ThePuffyBlob
Well-Known Member
I'm sure it's not me, but rather "they". It could be you. Are you a Christian? If so, then you are one of "they".
If atheists get accused of taking verses out of context, how do we know fundamentalists making those accusations aren’t doing the same as well?
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Lapidem
Active Member
Crikey I mean I just don't know where to start with this gross misunderstanding. Have a read of this, it might help:
Types of Evidence Used in Law UK | What is Evidence?
Draycott Browne's experienced criminal defence lawyers offer specialist legal advice to anyone accused of or charged with a criminal offence. Contact us today.
Direct Evidence
Direct evidence is evidence that was learned, directly, by the witness presenting it. It can be defined as evidence which has been acquired by the witness through their senses, and can therefore include knowledge of a crime which was garnered through seeing, hearing, or touching. It should not be evidence that was overheard or learned through hearsayYou have not seen god through your sense of sight
You have not heard god through your sense of hearing
You have not touched god through your sense of physical touch
On the other hand you have a belief that is borne out of hearsay from other humans and have then allowed yourself to put aside critical thinking and then attribute all your experiences to your indoctrinated beliefs. Similar things happen to gullible people with horoscopes. Once they seek that "something" to fill a void in their life they then attribute any strange event that occurs to the Horoscope. It's a self fulfilling fallacy.
Lapidem
Active Member
This response exposes your naivety in Theological matters. The very term God means very different things to different people, cultures and religions. Your religious piousness makes you assume that your definition/usage of the term God is what everyone uses. I'm sorry to tell you that's terribly wrong. You can only speak for your own concept of God.
Lapidem
Active Member
Ah then you miswrote your sentence. You should have said:
"those who believe in A god are in the vast majority"
But this point is totally moot and somewhat meaningless. It encompasses all the people who believe in the Sun God, Ra, the Norse gods, Kali, Vishnu, Allah and so on.
Using this as some kind of proof/evidence of the existence of a god or gods is rather puerile. All it proves is that humans are vulnerable, gullible and easily lead and that many are willing to cast aside critical thinking and rationality in favour of beliefs in notions they have no objective evidence of.
Lapidem
Active Member
Correct, a point I have iterated. People have gaps in their lives and many are afraid to face life head on and confront its harsh realities. As children we grew up playing "let's pretend" whether it was pretending to be doctors and nurses, cowboys and Indians and so on. It continued for many in the practice of pretending that Santa Claus exists. Most of us grew out of the need to play "let's pretend" but many are so fragile and vulnerable they can't face life without continuing this childhood fantasy. It's like an old pair of slippers thy need because they are unequipped for the world and because they just like the social environment of the church and associated activities. It gives them social interaction which they might otherwise not have. Particularly elderly people.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
You quoted the very part of your own cite that best proves my point. Witness testimony is direct evidence. Witness testimony IS evidence.
It is interesting to note your need to raise the bar to a criminal case. The question of God does NOT have to be proven to this level, only more likely than not; the standard in a civil trial.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Friend, you cannot define your way out of the existence of a Creator. I know it is the last, desperate hope of atheists but it is remarkably silly and supremely arrogant to suppose one can stand before their Creator and dictate terms.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
The fact stands. Most people believe in God.
And I noticed for the 3rd time, you ignored the point that no society was founded on atheism. Such failure to achieve, to build gives your ideology to cause to pause. It is telling.
Lapidem
Active Member
You conveniently ignore the requirement for testimony to be direct evidence which is that they must have witnessed something with their physical senses. As stated you have not witnessed any such thing in regards to God. Neither has anyone living on this Earth. You seem to have difficulty conceding this which is intellectually dishonest.
The question of existence is binary. Either God exists or he doesn't. I see you shifted your own goal posts here switching from God definitely exists to God likely exists. Again it's important, indeed vital that whenever we use the term God we properly define what we mean. If not, discussion is utterly pointless. You claim that the Christian all-powerful all-loving God exists. Not that he is likely to exist but that he does exist. Yet you have not one shred of direct evidence of this. You just take comfort in the fact that 2 billion other people share your unproven hopes and dreams. What is far more likely is that some form of advanced being designed life on Earth, created DNA and so on. Such a being could certainly exist but there is no evidence that they are either all-powerful or all-loving. In fact quite the opposite.
Lapidem
Active Member
And I am not doing so. I freely concede that life on Earth could be created by a more advanced being or beings. I just don't see such as God or as all-powerful or all-loving. It's not difficult!
Does a child stand before it's parents and challenge them, criticise what they do, how they behave? Yes they do and they are often very right to do so. Anyone can and should appraise any creator rationally and morally. They should demand that any creator behaves as a model example for the set of behaviours he/she/it demands of its creations. If a creator says "Thou shalt not kill" then that creator should lead by example and not kill.
Unfortunately the Bible recounts that the Christian God kills with reckless abandon. He kills men, women, children and innocent babies. He even kills unborn babies still in women's wombs. He engages in mass killing, ethnic cleansing and genocide. That is if you truly believe what the Bible tells you. Most "Christians" sweep this under the carpet because it undermines their belief system.
I'm not quite an atheist. I simply don't believe in the silly defacto Christian concept of the all-powerful all-loving God since we are surrounded on a daily basis that such does not exist. I do believe however that there is probably some universal source of all life, likely a type of unique energy. I also believe it's highly likely that there exist far more advanced life forms than humans and that they might have designed humans and other forms of life. I don't however refer to them as God or think of them as God.
Lapidem
Active Member
Sigh. Your refusal to discuss honestly and rationally is tiresome. We are reaching the end of these exchanges I think.
Most people DO NOT believe in "God"
Most people believe in some kind of God or Gods or deities of some kind.
These two statements are very different.
Again you're using terms you don't understand or refuse to qualify. The definition of an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God.
There have been plenty of people and societies that believed in other things, not God specifically. There are pigmy tribes that had no deities at all, didn't bury their dead with any kind of ceremony. Then there is Jainism, another collective of people who certainly don't believe in gods. Then there is Buddhism. I could go on but I sense it's pointless.
Regardless what does your (incorrect) statement have to do with the question of God's existence? Even if every society on Earth throughout history was predicated on belief systems involving deities, that still would in no way be any kind of proof of the existence of any deity. This is the fundamental point you can't run and hide from. There is no one scrap of direct evidence for the Christian God. There is instead a plethora of evidence, physical real evidence that an all-loving all-powerful God simply does not exist.
Lapidem
Active Member
You might also find this article interesting
www.theguardian.com
UK secularism on rise as more than half say they have no religion
The growth of secularism in the UK is unabated with fresh data showing stark generational differences and a new confidence among the non-religious to declare themselves atheist.
Only 1% of people aged 18-24 identify as Church of England, according to the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey for 2018. Even among over-75s, the most religious age group, only one in three people describe themselves as C of E.
Across all age groups, the younger people are the less likely they are to call themselves Anglican.
The steady decline in religious belief among the British public is “one of the most important trends in postwar history”, says the BSA report.
Fifty-two percent of the public say they do not belong to any religion, compared with 31% in 1983 when the BSA survey began tracking religious belief. The number of people identifying as Christian has fallen from 66% to 38% over the same period.
“Britain is becoming more secular not because adults are losing their religion but because older people with an attachment to the C of E and other Christian denominations are gradually being replaced in the population by younger unaffiliated people,” says the report.
“To put it another way, religious decline in Britain is generational; people tend to be less religious than their parents, and on average their children are even less religious than they are.”
Non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of faith to their children, but two religious parents have only a 50/50 chance of passing on their faith, the report says.
This is progress. It means religious indoctrination by parents is less effective and frankly it should be outlawed. It's a form of abuse.
UK secularism on rise as more than half say they have no religion
1% of young people identify as Church of England and atheism is growing, survey finds
UK secularism on rise as more than half say they have no religion
The growth of secularism in the UK is unabated with fresh data showing stark generational differences and a new confidence among the non-religious to declare themselves atheist.
Only 1% of people aged 18-24 identify as Church of England, according to the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey for 2018. Even among over-75s, the most religious age group, only one in three people describe themselves as C of E.
Across all age groups, the younger people are the less likely they are to call themselves Anglican.
The steady decline in religious belief among the British public is “one of the most important trends in postwar history”, says the BSA report.
Fifty-two percent of the public say they do not belong to any religion, compared with 31% in 1983 when the BSA survey began tracking religious belief. The number of people identifying as Christian has fallen from 66% to 38% over the same period.
“Britain is becoming more secular not because adults are losing their religion but because older people with an attachment to the C of E and other Christian denominations are gradually being replaced in the population by younger unaffiliated people,” says the report.
“To put it another way, religious decline in Britain is generational; people tend to be less religious than their parents, and on average their children are even less religious than they are.”
Non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of faith to their children, but two religious parents have only a 50/50 chance of passing on their faith, the report says.
This is progress. It means religious indoctrination by parents is less effective and frankly it should be outlawed. It's a form of abuse.
Lapidem
Active Member
And here's an article referring to a study that totally debunks your falsehood that "no society was founded on atheism"
www.cam.ac.uk
"Despite being written out of large parts of history, atheists thrived in the polytheistic societies of the ancient world – raising considerable doubts about whether humans really are 'wired' for religion – a study suggests."
"The book argues that disbelief is actually “as old as the hills”. Early examples, such as the atheistic writings of Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570-475 BCE) are contemporary with Second Temple-era Judaism, and significantly predate Christianity and Islam. Even Plato, writing in the 4th Century BCE, said that contemporary non-believers were “not the first to have had this view about the gods.”"
"Because atheism’s ancient history has largely gone unwritten, however, Whitmarsh suggests that it is also absent from both sides of the current monotheist/atheist debate. While atheists depict religion as something from an earlier, more primitive stage of human development, the idea of religious universalism is also built partly on the notion that early societies were religious by nature because to believe in god is an inherent, “default setting” for humans."
"The age of ancient atheism ended, Whitmarsh suggests, because the polytheistic societies that generally tolerated it were replaced by monotheistic imperial forces that demanded an acceptance of one, “true” God. Rome’s adoption of Christianity in the 4th Century CE was, he says, “seismic”, because it used religious absolutism to hold the Empire together."
"Most of the later Roman Empire’s ideological energy was expended fighting supposedly heretical beliefs – often other forms of Christianity. In a decree of 380, Emperor Theodosius I even drew a distinction between Catholics, and everyone else – whom he classed as dementes vesanosque (“demented lunatics”). Such rulings left no room for disbelief."
Disbelieve it or not, ancient history suggests that atheism is as natural to humans as religion
People in the ancient world did not always believe in the gods, a new study suggests – casting doubt on the idea that religious belief is a 'default setting'
"Despite being written out of large parts of history, atheists thrived in the polytheistic societies of the ancient world – raising considerable doubts about whether humans really are 'wired' for religion – a study suggests."
"The book argues that disbelief is actually “as old as the hills”. Early examples, such as the atheistic writings of Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570-475 BCE) are contemporary with Second Temple-era Judaism, and significantly predate Christianity and Islam. Even Plato, writing in the 4th Century BCE, said that contemporary non-believers were “not the first to have had this view about the gods.”"
"Because atheism’s ancient history has largely gone unwritten, however, Whitmarsh suggests that it is also absent from both sides of the current monotheist/atheist debate. While atheists depict religion as something from an earlier, more primitive stage of human development, the idea of religious universalism is also built partly on the notion that early societies were religious by nature because to believe in god is an inherent, “default setting” for humans."
"The age of ancient atheism ended, Whitmarsh suggests, because the polytheistic societies that generally tolerated it were replaced by monotheistic imperial forces that demanded an acceptance of one, “true” God. Rome’s adoption of Christianity in the 4th Century CE was, he says, “seismic”, because it used religious absolutism to hold the Empire together."
"Most of the later Roman Empire’s ideological energy was expended fighting supposedly heretical beliefs – often other forms of Christianity. In a decree of 380, Emperor Theodosius I even drew a distinction between Catholics, and everyone else – whom he classed as dementes vesanosque (“demented lunatics”). Such rulings left no room for disbelief."
bbyrd009
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so im not sure why you might see any need to remove that for the ppl who likely need it most? I mean God help us imo if most religious believers ever took so literally the many Bible verses that they are currently ignoring, and figure out what lies they believe, eh? You are quite likely trying to free the very people who need restraint the most, Lap.
And it doesnt take much searching to understand that Yah never claimed to exist, as the I AM passages (correctly rendered) make plain; but if believers under the law need to prove that God exists, i would refer you to the previous para lol. And i could also provide refutes for the "all-loving, omnibenevolent" God, i just didnt bother
ok ima take my own advice and leave here, but i wish you the best ok
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bbyrd009
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you might be mistaken when you say that the Bible confirms that they are in Christ, and Christ is in them, i meant to say. Am i a Christian? Someone looking forward to and expecting a literal restoration of the Davidic Throne? Or what. Anyway, ill take “im sure its not me” too
i mean srsly? you really think that the Bible justifies behavior that you find abhorrent
Furthermore, the Father judges no one, but has rendered all judgement to the Son btw, which i guess takes a while to rectify with your truth emphasized up there…regardless of who believes what i guess
last word to you im out
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bbyrd009
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well Gott, there is a literal way to grasp that, and a spiritual way, imo,
No son of man may die for another's sins; the lifesoul that sins is the one that dies
bbyrd009
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Wrangler
Well-Known Member
My God man, you are blind! Billions of people testify that God transformed their lives. Their changed lives IS the evidence you are drowning in! the Bible puts it this way, their body is the temple of God.
Billions of witnesses testify to this. Billions. No evidence exists?! You are drowning in evidence.
Lapidem
Active Member
On the contrary I have the eyes to see and the ears to hear that Jesus spoke of. You have failed throughout this exchange to deal with facts and evidence. You clutch desperately to the fact that if 2 billion people all follow the same way of life, all submit to the same psychological conditioning and all willingly participate in the same delusion, that this somehow adds credibility to the doctrine. It doesn't, simple as. It highlights how powerful psychological indoctrination is and that's a HUGE problem for the world which it must one day rid itself of. You've cast aside rational thinking, indeed you seem wholly incapable of critical thinking. How do you reconcile your absurd concept of an all-powerful all-loving god with the atrocities we've witnessed these past 3 years ? How do you reconcile the years of sexual abuse perpetrated by the likes of Jimmy Savile on innocent children who will be scarred for life? Stop making excuses for an imaginery tyrant who clearly isn't remotely all-powerful or all-loving. You might as well worship Hitler or Pol Pott.
Wake up ! The Matrix has you !
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
No. It is just that you are drowning in evidence. So, you invent standards to discredit that which you refuse to accept. There is the supernatural, infinity greater than @Lapidem.
The consequence of this reality would alter your perception beyond your ability to integrate it.
Many believers were as you - until God called to them. I stand as such a living testimony.
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