Pascal's Wager started as The Resurrection is irrelevant

[geeser]

Consider the following Scriptures

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Psalm 100:3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Hebrews 1:10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

Obviously, the Bible puts great emphasis on the God of the Bible being the creator of the universe, and with good reason, for if the God of the Bible did not create the universe, then his enforcement of rules of his own choosing is no more legitimate than the enforcement of rules that are mandated by any other self-proclaimed dictator of the universe. It is interesting to note that even if God is able to enforce his rules on earth, there is not any evidence at all that he can successfully enforce his rules throughout the universe.

Why do Christians limit creative ability to the God of the Bible? Who knows how many advanced aliens there might be who have similar abilities? How does one tell the difference between a God and an advanced alien? If a jet plane had flown over Jerusalem in 75 A.D., surely the majority of Christians would have believed that the jet plane had supernatural origins, and they would have been wrong.

I request that Christians answer the following question:

Why do you believe that the God of the Bible created the universe?

It is my position that the authority of the Bible depends completely upon the claim that God created the universe, and since the claim is completely non-verifiable by any tangible means, the Bible does not have any legitimate authority whatsoever.

thanks j skeptic

 

[mustafhakofi]

new that anyway, my hats off to you, if you can convince the poor xians.

 

[c7ityi_]

It is interesting to note that even if God is able to enforce his rules on earth, there is not any evidence at all that he can successfully enforce his rules throughout the universe.

people have a belief in god on other planets too. it's a natural part of evolution, a consequence of self awareness. we wonder why the world exists, and we see how incredible and huge everything is, so we think it must be created by someone greater than us, a superior entity. we think of it as an entity, a person, because we identify ourselves with our bodies and we create persons. if people wouldn't think of god as a person, it would be hard to have a relation with it.

we suffer and we wonder why. we feel that we are punished for something, so we believe in god. people don't realize that those "punishments" are meant to teach us and they are consequences of our ignorance.

when we lie, we think no one will see us, but we still get scared because we feel that someone saw us (god) so we get bad conscience. of course, there was no one who saw me -- no one but me. i was the only one who saw. i saw myself. i am god, and i punish and crucify myself, my ignorant person.

How does one tell the difference between a God and an advanced alien?

how does one tell the difference between a prophet (man) and the son of god/man (god)?

god is in everyone. the difference is that everyone does not know god completely, so neither can god express himself completely through everyone.

If a jet plane had flown over Jerusalem in 75 A.D., surely the majority of Christians would have believed that the jet plane had supernatural origins, and they would have been wrong.

a jetplane 75 A.D? sounds pretty "supernatural" to me. but i know what you mean, i just don't know if get the point really.

sometimes i wonder why people don't wonder why stuff exists. it feels like nothing would be much more logical than something. i guess ordinary people generally don't think much of it because they subconsciously know they created everything and it is all the same me. we have tricked ourselves quite a bit. this illusion seems pretty "real", though there is no one but me here, in different forms, under different circumstances. relation. duality. the base of everything. infinity.

 

[Silas]

Why do Christians limit creative ability to the God of the Bible? Who knows how many advanced aliens there might be who have similar abilities? How does one tell the difference between a God and an advanced alien? If a jet plane had flown over Jerusalem in 75 A.D., surely the majority of Christians would have believed that the jet plane had supernatural origins, and they would have been wrong.

That's quite a bizarre way to start. If a jet plane had flown over Jerusalem in 75 AD, I think people would be on pretty good grounds for believing it had supernatural origins! (Also, why are you talking about "Christians" only at this point? There were hardly any Christians in 75 CE, just a few small isolated communities, and since the epistles were incomplete, let alone the Gospels not written yet, not all Christian doctrine had been finalised, and I think it's fair to say that they weren't entirely sure what they believed just then!)

I request that Christians answer the following question:

Why do you believe that the God of the Bible created the universe?

I'm not absolutely certain that every Christian (or even most Christians, or even most Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians) thinks of God as "The God of the Bible". They think of God as the Supernatural Being that Created the Universe, of which the evidence is the Bible. But take the Bible away, they'll still believe in Him. And you yourself answered the question - you can hardly worship a God that did any less than Create the Universe.

It is my position that the authority of the Bible depends completely upon the claim that God created the universe, and since the claim is completely non-verifiable by any tangible means, the Bible does not have any legitimate authority whatsoever.

It is (for the purposes of this post) my position that any refutation that God created the Universe would have to be based on sound scientific principles that completely rules out the action of a Supreme Being.

When we actually do know how the Universe came about, geeser, that's the time to be asking people to give up their faith in the Creator God. Otherwise, all you've demonstrated here is hubris.

 

[geeser]

That's quite a bizarre way to start. If a jet plane had flown over Jerusalem in 75 AD, I think people would be on pretty good grounds for believing it had supernatural origins! (Also, why are you talking about "Christians" only at this point? There were hardly any Christians in 75 CE, just a few small isolated communities, and since the epistles were incomplete, let alone the Gospels not written yet, not all Christian doctrine had been finalised, and I think it's fair to say that they weren't entirely sure what they believed just then!)


I'm not absolutely certain that every Christian (or even most Christians, or even most Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christians) thinks of God as "The God of the Bible". They think of God as the Supernatural Being that Created the Universe, of which the evidence is the Bible. But take the Bible away, they'll still believe in Him. And you yourself answered the question - you can hardly worship a God that did any less than Create the Universe.

It is (for the purposes of this post) my position that any refutation that God created the Universe would have to be based on sound scientific principles that completely rules out the action of a Supreme Being.

When we actually do know how the Universe came about, geeser, that's the time to be asking people to give up their faith in the Creator God. Otherwise, all you've demonstrated here is hubris.

Sure, lack of verification does not negate truth, but neither does it reasonably prove the truth. Yes, I accept many things that people tell me without first verifying that they are true, but most certainly not if they claimed that a specific being created the universe. Even if the God of the Bible can predict the future, and heal people, that does not necessarily mean that he created the universe. Other beings might have creative abilities too, and even the Bible admits that bad people can predict the future too, reference Deuteronomy 13. If bad people can predict the future, why can't they also have creative abilities? If a person who you trust told you that he saw a mouse pick up a battleship, and that he saw a pig sprout wings and fly, would you believe him? Well of course you wouldn't, and yet for some reason you accept equally preposterous claims in the Bible such as the global flood and a talking donkey.

If Jesus returned to earth, how would you know that it was him? In Jesus' time, how could anyone have reliably known that he was the Son of the creator of the universe and not an advanced alien who wanted to be worshiped, simulated his death, and lied about who he was? The claim that the God of the Bible created the universe is no more plausible than many other plausibilities. The universe is vast, old, complex, and full of possibilities. Who knows how many advanced alien races there might be and what their abilities might be?

There is no such thing as a supernatural event. Every event is natural to whoever causes it. It is natural for people to build jet planes today, but during the time of Jesus it was not natural for people to build jet planes. If a jet plane had flown over Jerusalem in 75 A.D., almost everyone would have believed that the jet plane had supernatural origins, and they would have been wrong. The people who would have been least likely to assume that the jet plane had supernatural origins would have been skeptics, and they would have been right. Religious minded people of each generation, no matter what the religion, describe what they believe to be supernatural events based upon existing human technology, but history has proven the fallacy of that approach many times.

If Elvis Presley rose from the dead and claimed that he died for the sins of mankind, would you believe him? I doubt it, and yet for some reason you believe that Jesus died for the sins of mankind, healed people, fed 5,000 people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin, never sinned, and a host of other completely non-verifiable claims.

thanks j sceptic