As I’m sure my readers will agree, in my last post, There’s No Arguing It: We Can’t KNOW If There’s a God or Not, I conclusively proved that it is exactly as reasonable to think that there is a God as it is to think there’s not. Not one of the 50 or so people who commented on that post questioned the validity of that assertion. (I’m kidding. I actually think Atheists of America have taken out a hit on me.)
Now watch how easily — nay, how inevitably — one must move from the understanding that there’s at least a 50/50 chance of a God existing, to the conclusion that Christianity is the greatest religion in the history of people yearning for spiritual succor.
My blog posts are always too long, so I’m going to keep brief the logical steps from Probable God to Christ. Those steps are:
1. There’s a 50% chance that God is real (which has already been proven).
2. If there’s a God, then God created everything, including humans.
3. If God created humans, God must love humans, because who doesn’t love what they create?
4. God loving humans means God longs to express his love to humans, because it is the nature of love to express itself.
5. God is prohibited from in any direct or overt manner conveying to humans his love for them, because if he objectified himself in the way that would necessitate – if he just appeared to people, and told them that he loved them — then he would ruin their lives by obliterating their free will, by robbing of them their right to choose for themselves whether or not to believe in him. (For more about this particular dynamic, please see my, Why Doesn’t God Just Prove He Exists?) It is precisely God’s love for people (that is, for the qualilty that most wholly defines people, which is their free will) that stops God from proving to people that he loves them as much as he does.
6. People feel guilty all the time for the stupid, petty, selfish, greedy, ego-driven things they do. Feeling guilty is a necessary result of free will, since free will means that in life one is bound to make stupid, petty, selfish, greedy, ego-driven choices.
7. God hates it that people suffer from guilt. And he certainly understands that feeling guilty and feeling unlovable are intimately connected. He also hates it that people’s lives are defined by fear (which they must be, since no one knows what happens to them after they die).
8. God wanted a way to prove his love for people, relieve them of their guilt, and put to rest their fears about their ultimate fate.
9. Becoming the mortal known to history as Jesus Christ is how God accomplished all three of those things — and how he did it all without compromising anyone’s free will. He proved his love for people by becoming a human, taking into his body all the guilt all people ever had or would experience, and then slaughtered that guilt into oblivion. And he put to rest people’s fears about their ultimate fate by explicitly promising everlasting life to anyone who believed in him (which, remember, he had to make part of the deal in order to leave in tact people’s free will). God spent 2,000 years telling everyone he was going to come to earth to do exactly what he did; he did it; and then he went back from whence he’d come.
10. Before finally taking his bodily leave of us, God installed within every human the whole of himself, in the form of the Holy Spirit. All anyone has to do to awaken and access that Holy Spirit is believe that that’s possible, and ask for it. God never enters where he’s not first asked.
And thus, in 10 E-Z Steps, do we have positive, irrefutable prove that believing in the reality of the Christian story makes at least as much sense as not believing in it.
God—>creation—>humans—>love of humans—>respecting humans’ free will—>wanting to relieve humans’ guilt and fear—>Jesus—>Holy Spirit.
See, atheists? We’re at least as rational as you!
And I know you agree! Which is so great!!
At least, unless God is a myth and we are just delusional ‘mythicists’ as some have pointed out.
Your logic flows, except I am not sure just how ‘free will’ is/has been for us since the fall of man. If our nature is as corrupt as parts of the Bible says it is (Romans 3 and other places) and human will is in bondage to sin, God’s grace is only more ‘awesome’ because in some way He influences a fallen will that won’t chose Him on it’s own, to ‘willingly’ choose Him. Bit of a mystery there? Matrin Luther wrote about it in “The Bondage of the Will”.
Great start, John!
1. Who has a coin? Not one of those two-headed Buffalo Nickels either..
2. Only if you define God as a creator.
3. What about animals who eat their young?
4. Why does something all-powerful need to long for anything? Can’t he just make it happen?
5. Explain “Saving Grace” then.
6. Speak for yourself
7. I thought God Hates Figs (dot com)
8. He not only longs, he wants. How human of him.
9. 2,000 years huh? What exactly happened in 2,000 BC to herald this?
10. I tried to access HolySpirit.exe but the hard drive had crashed.
You may be rational. I’m still going for Ordinal myself.
Then there is the substitutionaly atoment thing - makes grace even MORE awesome!
#5 - how would God making its love known rob us of free will? Even if I knew for a fact that God loves me, I would still have free will in whether or not to worship it, right?
#8 - refutes your #5. If God proving its love robs us of free will (which doesn’t logically follow, of course), then any form of God proving its love would rob us of free will. Please try to stay consistent.
Oh, wait, I just got it. You’re not really serious about this at all, are you. This whole post was to put on people like born4battle and Dan C, who will naturally jump right into agreement, and people like Morse, Brian Shields, and even me, who would jump right in to disagree. You’re just a rabble-rouser, aren’t you, John?
Clever.
Exactly my thoughts Rob… which is why I tried to make my disagreements somewhat tongue in cheek.
I have to admit that’s a pretty good articulation, IF you have experienced each of these steps. If Christianity were really that simple to articulate in a way that another person could understand it completely we’d probably have a lot more Christians in the world. I used to think that you simply needed to explain your beliefs logically and then any other person could see the logic in your statements and come to the same conclusion, like working out a mathematical proof. I now have a much deeper appreciation for everything that can get in the way of that.
Admittedly, trying to prove its “at least as rational” is easier than trying to prove that it is the only logical conclusion. Though I’m surprised you didn’t add the obvious steps 11 and 12. 11 would be “Pascal’s Wager” paraphrased is:
If there is a 50/50 chance that God does or does not exist then it is logical to believe in God because, if it is true the rewards are infinite, but if it is false the consequences are finite.
Pascal was a famous scientist and major contributor (if not founder) to fluid dynamics as well as contributing to our method of formulating mathematical proofs (Pascal’s Triangle). If people’s decisions about God were really based on logic then I think the fact that the people who founded our modern system of logic were Christians should be a pretty big hint.
The problem is that for each of your ten steps there’s something that people get snagged on. Occasionally it’s only a few, but more likely it’s all ten. Brian Shields gave his top ten list. I could probably think of my own. They all relate back to people’s personal experiences and views of God. If you are talking about ‘love’ and a person only understands romantic love then the image of God being attracted to someone seems silly. Pretty soon you end up with an image of Zeus transforming into a swan and it’s all downhill from there.
At this point, this is my best understanding of the problem. I don’t really know of any great solutions. It seems that only a custom tailored act of God can actually identify and remedy each and every experience that gets in a person’s way. So it’s a miracle every time a non-believer becomes a believer. Maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. I don’t know.
What nonsense. There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of a god; that’s why they call it blind faith. And this god you speak of is nothing more than a human construct. Darwin was right, not Moses.
OK, Brian, let’s see if I can make a stab at answering your objections.
1) Photoreceptor had what I consider a pretty good answer to this in “Pascal’s Wager.”
2) It’s hard to conceive of a God who wasn’t the creator, unless you just want the story-gods of ancient Greece or India - and even they had a creator God. Can you come up with a definition of God, as established by John’s previous argument, that doesn’t include Creator?
3) Animals who eat their young didn’t actually create them - they only bore them. Creation requires active, intelligent involvement. If you want to argue that we don’t always love what we create, you could perhaps attack from the angle of a person making a drawing or sculpture, who might be unhappy because their drawing or sculpture is imperfect. Of course if you were perfect, and perfectly capable, you’d never create anything imperfect, thus you would always love and treasure what you created.
4) OK, so an all-powerful God wouldn’t have to long to express His love to us. But unless He is going to force us to accept His love, whether we like it or not, He will at least long for us to grasp the expression of His love, and for us to accept His demonstration of love, just as I long for my children to accept my expression of my love.
5) I think perhaps John is missing something in his argument here. The argument is not that God would obliterate our free will by expressing His love to us, but rather that He would obliterate our free will by confronting us with Himself. You see, if we actually SAW, in all His glory and holiness, the God who could create the universe around us, we would HAVE to believe. But at that point, it wouldn’t be our free CHOICE to believe, and to respond to His love. Saving grace is the way God shows His love without forcing us to believe or respond; He allows us to make the choice.
6) Are you saying you never make “stupid, petty, selfish, greedy, ego-driven choices”? Or are you suggesting that you’ve rationalized them to the point that you don’t feel guilty about doing them (perhaps because “everyone else does” or because “it’s only human”)?
7) You know, I’ve never heard John say that, nor have I ever read it in the Bible. God loves all people. He hates the behavior - not the person who engages in it (for which I’m very thankful since I have also engaged in much behavior He hates - lying, gluttony, selfishness, greed, etc.).
9) I presume John is dating approximately from Abraham when he goes back 2,000 before Christ. Certainly by then God was beginning to declare what He was going to do. In my opinion, though, you can go back to at least 3,500 BC to trace the beginning of the prophecy (maybe a lot longer ago than that if you don’t take the six days literally - and not all Christians do). The point being, God spent AT LEAST 2,000 telling people “He was going to come to earth to do exactly what He did,” in John’s words.
10) OK, here I disagree with John’s statement. I don’t believe God puts the Holy Spirit in us until we trust Christ for salvation. That means, my friend, that you don’t have the Holy Spirit within you to access. If you come to the point of really being willing to know the truth, you will know it; and if you yield yourself to God, you too will have access to the Holy Spirit. Until then, the only work the Holy Spirit does in your life is conviction (see the book of John, chapter 14) - but He does that from the outside, not from within you.
John, I appreciate the work you’ve done here. I hope and pray it will have an impact on at least some of your doubting readers.
Brian - not sure how I ended up with a smiley in there. That was supposed to be point #8.
I’m afraid I’m not convinced. Here are a few reasons why:
First, I don’t think that there being two options (there is a God or there isn’t) means each option is equally likely.
Second, it doesn’t logically follow that if there is a God he/she must have created everything. Unless you define God as the creator of all, in which case the point is redundant anyway.
Third, there are plenty of examples of people who don’t love what they create. As horrible as it is, there are surely some children whose parents do not love them. I created a cake once and left out the baking powder - I did not love the result (and neither did anyone else!).
Thanks for the article.
Marcy: my argument against #5 and #8 stands under your definition. God revealing itself to us so that we know it exists does not rob us of free will, because we would still have the free will to not worship it. Is it all about belief, or the worship? Because supposedly even the demons believe in God, right? So proving that it exists in no way would rob us of any free will.
I know that I wouldn’t worship the god of the Bible (you know, the one who in the OT was a jealous, murderous, scoundrel of a god). I have too strong a moral and ethical basis to worship something that horrific.
In #3 you write “Of course if you were perfect, and perfectly capable, you’d never create anything imperfect, thus you would always love and treasure what you created.” That refutes your idea that a perfect god created us humans.
#10 Don’t you understand that the argument you make here, that you have to trust god before you can believe in it, can be used to convince someone of any god?
Oh, and Pascal’s wager is a non-starter. It was a ridiculous argument when he proposed it, and it’s even more ridiculous now that you guys still trot it out at every opportunity. John didn’t even come close to showing that god’s existence is a 50/50 proposition (which he knows, and why I think he wasn’t writing this article seriously at all.) Plus, by Pascal’s Wager, as someone pointed out in an earlier posting thread, your best strategy is to pick the god with the worst hell and pretend to believe in that one.
Using PW is a sure sign of uncritical thinking.
That was a really good post. It makes sense, and flows very nicely. I am a committed Christian, and Christianity to me is the only faith that truly makes sense. As far as I can tell, it also is the only one that possess a definite salvation plan. A lot of religions teach that merit will gain you salvation. This is a very blurry method, and makes people hope that they have done enough good to get in. I believe that if this were the case, then no-one would get into heaven. Your bad works would most certainly out way your good. Also, merit brings about all sorts of horrible things like self-righteousness, self-importance and boasting. The types of things that the Bible prohibits, and that inevitably pull people’s hearts away from God. But what I particularly despise the most, is what the Catholic denomination has done to the Christian faith. They have twisted the words of God, and even made up their own, and stuck them into their own “Bible”. They participate in strange, bizarre, and unnecessary rituals that are not Biblical. The priest in the confession box for instance, and the way they perform Communion, with the people partaking, and walking to the side of the priest, alternating every second person. Their church itself is ridiculous. The building is indeed very beautiful, but as I said earlier, it’s craftiness and size give no glory to God, but rather glory to man. I can rant for a while, so I’ll leave it there. A great post. I look forward to reading more.
Thanks for posting this John.
Talk to you soon,
Jared
It’s a miracle! There’s a mindless delusional mythicist using a computer in my house! Oh wait. . . It might be a double miracle! Can a person be delusional and mindless at the same time? WOW!!! God must be real! I’m gonna run and tell everyone in the neighborhood!
Good comment Jared. Throughout the centuries, men have misrepresented God (Protestants and Catholics). The largest ‘church’ in America (not Catholic) has a ‘leader’ who is making gazillions ‘preaching’ a ‘gospel’ that doesn’t even have enough doctrine in it to call it heresy, according to some apologists.
But this probably isn’t about bashing ‘religionists’ of any flavor, but more aout what God did for mankind through Jesus Christ.(at least those who believe in Him - the rest are left in their rebellion).
Sending Jesus to die in our place on the cross was the ultimate expression of His love for us. Those who believe in the One He sent have the right to be called true children of God (all are His creation but only those who believe are in His true children - the rest are still rebels). And while logic is there, the Holy Spirit has not been given to ‘everyone’ as you say in one of your points, but indwells only those who truly believe. Marcy got it right. I would only offer there that the Holy Spirit’s work prior to Salvation is both outer (to convict the world of sin) and an inner working to convict an individual of his/her lostness without Christ. Here the history of all the great revivals of religion and turning to God have been accompanied with intense inner conviction of personal sin and lostness without Christ. Perhaps the principle ‘outer working’ is the preaching of the Gospel that, when heard’ combines with inner ‘heart awakening’ produces the faith to believe. Even our faith is a gift from God.
What IS in everyone at least until ‘they choose not to retain it’, is the knowledge of God. Maybe thats the point where ‘atheists’ declare their non-belief - I don’t know. Regardless of when that is, at that point God gives them over to their own depravity and abandons them..
The Gospel of John is replete with the emphasis on belief (from Jesus own lips) to be a true child of God, while human progression from the knowledge tof God to abandonment by God is in Romans.
Conversion happens (becoming ’suddenly Christian’ when a person realizes his/her hopeless condition, recognizes God’s offer of salvation through Christ, and chooses to believe in Christ. The Holy Spirit is part of the conversion process in that He awakens (gives live) a spiritually dead person to the reality of Christ. The Father is the ‘architect’, the Son died in our place to make it possible (penal substitution) and the Holy Spirit awakens dead hearts so man can willingly choose.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers came initially at Pentecost, after the resurrection and Jesus having been seen by over 500 persons, after His ascension, and is only available to believers, John.
So, as one commenter said, I have ‘jumped in’ but not in total agreement with John. My comments are meant in no way to argue anything, or to demonstrate any sort of human wisdom, logic, or intellectual capability, but only to offer what seems to be clear from scripture (please note I said ’seems’). The intended audience for these comments are John, Marcy, Jared and the other professing believers (or true seekers) who have joined the discussion. Whether or not they are valid at all can be determined by personal, individual Bible study by the hearer. That’s called the Berean principle.
I wonder if moving beyond the argument about God it’s possible to admit that religion is the opiate of the masses. Is hell the absence of God?
I know if I admire someone, I want to emulate them. Whether it’s John Shore or Christ isn’t really pertinent, but the fact remains I admire some people and their gifts and I want to be more like the qualities I see in them. When I was younger I practiced my batting swing for a reason, copying baseball players who hit for high average. It didn’t make me a great batter, but I was focused on being the best I could be. Seeing the little things really good batters practiced and trying to copy them made sense to me then.
Presently, I have a difficult time believing I would want to follow the hypocrisy of being a Christian, coming to it afresh. The Christian bible consists of books that have been copied throughout the centuries. Are they the same as the originals? None of the original books survived.
Christians preach love, but seem to be full of dislike and even hate, and their lifestyles seem strangely like non Christians. Sure there is good, kind and loving Christians and non Christians alike, but the world seems fixated on everyone getting their share and using their middle finger way too much.
I am disappointed in today’s Christian and their attitude toward their faith. They seem subscribe in spiritual headhunting, believing that if the heathens of the world just knew how wrong they are, they would convert in a flash. Their arguments seem born of desperation to me. I concede that love is the answer. Loving each other and a tolerance for other views, seem appropriate some how. Loving God may be a step some won’t or can’t take.
I believe Christians need to live their faith and show others over time that they are changed by being a follower of Christ. All other arguments may be folly if you are a believer.
I was going to offer a rebuttal… then I realized this blog entry was a self-parody. Well done, sir!
John,
Your photo offers no such proof. It only shows you ARE shaven.
Frank: That’s true! Too funny…
If I am going to make a mistake, I prefer to err on the side of beieving in God. If He is real, then I am prepared. If He is not real, I had a lot of good friends in this world!
(when are they going to put spell check on these blog text editors?)
We cannot prove the mind exists either, but it makes eminent rational sense.
Mona,
Since we need a mind to think, and the brain is the seat of the mind, as far as science tells us anyway, would that be some sort of ‘proof’? I’m just asking as a mindless, delusional mythicist (pun intended).
Pastor Dave,
Since you bear the title of Pastor, is your use of ‘If’ merely a literary device for the purpose of conversation? I certainly hope so, or there are some folks in here who might eat you alive, you being a Pastor and all, which indicates you are in the ‘God’ business. They need to know.
Also, I’ve visit some ‘church’ sites where I’m not sure ifthe lead ‘pastor’ worships the same God I do - you know - the one high and lifted up and whose train fills the temple - the one the mere for whom the mere glimpse of his shadow causes een holy men to tremble and declare themselves ‘unclean, unclean!” -you know, that one. After hearing some of them preach, er…tell their little stories instead or preaching expositorily, I sometimes wonder. Then there are the sites I’ve visited where almost EVERYONE on staff is a ‘pastor’.
By the way, considering ‘if’ as a literary device, I agree with you about beliving in God. Consider the alternative in the afterlife. . . Ugh!
pontiacdan,
A couple of excellent observations in your post.
This is funny. Great way to generate blog traffic.
oh my goodness. The logic? of theses statements.I don’t even know where to start without having to write a book, I’ll just touch briefly on some, but not all as I don’t have the time.
1. John Shore said, “There’s a 50% chance that God is real (which has already been proven).”
The logic seems rather flawed don’t you think? That is like saying when you play the state lottery that you have a 50/50 chance of winning. Which most would say is unreasonably optimistic. Either you win or don’t? When the actual odds of winning can range from 18 million to 1 to 120 million to 1, or something around that. Anyways, you get the point.
2. If there’s a God, then God created everything, including humans.
Why must a “god” had to of create something, let alone everything? Is that a requirement to be a god, that god has to create stuff?
6. “…Feeling guilty is a necessary result of free will…”
7. “God hates it that people suffer from guilt.” and
8. “God wanted a way to prove his love for people, relieve them of their guilt, and put to rest their fears about their ultimate fate.”
Then why give people free-will in the first place? If free-will makes people ultimately responsible for their actions, and thus they are to blame and guilty when they do wrong. Which means they can in turn do some pretty bad things, are responsible for these things, and thus may have the potential to be judged and go to hell. This seems to hardly put their fears to rest.
9. …he put to rest people’s fears about their ultimate fate by explicitly promising everlasting life to anyone who believed in him”
Oh, that explains it, if one just believes in god, they can sin as much as they want, and they’ll still get everlasting life. Lovely.
10. “Before finally taking his bodily leave of us, God installed within every human the whole of himself, in the form of the Holy Spirit. All anyone has to do to awaken and access that Holy Spirit is believe that that’s possible, and ask for it. God never enters where he’s not first asked.”
God never enters where he’s not first asked? But you just said “Before finally taking his bodily leave of us, God installed within every human the whole of himself, in the form of the Holy Spirit,” so he’s already entered. therefore, this is contradictory.
if this was just all a joke, then I agree, the reasoning blows.
Sorry for coming to the party late:
#1: There is no evidence for the existence of any kind of god. People love to say that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Which is crap.
No evidence for god(s) = no god(s).
Until electrons were witnessed with electron microscopes (aptly named), their existence was theorized, and the theory was a good one because it explained a lot of subatomic phenomena. And when electrons actually WERE seen, their existence was proven.
The theory that there is some form of god is a bad one because a god is completely unnecessary when it comes to explaining phenomena. Natural laws have that covered. Provable ones.
#2: If god exists, why must it have created everything? Maybe it just watched the Big Bang like we watch Fourth of July fireworks. It makes no sense to jump to the conclusion that god must have created everything, or even anything at all.
#3: My argument against #2 notwithstanding, this weekend I created a pair of ski-skates by sawing and sanding cross-country skis. They suck and do not work.
I do not love what I have created.
Perhaps more relevant: Parents have children they often hate — whether it’s because they’re junkies, drunks, etc (kid or the child).
#4: Again, my answer to #3 precludes this from being able to be true. From now on we’ll take it for granted that, for each new #, the argument agianst the previous # precludes it from being true. But I’ll disprove you # by # anyway.
Notably, I learned in Logic 101 that a single false premise ruins an entire argument. Your argument loses its legs on #1 and is therefore false.
God longs to express its love to humans. That would best be done by it showing up and creating a utopia for us.
Waiting…
#5: Since this is about the christian god: Uh, according to christian doctrine god did appear to humans. He was called Jesus.
And if god came down and told me he loved me and humankind as a whole, I’d ask him how he explains all the atrocities he committed in the Torah, or Old Testament as christians call it. I wouldn’t love, let alone worship that monster.
#6: “[F]ree will means that in life one is bound to make stupid, petty, selfish, greedy, ego-driven choices.”
Why?
Is it because doing so is human nature? And who created humans and their nature — god, correct?
So we should feel guilty for the way god made us. Doesn’t seem to be a fitting tribute to our lord and creator. You are calling his creation imperfect, and only an imperfect being would create imperfect things, for why would an all-loving, etc god want wars, rapes, atrocities by the millions year-in year-out?
He must, to have created humans in a way that they are bound to do such things, free will or not. He could at least have made us magnanimous and not devoted to their separate groups… The way monkeys and apes are.
#7: “He also hates it that people’s lives are defined by fear (which they must be, since no one knows what happens to them after they die).”
My life is not defined by fear, but a commitment to live this life to the fullest since it is the only life I will have. I accept human life for what it is — about 72 years long.
As far as feeling guilty and unlovable… Someone has some unresolved issues. See a shrink, since confession doesn’t seem to be hacking it for you.
It is your very belief in a god that makes you feel guilty and unlovable. I do not believe and my conscience is clear. No guilt, for I live a good life (and without fear of divine retribution, even!), and I am loved by friends and family.
#8: “God wanted a way to prove his love for people, relieve them of their guilt, and put to rest their fears about their ultimate fate.”
You purport to know how god thinks? Perhaps god does not think at all. Perhaps he doesn’t care one whit about/for humans. There is no way to know.
#9: Jesus took “into his body all the guilt all people ever had or would experience, and then slaughtered that guilt into oblivion.”
So god became Jesus… No, but let’s run with it: How, exactly, did he take “into his body all the guilt all people ever had or would experience, and then slaughtered that guilt into oblivion”?
How did he get all the guilt inside him? Make that clear, please.
And he slaughtered it by dying on the cross, I assume? So what did the tens of thousands of others who were crucified do through dying?
And god was with the Jews in a very real way in the Torah or Old Testament. There without becoming a different entity.
God made no promises to return (have you READ the OT?) because it is implied throughout that he never, ever leaves.
#10: No. It is taught that the holy spirit enters christians when they are baptized. It is taught that the spirit entered Jesus HIMSELF when he was baptized. You don’t know much about christianity for someone who considers himself a christian.
Also, the holy spirit supposedly entered ME when I was baptized. How can I now be an atheist, since I undoubtedly have the holy spirit within me?
“And thus, in 10 E-Z Steps, do we have positive, irrefutable prove that believing in the reality of the Christian story makes at least as much sense as not believing in it.”
No, you’re wrong from one to ten and it’s so very very obvious that you haven’t even a rudimentary understanding of logic and its application.
God—>creation (why?)—>humans (why?)—>love of humans (why must he love humans?)—>respecting humans’ free will (by not being present… But then being present in the form of Jesus)—>wanting to relieve humans’ guilt and fear (what about those who don’t have it?)—>Jesus (nonsense here)—>Holy Spirit (much more nonsense).
Tip: Before attempting a rational argument, take a course in logic.
…An argument built on false premises, even one, is a false argument.
As rational as atheists? It is itself illogical to assume that all or even most atheists are logical. One’s ability to be logical depends upon one’s ability to form rational arguments, to apply logic, and to recognize it.
Most people cannot, cannot, and do not, atheist or not.
Rob,
It seems to me you are still thinking about God in very human terms. In the Old Testament, when God appeared to people, He was so unbelievably glorious that they had no choice but to fall at His feet and worship. If He appeared to us directly (other than as He did, in human form, through Jesus), that would be the end of our free will. Demons, like angels, are an entirely different life form than we are; they are spirits, and thus they have the ability to see God and still deny Him. Humans, on the other hand, are not physically capable of this.
As to the atrocities of which you accuse God (I assume your primary reference here is to the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites), we must keep in mind the atrocities being committed by those who were judged by Him. These people were killing their babies in order to preserve their crops; they were insisting on having s-x with men who came to them as invited guests; they were engaging in rape and murder and human sacrifice and who knows what other horrific behaviors, and had been for centuries. And after being patient with them all that time (and judging from His track record, likely sending repeated warnings through prophets), God finally said, “That’s enough.” If you have other examples of God’s “jealous, murderous” actions, I’d be interested to hear about them.
No, the fact that God would never create anything imperfect does not refute the idea that a perfect God created us humans. In fact, our current imperfections are only the result of the fact that God created humans with free will, and Adam chose to disobey the only command he was given. Our imperfections are the direct result of our sin, which we were not created to commit. God created humans perfect, and He loves and treasures us even though we have sinned.
If I communicated that you have to trust God before you can believe in Him, I apologize. Rather, you have to be WILLING to know and obey the truth before you can know it. In the case of the God of the Bible, that doesn’t require putting aside logical or rational thought, as it would in the case of many (perhaps even most) other “gods.” Jesus said (John 7:17, New Living Translation), “Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own.” If you make the commitment to accept the truth and obey it if and when you are sure of it, you will in fact know the truth; as long as you are determined not to accept or obey it whether it’s true or not, you will not believe it. I hope I’m being clear here.
As for Pascal’s Wager, I had never actually heard of it until I read it here; I’m inclined to agree with your assessment of it. I also agree that John’s point #1 was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Clearly he’s not going to prove God’s existence to anyone who doesn’t want to believe it. I don’t agree that his post wasn’t serious, though - it seems to me his point is: Assuming that God did exist, this is why Christianity is, at least to some degree, intellectually consistent. (I’m guessing you’ll disagree with this last, but I still think that’s what John’s trying to say - and what I am, as well.)
Marcy…
You totally didn’t answer the What about “Saving Grace” thing in #5. If you had, you might have gotten that the whole thing was a PUT ON!!!
Yes, I’m a model agnostic and don’t “believe” in anything. But I was trying to respond to John’s wit with some of my own (my wit is a poor light to John’s professional wit) so make with it what you wit…
Marcy:
You make my brain hurt. It’s like straining my eyes really hard to read the small writing, then finding out that it’s not writing, just some random marks and nonsense.
Your whole first paragraph is just something you made up. Unless you can support that nonsense, I’m going to ignore it.
The atrocities of your God are spelled out throughout the Bible. I hope I don’t have to clarify that I don’t believe these atrocities actually occured, because of course your god doesn’t exist, but they are certainly not the actions of a being that deserves worship. You can disagree if you like, but that just tells me a lot more about your thought processes than I care to know.
How can you be willing to know and obey something before you can know it? That’s asinine, and I know I’ll be accused of being mean but that’s all it is. Try to imagine your reaction if someone were trying to convince you of their truth by using the same arguments that you use here. You might be patient with them at first, but pretty soon you’d realize just how immature they are being.
Maybe if I didn’t care about you at all I wouldn’t worry, but I really hate seeing the potential in people wasted on such utter nonsense. For all I know, you might be someone worthwhile if not for your inability to reason properly.
If this post of John’s was serious in any way, then you won’t have to worry about me being around any more. John, just say that this post was serious, and I’ll shake the dust off my feet as I walk out the virtual door. I don’t mind having discussions, and even arguments, about these matters, even if there are an abundance of dunder-heads. But if you actually meant that post to be serious, then I’ll know that there simply isn’t enough time in this only life we have to waste it on such hopelessly unreachable people.
There are so many wild assumptions in there that I didn’t get past number 3. Please, please tell me that this was a joke. I’m actually offended at how stupid this post is.
Christians: if you take this seriously, you’ve been taken for a ride. (I hope).
Rob Miles said:
“The atrocities of your God are spelled out throughout the Bible. I hope I don’t have to clarify that I don’t believe these atrocities actually occured…”
Which “atrocities” in the Bible? Please cite chapter and verse. Because many things listed in the Bible have been backed up by archeological evidence. Do you mean Sodom (Bab edh-Dhra) and Gomorrah (Numeira)? These places were located south of the Dead Sea in a fault area. The area shows evidence of large deposits of bitumen, a petroleum-based (flammable) substance. Archeologists were able to discover these two places after geologist Frederick Clapp postulated the possibility that an earthquake in the area could have caused pressure to force the bitumen out (which then were set aflame by sparks during the earthquake) and the result may have been flaming balls of pitch raining down on the cities. The cemetery in the area shows that some of the material used to bury the dead was the rooftop material, which had burned, according to archeological evidence, by fires started on the roof.
But if you don’t believe that atrocity actually occurred, then no amount of hard evidence will convince you.
While you are making your list of atrocities, you can also list all the atrocities that were committed that were in the name of atheism, or for land, or just for the sake of war. Come to think of it, men wage most of the war, so maybe you can list all the atrocities that were committed simply because of an overabundance of testosterone.
“How can you be willing to know and obey something before you can know it?”
And yet you are willing to “obey” the tenants of an atheistic philosophy when (statistically speaking) you cannot be sure there is no God.
“…then I’ll know that there simply isn’t enough time in this only life we have to waste it on such hopelessly unreachable people.”
So, you are trying to reach these “hopelessly unreachable people” with exactly what message? That atheism is the way, the truth, and the life? That all who travel that road have met all the criteria for being happy, logical human beings? That any other belief, philosophy or opinion is just utter nonsense rooted in falsehood?
Unless you can categorically prove there is no God (which you cannot… unless you are all seeing and know all knowledge there is to know…) then isn’t your philosophy just a matter of faith as well?
Richard Dawkins has claimed that all the “onus” is on Christians to prove that God exists and until we can do that we should just shut up. But the “onus” doesn’t lie with Christians only - but also with atheists. If it is proof you want from us, then you also must prove your assertion that there is no God… and do it with hard evidence.
Reformed Faith,
I just visited the Reformed Faith Weblog and added a bookmark to the list of Reformed sites I frequently visit and I will definitely browse around in there today.
Very well articulated comments and with a justifiably ‘in your face tone’ although rather kind compared to some of Jesus’ comments to religious leaders steeped in unbelief and “not of His sheep”. Perhaps there is a ’sheep’ among the ’scoffers’ in here whom God is drawing to Himself and who will end up a champion for the faith! That’s my prayer.
Nice to meet you!
Unless you can categorically prove there is no God (which you cannot… unless you are all seeing and know all knowledge there is to know…) then isn’t your philosophy just a matter of faith as well?
Richard Dawkins has claimed that all the “onus” is on Christians to prove that God exists and until we can do that we should just shut up. But the “onus” doesn’t lie with Christians only - but also with atheists. If it is proof you want from us, then you also must prove your assertion that there is no God… and do it with hard evidence.
Whoops, logical fallacy. A big one.
The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim that something exists. If it wasn’t, we would be forced to believe in every proposed entity that hadn’t been absolutely disproven - in other words, we would have to believe in leprechauns on pluto and giant worms living in the core of the moon; after all, we haven’t disproven them, have we? They could still exist!
I’m now proposing that these moon-worms exist, and that their biology lets them live in conditions that we would normally consider inhospitable to life. By the reasoning you’ve displayed above, you should believe in them unless you can disprove them. Can you?
As for God’s barbarity, do you believe that God ordered towns and cities destroyed, or ordered a man to sacrifice his son? (And subsequently stopped said man from doing it at the last moment)?
“The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim that something exists.”
Do you have a hard source for that one, other than another pseudo-intellectual atheist? Just asking. The point made was that athiests have an obligation to prove something along with the ‘mythicists’ like myself, since we believe God exists. The argument was NOT a fallacy since the obligation to provide proof was to prove the ‘assertion’ that God does not exist. The ‘assertion’ is something that DOES ‘exist’ and therefor you are obligated to prove it, in your own words. Let’s hear it.
Can you prove that moon worms don’t exist?
Do you believe in them?
“If it is proof you want from us, then you also must prove your assertion that there is no God… and do it with hard evidence.”
I can’t prove that your god doesn’t exist; nor can I prove that the Muslim god, the Norse gods, the Greek gods or any other gods don’t exist. However I can state that the probability of your particular god existing is vanishingly small - which is far as I would be prepared to go - and this is the basis for my lack of belief in your god.
As a result, I am not making an assertion about anything; I am merely observing the world. You are the one who is arguing that something exists that I have not so far observed; in effect you are asking me to reconsider the probability that your particular god exists. In order for anybody to reconsider such a probability, however, they would need some additional evidence that could weigh on either side. Hence the burden of proof is very clearly on your side, surely?
Gentlemen,
Why, in the interest of honest debate, is one side of the debate obligated to prove their case while the other side can sit smugly on the sidelines and prove nothing? In all intellectual fairness, that is absurd. Where, in the history of higher education has there ever been a debate conducted in such a manner?
Having said that, let us return to this debate. Consider the following, borrowed from a third part source, concernng the subject of the nature of ‘proof’ and how it might pertain to the matter at hand. I do not offer it as a personal positional statement, but as an intelligent example of ‘examining the evidence’.
“The statement, “God exists,” is a precisely stated proposition. Thus, it is either true or false. The simple fact is, either God exists or He does not. There is no middle ground. One cannot affirm logically both the existence and nonexistence of God. The atheist boldly states that God does not exist; the theist affirms just as boldly that God does exist; the agnostic laments that there is not enough evidence to make a decision on the matter; and the skeptic doubts that God’s existence can be proven with certainty. Who is correct? Does God exist or not?
The only way to answer this question, of course, is to seek out and examine the evidence. It certainly is reasonable to suggest that if there is a God, He would make available to us evidence adequate to the task of proving His existence. But does such evidence exist? And if it does, what is the nature of that evidence?
The theist advocates the view that evidence is available to prove conclusively that God does exist, and that this evidence is adequate to establish beyond reasonable doubt the existence of God. However, when we employ the word “prove,” we do not mean that God’s existence can be demonstrated scientifically in the same fashion that one might prove that a sack of potatoes weighs ten pounds, or that a human heart has four distinct chambers within it. Such matters as the weight of a sack of vegetables, or the divisions within a muscle, are matters that may be verified empirically using the five senses. And while empirical evidence often is quite useful in establishing the validity of a case, it is not the sole means of arriving at proof. For example, legal authorities recognize the validity of a prima facie case, which is acknowledged to exist when adequate evidence is available to establish the presumption of a fact that, unless such fact can be refuted, legally stands proven (see Jackson, 1974, p. 13). It is the contention of the theist that there is a vast body of evidence that makes an impregnable prima facie case for the existence of God—a case that simply cannot be refuted. I would like to present here the prima facie case for the existence of God, and a portion of the evidence upon which that case is based.
The central message of the Cosmological Argument, and the law of cause and effect upon which it is based, is this: Every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. The Universe is here; intelligent life is here; morality is here; love is here. What is their adequate antecedent cause? Since the effect never can precede, or be greater than the cause, it stands to reason that the Cause of life must be a living Intelligence that Itself is both moral and loving. When the Bible records, “In the beginning, God…,” it makes known to us just such a First Cause.”
In the interest of fair debate, the author also discussed attempts to prove that an we did not need to have God, or an intelligent being as the ‘first cause’ ofthe universe.
“The most comfortable position for the person who does not believe in God is the idea that the Universe is eternal, because it avoids the problem of a beginning or ending, and thus the need for any “first cause” such as God. In fact, it was to avoid just such a problem that evolutionists Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi, and Fred Hoyle developed the Steady State Theory. Information had come to light that indicated the Universe was expanding. These scientists suggested that at points in space called “irtrons” hydrogen was coming into existence from nothing. As hydrogen atoms arrived, they had to “go” somewhere, and as they did, they displaced matter already in existence, causing the Universe to expand. Dr. Hoyle suggested that the atoms of gaseous hydrogen gradually condensed into clouds of virgin matter, that within these clouds new stars and galaxies formed, etc.
However, the Steady State Theory was doomed to failure, in part, because it violated one of the most fundamental laws of science—the first law of thermodynamics (also referred to as the law of the conservation of matter and/or energy), which states that neither matter nor energy may be created or destroyed in nature. Astronomer Robert Jastrow observed:
But the creation of matter out of nothing would violate a cherished concept in science—the principle of the conservation of matter and energy—which states that matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy, and vice versa, but the total amount of all matter and energy in the Universe must remain unchanged forever. It is difficult to accept a theory that violates such a firmly established scientific fact (1977, p. 32).
The Steady State Theory eventually was relegated to the relic heaps of history.”
There is much more to the article cited and a very good case of their possibly being more ‘evidence’ for, rather than against the existance of God, at least in the comsmological argument.
Reformed: thank you for pointing out a mis-statement on my part. When I wrote that I didn’t believe the atrocities had occurred, I meant that I don’t believe your god caused or ordered them, because your god doesn’t exist.
My point is that you, because you believe your god exists, have to accept that you worship something that would order the killing of all living things, including women and children, and even rip the unborn from their mothers womb. This mythological creature, according to your holy book, killed and maimed with impunity, and you worship it.
That is just so pathetically sad. How much do you hate humanity that you can justify your god killing people whenever it sees fit? According to your Bible, your god ordered the destruction of a whole people because of what their ancestors (supposedly) did 400 years earlier. Read 1 Samuel 15 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=9&chapter=15&version=31)
I don’t “hate” your god because of this, because (again) I don’t hate what doesn’t exist. I hate that so many of you enablers shrug it off, saying “well, they must have been bad because my god wouldn’t have done it if they weren’t bad, so they had to deserve it.” You BELIEVE this nonsense, and still worship it. It boggles the mind.
My link didn’t work right, so just read 1 Samuel 15. You do have a Bible, right? If not, go to biblegateway.com and drill down to it.
“Cosmological” argument (above).
Also presented in the series of articles are arguments based on design in nature (the teleological argument) and the anthropological, or moral, argument
I am not arguing or presenting ‘my’ case. I’ve actually been researching both sides and looking for objective, well articulated thought on the matter.
born4battle:
That’s nice, but you still haven’t answered my worm question.
(and the arguments you cited have all been refuted in detail elsewhere).
#7b: “He also hates it that people’s lives are defined by fear (which they must be, since no one knows what happens to them after they die).”
Were I an atheist - if I really and truly believed that there is no god, that life on earth is all there is - then I would have to believe that when I die, nothing happens but the continued deterioration of my body. No fear.
(I’m not actually an atheist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.)
I wasn’t going to comment further, but then I noticed this…
The central message of the Cosmological Argument, and the law of cause and effect upon which it is based, is this: Every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. The Universe is here; intelligent life is here; morality is here; love is here. What is their adequate antecedent cause? Since the effect never can precede, or be greater than the cause, it stands to reason that the Cause of life must be a living Intelligence that Itself is both moral and loving. When the Bible records, “In the beginning, God…,” it makes known to us just such a First Cause.”
I’m sorry, but that’s complete BS. There’s no proper line of reason here; the author essentially just states that ‘the Universe is here and life is here, therefore God did it’ (I’m not even going to adress the morality or ‘love’ aspects, since the existence of those say nothing at all about how the Universe might have come about; this is a painfully obvious attempt at justifying why this argument suggests a Christian God rather than a Deistic one).
Most people falsely assume that the Big Bang describes matter exploding out of nothingness, when it doesn’t; it describes an event in which the Universe suddenly began to expand rapidly, and before which it was in an infinitely dense, infinitely hot state. The mass-energy of the Universe has presumably always existed, just in a different state to what it is now.
The Cosmological argument ignores the fact that matter-energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and thus could be eternal. The Big Bang created space-time, so it may not make any sense to talk of there even bring a ‘before’ the Big Bang, since time presumably didn’t exist before our Universe began its rapid expansion.
Big Bang cosmology does not describe a situation where you have ‘nothingness’ for a long time, and then the Universe just popping into existence all of a sudden.
Where is there a need for God in this scenario? We have matter-energy that can’t be destroyed and never needed to be created, and an inflationary event before which time almost certainly didn’t exist. We don’t know what actually caused the Big Bang, but tossing ‘God’ in there for no reason would be too hasty, to say the least.
From the article:
“The central message of the Cosmological Argument, and the law of cause and effect upon which it is based, is this: Every material effect must have an adequate antecedent cause. The Universe is here; intelligent life is here; morality is here; love is here. What is their adequate antecedent cause? Since the effect never can precede, or be greater than the cause, it stands to reason that the Cause of life must be a living Intelligence that Itself is both moral and loving. When the Bible records, “In the beginning, God…,” it makes known to us just such a First Cause.”
“The most comfortable position for the person who does not believe in God is the idea that the Universe is eternal, because it avoids the problem of a beginning or ending, and thus the need for any “first cause” such as God. In fact, it was to avoid just such a problem that evolutionists Thomas Gold, Hermann Bondi, and Fred Hoyle developed the Steady State Theory. Information had come to light that indicated the Universe was expanding. These scientists suggested that at points in space called “irtrons” hydrogen was coming into existence from nothing. As hydrogen atoms arrived, they had to “go” somewhere, and as they did, they displaced matter already in existence, causing the Universe to expand. Dr. Hoyle suggested that the atoms of gaseous hydrogen gradually condensed into clouds of virgin matter, that within these clouds new stars and galaxies formed, etc.
The author’s argument is “First Cause” and he seems to have correctly described the ‘Steady State Theory’, which he also stated has been relegated to the ‘dust bin of history’ - Something about the 1st and 2nd LAWS of thermodynamics (emphasis mine).
I didn’t see anywhere in the article series (I have the entire series) where he incorrectly described the ‘Big Bang Theory’ as you so glibly attribute to ‘most people’. I know I never said that, so that bit of your comment is totally irrelevant to the debate. Furthermore, your calling the author’s material ‘BS’ is arrogant, uncalled for, and totally out of lilne for intelligent debate.
You must have missed my short post that mentioned the other points in that author’s articles. I’m actually interested in knowing what minds much better than mine (I am not a scientist) are saying about the existance of God. You sir, appear to be arguing from a absolute certainty that there is no other valid opinion than yours - the rest are BS. Whatever, but your dogmatic assertion does obligate you to at least try and prove your point.
“When something is stated as fact, or as a reasonable position, at that point it is entered into the realm of debate. Assertion incurs a burden of proof”
I have a strong sense (I am not asserting here) that you are not interested in honest debate.
But I must say, you ‘rant’ well.
“(and the arguments you cited have all been refuted in detail elsewhere).”
If you refer to the citations by the author concerning Cosmological Evidence and what constutes valid ‘proof’, the above statement is hogwash. And I am not going to answer your worm question. Rant on.
The author mentions the solid state theory, but more modern versions generally address the Big Bang and, as I said, when most people talk about it they misunderstand it completely.
.
You must have missed my short post that mentioned the other points in that author’s articles. I’m actually interested in knowing what minds much better than mine (I am not a scientist) are saying about the existance of God. You sir, appear to be arguing from a absolute certainty that there is no other valid opinion than yours - the rest are BS. Whatever, but your dogmatic assertion does obligate you to at least try and prove your point.
I never said anything like that - I said that I think this particularly author is talking a load of crap (since you took such offence to ‘BS’). When people start using the ‘existence of love and morality’ to prove that their particular God exists (rather than just a generic all-powerful creator’) it’s obvious that they’re letting their religious beliefs get in the way of their reason.
The Cosmological Argument, the teological argument(s), the tired old First Cause arguments - all of them have been refuted before. If you’re looking for both sides of the story, it will be very easy to find what others have already written on all of these.
Although, since you refuse to answer the simple ‘worm’ question, I’m guessing that’s not what you’re actually interested in.
John, I don’t think you really need to work on writing shorter posts when the majority of the comments here are longer than what you originally wrote!
born4battle:
“Why, in the interest of honest debate, is one side of the debate obligated to prove their case while the other side can sit smugly on the sidelines and prove nothing?”
Simple. Burden of proof.
If I tell you there’s a giant purple dinosaur that talks to me, it’s my job to prove that to you. You don’t have to prove that the dinosaur doesn’t exist.
The same works with god.
I found this:
The real question here is what is burden of proof and why does one statement incur it and the other does not?
Burden of proof, lest we forget, is a legal concept. The Corpus Juris states “Semper necessitas probandi incumbit qui agit.” Thus Englished, as Locke would say, the claimant is always bound to prove: the burden of proof lies with him.
You make a claim, you assume burden of proof. No claim, no burden of proof. I can think that bad luck lurks in the shadows, and that thought in itself doesn’t incur burden of proof.
But when I assert – i.e., make a claim – that bad luck exists, then I’ve incurred burden of proof.
God exists - that’s a ‘claim’
God does not esixt - that’s a ‘claim’
The persons making those statements/assertions are ‘claimants’ and both have incurred a level of burden of proof.
If I say God exists and you assert nothing, I have all the burden. If you pur forth a counter assertion, we share.
I think the gentleman earlier today was just saying the same thing. It’s about assertions requiring some burden of proof, whether it’s about God, purple dinos or moon worms.
Agreed. Which is why I don’t make the claim the god doesn’t exist. Never have. And very few atheists do.
We just look at your claim and say we don’t believe it. No claim made on our part.
As Morse said, rejecting a claim of existence doesn’t constitute making a claim yourself. I’ve only ever met a single atheist who was comfortable with actually saying ‘I know that God doesn’t exist’. Every other atheist on that particular forum disagreed with him.
If I say I believ in god and I am termed a mythicist is not the ‘accuser’ calling god a myth and therfore denying his existance? same with using the adjective delusional for a personal who believes in god. One does not have to say the exact the exact words to imply them to the point of assertion.
Your religion resembles all other religions in their mythical elements, therefore it is a myth until proven otherwise, and followers of that myth are mythicists. If you can prove your god’s existence, perhaps I could be persuaded to change my mind. Until then, though, I maintain the charge.
I will make this positive assertion: your god is no more likely to exist than any other proposed god. I don’t believe in your god, just as you don’t believe in all other gods but yours. If you want me to prove that your god doesn’t exist, then you must first prove that all the other gods that you don’t believe in don’t exist. (While you’re at it, prove that an invisible, undetectable elf isn’t peeing on your forehead at this moment.)
Those who seek to prove God’s existence by logical or illogical argument feel a great burden of possibility but without proof. I think Confusious said that but I wouldn’t swear to it. Proving God’s existence is like proving the existence of the single organism from whence we all evolve; many believe in it but cannot prove it. Being an evangelical, I might like to invite atheists to know my God’s existence, but God must cooperate in revealing Himself. It is comparable to introducing a friend to another. The friend must show up and maybe say high or boo or something.
Another proof is the example of changed lives based on the experience and testimony of people with various problems all solved–if you will–by an act of God. For example, an drug addict who upon hearing a preacher is instantaneously made sober to make a rationale decision about the message of the gospel, the result being the addict remained free from the addiction. I heard a number of years ago such a man claim such an experience. If such is repeated (repeatable), would it not count for empirical evidence for God’s intervening existence? Isn’t that the love John was speaking of?
Daniel Downs: a drug addict heard a preacher and became sober, and remained sober? From this evidence, the only conclusion you could draw is that the preacher himself is responsible, not some god.
Besides, are you proposing that only those addicts who hear some preacher can turn their lives around? Wouldn’t you need to take into account 1) all the addicts who turned their lives around without resorting to some myth and 2) all the addicts who believe in some god but still can’t shake their addiction? Why give god credit (by supposing its existence) for the positive results but not give it debit for the negative results? Special pleading?
“If such is repeated (repeatable), would it not count for empirical evidence for God’s intervening existence?”
Of course. As long as it is confirmable and repeatable, healing miracles and the like would certainly be considered evidence.
There’s plenty of testimony. And that’s fine, but it always has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Morse: a grain of salt, a wedge of lime, and a shot of tequila.
Rob: your argument doesn’t follow from the evidence but from the myth of your preferred belief.
I didn’t say they could or did turn their life around. I said an addict said his life was turned around by an act of God. While high on both drugs and boose, he was made instantaneously sober and remained that way. Such is not humanly possible unless their is a God. He said it was his reality. He obviously still believed it was God because of Jesus or i never would have heard his talk about it.
All addicts would not have to be included in order to determine the validity of the evidence that addicts lives were changed as a cause-effect act of God, but a representative sample would. Because some people overcome their addiction by self-imposed withdraw or medical treatment would not negate others having overcome as a result of an act of God. It might just mean God revealed his existence to that man who needed and wanted to end his addiction in way to prove his existence and power.
1. God is “obviously” the inventor/designer/architect of “living machines” and mankind has nothing near that technology today — not even to “create” a mere single celled organism.
2. According to Jews and Christians “God revealed Himself every day in literal form” in the Garden of Eden - in man’s initial perfect Eden home. As Genesis shows - this did NOT obliterate mankind’s free will because it was from WITHIN that garden home that Adam and Eve chose rebellion.
3. The WORST possible outcome for the atheist world-view is to admit to the obvious point #1 above. Even “Junk science” would be preferred with “hoax after hoax” clung to in a desperate effort to find an alternative to point 1.
4. “What can not be proven” to an Atheist based on reason alone - is that Christianity’s view of God is the perfect/correct view of God. But the fact of #1 is undeniable for rational thinking objective minds.
Bob
The Christian says of mankind — we are in a burning building - we must flee the flames by leaping out the window into the net of the firemen below.
The Atheist responds — there is no fireman, there are no nets — there is no window.
The two views agree on only one thing — we are in a burning building.
The two views can not agree on much else with out one or the other side changinig world-views.
Bob
even worse, the non-believer tells the believer, “You’re delusional, so it’s you’re burden to prove the firemen, net and window really exist”…
…the believer knows that ultimately (in the end, if you will) one of two things will happen. Either the non-believer will grasp at the possibility (faith) and leap out (hope) of the smoked filled building (even though he still can’t ’see’ his rescuer) or he’ll remain in the building and perish…
if the non-believers read as much of the bible as they claim to, they would never argue against the existence of God because in doing so they unknowingly fulfill all the prophesies of non-believers, further strengthening the faith of those who believe.
They cannot help themselves though, they have no free will in the matter. In rejecting God they hand their free will over to Satan to be used by him.
Just like a drug addict a non-believer cannot stop himself. He begins simply enough with the “I just don’t see enough evidence to believe in a god” and progresses to copy and paste rebuttal, then endless litanies of other non-believers rhetoric, then insults and berating.
Ask him if he is able to stop thinking about the non-existence of god for even one day….of course there’s no way to verify that he is able to even if he swears he is. He is not though, because he has given himself over to the deceiver of this world.
Satan covets the non-believer because he know that if someone does not believe in God then by default they don’t believe in him, so he’s free to use them without them even realizing it. He is the god of this world, he uses your intelligence, your education, your sarcasm, and your unbelief to keep you from ever knowing the truth and dragging as many as you can into his service. The non-believer is his slave and doesn’t even know it.
Satan is so happy that the non-believer think he and God are myths
Hi John, I’m not writing to debate the story of Christianity here, but more the need for a single religion. I do believe that there was an amazing man called Jesus, who was directly inspired by God. I do believe that humans make mistakes. But is it necessary to follow Christianity and only Christianity to be redeemed? I also believe in karma (or, as in the Bible, that we’ll reap what we sow). The only thing I don’t like about religion is the way each one makes out it is the ONLY path to truth. That attitude has done a lot of damage. Do you also believe this? I think that being open to God means listening, and what you hear does not necessarily have to subscribe to any single religion.
Daniel D. - so, an addict, admittedly high at the time, reports having some unverifiable experience. Wow, I’m convinced. (No, really.) Your hyperbole is pretty miraculous, though.
You still haven’t answered why your god should get credit for curing one addict but not be blamed for not curing another addict. If this is an experiment that can be repeatedly confirmed, then you’d have a point. However, if there is a seemingly random outcome, i.e. some addicts pray and are cured but some addicts pray and are not cured, then you’d have to explain the negative results before you could show causation.
And I’m sorry, but “god works in mysterious ways” or “god has his reasons for curing some but not all addicts” isn’t going to cut it. Your god’s results too often resemble random outcomes we would expect if there is no god.
Cliverty: as an atheist, I don’t agree that the building is burning. I think that’s your delusion. There are a lot of windows, but we can’t see the ground from where we are. You claim there are firemen below your window, but you can’t prove it any more than the others who claim that your firemen are false, but they have the real firemen out of their windows. And they can’t prove theirs either.
Now you’re telling me that the building is on fire (and incidentally, your firemen started the conflagration in the first place if we are to believe your firemen myth), and that we should ignore the means at our disposal to put out the fire ourselves, and just give up and jump out the window. Well, you go ahead. There might be some smoke, and some hot spots in the building, but so far I haven’t seen a fire and I only have your word for it that the fire is as bad as you say.
Leave. There’s the window, go already, and leave those of us with some backbone alone so that we can take care of the problem that’s there. Say hello to the sidewalk as you hurtle through it. The building will survive a lot better without your ilk mucking things up anyway.
“”If you want me to prove that your god doesn’t exist, then you must first prove that all the other gods that you don’t believe in don’t exist. (While you’re at it, prove that an invisible, undetectable elf isn’t peeing on your forehead at this moment.”
I am not asking you to actually prove anything. That was asked and not answered some time ago - asked, or point made, by more than one ‘mindless delusional mythicist’ (maybe I should use MDM - less typing). I keep referring that little combination of words used to describe believers in God by non-believers in this blog, and a few others preceding this one. I keep using it because it reminds me of the attitude of some toward believers - ‘insults and berating’, as mentioned by a previous commenter and reflected in the parenthetical conclusion to the initial quote posted here.
I would like to address the very sincere question posed by ‘flowology’:
“. . . is it necessary to follow Christianity and only Christianity to be redeemed?”
If I am a sincere follower of Christ, than I must answer that it is because Jesus made that claim - that no one can approach the Father except through Him. If I do not answer ‘yes’ I am not being true to my faith, am I? I am not saying anyone is right or wrong, just posing a question that addresses the Christian faith and the nature of religion.
I could also answer yes because of the nature of redemption itself. To ‘redeem’ is to buy back, to purchase something that was once owned, lost and had to be ‘bought’ back. Christianity is the only religion that ‘redeems’ anyone - at least I have not discovered another religion that does. I’ve researched many and tried some other religions. Outside of Christianity, all religfions seem to be ‘works’ based. To eventually arrive at the ‘end state’ (heaven, paradise, whatever) human effort is involved in getting there.
Christianity, on the other hand teaches that God originally created ‘perfect’ humans with totally ‘free will’ but they disobeyed the one command given them. The result was that ’sin’ entered the environment created for humans and tainted even their very souls to the extent that every human since their fall has been born unable to please God by human effort. If peace between God and man were ever to be achieved something had to be done about sin. Mankind was in a hole and unable to ‘dig’ his way out.
Jesus Christ paid the penalty for the sin of mankind (the death sentence) and literally ‘purchased’ men for God from ‘every tribe and nation’. No other religion offers that. Those who ‘profess’ Christ do so because they have either because it’s the ‘best deal’ for the religiously inclined (the free gift of God) or because they actually believe it. Those that actually believe it do so because God first opened blind eyes and deaf ears - brought life to the spiritually dead.
That, is the difference between ‘religions’ - a ‘redeemer’. The one who died, was buried then raised from the dead and even seen by too many witnesses for it not to be true.
Thank you so much for the question!
Breezy and Cliverty,
“The two views agree on only one thing — we are in a burning building.”
Incorrect. The atheists say the building is fine. But they consistently see many Christians, Muslims, Jews, other religious people and even some new age and secular people trying to start fires.
The atheist says, if you people stop playing with matches then it’s not going to matter if there are firemen or not.
“if the non-believers read as much of the bible as they claim to, they would never argue against the existence of God because in doing so they unknowingly fulfill all the prophesies of non-believers, further strengthening the faith of those who believe.”
Sorry, but I’ve read all of the bible. More than once. And the only conclusion I’ve come to is that most people who have said they have really didn’t.
I don’t care that your book says people won’t believe. I bet you I could write a book today about my own pantheon of gods that says there will be unbelievers who think it isn’t true, and in a thousand years time that will be true. So? It proves nothing.
It’s a little ridiculous. If a psychic tells you “People are going to say I don’t have powers!”, and he’s right, does that mean he has powers? Or that he just realistically understands that not everyone is going to buy into his silly stories.
born4battle: “I am not asking you to actually prove anything.” Good, I’m glad we got that nonsense of proving a negative out of the way. Still, you have the onus to prove your god, if you want atheists to take it seriously.
[...] reason is a beautiful thing, and we must all respect its power. (Of course, in my last post, Atheists of America Agree: Christianity Makes Eminent Rational Sense!, I proved so conclusively that the Christian view of life is the only one that makes sense that [...]
Rob,
The negative would be that God doesn’t exist, I suppose. Since I don’t expect you to take belief in God (upper case ‘G’ - thats ‘my’ God and many others’ too), professing unbelief as you do, I’ll turn down the ‘onus’ if you please. He has proven Himself to all mankind already and doesn’t need my help, now or later. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.