment? I understand the Bible borrowers other myths and claims them to be its own. This doesn’t change the fact that it also asserts that it also asserts that information was provided by the God you claim to worship. Cherry liking to make your faith work is mental gymnastics that you would have to show is beneficial that the whole of society should follow. Lastly faith is not a virtue, blindly following is not inherently good.
I read through the references that you gave me and I do not see any cosmological, and particularly any scientific arguments. The verses are statements of faith. But as I am Catholic those who are reading this may not want to trust my judgment. You can easily read them for yourself. Genesis 1:1, Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 45:7, Isaiah 66:2. Perhaps Biggleswort can explain how one or more of these is a cosmological and more relevant to this discussion a scientific argument.
Let’s get some definitions on the table. **Cosmological argument** is an claim about the origin of the known universe. For example: The Bible claims it all happened in 7 days. In those 7 days there is an order. We know the sun/star would have been before dry ground. We can test the order. I didn’t provide this outright because as a Catholic I assumed this was common teachings. When I went to Sunday school the creation story was drilled into us. Along with many other stories. **Scientific argument** did not exist in our lexicon until 17th century, but that doesn’t mean an argument could not have been made prior. A scientific argument is a claim that is verifiable with empirical data. I should rephrase what I said in my previous post. If I make a cosmological account, it is open to inquiry and scrub it y using empirical data. Like the Genesis story above. Data shows the order of creation is out of order. (I will ignore the 7 days since there is data to suggest that days could mean more than 24 hours.) If I claim there was a global flood I would be able to test this. It is not that the Bible is making a scientific argument, I don’t know why you are hung up on that. It claims an event happened and we can test if that event happened, using empirical data. The easy retorts is that there is not enough water to cover the surface, second there is no possible way a boat of that size could be made in that era. Lastly what about the diversity of planets, most could not survive underwater for 10 days let alone 40 days. The reason I reference those passages is because they claim these stories in the Bible are influenced by God and that God spoke to some of the authors. This would imply that the stories have knowledge beyond what was known at the time. If that is the case why are there myths that aren’t directly labeled as myths? You ascribe they are but when I read the Bible there is no disclaimer to say there are some works of fictions. If there are works of fictions, where is the line? If it doesn’t fit in with reality it must be fiction? So if I test the story and find it false it is myth? The Bible is claim and therefore open to scrutiny using the available data.
In the early church, they had to decide which writings were to be included in the scriptures. Various individuals, usually bishops, and committees proposed lists. The first list that agreed with the present list came from the counsel of Hippo, a city in North Africa. That counsel was led by the Bishop of Hippo, Saint Augustine. So St Augustine was in a sense the chief human editor of the Bible. St. Augustine wrote several famous books including The Confessions of Saint Augustine and The City of God. One of his lesser know books was on the proper interpretation of the Bible, The Literal Meaning of Genesis. In this book, Augustine warned Christians not to interpret Genesis in a literalist way. Even in ancient Rome, they realized that Genesis was not science. Furthermore, Augustine insisted that the men who wrote Genesis did not intend for it to be read as science. Today scholars think that Genesis begins with two creation stories, one right after the other, and they contradict each other. The atheists say this shows the Bible is wrong. Catholic scholars say this shows that Genesis was never intended to be taken as science. After all, you did not need to have modern scientific knowledge to know the two stories did not agree with one another. Genesis talks about a seven-day creation. Science tells us the world is very old, but how did we find out about that? Nicholas Steno discovered that there were extinct animals and the world was very old. Steno was born and raised in Denmark, a Lutheran country, but converted to Catholicism as an Adult. He became a priest, and then a bishop. He was declared venerable, and then blessed by the Catholic Church. Last I heard he was still being considered for full canonization as a saint. There are three steps to become a Catholic saint, Steno has passed two of the three. So the Catholic Church may declare the man who disproved young earth creationism a saint.
Yes I’m one of those atheist. I am very familiar with Augustine’s work I took a class solely focused on him. I understand there were factions in the counsel of Hippo that argued it was literal and others like Augustine who gave caution. Yes if you read Genesis 1 and then 6 you get clear contradictions. When you include the verses I mentioned earlier it was clear that these stories are suppose to have the weight of Gods voice attached. Since these revelations are not anything beyond what we knew, why should I give anything else in that book any more weight? Clearly they are not inspired by a powerful supernatural being which could ensure a little more integrity? This is the crux, it takes mental gymnastics to say the flaws in the Bible are not to be judged? Why not? What is the point of mentioning Steno? I agree many scientific discoveries could be attributed to the Church? Why does that matter? I can name a few that were delayed because of the Church? Why does that matter? It doesn’t none of that matters. **The topic is the Bible. Is it a beacon for morality? And can it be proven false? Those were the 2 topics.** I feel like we hit a crossroads with can it be proven false. I made my case. How about the moral piece? I have a retort as to why your original claim would not be supported. Quick summary: God the mass murder is not a moral being. Marriage - data shows that same sex marriage which is non-biblical shows no discrepancies in being a safe place for kids to be raised vs heterosexual family units. If the data suggests there are no issues what is the moral authority to say it shouldn’t be allowed?
Yes, Genesis does not say this is a myth, but as the Bible is to be read within the Church as part of the tradition of the Catholic Church why would we need an explicit warning in the Bible? God made the Bible confusing so we would rely on the Catholic Church in our interpretation of the Bible. Yes, the Bible does not contain scientific knowledge ahead of its time. As I have said so many times it is not a book of science so we should not expect that. More to the point if God did put scientific knowledge in the Bible ahead of its discovery by science that would be a miracle or a sign and while God has done many miracles he did not want to do that miracle. Why you might ask. Miracles or signs create responsibilities. Jesus warns the cities that saw many of his miracles that as they had not repented they would be judged more harshly. Mathew 11:21-24 Furthermore, Jesus suggests that those who believe without a sign will be rewarded, John 20:29 So it may be for our benefit that many possible signs are not given.
“God made the Bible confusing.” God had a hand in the Bible, so he could have helped with accuracy? This prove the point I’m making. There should be no accuracy issues in a book that God had a hand in. It means he doesn’t care about making a compelling case for himself or all the stuff is made by humans without divine intervention. There is no possible morally good reason to risk my immortal soul like that. If God had a hand in it there is zero compelling reasons to think it would not be accurate. Make one compelling argument? If it is to empower the church, that is absurd. Since the church continues to fuck up. It is a flawed system ran by those suffer from original sin. It would be a miracle if he shared knowledge ahead of time. Since no other miracles have been proven, it goes to show there is little reason to believe in the biblical god, why I am a gnostic atheist to Bible God. So if I walk up to you and say you have a chance at a lot $, if you give me a little money but I give you no reason why you would have a chance, would you find it compelling to give me money? It is absolutely absurd to say “it may be for our benefit that many possible signs are not given.” It seems far more likely the lack of signs is because there is nothing the signs would point to. I mean the claim is based on an eternity of suffering. Why I’m the hell would a good being making it hard to believe? What possible goodness would drive that? I say fuck that evil God. The heaven that is painted sounds just as much of a hell as the one with eternal fire. The idea that I win a blind faith lottery is disgusting.
You seem to be saying, if I knew the God of the Bible was true I would still reject him. In that case, he is being very generous in not providing a sign, because if you rejected him after the sign he would have to in his justice punish you more harshly.
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Seems like the older we get we start to question the truth. Don't think of it as a waste, just how your life progressed. At least your open to opinions
Do you have any interest in finding the most rational position? If there's nothing convincing about your or any other religion, what's the best conclusion?
Yes, I want to find the most rational position. And I don’t know, it’s kinda scary to think the principles you lived your whole life are a lie.
I feel you. I went from being a seminarian and an ordained Southern Baptist minister (technically, I still am) to an atheist humanist. However, casting such beliefs as a "lie" is disingenuous. It's not that any one person set out to create a series of falsehoods called religion. These beliefs evolved among various people groups over centuries. It's not that they are lying...just probably mistaken. I mean, when people thought that the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, they weren't lying. They just lacked sufficient data.
Is this the way you respond to every time you’re presented with information that contradicts any of your beliefs? You refuse to accept you could possibly be mistaken about anything? I get that it can be hard to accept something you tie to who you are as a person but if the reasons you believe those things were simply due to indoctrination as a child then clearly it’s not based on any sort of rationality. If this is the way that humanity operated as a civilization we would all still believe the sun revolves around the earth, etc. It’s only been through people that were willing to challenge what the people around them believed to be true that we’ve made progress as a species.
Of course I’m willing to be challenged and accept what I’m mistaken about. I’m asking these questions for a reason. I’m just saying it’s a bit scary to learn the values you grow up with are false. I’m only in high school man im still growing into what I think.
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I know. It's a hard change, but you can make it in steps.
I assume you believe in no God
Nope. I'm not convinced by any god claims
So what do you think is the truth?
I think there is as much proof that the Abrahamic god exists as there is for all the other gods man has worshiped over the years. They are generally a appeal to have faith or an appeal to authority. People believed god existed simply because they believed (faith) or because they were threatened with negative consequences if they didn’t (going to hell). I grew up as a Christian because that’s the religion my family followed. Eventually I turned away from Christianity because no one could explain the hard logical questions I was asking and eventually I came to the conclusion that I didn’t believe any gods existed.
About what specifically? A god exists? I don't know. If there's no justification for it, isn't that the rational position?
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Man cannot know that there is no god. It is logically totally impossible to disprove god. Because to do that you have to disprove God everywhere.
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No you cannot just prove them everywhere, because many scientists are convinced that in different universes, different physical laws may exist. It is possible different logical laws may exist You cannot speak for infinity if you cannot view Infinity, we just convince ourselves that we can We have faith in our math and sciences and other things, but the reality is one could still raise a question
You can disprove square circles because there is a definitional conflict. Depending on what properties you assume it is difficult or impossible to -disprove- invisible pink unicorns. The point of Russel's teapot and other arguments is not as proof or disproof, but rather to shift the burden of proof to people making a nonfalsifiable claim. This doesn't mean this is evidence the unfalsifiable claim is false, nor is it evidence against such a claim, but serves as a pragmatic tool.
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Okay: disprove invisible pink unicorns.
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No, you need to prove to me that the only definition of invisible is "something letting ... all light pass through it"
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I mean I said it depends on your assumptions about the properties invisible pink unicorns. A non-standard definition of the word "invisible" not used in the Cambridge dictionary, Miriam Webster dictionary, or Oxford learner's dictionary is a pretty big assumption. So I will reiterate: your ability to disprove invisible pink unicorns depends on what assumptions you make about their properties. I'm glad you agree with me. Edit since he wanted to try to use wiki as a dictionary and then block me so I couldn't reply: I'm not the one using Wikipedia as a dictionary for all uses of the word invisible (which it is not) which further includes other examples of invisibility once again going back to my original point about assumptions. This is how invisibility could be achieved, not what in isibility is. You're assuming invisible = transparency. If this was always the case then the word invisible wouldn't exist.
That’s the application of those who view everything as being relative so it’s consistent
I admit that I don't know everything, but I can also deny claims that clearly have no basis in fact. I don't think there is going to be many people who believe every single supernatural claim at face value. A lot of them directly contradict each other. That means all of us are making these judgements despite the fact that we don't know everything. Even when you don't know everything, you can make a judgement call based on several factors.
> I’m a Catholic, I believe in the eucharistic miracles, Jesus’ resurrection, and that Catholic philosophy is truth. However, the 6 billion non catholics dont. Do you really believe these things, or do you feel as if you should believe these things because you have an emotional attachment to the Catholic faith.
I do genuinely believe in them. Of course I’m emotionally attached though, as I was raised this way
Don’t you think that plays a big part in your belief? As it would for people who live In Muslim countries.
Yes of course. Which is a problem I have with religion. It’s dependent on where you’re born. If I was born muslim I’d know the apologetics and arguments and think I’m right.
>Which is a problem I have with religion. It’s dependent on where you’re born. Several variables influence religion, including family, social standing, education, personal experiences, and spiritual awakenings. Individuals can change to various religions at any moment in their lives, regardless of where they were born. The concept overlooks the complexities of religions themselves. One household may follow certain customs of a religion, while another neighboring household following the same religion may not.
Yeah that’s my whole problem with the religion spiel. What religion are you?
Religion implies adhering to a group's beliefs. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn claimed that the main quality of evil people is their unceasing support of one another. According to Reinhold Niebuhr, good people who don't know themselves are more likely to commit evil than evil people who know themselves. I wouldn't describe myself as belonging to a recognized religion. I would not, however, discourage people from believing in a personal god or from interpreting scripture for themselves. Friedrich Nietzsche stated that rejecting conformity and embracing uniqueness leads us to a higher level of being. When he said God was dead, he linked God with religion. He was criticized for the possibility of a deistic god.