Atheist objections to evidence for God's existence

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OzSpen

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Thus, then, your self induced head aches ?
Really, all that exists is proof of the Creator. Relax, and see that - tell Him you have been hurt too much, you see too much falseness all around you - tell HIM what you think.....

Joseph,

How can he tell 'Him' this when he doesn't accept He exists? That would be like speaking to the sky, knowing that no response was possible.

Oz
 

Justadude

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Dude,

I'm saying that the Kitchen & Kaiser Jr who checked out the historicity of the OT found it to be a reliable set of documents. These researchers did not find the OT to be historically accurate in some places.
They believe in a young universe, young earth, humans created out of dust, and a global flood a few thousand years ago?
  • So which is accurate historical info in the OT?
  • Which is inaccurate historical info in the OT?
  • Which tests do you apply to discern the accurate from the inaccurate?
Oz
See above.
 

Joseph77

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Joseph,

How can he tell 'Him' this when he doesn't accept He exists? That would be like speaking to the sky, knowing that no response was possible.

Oz
Keep seeking.
The testimony of others throughout the last few centuries, who once did not believe,

was that they could see all around them was false, nothing to hope in, nothing to trust in, in family, religion, government, or anything....

yet they had a hope, or a desire, that someone, somewhere, was real, and cared,

and they went outside and looked up in the sky, and said "God, Creator? Are you there? I need help. I don't know if you are there, but I need help, and if you are there, I will do what you want, if you let me know... I don't know how to find you,

so you will have to make yourself known .... no one else can help me.... so if you're there, I need you, ..... let me know...


and , within a moment, or a week, a month, God opened their mind, as He did the disciples, and God let them know.... freely...
 
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Joseph77

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Dude,

Please provide the documentation from Kitchen and Kaiser Jr that that is what they believe.

Oz
If they are followers of Jesus, honoring God the Creator, as with all Ekklesia, that is what they believe 'by default'/ automatic. (willingly, by choice, free will, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, abiding in Him as His Word abides in them)
 

Justadude

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You go and check. You are being lazy at this point, not wanting to investigate the evidence.
So I checked on Kitchen and found this review at creation.com: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j20_2/j20_2_20-23.pdf

Specific to the questions of young-earth creationism and the flood, the review says:

"Regarding the Flood, Kitchen declines to comment on its extent..." and "It is clear though that Kitchen does not believe it altered the earth’s surface to any great extent given that he tries in vain to locate the missing rivers of Eden, the Gihon and Pishon. Indeed, he accepts the old-earth timescales of millions of years (p. 430)."

I found that interesting, especially in light of how creation.com sees it: "This should not be surprising given that Kitchen is writing within the British evangelical context and tradition, the members of which have long given up biblical authority in matters of history in favour of longage compromises, with disastrous consequences."

So according to that Christian website, Kitchen doesn't accept Biblical authority in matters of history.

Your thoughts?
 
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OzSpen

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Oz,

The same could be said about your pro-Christian and anti-pagan presuppositions. Your arguments always back your god. Which is totally ok, It's just that my actions towards other gods are as legal is yours. I know mine just seem more of a stretch, but that's, because most of pagan knowledge was purged from the earth by years of colonialist supremacy.


I totally see, that, in exodus, the Israelite god overwhelmed the Egyptian gods. I just wanted to include the possible answer of an Egyptian, if their culture was continued, because the victory over a dead culture sais nothing. The problem with comparing gods, is that all gods the bible defeats are lost to time. We know these empires died, so the biblical perspective on them seems about right. But now there are new claims like the evergrowing Islam, The Heavenly Mandate of the Chinese. Sadly, the time of big wonders seems to be over, so we can’t neatly compare these religions. Yes, I demand a continuous stream of proof, this is how I think truth shall be established. If the situation can't be repeated, then it's not valid enough.


Thing is, I don't take the exodus is a perfect accurate record, I believe that nothing this old can be perfectly accurate, like we don't even really know if the moon landing is real, so going further back comes at a cost of accuracy. But from my research it is known that there were groups of slaves, who rebelled and fled from Egypt and it is assumed they arrived in the general area of Cana. But at the same time, it is also perceived, that these slaves worshipped various gods. In the end everything is wibbly-wobbly. As the old testament seems to be first written down at king David’s reign, 500 years after the exodus. So, from a time perspective it's as accurate as homers works which also has a wiggle room of 500 years.


SelfInducedHeadache

Headache,

I'm asking you to examine the OT and NT on reliability or unreliability of historical evidence. We use the same criteria as ancient historians. If these documents are demonstrated to be reliable, then you go to them to discover whatever subject you are pursuing.

If they are not trustworthy, we should do what the Apostle Paul concluded:

12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins (1 Cor 15:12-17 NIV).

You claim: 'In the end everything is wibbly-wobbly. As the old testament seems to be first written down at king David’s reign, 500 years after the exodus. So, from a time perspective it's as accurate as homers works which also has a wiggle room of 500 years'.

From where did you get those ideas? Your presuppositions?

The Old Testament was written in various times of human history. 'The sacred scriptures of the Jewish faith, written at different times between about 1200 and 165 BC'.

As for Homer's writings, he wrote two epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey. When Homer wrote these epics is difficult to articulate because 'part of the problem is that Homer lived before a chronological dating system was in place. The Olympic Games of classical Greece marked an epoch, with 776 BC as a starting point by which to measure out four-year periods for the event. In short, it is difficult to give someone a birth date when he was born before there was a calendar' (Biography.com: Homer). This scholarly estimates are he lived and wrote between c. 800 BC– c. 701 BC.

So, your statement: 'From a time perspective it's as accurate as homers (sic) works which also have a wiggle room of 500 years'.

It's time for you to get into accurate historical investigation of the OT and NT, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oz
 

OzSpen

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So I checked on Kitchen and found this review at creation.com: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j20_2/j20_2_20-23.pdf

Specific to the questions of young-earth creationism and the flood, the review says:

"Regarding the Flood, Kitchen declines to comment on its extent..." and "It is clear though that Kitchen does not believe it altered the earth’s surface to any great extent given that he tries in vain to locate the missing rivers of Eden, the Gihon and Pishon. Indeed, he accepts the old-earth timescales of millions of years (p. 430)."

I found that interesting, especially in light of how creation.com sees it: "This should not be surprising given that Kitchen is writing within the British evangelical context and tradition, the members of which have long given up biblical authority in matters of history in favour of longage compromises, with disastrous consequences."

So according to that Christian website, Kitchen doesn't accept Biblical authority in matters of history.

Your thoughts?

I'm asking for you to do the research on the reliability of OT and NT. I gave you Kenneth Kitchen's research as a starter and mentioned Walter Kaiser Jr.

So far, you've not mentioned a word about reading these two sources. You could obtain them through your local library.
 

Justadude

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I'm asking for you to do the research on the reliability of OT and NT. I gave you Kenneth Kitchen's research as a starter and mentioned Walter Kaiser Jr.

So far, you've not mentioned a word about reading these two sources. You could obtain them through your local library.
Okay. Thanks for references.
 

SelfInducedHeadache

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Headache,

I'm asking you to examine the OT and NT on reliability or unreliability of historical evidence. We use the same criteria as ancient historians. If these documents are demonstrated to be reliable, then you go to them to discover whatever subject you are pursuing.

If they are not trustworthy, we should do what the Apostle Paul concluded:



You claim: 'In the end everything is wibbly-wobbly. As the old testament seems to be first written down at king David’s reign, 500 years after the exodus. So, from a time perspective it's as accurate as homers works which also has a wiggle room of 500 years'.

From where did you get those ideas? Your presuppositions?

The Old Testament was written in various times of human history. 'The sacred scriptures of the Jewish faith, written at different times between about 1200 and 165 BC'.

As for Homer's writings, he wrote two epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey. When Homer wrote these epics is difficult to articulate because 'part of the problem is that Homer lived before a chronological dating system was in place. The Olympic Games of classical Greece marked an epoch, with 776 BC as a starting point by which to measure out four-year periods for the event. In short, it is difficult to give someone a birth date when he was born before there was a calendar' (Biography.com: Homer). This scholarly estimates are he lived and wrote between c. 800 BC– c. 701 BC.

So, your statement: 'From a time perspective it's as accurate as homers (sic) works which also have a wiggle room of 500 years'.

It's time for you to get into accurate historical investigation of the OT and NT, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oz
Yeah, I could have written it more clearly, but with wiggle room I've mean the time between the events happening and the writting down. Homer speaks of events that happenned 400 years earlier+his own unclear birthdate. So around 400-500years passed before the events were writen down. As for the old testament, I calculated for the exodus, because you quoted from it, which happend around 1400BC and was fully in the torah around 600BC, but there were also parts that were written down before, which I thought were around 1000BC, King Davids time. For Dates I used wikiped.

Now for the study of the OT and the NT, it'll take some time, as I also want to study various other textes, like the vedas. As for their accuracy Justadude already said the it the best way:
I don't think anyone doubts the OT contains some accurate Jewish history. But that doesn't mean that therefore everything in it is historically accurate (that's the fallacy of composition). The Quran contains accurate middle eastern history as well, does that mean that therefore the accounts of Mohammed ascending into heaven are also accurate?

easters for everyone,
SelfInducedHeadache
 
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BARNEY BRIGHT

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I disagree. I searched for 18 years and came to the conclusion that there is not good evidence that god exists. Many times I begged god for knowledge but he never revealed himself. I wish god does exist. If there is sufficient evidence to believe I will. Many will lie about me and claim that I was never sincere or that I just want to live in my sin or some hogwash like that. When they say things like that it only proves to me how morally bankrupt they have become due to their religion because they are saying things about me that I know are not true and they refuse to acknowledge the possibility that I am telling the truth. I am not trying to prove evidence wrong, I am looking for evidence with reasonable skepticism.

You know what makes me feel so sad for those who don't believe God exists. The fact they have all kinds of evidence around them, the physical universe including planet Earth that proves he does exists. Now you may listen to many scientists saying basically that the universe created itself or brought itself into being, but you know what those same scientists would say if you asked them if the Empire State Building built itself. They would say, of course not. So I would ask them which is more complex, the universe or the Empire State Building. I think most would agree that the universe is far more complex than any building. So why would I believe the universe brought itself into existence when a building any building can't bring itself into existence. Just as it takes someone of intelligence to bring a building any building into existence it would take someone of intelligence to bring the physical universe into existence. You can ignor the Bible all you want but what I said is basically what I have learned in God's word the Bible at Romans chapter 1 verses 18 thru 21.
 
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Paul Christensen

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You know what makes me feel so sad for those who don't believe God exists. The fact they have all kinds of evidence around them, the physical universe including planet Earth that proves he does exists. Now you may listen to many scientists saying basically that the universe created itself or brought itself into being, but you know what those same scientists would say if you asked them if the Empire State Building built itself. They would say, of course not. So I would ask them which is more complex, the universe or the Empire State Building. I think most would agree that the universe is far more complex than any building. So why would I believe the universe brought itself into existence when a building any building can't bring itself into existence. Just as it takes someone of intelligence to bring a building any building into existence it would take someone of intelligence to bring the physical universe into existence. You can ignor the Bible all you want but what I said is basically what I have learned in God's word the Bible at Romans chapter 1 verses 18 thru 21.
If evolution is true, then we don't have any evidence that we actually exist, and are not just the figment of our own chaotic imagination brought about by sheer chance. A logical mind has to be designed that way by a designer. Without a designer, there is no such thing as logic. So someone without a logical mind wouldn't even know what the question is, let alone the answer to it.
 

OzSpen

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You know what makes me feel so sad for those who don't believe God exists. The fact they have all kinds of evidence around them, the physical universe including planet Earth that proves he does exists. Now you may listen to many scientists saying basically that the universe created itself or brought itself into being, but you know what those same scientists would say if you asked them if the Empire State Building built itself. They would say, of course not. So I would ask them which is more complex, the universe or the Empire State Building. I think most would agree that the universe is far more complex than any building. So why would I believe the universe brought itself into existence when a building any building can't bring itself into existence. Just as it takes someone of intelligence to bring a building any building into existence it would take someone of intelligence to bring the physical universe into existence. You can ignor the Bible all you want but what I said is basically what I have learned in God's word the Bible at Romans chapter 1 verses 18 thru 21.

Barney,

We know so much more about the universe, thanks to the advances in astronomy and space missions. Take a look at this evidence that I have placed in a lesson I'm preparing for Religious Instruction in State schools:

Think of the second heaven and the majesty of God’s amazing work.
'Mini-Me' Solar System


This artist's conception shows the relative size of a hypothetical brown dwarf-planetary system compared to our own solar system. A brown dwarf is a cool or "failed" star, which lacks the mass to ignite and shine like our Sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set its infrared eyes on an extraordinarily low-mass brown dwarf called OTS 44 and found a swirling disk of planet-building dust. At only 15 times the mass of Jupiter, OTS 44 is the smallest known brown dwarf to host a planet-forming, or protoplanetary, disk.

This image is located at: 'Mini-Me' Solar System

Oz
 

OzSpen

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Yeah, I could have written it more clearly, but with wiggle room I've mean the time between the events happening and the writting down. Homer speaks of events that happenned (sic0 400 years earlier+his own unclear birthdate. So around 400-500years passed before the events were writen (sic) down. As for the old testament, I calculated for the exodus, because you quoted from it, which happend (sic) around 1400BC and was fully in the torah around 600BC, but there were also parts that were written down before, which I thought were around 1000BC, King Davids time. For Dates I used wikiped.

Now for the study of the OT and the NT, it'll take some time, as I also want to study various other textes (sic), like the vedas. As for their accuracy Justadude already said the it (sic) the best way:


easters for everyone,
SelfInducedHeadache

Headache,

You can't even write this sentence in clear and correct English: <<Yeah, I could have written it more clearly, but with wiggle room I've (sic) mean the time between the events happening and the writting (sic) down ????>>

And you want me to believe your research after this kind of illogical sentence and your going to Wikipedia for evidence of the dates of the Exodus.

I don't see you as a serious contender for honestly wanting answers from Scripture.

Oz
 

Justadude

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You know what makes me feel so sad for those who don't believe God exists. The fact they have all kinds of evidence around them, the physical universe including planet Earth that proves he does exists. Now you may listen to many scientists saying basically that the universe created itself or brought itself into being, but you know what those same scientists would say if you asked them if the Empire State Building built itself. They would say, of course not. So I would ask them which is more complex, the universe or the Empire State Building. I think most would agree that the universe is far more complex than any building. So why would I believe the universe brought itself into existence when a building any building can't bring itself into existence. Just as it takes someone of intelligence to bring a building any building into existence it would take someone of intelligence to bring the physical universe into existence. You can ignor the Bible all you want but what I said is basically what I have learned in God's word the Bible at Romans chapter 1 verses 18 thru 21.
This is one of the reasons why I'm agnostic. The arguments theists make for the existence of gods are typically no better than, "That building is complex and designed, the universe is also complex, therefore it was also designed, therefore God".

That's nothing more than the fallacy of composition.
 

Justadude

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If evolution is true, then we don't have any evidence that we actually exist, and are not just the figment of our own chaotic imagination brought about by sheer chance. A logical mind has to be designed that way by a designer. Without a designer, there is no such thing as logic. So someone without a logical mind wouldn't even know what the question is, let alone the answer to it.
That's one of the weirdest anti-evolution arguments I've ever seen. If populations evolve, then there's no such thing as reality? o_O

Surely you can do better than that.
 

Paul Christensen

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That's one of the weirdest anti-evolution arguments I've ever seen. If populations evolve, then there's no such thing as reality? o_O

Surely you can do better than that.
Well, if you don't know, as an agnostic, whether there is such a thing as reality, then how do you know that the world you live in is actually real?