No no. My reason for editing your post like you did mine is to show a clear example of how relative everything you say is. It is all dependent upon your faith. I came into this forum to find truth. What is truth? Should not truth be the same for everyone? Why would it vary?
Except what I said
wasn't relative, it was
accurate. I made statements through analogy that were legitimate and based on logic and reason. Your beliefs
are delusional. They are held in absence of evidence and often even held in spite of evidence to the contrary. You failed to make a demonstrable statement other than to further demonstrate the extent of your own delusion by believing that truth can be relative. Truth, simply put, is the way things are in reality, in spite of the bias and subjective position of observers. I hold my truths provisionally and I'm willing to revise with evidence. You, on the other hand, hold you "truths"
rigidly and without provision for revision should evidence contradict them. Moreover, many of your "truths" do not require any shred of legitimate evidence. Indeed, I include inverted commas on either side of the word "truth" quite intentionally and necessarily when speaking of your "truths," since they are not based upon reality but, rather, mythology and superstition. Thus, they are
delusions.
No book in the Bible was written as late as the 7th century. Moses wrote the Exodus before the resurecction (BC). If you don't ask the question correctly as I've told you before, with the right facts, how can I answer it?
It is clearly your delusion that these are "truths," but reason and genuine truths say otherwise. There is no evidence to suggest that any of the texts were written in their current form prior to the 7th century BCE. But even if we are to accept that some portions of biblical mythology
were penned earlier than the 7th century, there are clear and biblically admitted examples of books within this mythical compilation that are written well after the end of the Bronze Age. I'm assuming that you misspoke here and were referring to the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the bible) only. Obviously the New Testament legends and myths were created later than the 7th century BCE. Indeed, evidence places their authorship at 70 - 100 CE.
So, you are correct that facts are important to understanding mythology. I agree with this statement and hold your lack of factual understanding to be your overall failing in understanding the origins of the very mythologies you hold to be literal "truth."
An atheist claims to know what happens to you after you die, where life came from, where all the matter in the universe came from etc. You say "nothing" to the life after death. Who is to say that claim is not deluded?
Pardon? Perhaps some atheists may claim to "know" what happens when you die, where life came from, etc. But did you see me make any such claims? I can give you best evidence of what is
thought and make statements of what I have no reason to
believe in, but I'll never state that I know what happens to the consciousness postmortem. I don't know and neither do you. Only those that are deluded or lying would state that they "know," since clearly one can not know unless one is deceased. The latter condition precludes one from revealing knowledge and perhaps even from "knowing" at all. But this is more evidence of the general lack of understanding and baseless assumption that exists with the religiously deluded when faced with the enigma (from their perspective) of the godless.
How would your life be different is there were a heaven and hell?
How would
your life be different if the Stay-Puff marshmallow Man began visiting your for breakfast every Wednesday? See, I can ask bullshit questions that have no real meaning as well.
Atheism most definitely shapes it views on the question of life after death. I'm grateful God has been greacious to us and revealed His truth. You depend on your own knowledge for the answer(remember the three choices: yourself, religion, or the Bible?).
You pretend to deride circular reasoning in one paragraph and then commit the fallacy in a following one? How intellectually dishonest. Atheism: without gods. Period. You have a delusion about a single god and you are an atheist regarding the many other thousands of gods, past an present, that have afflicted the minds and deluded others. And you have the audacity to criticize those that refuse to take part in
your delusion regarding
your god? This is the primary modus operandi for Christians: they pretend to be affronted by the big-bad atheists and their "belief system" that is one of "rejecting" their god, as if the atheists just
knows your silly god exists and is rejecting it out of spite.
And there resides the major failing of religious nutters. They think its their god that vocal atheists and agnostics have a problem with. Newsflash, Bub: it isn't. It's
you we have an issue with. Religious nutbars want to force their bullshit delusions down everyone's throat and then cry foul when someone criticizes them and takes a skeptical perspective on their claims. Somehow, were all expected to give religion a pass. We can criticize, deride and ridicule each other all day long on our political, economic, and academic beliefs. But question someone's religion, and suddenly this is taboo.
Religion has the largest impact on humanity than any other single institution. And I'm not talking about your own, specific cult, but religion on the whole. Every single one of the many extant and extinct religions in the history of humanity. The very fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, -most of which are contradictory or far from complimentary- indicates that
someone must be wrong.
And the purpose of this thread is to raise the question why can't it be yours. And we're doing that by mentioning the contradictions that exist in the mythical texts that your cult uses as doctrine. I raised some very specific points in this thread, as did others. The best response
you've been able to muster includes: 1) the bible is true because it tells me so; 2) "you're wrong, Moses wrote Exodus
before the 7th Century BCE." Not a single shred of legitimate evidence provided.
Therefore, my contention stands: you are deluded.
I came into this forum to see why I should place my trust in the atheist viewpoint and so far no atheist has provided enough evidence for the answer to this question.
Then leave. We don't want you here because you, sir, are a liar. You
did not come here to see why you should place your trust in the atheist viewpoint. You have a preconceived conclusion, to which you will accept only that data which are supportive. You have been presented with evidence (see my lengthy post on the Exodus myth). You have done absolutely nothing of substance to refute it except to utter the fallacious statement that "no atheist has provided enough evidence." So clearly you are a liar. Either you're lying to us when you made that statement, or you're lying to yourself when you don't see the evidence.
Yeah and that is because we all have a spiritual thirst. It is an interesting question why they almost always refuse to believe the Bible. Anything that confronts sin and calls it what it is.
This is a completely fallacious and convoluted statement and has no bearing on the issue at hand. But it is evidence for the further delusion of the religious who refuse to look at themselves with any objectivity. You say "believe in the bible" as if there is some anthropomorphic quality that can be legitimately worshiped. The bible is but one additional god to add to the Christian pantheon of gods. For a cult that claims to be monotheistic, yours certainly has a lot of gods.
And that is where I learn about faith and truth, once again. These are not my claims but the Bibles.
A book doesn't make claims. People do. However, if your delusion includes anthropomorphizing your texts, then it is understandable how you can fall into this trap of fallacy. You'll stick to your "faith" and your "truth," to this there can be no doubt. The deluded masses of religious cults like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and so forth have evolved to protect their delusion from contamination by reason and skepticism. The very texts of these cults warn of the critic and the questioner and caution that such people should be avoided. There is no love for apostacy in any of these religions.
Again we go back to the question of what evidence would convince you that God is truth? Knowing that it would have to be evidence for all the people in the history of the world (young and old, black and white, rich and poor, dumb and smart, etc.) and it couldn't be overwhelming in order that we still can use our freewill. (He didn't create robots.)
Ah. The freewill argument. As if such a notion does exist. No where in this argument, however, does there lie a shred of evidence for the existence of anyone's god, much less yours. The evidence that would convince me would be that evidence which was testable. If there were, indeed, a god that played an important role in the universe, we should see evidence that:
- Laws of physics were violated in producing universe.
- Universe and life were designed by a high intelligence.
- God communicates truths by divine revelation.
- Scriptural events really happened.
- At least some prayers are answered.
- Humans are special, have supernatural powers.
- God is source of morals and values.
There are many who might
claim one or more of the above, but, to date, not a single shred of evidence supports any of the above. Indeed, each of these might make good thread topics should others wish to support them or argue that they are held by evidence. I'd be interested to see what evidence they
think might exist for them.
God has been gracious in giving us the Bible which is a historical account given by credible eyewitness at the time of Christ.
Really? What eyewitnesses and what makes them credible? We don't know
who actually wrote the various books of the bible. We're reasonably sure about some of Paul's contributions, but key texts such as the gospels and the books of the Pentateuch are complete mysteries as to who penned them. We can trace the motifs and archetypes of the myths to earlier cultures like the Sumerians and the Egyptians, but this is as best we can come to sourcing biblical mythology.
Well I claim my faith is truth. Why would your observations of truth be truth for me? Remember if something is truth it will be the same for all no matter what they observe.
Exactly. Now you see why my contention that you are deluded is held. Actually,
others see why my contention is held, you are still wrapped up in your delusion, believing that what you perceive is a "truth." Truth is independent of human perception. Reality exists regardless of whether it is perceived by humans or not. There *is* an objective truth in reality and it is only through provisional acceptance of evaluated observations that have withstood genuine inquiry.
What's interesting is that you have never observed a species turn into another species and yet you are staking your life on it.
I *have* observed the transition from one species to the next. This, however, is a topic for another thread, one that I probably won't participate in since the intellectually dishonest rarely have a genuine interest in education and, since you've already established a willingness to disregard fact in favor of delusion, what would be the point in explaining biology, geology, genetics and anthropology to the educationally handicapped? Such an education is available for free and I'm happy to provide you with sources that you can obtain in your local library should you have a genuine interest in discovery and education. If so, PM me and I'll give you a bibliography that will suffice.
Did you not read the post on the evidences for the resurrection? Evidence can be in the eye of the beholder.
Admittedly, I missed it. I'll review the thread at some point with the intention of locating it. I've no doubt that the "evidence" is anything but, since such an evidence would surely have been ground shattering enough to stagger both theologists and scientists alike. No such reverberation has occurred that I'm aware of and I have my ear at both tracks.
See what is hard to understand is that I was not always a Believer. I was a non-Believer before.
I don't believe you. I think you were probably always a "believer," only now you're more fundamental in your beliefs. But that's my opinion only. I make no assertion that it is based on anything more than fallacious reasoning, to which I'm all to happy to acknowledge as being a willing participant in from time to time -unlike those that dwell solely in delusion.
How can truth be objective? That is a complete contradiction.
You're right. It *is* a contradiction if on some level you realize that you are deluded and choose delusion over reality. Interesting that you should point it out.
SkinWalker said:
Exactly! That is exactly the criticism I've leveled against you and others: you have preconceived conclusions to which you seek only that data which are supportive.
So then my question is how did you come to those preconceived conclusions? Were you forced to have them? Why do you think I was forced?
Ha. It doesn't work, pal. I've demonstrated
throughout my exchanges with you how your conclusions are preconceived. You've even admitted to this and upheld the assertion. You can
attempt to turn the critique around on the criticizer if you like, but it doesn't have the same effect. I will gladly revise
any of my beliefs and re-evaluate
any of the truths I provisionally hold. Indeed, I will
cheerfully revise many of them if the evidence were to show they were held erroneously. Can you say the same? Do you hold any "truths" sans evidence? Are you willing to revise your belief that Moses did not lead the equivalent of the population of Vancouver through the desert, tip-toeing past Egyptian military outposts and picking up every scrap of garbage to the point of not leaving a single trace for their existence? I've seen evidence of paleolithic nomads, numbering 20-30 in a band, which I could follow from temporary habitation to temporary habitation. But we can't find 600,000 Jews that "wandered" for 40 years? Right.
I was born into a culture completely different from what I believe now, how do you explain that?
I don't buy the "completely different" description. "Different," perhaps, but I would almost bet my paycheck you came from a culture that, in general, accepted the notion of Judeo-Christian mythology. But, I certainly wouldn't discount the possibility. Nor would I expect that such statistical outliers wouldn't find their way to a discussion forum. After all, such a person would naturally seek to discuss his/her newly found cultural identity, if only to justify to him/herself the continued membership in this culture. Moreover, if you look back at my previous post, you'll see that I used the word "perhaps" and made a general comment on what might happen to a child raised in a given culture of belief. We can empirically show that
most people get their religion from their parents. This is such a given and understood fact, that you surely aren't contending. Given that this is a statistical problem, we can expect that there will be outliers from the mean. You might be such an outlier. There's no reason to expect that such an outlier wouldn't visit a discussion forum on the internet.
The three: Yourself, religion, the Bible
I claim the Bible, not my own worldview
There is no difference. The bible, apparently one of the gods of Christianity, has become your worldview.
...I'm with you here..I have no great love for scientology either.
