Atheist Republic,
I want to be totally honest about why I am here from the beginning. I am a Christian seminary student and am taking an apologetics class. One of our assignments is to dialogue with an atheist about worldview and to write a paper about it. I found your forum and hoped that one of you would be kind of enough to have a dialogue with me.
I am not here to argue or anything of the sort. I just want to have an honest conversation about beliefs in a civil way, because I think that's what the world needs more of - honest, civil, discussion. I am also not here to try to convert anyone, I simply want to learn.
If you would be willing to engage in this conversation with me over email, please respond here or in a private message with your email to let me know. Or we can do it on this forum if that works better. If this sort of thing is inappropriate on this site, moderators by all means remove this post.
Thanks so much!
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We do not have a world view.
Being an atheist is defined by just one fact, the rejection of the god claim. Any of us could be conservative or liberal, be a member of the Republican party or a card carrying member of the communist party. There is just one thing we have in common, the rejection of the god claim.
I hope this clarifies the confusion and lies your seminary has told you.
I appreciate your response, David. Just to clarify...
Would you agree that a worldview is basically just the way you experience the world and evaluate what you experience? I.e. if you believe there is no God, then doesn’t that filter the way you view the world?
For example, I noticed a thread on here about the recent school shooting in Florida. Doesn’t our worldview dictate what we think about that?
I think what he meant was that atheism isn't a worldview, so atheists don't all share the same worldview. Atheists have one thing in common and that is they don't believe in any deity, but they may of course share many other views.
" if you believe there is no God, then doesn’t that filter the way you view the world?"
How much does not believing in Zeus effect your worldview? I now it sounds silly to you, but theists in my experience attach far significance to atheism than atheists do.
The general consensus about the shooting, as you'd expect is that it is a tragic and appalling crime, opinions however diverge sharply from there. We're not all American citizens either.
Since you have made a candid request for honesty can I ask what deity you believe exists and what (if any) objective evidence you have based this belief on.. In the same spirit of honesty I ask because I started a thread asking any theists to offer whatever objective evidence they had for the existence of a deity and after some time and several pages all they have posted is arguments based on fallacious reasoning and bald assertions. They don't even seem to understand the difference to be honest.
Thanks Sheldon!
I believe in the trinitarian God of the Bible. As far as evidence goes, I could argue for the existence of God (and some of these obviously for the existence of the Christian God) from the following list:
Evidence from the existence of the physical universe
Evidence from the fine-tuning of the physical universe
Evidence from the origins of life
Evidence from apparent design in biology
Evidence from human consciousness and human values
Evidence from religious experience in general
Evidence from miracles (esp. Jesus’ miracles)
Evidence from biblical prophecies
Evidence from the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth
Evidence from the testimony of the early Christians
Evidence from the history of the Christian church
Do any of these subject interest you?
PS I hope this doesn't come off as trying to sound superior. That is certainly not my intention. I just don't want to start with objective evidence from an area you don't care about or don't think is worth discussing. Hope that makes sense.
1, Evidence from the existence of the physical universe
2. Evidence from the fine-tuning of the physical universe
3. Evidence from the origins of life
4. Evidence from apparent design in biology
5. Evidence from human consciousness and human values
6. Evidence from religious experience in general
7. Evidence from miracles (esp. Jesus’ miracles)
8. Evidence from biblical prophecies
9. Evidence from the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth
10. Evidence from the testimony of the early Christians
11. Evidence from the history of the Christian church
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1. What evidence is that? How can it be objectively verified?
2. This begging the question, a common logical fallacy where you assert in the argument what you are arguing for. How many universes did you test your claim on for instance, and if you could demonstrate fine tuning hos does this evidence a deity anyway?
3. What evidence? This sounds like another common logical fallacy to me argumentum ad ignorantiam.
4. There is no evidence of design in biology, so apparent is correct, and therefore not evidence of a anything except our ability to misinterpret what we see, hence the need for science to evidence facts. However even if any objective evidence for design could be demonstrated this does not evidence a deity necessarily, I suspect argumentum ad ignorantiam is the next step, as this often the case in religious apologetics.
5. What evidence, and how does this evidence a deity?
6. Such as? Can these be objectively evidenced?
7. What miracles? Again you're begging the question.
8. What evidence? How do these objectively evidence a deity?
9. Anecdotal claims that have dubious provenance are not objective evidence.
10. Anecdotal claims that have dubious provenance are not objective evidence.
11. Anecdotal claims that have dubious provenance are not objective evidence.
We have a way to go I fear, but then that is why you are here.
@Neel
All of these ideas you posted have been hashed out on this form many times. None of them prove a god. Most are just bullshit anyway. All of them rely on skipping a major requirement for proof and none of them prove anything.
You say you are talking an "apologist" class.
An apologist is just another word for liar. So you are learning how to lie. Spinning doesn't prove a god.
I could go over each one of these points that you bring up and EASILY dispell each of them, but I have done it so many times I just don't want to do it anymore.
You have a basic problem. You don't know what the basic requirement for valid proof is. Yet another issue that I have gone through more than I care to and I will not do it now.
You see Neel, we have seen it all before. Every argument that you have proposed, and probably could propose we have seen before many many times. They aren't worth the trouble to consider any longer. Intelligent design, biblical scripture, none of them are even close to valid and none of them prove a god.
I suggest you drop that "apologist" class unless you intend to be a professional liar. I suggest you take a class in learning the scientific method or maybe even a legal ethics course.
@Sheldon and @mykcob4 I appreciate you guys responding. I would love to talk through a few of those points in more detail. Some of them we will never agree on, and I think that's ok! I don't have a ton of time tonight, but will be back on here tomorrow.
In the meantime, what do you guys do with the resurrection of Jesus? I would love to talk through that and hear your perspective.
I am sure that topic and many others have been discussed on here before. I don't have any "new" evidence to bring to the table. Just talking through some of the age old things and hearing some different perspectives. Sorry if this is redundant for ya'll, it is new for me in this forum.
Thanks in advance!
"In the meantime, what do you guys do with the resurrection of Jesus?"
I don't believe it happened, all the apologetics I have seen simply assert it, and cite anecdotal claims of unknown or dubious provenance. Why do you believe it happened?
I think this is an important point. The first thing I would say is that each of the four gospels, which are historical accounts, agree on the historical fact of the resurrection. And it's not as if the gospels are always presenting things in a favorable way for Christianity (e.g., Matt. 16:8-9; Matt. 28:17) as well as Peter's denials and using the testimony of women in a culture where their testimony was not accepted.
I would love also to hear at this point what you think of the Bible from the standpoint of its reliability as an historical document. Because if you evaluate by the same standards as other ancient documents, then I think you will see that it is historically reliable, and if it is historically reliable then we have to take some of its claims seriously.
Post-resurrection, the church totally changed worship practices, moving worship to Sunday mornings to celebrate the resurrection and the church absolutely exploded as eyewitnesses to the events proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus. Ten of the remaining eleven disciples were martyred for proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus and not one of them recanted. Paul says that over 500 people were still alive in the early church that saw Jesus alive, none of them changed their story. I know some of this is anecdotal, but it is also noteworthy and worth your consideration.
There are many directions I could go on the resurrection from here, but I will simply ask you instead, what is your proof that it didn't happen. The historical facts are that the resurrection was claimed by the early church and no one could ever disprove it. Where did Jesus' body go?
@ Neel
You can stop right there about the resurrection. It never happened. It is an old story from older cultures stolen and used in christianity to mystify and amaze ignorant people in believing in the christian story (which is a total myth).
1) The gospels are not historical fact.
2) The gospels were altered in particular Mark. In 323 verses were added and the "resurrection" was invented at that time. The claims in the newer version are complete impossibilities and never happened.
3) It is doubtful that "jesus" ever existed but is a character amalgamated from several campfire stories like King Arther.
4) None of the stories in the gospels are corroborated by ANY historical records.
5) All the gospels were written long after the supposed events.
Thanks for the response @mykcob4!
Do you hold other ancient books to the same standards of historical reliability as you do the gospels? We can get back further with manuscripts for the gospels than any other books as old. We have copies back to the second century of NT books, while it is hard to get past 1,000 AD with any other book. P52 is dated back to 125AD, so I'm not sure how the gospels could have been written long after the fact. Clement of Rome (96 A. D.), Polycarp (100-110 A. D.), Papias (70 - 140 A. D.), Papias (70 - 140 A. D.), Justin Martyr (100 - 165 A. D.), Irenaeus (c. 170 A. D.) are all historical sources for the reliability of the gospels.
Can you help me with evidence of the addition of verses added in Mark? I am unfamiliar.
What evidence do you have that Jesus never existed as a real, historical person? Virtually all scholars agree–liberal and conservative alike–that there is little reason to doubt his existence. It's hard to find a scholar (Richard Carrier, a lone exception) that would even argue for this point.
The criteria for something to be a historical record is CORROBORATION!
You have NO NT "books" that date to the second century, not one. The oldest bible is the Codex Sinaiticus.
the gospel of mark in the codex is very different than what the KJB has. The resurrection doesn't even exist in it let alone 500 witnesses. And the Codex was written well after the supposed events.
Every one of you the supposed NT scriptures that you have posted has been summarily dismissed by experts and this form so many times I don't care to do it again just because YOU haven't done the research to understand that fact. None of them are verified, corroborated, substantiated!
What evidence do you have that Jesus never existed as a real, historical person? Virtually all scholars agree–liberal and conservative alike–that there is little reason to doubt his existence. It's hard to find a scholar (Richard Carrier, a lone exception) that would even argue for this point.
@Neel Skelton
Why are you spamming the forms with the same paragraph?
Was just making sure it didn't get missed, since he didn't respond to it.
He couldn't respond to it because you added it after the fact (with an edit).
I added 2 sentences but the basic question was there from the beginning. Do you believe in a real, historical Jesus?
I wouldn't make a habit of doing that, unless you are looking to get a really nasty reputation, really quickly.
Fair point. I will avoid doing it in the future! I actually just realized I hadn't finished my thought at the end before I posted, but I could understand why an edit is a shady tactic.
@Neel
I don't have to prove jesus existed! The responsibility is to prove that he DID exist. Nowhere outside of the bible is there direct confirmation that he existed.
I'm going to assume this is by far the minority opinion in this forum, is that correct? Whether or not the Biblical Jesus was the real Jesus of history is a different question, but do others here actually argue that Jesus did not exist at all?
If that is a popular opinion, we can talk about it. But almost no scholar - secular, religious, conservative, liberal, in any century - holds this viewpoint.
My two cents: the Jesus as described in the current bible likely did not exist as an individual. The character described in the current bible is, I think, likely a compilation of multiple real people as well as fictional attributes.
I can live with this argument and can understand where it comes from. But to say Jesus did not exist at all is a bold thing to say and it departs from virtually all scholarship.
That's a fallacious appeal to authority as far as religious 'scholars' are concerned, as they are by definition biased. The secular experts you're citing who think he 'MAY' have existed, by definition don't accept the supernatural claims asserted about the biblical character Jesus.
Given we are asking for objective evidence for a deity, this is very far from being that. Like all apologists you are trying to pretend a playing card is in fact a sturdy building block, long enough to lean it against another card, I notice that you have responded to some of my posts but not yet addressed the rebuttals to your claims and arguments, another familiar tactic of religious apologists.
There is not a skerrick of evidence for an historical Yeshua Bin Josef. Not a skerrick for his supposed sentencing, life, death or the amazing events that were meant to have happened at his death.
The Romans were avid recorders of daily minutiae, such events as numbers of long buried* jewish zombies trotting around Jerusalem would not have passed them by. Even Saul ( That 2nd century Josiah Smith) doesn't mention the events that were later added to the synoptic gospels, there is no corroboration, none.
I have already dismantled the tired old Polycarp argument elsewhere,it doesn't take much research. Apart from that Polycarp was 70 years after the events...really? you call that contemporary?
*Matthew 27:52
And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many
How did the Romans miss that?
So partial manuscripts don't count? It has to be an entire Bible to count as as a manuscript? Do you hold other historical books to this same criteria?
Look, Neel, partial manuscripts need to be confirmed meaning their content needs to be corroborated. I am not going to go over every fucking piece of crap that you can produce and PROVE that it isn't worth the parchment that is scribbled on. We have all done that so many times on this forum it isn't even funny.
And it doesn't matter anyway. Someone jotting down folklore doesn't make it fact.
BTW the bible, any of the 1,000s of versions are not factual and are not historical documents in that the fact that they don't and haven't recorded history.
So could I sum up what you are trying to say with the following: There are manuscripts that exist from early copies of the Bible but it doesn't matter because anything written on them is a lie anyway.
Is that fair? In other words, the authors of the Bible were simply liars so it doesn't matter what textual or historical evidence we have anyway?
Are you ever going to demonstrate any of this "evidence". So far all you have done is assert that it exists. I'm now fairly dubious that you have come here for discussion as well.
@Neel
First, you'd have to produce those manuscripts (I suppose you can do that...maybe).
Second, you'd have to corroborate what they describe as being fact. That will not happen because there are no corroborating facts to support that nonsense.
Just because something is "old" doesn't make it historical or factual. You need to learn and grasp that important fact.
Are you sure you are a college graduate? Do you know how to do research...other than just googling it? Do you even know what the criteria for a fact is?
The problem with almost every theologian is that they base everything on the bible. The act as if the bible is fact even though there is nothing to substantiate any of it. Example, can you prove Mary was a virgin? Just because the bible says so doesn't make it fact. there isn't even proof that Mary even existed. Besides, you and most theologians don't even use original bibles. Everything you use was compiled edited and modified (politically) after 323BCE. Nothing is actually contemporary. the supposed letters by Paul and or Peter. No one can prove either of them actually knew how to read or write let alone write anything. No one actually knows who wrote the gospels or ANY of the bible. there isn't a wit of evidence that anything it describes is anything close to fact. Oh sure there are references to known people and places but all lies and stories use real facts sprinkled in to lend authenticity. Ask Joseph Goebbels, he was a propaganda master.
Like I said everything that you offered has already been disproved and summarily dismissed many times on this forum. I don't want to do that hard work again just for YOU!
The so-called authors of the bible were scribes instructed by political advisors to Constantine. The King James version was a political effort to justify a Scotish King to rightfully sit on the Throne of England. In other words a propaganda piece, spin!
Also as I have stated many times on this forum, everything in the bible is written with ONLY the knowledge of someone from the 2nd century that lived in the KNOWN Roman Empire and not beyond geographically or timewise! It's clear it is a work of human hands and intelligence...well knowledge not intelligence. The first bible was a justification for Constantine to rule, and the KJB was propaganda to justify King James to rule England after Elisabeth died.
Talk about taking things out of context. You christians have taken the whole purpose of all the bibles out of context. You ignored history to promote your agendas. That doesn't even account for the mormons that wrote a separate book just to justify their drug-induced bullshit myth.
So yes it's fair and BTW I scrutinize EVERY so-called historical document with the same criteria.
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