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 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
So far you have written off the Bible as sophistry, fearmongering and lies.

Thus far, only that passage in particular. I'm sure there are a few rational 'because' following affirmations in the Bible, simply not in that passage.

Youn need rto do a better job of explaining then. Because so far the passage is lies because you says its lies. You have to do better than that.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

You seem very sure that the Bible is not factually based.

It clearly isn't. It's not that much of a problem, you can act on well articulated speculative knowledge, but not something which contains no rational content whatsoever.

Clearly isnt factually based eh? No rational content whatsoever?
Have you heard of the New Chronology? Its a revised timeline for historical occurances in the ancient world leading up to the time of the collapse of the Egyptian middle kingdom.
Are you aware that when the Bible was ignored as a historical source the timeline didn't fit. It even included a 300 years gap though to be a Dark age with verty little archelogical evidence which was found out to be a chronological error that didnt actually exist. When the Biblical timeline was included as historical and some other historical sources once though reliable were dropped in favour of the Biblical account the entire revised timeline fit together much better. That's historicity right there, and if the Bible has historical value then it follows that it has rational content.
Not everyone is on board with the New Chronology for various reasons, some may have rational reasons others because they will flatly not stomach any account that gives credence to the Bible due to personal preferences.

How do you therefore consider yourself a seeker when you already have your chosen answer?

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

You again ascribe qualities to my character, which, honestly, I don't have. I abhor poor argumentation, especially when it's under the veneer of religiosity.

Know them by their fruit. Jesus suggested that. Let us see:

So far you have written off the Bible as BS saying it has 'no factual content whatsoever' is a firm belief choice, its a stance thats also proven incorrect as most scholars of ancient history will now attest to a historicity of at least part of the Biblical account. The Bible holds at least some historical truth, and is a historical document of value. Therefore that much is a scientifically based conclusion, and if a portion happens to be true, what else is true?

As for a veneer of religiosity?. Do you know what religiosity is? Its not something one would seek to use as a covering in the context of Christianity as religiosity refers to the trapping of religion rather than faith. To accuse someone of religiosity diguised as faith would make for nasty moral critique. But what you are saying is like accusing someone of being a sheep in wolfs clothing, and makes as much sense when used as a character judgement on which to base a rejection of argument.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

. and yet still claim to be I have absolutely nothing in principle against the possibility of God, I've often found myself defending beleivers in the philosophical social functions I've attended, since my first U's philosophy department was very close to the theology dept, while my second U is ridiculously anti-theist. Yes, to someone with any degree of learning in philosophy, pure exegesis will be seen has utterly lacking. Exegesis based on a text which doesn't provide one bit of rational content, well, that goes without saying...

Then it goes without saying you have a strongly held false premise as your core belief. The Bible HAS rational content, if you choose to declare otherwise that isn't sagacity on your part but obstinence. How can that make you a seeker after truth if truth is not what you seek?
You could logically reject the Bible if you thought so with good reason, and then still be open to honest pursuit of God. However this is very plainly not where you are at. To you its all lies, though you still can't or won't articulate why.

 youbedead wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:

The unicorn believes in you Lictor.

But do you believe in the great space butterfly

Heck yeah, he has dinner with his noodly greatness the Flying Spaghetti Monster all the time! Speaking of I think I'll pray to the only complex carbohydrate divine entity tomorrow with some fettuccine alfredo.

Ramen to you all.

 Orlanth wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
We know the answer is not arbitrary because we know that God is unchanging in his attributes which are (counting the relveant ones) omniscient and truly just.

You're substituting "believe" with "know". This indicates to me that you understand neither.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blood reaper wrote:
Faith is belief in something without proof except for "personal" feeling, which isn't evidence.

Could I get some evidence? Please.

Ask God. Seriously.

Seek and you shall find.

So your saying, there is no evidence?

You don't think I never sought evidence?

Where should I ask? I mean, most cases of knowing god are due to psychological break down, visions during medical operation, medical drugs, etc., that won't be my basis. Visions can be caused by dozens of things, and I can imagine you'll say pray, well, that ain't going to work ether, as it's me asking some being that I can see, touch or hear to tell me "Hi I'm here"

Also, what about the other thousand or so Theist beliefs, the Bible itself does plagiarize other stories from societies before it, but how do you know it's right?

blood reaper I believe what they're saying is there's no evidence because belief first and foremost requires faith. You might find evidence of god/goddess/divinity but it won't be what it sounds like you're looking for.

Even in prayer or meditation if the Divine reaches out it wouldn't be something as solid as a "Hey how's it going?" a rush of emotion, a feeling of serenity... little things mark the presence of divinity. Everyday miracles inspire faith.

You need to actually look and be open to the possibility that the divine is out there. For me I got all the "proof" I needed in two circumstances. I was out on a camping trip up on a mountain and woke up extremely early. I climbed a ridge, sat down on a rock and just sat, mediating in a general sense but opened myself to everything around me. I was looking down on virgin forest. No trails, no access as that whole ridge was a sheer cliff face down. Untouched by human hands. The Goddess touched me there.

I was similarly inspired by working with RNA/DNA with a science class. It's very easy to see things on paper and "understand" but it's a whole different thing from actually handling the blue prints for LIFE. That realization of complexity... I felt the same presence.

Now you can mock and deride that all you want, neither of those are scientific. They won't prove anything to any one else but me. But that's fine. Faith and belief are very personal things, the basis of your faith has to come from you. I can tell you every single detail about how I came to the conclusions I did but it won't make an iota of difference because you need to find those things for yourself, and open your mind to accept something more then the limited things we can comprehend with science.

Edit: as to knowing I'm right or not. I'm a universalist so I get to kind of cheat on my answer to that question. Everyone's right. Each religion or faith is a valid aspect of worship of the divine. Your personal choice in how you worship and address the divine is just that. Personal. Which is why I refer to the divine solely in the feminine third person and don't bother with anyone else's established rituals or traditions beyond keeping a small place for mediation and prayer in my room. Still just as valid as attending mass or working spells skyclad in the woods with your coven.

Again, that isn't enough evidence for me to believe in some invisible being, and I have no "faith", you have a burden of proof, I don't for what I know as being true.

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe, and I'll be against Religon ever effecting my lifestyle, because it's used for evil and poisons people.

Edit: Also, most miracles can be explained by scienece, along with almost all visions and such.

 blood reaper wrote:


Again, that isn't enough evidence for me to believe in some invisible being.

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe,

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:


Again, that isn't enough evidence for me to believe in some invisible being.

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe,

What was the point you made anyways?

Be blind and believe whatever you feel?

Fine, I'll stick with mine.

 blood reaper wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:


Again, that isn't enough evidence for me to believe in some invisible being.

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe,

What was the point you made anyways?

Be blind and believe whatever you feel?

Fine, I'll stick with mine.

No open your mind and look past the evidence you're looking for, because that kind of evidence will never exist. Belief in the divine requires first and foremost faith. You're not going to get a photo or a phone call. It's not how it works and I spelled it out pretty clearly in my first post..

Again, faith is blind belief in something, I'm not going to take that for an answer, because it seems like there is no answer.

So again, no proof for the burden,

There will also never be conclusive proof that there isn't a god.

Funny how that works.

 xole wrote:
There will also never be conclusive proof that there isn't a god.

Funny how that works.

Right, so we can play this back and forth till we die with nothing changing. The answer you want is out there, it's just not going to come in the format you desire it to be.

 blood reaper wrote:

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

I keep reading people arguing against religion as if it was synonymous with the Abrahamic faiths.

 blood reaper wrote:

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe, and I'll be against Religon ever effecting my lifestyle, because it's used for evil and poisons people.

Even the Jains? Those damn fanatics and their poisonous ahimsa. And those wretched yogis spewing vitriolic lies about "illusion" and blocking traffic with their evil meditations and just generally slandering the common conceptions of reality.
Or the malevolent Tantrikas with their oh so frightening mystical sex.
Or the malefic practices of Aborigines.
Or the heinous sand paintings of native american tribes and their disturbing devotion to eagles, foxes, spiders, and other EVIL creatures of the natural world.
Or the Zoroastrians and their fires--fire burns stuff and that's BAD.
Or the neo-pagans with their crazy crystals and obviously satanic tarot cards.
And those heathens with their, their, uhm. Thor! and viking stuff-- that's bad right?
And those Damn Church of Satan guys with their wine and sex and... atheism.

yeah.

 deathholydeath wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

I keep reading people arguing against religion as if it was synonymous with the Abrahamic faiths.

 blood reaper wrote:

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe, and I'll be against Religon ever effecting my lifestyle, because it's used for evil and poisons people.

Even the Jains? Those damn fanatics and their poisonous ahimsa. And those wretched yogis spewing vitriolic lies about "illusion" and blocking traffic with their evil meditations and just generally slandering the common conceptions of reality.
Or the malevolent Tantrikas with their oh so frightening mystical sex.
Or the malefic practices of Aborigines.
Or the heinous sand paintings of native american tribes and their disturbing devotion to eagles, foxes, spiders, and other EVIL creatures of the natural world.
Or the Zoroastrians and their fires--fire burns stuff and that's BAD.
Or the neo-pagans with their crazy crystals and obviously satanic tarot cards.
And those heathens with their, their, uhm. Thor! and viking stuff-- that's bad right?
And those Damn Church of Satan guys with their wine and sex and... atheism.

yeah.

The cult of Slaneesh is real, who knew?

Proudly in business since 1966.

 deathholydeath wrote:
Proudly in business since 19666.

FTFY

 blood reaper wrote:
Again, that isn't enough evidence for me to believe in some invisible being, and I have no "faith", you have a burden of proof, I don't for what I know as being true.

It's not impossible, but I'm doubtful any god would be like the Christian god, or any that Religon has created.

So, until I have visual proof, physical proof, and audible proof, no I won't believe, and I'll be against Religon ever effecting my lifestyle, because it's used for evil and poisons people.

Edit: Also, most miracles can be explained by scienece, along with almost all visions and such.

And you are completely oblivious, deriding the christian god despite the fact that Kalashnikov wasn't mentioning anything about christianity. You need to learn how to apply context to your statements because it discredits you irrespective of how apt your statement may be.....

You may also wish to consider refraining from repeating yourself, nobody is trying to convince you to believe, but explaining the logic behind how faith works, which is essentially not based at all in physically quanta... Though perhaps the psychological effects can be construed as evidence, as these can be measured.

I also do not believe that Kalashnikov made any reference to a religious god. Rather it is a term often used to describe the life element of nature. And nature has some pretty bloody bizarre attributes. For instance, the individual observing their universe is in fact the center of the universe, and physics not only supports this notion, it has proven it.

This thread is not here to satisfy your ego by having everyone fail in proving to you whether their god exists. You are refuting the existence of deities by refuting others' reasoning based off of your own reasoning. Science is great and all, but even mathematics breaks down at the concept of infinity. About the only thing we can do with infinity is identify larger and smaller sets thereof and compare them artificially. So too does science have it's limitations. the Planck length is for instance a theory. The problem is that with the scale we are talking about, we won't be able to confirm the existence do this infinitesimal vibrating string. The biggest problem with evidence is not that it proves something exists, it merely proves something transpired. There's a reason why after several milenia, we still call it Pythagoras' theorem..........

But since I'm already ripping into you, science has not collected any tangible proof of god, not because e he doesnt exist, but because he has balls all to do with science. It's akin to determining what species of dog a Siamese cat is. you have a metal detector and you are hunting for plastic. Science seeks to answer questions of the observable universe..... Once we could not observe atoms, and yet the Greek philosophers were disturbingly close without having recourse to particle physics. Once we could not observe anything past our earth, and yet we have seen marvelous images of galaxies forming. We could not observe radio waves, yet we now know that our environment is a chaotic mess of EMR....

So rather than addressing my points, the ones which beat you, you just ignore them?
I really hate it when people do that.

 blood reaper wrote:
Again, faith is blind belief in something, I'm not going to take that for an answer, because it seems like there is no answer.

So again, no proof for the burden,

You are very thick headed, so let me illustrate this for you.

Science demands that an idea has evidence. Faith demands that an idea has no evidence. I do believe that in science, such a thing has often been called "theory". I choose not to distinguish between the two. Yes, I agree, some scientific evidence has been established toward proving theories as true. The reason they continue to be called theories after "proven"? That's because they do not work for every case, and thus the evidence is inefficient, theories may be amended in light of evidence. Incidentally branches of theory will continue at it, as perspective decides which theory is more correct. M theory helps us explain the nature of space. Faith helps us explain the nature of living. There is a difference between being alive, and living, and that is philosophy. Faith informs philosophy, and there you have it. If you continue to insist on your evidence, any further comment you make in this thread is not worth the time or the effort, as it's clear you are not taking the effort to evaluate the statements presented. Your position is abundantly clear, and your continued restating it is not going prove you more correct on account of your inability to evaluate the merits of an alternative viewpoint....


I need to stop writing now. At 2:30 am, I am doing an ungodly amount of editing in an effort to sound like myself and not to end up coming across as the reincarnation of H.P. Lovecraft.

 Orlanth wrote:
To you its all lies, though you still can't or won't articulate why.

Right now I won't reply to the rest of your post, simply because it's 4h24 in the morning and looking at a wall of text hurts my brain. Fething night shift.

I'll reply to this that, again, my criticism only extend to your quote. When I say that the Bible isn't factually based, I simply mean that it either doesn't provide sufficient information to be held (IMO) as a scientific historical document, or that the historical documents (the correspondance) doesn't relate to factual knowledge. That doesn't mean much, honestly, other than an exegesis based on the text will never fully satisfy someone who needs a rational argument. You could use the text to point the position, and then make a speculative argument which was convincing enough.

I did also say that the Bible contains rational content, to te extent that some of it's arguments are surely not sophistry. Again, to avoid a petition of principle, you just have to add 'because x' after the position you present, without x being a sophism.

 poda_t wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:
Again, faith is blind belief in something, I'm not going to take that for an answer, because it seems like there is no answer.

So again, no proof for the burden,

You are very thick headed, so let me illustrate this for you.

Science demands that an idea has evidence. Faith demands that an idea has no evidence. I do believe that in science, such a thing has often been called "theory". I choose not to distinguish between the two. Yes, I agree, some scientific evidence has been established toward proving theories as true. The reason they continue to be called theories after "proven"? That's because they do not work for every case, and thus the evidence is inefficient, theories may be amended in light of evidence. Incidentally branches of theory will continue at it, as perspective decides which theory is more correct. M theory helps us explain the nature of space. Faith helps us explain the nature of living. There is a difference between being alive, and living, and that is philosophy. Faith informs philosophy, and there you have it. If you continue to insist on your evidence, any further comment you make in this thread is not worth the time or the effort, as it's clear you are not taking the effort to evaluate the statements presented. Your position is abundantly clear, and your continued restating it is not going prove you more correct on account of your inability to evaluate the merits of an alternative viewpoint....


I need to stop writing now. At 2:30 am, I am doing an ungodly amount of editing in an effort to sound like myself and not to end up coming across as the reincarnation of H.P. Lovecraft.

I'd like to take a second to applaud your Herculean efforts to get what is admittedly a rather difficult concept across to someone. Exalted.

 blood reaper wrote:
Again, faith is blind belief in something, I'm not going to take that for an answer, because it seems like there is no answer.

So again, no proof for the burden,

reaper...everyone has faith in something, even athiests, no matter how much some people want to think that they don't.

GG

 generalgrog wrote:

reaper...everyone has faith in something, even athiests, no matter how much some people want to think that they don't.

What do I have faith in?

 dogma wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

reaper...everyone has faith in something, even athiests, no matter how much some people want to think that they don't.

What do I have faith in?

Facts! Durr...

 xole wrote:
There will also never be conclusive proof that there isn't a god.

Funny how that works.

In all fairness to the atheists the opposite is also true. At least until Judgement Day (or equivalent).

 dogma wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

reaper...everyone has faith in something, even athiests, no matter how much some people want to think that they don't.

What do I have faith in?

Agreed, what do I have faith in?

Facts are proven, faith is again, blind belief, when you refer to faith you refer to Religous faith.

Yes you can have faith, but the faith you refer to is Religous faith.

Faith is not just religious faith. You don't know if the politician you voted for is going to do what they say they would, but you have faith. You don't know your spouse is going to be faithful, but you have faith in it.

We frequently make decisions that are going to affect the rest of our lives. We don't know the outcomes, but we have faith that the decision was the right one and we have faith in the results.

Faith is not a dirty word.

Faith is not a dirty word.

Don't say that! It'll shatter their version of reality!

 LordofHats wrote:

Faith is not a dirty word.

Don't say that! It'll shatter their version of reality!

I never said it is a dirty word, nor will it shatter my version of reality.

I simply hate it when people tell me to have faith when they are making the claim someone in the sky made the planet in 7 days and I must obey or suffer, without giving me a single reason to do so other than faith.

 d-usa wrote:
Faith is not just religious faith. You don't know if the politician you voted for is going to do what they say they would, but you have faith. You don't know your spouse is going to be faithful, but you have faith in it.

We frequently make decisions that are going to affect the rest of our lives. We don't know the outcomes, but we have faith that the decision was the right one and we have faith in the results.

Faith is not a dirty word.

It isn't a dirty word, but there is a marked distinction between religious faith and the mundane sort of faith that you're discussing.

To take your politician example: I don't know if he's going to do what he claims, but there exist significant forces outside his own whim that will ensure that he will do at least some of them. Probably not the more extreme things, but the ones that are most realistic given his position.

Your spouse example is better in that any evidence of their fidelity will be secondary, but people don't necessarily place faith in that. The point being, its possible to live a life without any sort of faith that is explicitly religious, or approaching it.

I would argue that faith is a dirty word Dogma, sure I would. When is it ever good to take just peoples word for it?! Maybe its a little nice when you know you can trust someone, but the cons outweigh the pros!

If you raised a child to take all things on faith, you have done a gak job! How many times would that kid wind up getting robbed/abducted/fingered becasue of the inability to go "prove it".

"Get into the car to help look for your puppies?..sure thing mister!"

If you encourage people to believe in faith, you really are a fool. Children should always be encouraged to ask for an explanation, "Why does it work? How does it work? What is it for?" those questions are good, they encourage learning and growth.

If you teach people to be satisfied with lies, half answers and non-explanations, you haven't taught them anything at all.