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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@Ask21771
We already know that it is easy for the credulous to believe that a vague prophecy has come true.
My prophecy for tomorrow is that there will be trouble in the Middle-East. When that comes true, will you argue that Ockham's razor suggests the simplest explanation is that I am a prophet/psychic? I'm guessing you will not.
I guess what I'm saying is, we already know how prophecy like this comes true, and it don't require adding any new principles. Adding new principles does not seem like the simplest explanation.
About six people have said that so far.... Which do you think is simpler, magical creator beings or someone just wrote the prophecy after it happened?
Why would anyone do that
Ask 21771
When dealing with cultural events it has always been a temptation to alter the facts after the event, later Christians invented and inserted passages into Josephus, invented fake correspondence between Seneca and "Paul" and wrote entire epistles like "Titus" all forged to give spurious credibility to a faked story that had no credible evidence.
Ever heard of "Confirmation Bias"?
There's one motivation....
Ever heard of lying to people to get converts and make money... There is another motivation.
It is always about the money. You have it and they want it.
@Ask21771 original post
The simpsons predicted donald trump would run for presidency many years before tRump even ran for president. Occam's razor, simpsons tv show is prophetic and we should all watch the simpsons to learn about our god homer simpson with his immortal and never aging son, bart simpson.
OR NOT.
That argument is one of the more ridiculous ones I have seen. The proper response to someone using that argument, if it is not a little kid, is: hey are you off your meds? Your crazy is showing.
Prophecy of events that already happened from a book supposedly but not proven to be written well before the event is not prophecy. If a book told me the winning lottery numbers of the next jackpot, then we may be talking real actual prophecy. Real: hey, there might actually be something happening here.
I have returned! As prophesised earlier in this thread! Yaboosucks! for your Razor!
Nothing to add. Its all been covered.
@ask
I have to apply xenoview's razor to any claim that a god is real.
Xenoview's razor
Objective claims requires objective evidence
I'm sorry but how is it that dozens of people all deciding to lie and write in prophecies after they happened a simpler explanation than the prophecies being inspIred by God (lying is a sin, which would matter to the people writing the scriptures)
Ask21771,
"(lying is a sin, which would matter to the people writing the scriptures)"
As it says in Job 13:7-8 (CEV) = "Are you telling lies for God
8 and not telling the whole truth when you argue his case?"
Lying was not a sin in ancient Christianity. The idea of sin being things you did came much later. SIN is clearly identified as ("separation from god.") You are born in a state of sin. "Original Sin." The things you do do not change that. Through belief and works you are saved. Read the bible and you will see that once you are saved you can not sin. (You can not be separated from God.)
We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. (Does not continue to be separated from God!) 1 John, 5:18
What you are doing is confusing your biblical texts. Each Book is different. Each book has a different view of Jesus and the Christian faith. Each book was written at a different time and for a different audience. The fact that the books appear in an anthology, does not mean they are related to one another.
If you believe in a god as I assume you do then of course its harder to believe the simpler explanation that people will lie for their god and declare it is ok to do so. This is an atheist forum, we don't accept the claim that there are gods and we have witnessed theists telling lies to defend their beliefs.
What religion or faith do you follow?
An explanation that requires the breaking of the laws of nature can never be the simplest explanation possible.
@Ask21771 do you believe it is ever acceptable to lie about your beliefs?
No
@Ask21771
But you must be aware that others are willing to do it (lie about their beliefs)? Surely you have seen this many times in your daily life? Especially by the followers of other religions?
If you do in fact have first hand experience with people lying about their beliefs: why are you ignoring this rather simple explanation in your application of Ockham's razor?
I don't interact with people outside of the internet
Fair enough.
But since you admittedly don't interact with people in the "standard way"; shouldn't you be extra skeptical of your own ability to guess at peoples motives? And what they will and will not say or do?
Anyway, get out more man! Go to the local store and chat up a clerk or something!
Even if people do lie about their beliefs, dozens of people making up prophecies about events that already happened is a more complicated answer than that the prophecies came from God, if God is the more complicated answer I'm not seeing how
@ Ask 21771
Now you are making me laugh. Dozens (probably hundreds over the centuries) of people did make stuff up, in christianity they made their later stories conform to the "prophecies" in the OT. After that , as I gave you concrete provable examples of Seneca, Epistles of Paul (except the first three) Acts was written long after the events described and doesn't conform to the descriptions elsewhere.
As you don't interact with people try reading more. You will find religions full of lies and fantasy to bolster early stories. That is the simple explanation.
"god did it" means you have to explain: which exact god, establish its existence by evidence, establish the characters existed that this "god" inspired to write, establish they wrote it, Establish the timelines...all very complicated.
Simpler, man lied about it. Read some books.
I'm sorry i'm still not following how "God did it" is not the simplest explanation, God is only one thing, people writing in prophecies about events that already happened are multiple things, one thing is simpler than multiple things
A nuclear aircraft carrier is simpler than two drops of water? Seems dubious.
In terms of occam's razor the explanation with the fewest assumptions is the one most likely to be correct,
The explanation that the prophecies came from God is the one with the fewest assumptions
There is no evidence that what you claim are prophecies were in fact prophecies. No explanation being necessary is even simpler than an explanation.
Why assume something came from God when God itself is an assumption?
You are confusing the shortest sentence with the simplest explanation.
Because you have inserted the "god" word. That is an extremely complex imaginary entity, one that can change the orbits of planets, destroy stars, make wine, and perform incredible miracles. And yet this god is invisible and not detectable. The F-22 jet fighter is very stealthy, almost invisible to radar. Yet it is a very expensive and complex machine. What it does may appear simple, yet to do it requires a very complex machine.
So the explanation that god did it is one that involves something very complex, while the idea that some dude just invented a story is much simpler.
@ Ask21771
Ok, lets break it down for you:
1: Which god?
2: which provable historical character "prophesied?"
3. Who witnessed this prophecy?
4. When was it written down, and by whom?
5. Produce that original, contemporary, witnessed document
Answer those first five for any prophecy you consider 'real" and we can proceed.
Note those questions only establish that a prophecy or statement may have been made...then we have to look at the context and clarity of the message. Its a complex thing establishing historical events.
Simple explanation, stories, embellished by later authors...and that my son, is provable in the cases of Titus, Corinthians 3 and 4, John, Letters to Seneca, Entry in Josephus...and so many more....we already have those examples, plus the nativity stories in Luke and Matthew, one of them is lying...which? Or both?
'Godidit' is the least likely explanation ever.
Ok show me objective evidence that what your saying is true
@ Ask21771
There is a whole body of works about forgeries in the bible. I am sure you can google Josephus for yourself and see the studies that definitely date the "jesus " mention to an interpolation in the late 3rd century. The examples I give you below while I await your answers to my questions , are of inaccuracies, later additions and contradictions to earlier testimony...proof that later interventions were rife.
Lets look at the "infallible" book itself: Acts 4:13 the statement is made that both Peter and John were illiterate, yet in later years entire books of the Bible were then alleged to have been written by them.
and Acts and Paul’s letters exhibit significant divergences. For instance, the letters narrate conflict between Paul and people in his communities—rather than between Paul and Jewish and Gentile authorities, as we see in Acts. Acts says nothing of Paul the letter writer, and he is not called an apostle except in one instance (Acts 14:4, Acts 14:14). Most notable is the incongruity between Paul’s gospel message in Acts and the message we see in his letters, especially Romans and Galatians. Paul’s emphasis on “justification by faith” is completely absent from his speeches and sermons in Acts, where he seems more aligned with Peter’s mission to the Jews (compare Acts 2 and Acts 13). Indeed, the so-called Jerusalem Council dealing with issues arising from Gentiles entering the new movement looks quite different in Acts (Acts 15:1-35) and Galatians (Gal 2:1-10). Paul Tenner.
For authorship of all the epistles and which are not considered genuine see: The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament by David E. Aune
Now answer my criteria....
I'm starting to think the problem is that none of you consider god a possibility, but the truth is God is a possibility
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