I don't see how God could plausibly exist (Christian definition of God)

[Arclight]

Yes, that is what I am saying....you are assuming the bible is accurate, and I don't think it's fair to do so in applying motivations to people who don't think the bible is accurate. The bible is a set of belief systems, not facts. You're stating things as though they were universal facts when they are actually just statements from the bible.

Actually there are many verified facts in the bible regarding history.
Just saying.

 

[Red Herring]

 

[Lark]

Yeah, belief in ourselves, foremost.

Narcissism, with an avatar like that?

 

[Lark]

They may have a point that it was certainly harder to be an atheist when the church avidly persecuted the "ungodly", but there are obviously considerable differences between the living situations now vs. the dark ages that have nothing to do with god, making the comparison a little difficult.

Yeah because that social structure and belief system survived for hundreds of years and generation upon generation because of persecution, man, peasants and labourers must have been complete wooses back then. Wondering if dark ages isnt a serious misnomer from where I'm sitting.

Still stuck on the idea that finding god a "burden" is the main reason for not believing. I disagree - although it would be a burden in some ways, I don't think that is the main reason or even a large one.

I'm not stuck on any idea, where do you get that from? I remember a thread on that topic a long time ago but I do believe that some people do find belief too much trouble, maybe its not the reason for disbelief for some others but I know for sure that there are people who are only interested in or engaged in spiritual preoccupation when its meeting some deep seated need. The equivalent of fair weather friends.

I don't think humans were "built with" that need - that's your own perspective bleeding out, not fact. God and science are not a dichotomy (many choose both, or neither). Science is more of a methodology than a belief system, so of course it applies in fewer areas than religion. Disbelieving in god doesn't mean you lack the feeling/humanitarian "factor", as you imply. Plenty of atheists are involved in charity and foreign aid projects.

I'm not saying the world would be better or worse without God, as I still don't think we can predict that with our current level of knowledge. What you're saying about non-believers is actually not true though, based on the facts

There's more evidence to support that people have needs which are satisfied by spirituality than there are not, for some people its attachment when there's not a suitable other, for other people its a host of reasons, sometimes its a pretty personal reason unique to that individual. If they dont have one outlet they'll find another.

 

[Sniffles]

Uh huh.
[youtube="FI4rpNrkfps"]Evolution vs Religion[/youtube]

 

[Sniffles]

But hey why stop there:

In recent decades, the encounter between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow at the Scopes trial in 1925 has achieved similar legendary status as a major turning point in the war between science and religion. According to common opinion, the evolutionists, though defeated on legal grounds, scored a stunning public-relations victory, halted the anti-evolution crusade, and exposed the bumbling Bryan as an ignoramus. A more careful look suggests that they did nothing of the sort. Even liberal contemporaries, Paul M. Wag- goner has shown, tended at first to view the trial as a disturbing fundamentalist victory, and the anti-evolution campaign continued to prosper for several years after the trial. By present standards, Bryan displayed remarkable openmindedness for a creationist. Publicly, he not only accepted the testimony of geologists regarding the antiquity of the earth, but conceded that the "days" of Genesis represented long periods of time. Privately, he allowed to friends that he had no quarrel with "evolution before man."36

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1987/PSCF9-87Lindberg.html

 

[Red Herring]

Yeah, the point was not so much if Darrow was a great orator or not (and you have shown a fine reenactment from a christian missionary website to demonstrate how unsympathetic Darrow might have looked in a debate with Chesterton of which it is very hard to find a transcript), but that the character played by Spencer Tracy makes a few interesting points - and to please Nicodemus who kept making references to it. I grant you that the movie might portray Bryan as more of an idiot than he was, but that is besides the point.

Re the innate need for spirituality, I think it does exist, and there is a simple explanation:

http://www.michaelshermer.com/2008/12/patternicity/#more-601

 

[Sniffles]

Yeah, that point was not so much if Darrow was a great orator or not (and you have shown a fine reenactment from a christian missionary website to demonstrate how unsympathetic Darrow might have looked in a debate with Chesterton of which it is very hard to find a transcript), but that the character played by Spencer Tracy makes a few interesting points. I grant you that the movie might portray Bryan as more of an idiot than he was, but that is besides the point.

Alright and what exactly is the point?

 

[Red Herring]

- 0:50, I once posted a nice soundbite from Steven Fry about the same humanistic vision. This is also a reply to those worrying about "what a world without god would look like". The comviction that you need divine laws and consequences to avoid utter deaster is pretty misanthropic.

- the obvious problems of a literal interpretation of scripture (or, if you step away from that, as most do today, of drawing the line to determine exactly how much freedom there can be in exegesis...some of it like the depth psychology exegesis of people like Drewermann is very liberal indeed).

- to throw in a piece of a great movie for the heck of it.

 

[Mole]

Down the Rabbit Hole

Actually there are many verified facts in the bible regarding history.

It's fascinating that it was archeologists from Israeli Universities that found the Exodus didn't occur. And the Exodus is a founding myth of both Judaism and Christianity.

Just as it was Mormon archeologists who found the Book of Mormon about America and Central America was completely mythical.

But what is even more fascinating is that these archeological facts made no difference to the beliefs of the faithful.

Just as discovering that MBTI is not a personality test makes no difference to us here.

So there can be no doubt we have all gone down the rabbit hole with Alice.

 

[Sniffles]

The comviction that you need divine laws and consequences to avoid utter deaster is pretty misanthropic.

No actually it isn't, it actually teaches man to proper humility in regards to his own fallibility. After all from the Christian perspective, man is made in God's image, and as a result has an inherent dignity given to him. Hardly a misanthropic concept. There is such a thing as Theocentric Humanism btw.

- the obvious problems of a literal interpretation of scripture (or, if you step away from that, as most do today, of drawing the line to determine exactly how much freedom there can be in exegesis...some of it like the depth psychology exegesis of people like Drewermann is very liberal indeed).

Ok, but perhaps it should be noted that the vast Christian tradition has never adopted a literalist interpretation of scriptures to begin with. Allegorical interpretations of scriptures go back at least to the 1st Century B.C. Jewish philosopher Philo for example. Literalist interpretations are actually a by-product of modern times, as contrasted with the rather relaxed attitude of Medieval times. It was this laxed attitude that many of the Protestant reformers reacted against and rejected. Point being, as I've argued before, secularism and fundamentalism are largely two-sides of the same coin.

 

[Sniffles]

Here's a further summary of how Christian traditionally interpreted scriptures, as laid by one of the Church Fathers:
[youtube="BR0qnfKAFYY"]St. Augustine on scriptures[/youtube]

 

[guesswho]

God is dead.

 

[wildcat]

I never understand why people who don't believe in the Bible as absolute word of God, then go back and reference the Bible in their proof that God doesn't exist...and do so by quoting the Bible "God says he created man in his image." We don't know God said that! We don't know what God said or didn't say because humans wrote the Christian Bible. Proof that the Bible is illogical is just that, proof that the Bible is illogical, it says nothing in favor or against a God or Gods existing at all.

Man created God in his image.
Does God exist?

An interspace void has a temperature.
An outerspace void has a temperature?
No.
Why?
A void does not outerspace.

 

[Lark]

God is dead.

Didnt you get the whole resurrection memo?

 

[miss fortune]

I dunno... I didn't read the whole thread because it was signifigantly longer than my attention span, but I have issues with the Christian God because he spends a good majority of the Bible being a total bastard... wars, plagues, burning down cities and the Apocalypse aren't my ideas of nice behavior- I can't feel comfortable putting my faith in any deity who's that big of a prick- sorry

and no- the new testament version doesn't completely cancel the old testament/revalations version out- I can't get the smiting out of my head

 

[tkae.]

Do you know the chemical reaction that set off the Big Bang?

No?

So I guess we don't need to be able to understand things to believe that they exist

 

[Snuggletron]

God is dead.

and no one cares

 

[Lark]

I dunno... I didn't read the whole thread because it was signifigantly longer than my attention span, but I have issues with the Christian God because he spends a good majority of the Bible being a total bastard... wars, plagues, burning down cities and the Apocalypse aren't my ideas of nice behavior- I can't feel comfortable putting my faith in any deity who's that big of a prick- sorry

and no- the new testament version doesn't completely cancel the old testament/revalations version out- I can't get the smiting out of my head

I like your quote about the thread being longer than your attention span, that made me laugh.

I've got to say that I dont recognise the Christian God in what you're saying here, perhaps you're familiar with the whole idea through or from secondary sources and not the bible or Christian literature at all?

In the new testament God when he is talked about as a seperate entity from Jesus is a pretty forgiving deity, slow to anger, quick to forgive, likewise in the books of revelation, book of James, chapter thirteen of Mark which are all the references which I can think of which deal with apocalypse, they describe horrible things happening but they are a consequence of the actions of demons or men, not God.

In fact the only explicit mention of judgement which I recall is in Matthew and it details Jesus talking about the flip side of failing to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, ie that he'll reward those individuals as they rewarded him when he was in need and they shunned him, to me that's just desserts and not too terrible.

I'm much less of an authority on the old testament, although I can see a progressive revelation taking place, in which it appears that either God or Man or perhaps both in unison are under going progressive revelation about one another and developing as a consequence. Its pretty complex and I cant recall it verbatim but Jung talks about something like this in his Answer To Job book.

To be honest the Christian God is one of the only deities to have experienced incarnation as a man, suffered pretty much the worst life had to offer and one of the worst deaths I can imagine, whether you have total insight into the existence of an afterlife or not (which I actually dont believe Jesus had being true God and true man and crying out that God had abandoned him on the cross) that's some excurciating shit there. To me that pretty much pays for any suffering which God may have visited upon mankind or any all to human accusations of caprice or callousness at creation per se or the tragedy of mortal existence (life being too short and too full of misery), not that that was necessary.

It makes the Christian story appear more plausible to me than other religions because it answers certain questions, although they are perhaps human, all too human questions, about why a deity would bother with creation at all because is not a process of divine design or even divine accident which has resulted in creation but creation is something which God is actively engaged with, in each of us, in everything but especially in the one complete incarnation which was Jesus Christ.

 

[Lark]

and no one cares

Its a good thing the same thing cant be said for God, if he stopped caring then pretty much everything else would stop too.