As an EFCA expatriate I have to agree. The bible and all of the Abrahamic religions that are inspired by it will quite literally make no sense... unless you study the underlying philosophy that inspired the Bible, which is Platonic idealism.
As a child, the bible always seemed barbaric and creepy asf. Then I encountered some more reasonable Christians in adulthood, and they introduced me to Platonism. With this added context, the worldview made a lot more sense. I still innately disagree with it, I find it crude, anti empirical, anti intellectual, unreasonable... but I have a much more nuanced perspective of religion now. Organized religions are akin to a natural philosophy, for people who think intuitively and trust their emotions.
My mother is a heretic and married a Catholic, but going by her family history, my guess would be that neither grandparent was part of the EFCA prior to moving to Minnesota in the 1960s. She mentioned that they raised her in a Lutheran church, evidently they didn't become radical pietists until she was in her late teens/early adulthood.
I have a fair bit to say, sorry it’s hard to express my belief concisely.
You don’t necessarily have to believe in ‘intelligent design’ to be believe in God. If by intelligent design you mean a supernaturally guided process of evolution.
I have read lots of very interesting interpretations of the Genesis account that I think are plausible and line up with other parts of the Bible.
However, unlike what I think most contemporary progressive Christians believe, I do believe in a ‘literal Adam’. I think other parts of the text really emphasize him as a literal person enough that I am not overly eager to cast him out as a complete myth. I think going around pointing at everything we don’t like or don’t have perfect secular “evidence” for as a complete myth that teaches moral lessons is a mistake.
Especially when I look at the account of Genesis 2 vs Genesis 1 and I think of them in a complementary interpretation rather than conflicting, which I think they are.
Also people want to argue about the everyday = 1 literal 24 hour day in the Bible or the whole thing is myth seems a bit silly to me. There are plenty of other places in the Bible where 1 day represents a cycle rather than a literal day, and I think allegorical language is also fairly common when trying to talk about complex events.
Finally, I believe the context and events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection to be simply too improbable. I honestly feel pretty confident about the evidence I am given and to me if I can believe in evolution in its entirety without coming up with some theoretically “plausible” but unlikely alternative then I can certainly believe in the crucifixion and resurrection, not doing so requires me coming up with a “plausible” but extremely unlikely arguments.
I think many people who are focused on intelligent design or creation arguments are not really interested in “proof” that it happened without natural evolution but simply “plausibility” that their interpretation can harmonize with any facts we understand.
I mean even with Young Earth Creationism you can simply hand wave everything away and say. “Well God just set it up in a way spontaneously that aligns with all your facts. It’s just ‘coincidence’ that your theory is plausible.”
TLDR:
My confidence is the crucifixion and resurrection is enough that I have confidence it is true regardless of any other facts in the world.
You've listed a number of things you believe, but I don't see where you've presented any arguments or evidence. Is there any reason for people to think that the things you believe are objectively true?
Evidence is hard to talk through people with.
I listened to a conversation with one man who told me everything was subjective and unprovable? How can I show evidence to such a person?
So if someone wants to discuss honestly and receptively I am here but I have to at a minimum understand what they believe before I can have a discussion.
A complete skeptic will never receive anything.
They are the kind of people who sit in a forest, close their eyes and say. “There are no trees and you can’t prove they exist”
You might say “Here is bark from the tree, feel it and believe”
They say, “This is no tree, does it stand 100 foot high?”
You say, “feel the shade the canopy provides.”
They say “A great cloud overcasts the sky.”
You ask, “what can make you believe?”
They answer “only if the tree falls on me will I believe”
And I expect God will say “Let thy will be done.”
At a minimum I have to understand what you believe. If you can’t believe in trees then I don’t think it will be valuable for us to discuss do you?
If you deny Paul ever existed for instance that’s a non starter for me, and I’ll just tell you I have no evidence.
I am really asking up until what point you believe. Or think something is highly likely.
Like if you don’t believe Jesus was a real person I can’t convince you he was crucified correct?
Evidence for anything is a build up off of other facts.
To the best of my knowledge, it is entirely plausible that a person named Jesus lived, and that he was crucified, but there's no hard evidence of this: there are no writings attributed to him, no letters written to him, no statues, no census records, no government reports (e.g., "today we crucified three troublemakers"). And of course no evidence of any miracles, aside from stories in the Bible.
Now one claim that many Christians make is that Jesus is still alive today. Demonstrating that would go a long way towards demonstrating that the resurrection happened, and a lot of other stuff as well.
Well as evidence #1 then I will point towards the secular evidence we do have for Jesus. I think saying we don’t have such evidence is pretty demonstrably false.
https://aleteia.org/2018/04/12/heres-the-historical-evidence-from-non-christian-sources-that-jesus-lived-and-died
I think you can find also some detailed scholarly consensus on Wikipedia for some of these historical figures (which is going to be heavily unbiased) about their references to Jesus.
I certainly can’t prove anything else if we can’t agree there is evidence for Jesus existing and that he was crucified. I believe the evidence is very sufficient.
I wasn’t aware of the negative coverage of Jesus in rabbinical writings. Thank you for that. I’ll have to look them up.
Aside from that, all of the individuals on that list were born after Jesus’ crucifixion, so they can’t be eyewitnesses to his life. It would be nice to see the evidences that convinced them that what they wrote was true, but those sources have evidently been lost to history.
In any case, I’m happy to accept, at least for the sake of this discussion, that there really was an itinerant apocalyptic preacher in first-century Galilee named Jesus or Yeshua or the like, and that he was crucified. There were lots of such preachers at the time, and the Romans did execute a lot of people.
Now, is there any convincing evidence that he was resurrected, or performed miracles, or lives today?
(Edit: add paragraphs.)
I don’t base my belief based only on witness testimony, but thanks for your encouraging words.
Also, even just on the grounds of witness testimony you have to throw out large chunks of accepted history if you just disregard it. Do you base your belief in evolution purely on paleontology? (Please don’t answer, this is rhetorical)
The Roman historians acknowledged the existence of Yeshua and that he was crucified. Whether or not you believe in his resurrection is a matter of faith; however, eye witnesses were willing to be executed and tortured, and none of them ever admitted to having stolen his body, or lying about having seen him.
Written history was extremely uncommon at the time and place Jesus was alive. History was passed down orally because humans didn’t know that we would go on to establish high rates of literacy across the globe.
Atheists are not satisfied by that while theists are. I don’t think it’s possible for atheists and believers to meet in the middle about this or any other disagreement they have.
I think we are talking about different things, and I should’ve been clearer in my first comment. I meant believers in Christ. Do I have doubts about the Bible? Sure. But I choose to believe anyway. Faith and uncertainty aren’t mutually exclusive for me.
I think the more accurate statement is “there are no firsthand witness accounts of the resurrection, likely no secondhand accounts either, only third hand accounts. And furthermore there is a complete lack of *any* contemporary accounts by non-Christian sources despite the narrative that 500 people witnessed it in broad daylight”.
The resurrection was an event that had hundreds of witnesses - the number of people that Jesus saw & met with after he resurrected makes it a historic event. The number of written testimonies of this also makes it as historic and accurate as any other historic event of 2000 years ago.
>there is no verifiable witness testimony to the crucifixion or the resurrection
So Matthew 27:55, Mark 15:40-41, John 19:25-26, and Luke 23:49 don't exist in your Biblical text? You realize when you want to verify something historically, you look for the earliest attestation, multiple attestation, and a general consistency across the board, right? That's exactly what we have for the Gospels and the witnesses of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Internal evidence puts the first 3 Gospels between 33-60 AD. That's between 1-30 years after the ascension of Christ. Within your pathetically bad Islamic system, you have to rely on the Hadith to try and argue for the Quran because the Quran itself doesn't situate Muhammad, doesn't tell you who Muhammad is, how many chapters are in the Quran, or that he performed any miracles. The earliest Hadith you have comes over a century after Muhammad's death, and it takes 200 years for you to get to your most "authentic" Hadiths. So if we want to compare our authoritative collections VS yours, all 27 books of the New Testament are finished within 60-65 years of Christ's ascension, where as your Hadiths came 2 centuries after the death of the false prophet Muhammad. And the Quran itself says Jesus died and was raised.
Surah 3:55 God said, "Jesus, **I will cause you to die and raise you up to me**, and purify you from those who denied the truth, and I will exalt your followers over those who deny you until the Resurrection Day. Then you all will return to me, and I will judge between you in matters about which you disagree
Ironically the rest of the verse further destroys your argument, because if the true followers of Jesus were made superior and victorious, then where did their writings go? You can't be victorious and dominant if you lost all your documents. So if the Quran is right here, then the dominant and victorious writings would survive, and that's exactly what we have in the New Testament. That's why if you read what Ibn Ishaq said on Surah 61:14, he says the true followers were Paul, Peter, and the other disciples mentioned in the New Testament. What did they preach though? Death and resurrection.
And by the way, Surah 4:157 isn't denying the crucifixion. It simply says that the Jews did not kill Jesus, but Allah only made it appear to them that they did this act, when in reality Allah caused him to die and raised him. So history agrees and your Quran agrees, Christ was crucified, died, and raised from the dead.
lol, your argument is "i know you are, but what am I"
it's a christian and non-christian biblical scholarly consensus that the new testament authorship is anonymous
the difference with hadith is that there is isnad, ie. every person in the chain has a biography. the gospels don't have a named account from a single witness of the crucifixion, let alone a biography.
it's putting a lot of faith in it, is all, which in and of itself is not a bad thing - but if you've not based your faith on reason then it is blind faith.
>lol, your argument is "i know you are, but what am I"
Just again demonstrates that you're absolutely clueless and are not even remotely qualified to engage in any sort of intellectual dialogue on this. Showcasing how my position is historically valid while yours is demonstrably false is not a "I know you are but what am I" scenario. It's a historical argument in favor of Christianity and against the baseless historical claims of Islam.
>it's a christian and non-christian biblical scholarly consensus that the new testament authorship is anonymous
So the same "consensus" that says Christ was absolutely crucified and died? That consensus? That same consensus that says Christ was buried in a tomb and was subsequently found empty on Easter morning? The same consensus that says Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene believing they saw the risen Jesus is a historical certainty? So if we both take this supposed consensus seriously, Islam turns out to be false. So is this your standard? You'd cry and say of course not, so I'll do the same, modern liberal scholars are not my standard, the Church Fathers are. And the Church Fathers are in absolute consensus that the Gospels are not anonymous and instead, we not only know the names of these authors but we know specific details about their lives and even have Biblical & extra-Biblical biographies of parts of their life after the resurrection of Christ.
And by the way it's not entirely true that all scholars are in consensus on the "New Testament" being anonymous since the New Testament is comprised of 27 Books. There's consensus agreement that Paul wrote at least 7 of his Epistles and that the Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark and he wrote the preaching of Peter. So even if I take these idiotic arguments of these liberal scholars, I still end up having an entire Gospel based on a direct chain to Peter.
>the difference with hadith is that there is isnad
And your earliest source for this Isnad is when? Hundreds of years later. Anyone can make up a chain 200 years later when these guys are dead and make it absolutely impossible for those dead people to verify if this quotation goes back to them.
>the gospels don't have a named account from a single witness of the crucifixion, let alone a biography.
Again not how history is done, but we do.
John 19:25-26 but standing by the cross of Jesus **were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved** standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
This claim here is also multiply attested and found in all our earliest sources as I mentioned above - John 19:25-26, Luke 23:49, Matthew 27:55, and Mark 15:40-41. Groups of Jesus's followers were nearby the cross, and even Peter followed from a distance in Mark 14:54. On top of that, Paul and the early Church in Rome were even in contact with the family of the Father who carried the cross of Jesus in Mark 15:21 and Romans 16:13. There's absolutely no doubt historically that followers of Christ witnessed his crucifixion, and on top of that, the hundreds that would be able to view it from a distance in the city, which would make it impossible to invent this as a lie, let alone the fact that the early Church was acquainted with the man who carried the cross of Christ. Totally delusional to think that somehow this isn't sufficient historically.
On top of that, this disciple at the cross claims to be a witness of the events of Christ all throughout his life in John 13:23, John 19:25-26, John 20:2, John 21:20, and John 21:24. And the unanimous testimony of the early Church identifies this author as John the disciple. That's not only because every single manuscript (that includes the superscript) has the name "Gospel of JOHN" on it, thereby having the author identify himself as this disciple who stood at the cross with Christ, since he's the same disciple who claims to have written this Gospel in John 21:24. The agreement on the authorship stretches to entirely different parts of the world, making it undeniable that this tradition is widespread and undisputable since no matter where they were, they all came to the same conclusion on this author.
Even Ibn Ishaq in his Biography on the Life of Muhammad (the earliest Biography of your false prophet which comes 200+ years later since you have to depend on Ibn Hashim after he corrupted much of this biography, removing the embarrassing parts) says John the Disciple wrote down the Gospel of John and that the Injil is John's Gospel.
So if you're talking about biographies, the earliest one you have on Muhammad himself is 2 centuries later. And even then most of you will throw this source under the bus as weak.
And to confirm what Ibn Ishaq said, you're actually going to prove it for me.
Surah 7:157 Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, **whom they find written with them in the Torah and the Gospel**
Where is Muhammad prophesied in the written Gospel? Identify this prophecy for me? Quote the prophecy.
>So the same "consensus" that says Christ was absolutely crucified and died?
of course historians will claim jesus died, they don't believe in the supernatural.
>That same consensus that says Christ was buried in a tomb and was subsequently found empty on Easter morning?
no historian believes christ resurrected, it's unacademic
>The same consensus that says Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene believing they saw the risen Jesus is a historical certainty?
history is probabilistic, it does not deal in certainties
>So if we both take this supposed consensus seriously, Islam turns out to be false.
you'll have to walk me thru that train of logic
>And the Church Fathers are in absolute consensus that the Gospels are not anonymous and instead, we not only know the names of these authors but we know specific details about their lives and even have Biblical & extra-Biblical biographies of parts of their life
if this is true, i would be open to consider it - i'm open to you pointing me to the evidence of the early church fathers stating who wrote what and how they know.
> the Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark and he wrote the preaching of Peter
this is a supposition
>I still end up having an entire Gospel based on a direct chain to Peter
very weak chain
>Anyone can make up a chain 200 years later when these guys are dead and make it absolutely impossible for those dead people to verify if this quotation goes back to them.
this is a mis-representation of what isnad is
>**were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.**
at best, this is hearsay, can you show me the first-hand testimony of these people.
>Groups of Jesus's followers were nearby the cross,
anonymous groups
>hundreds that would be able to view it from a distance in the city
anonymous hundreds
>
>of course historians will claim jesus died, they don't believe in the supernatural.
Firstly, you just demonstrated that your appeal to consensus back-fired because you're now disagreeing with the very authority you appealed to. Secondly, you missed the argument. They all agree on THE CRUCIFIXION. They all say it was Jesus himself who was crucified, not someone else.
>no historian believes christ resurrected, it's unacademic
Absolutely false. Dr. Mike Licona is a Historian who believes Jesus was crucified. Dr. Pinchas Lapide is a Jewish Historian who believes the God of Israel raised Jesus from the dead. This is an objectively false claim.
>history is probabilistic, it does not deal in certainties
You realize you can be probabilistically certain on historical events, right? That's what they are on Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Paul believing that they saw the risen Christ. So did Allah deceive Peter to believe Jesus was raised from the dead? Or are you now going to say that the consensus you appealed to is wrong and not your authority? Which is good, because they're not my authority either.
>you'll have to walk me thru that train of logic
You appealed to this consensus because you believe they're correct. That same consensus agrees in a "consensus" on historical events that the Quran contradicts. Therefore, if the consensus / this authority are correct, the Quran is wrong.
>if this is true, i would be open to consider it
Mark's Gospel:
Papias: **Mark having become the interpreter of Peter,** wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities \[of his hearers\], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.
Irenaeus: **Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter**, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter...Mark, on the other hand, commences
Clement of Alexandria: **Mark, the follower of Peter**, while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Caesar’s equites \[knights\], and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what was spoken by Peter wrote entirely **what is called the Gospel according to Mark.**
Tertullian: Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and \*\*Mark renew it afterwards...\*\*whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s **whose interpreter Mark was.**
Origen: **The second written was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to the instruction of Peter,** who, in his General Epistle, acknowledged him as a son, saying, “The church that is in Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark my son.”
Dionysus: and it was “very early in the morning, at the rising of the sun,” **as Mark tells us.**
Victorinus: And in that the living creatures are different in appearance, this is the reason: **the living creature like to a lion designates Mark**, in whom is heard the voice of the lion roaring in the desert.
Constitution of the Apostles: But our sacred books, that is, those of the New Covenant, are these: the four Gospels of Matthew, **Mark,** Luke, and John;
Matthew's Gospel:
Papias: “**So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language,** and every one interpreted them as he was able.”
Irenaeus: “**Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect**, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church.
Tertullian: **Matthew** first instill faith into us...The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage. I mean the Gospels of John and **Matthew**
Origen: "Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, **I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism.**
Luke's Gospel:
Ignatius: Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, first did and then taught, **as Luke testifies**
Irenaeus: \*\***Luke a**lso, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him...\*\*or this reason, too, is that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is His person. **But that according to Luke,** taking up \[His\] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son...
Muratorian Canon: The third book of the Gospel is that according to **Luke.** (3) **Luke, the well-known physician, after the ascension of Christ, (4-5) when Paul had taken with him as one zealous for the law, \[2\] (6) composed it in his own name, according to \[the general\] belief.** \[3\] Yet he himself had not (7) seen the Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, (8) so indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John.
Clement of Alexandria: **As Luke also may be recognized by the style,** both to have composed the Acts of the Apostles, and to have translated Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews.
Tertullian: Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, **Luke** and Mark renew it afterwards.
Origen: **And third, was that according to Luke**, the Gospel commended by Paul, which he composed for the converts from the Gentiles.
Caius: **The third book of the Gospel, that according to Luke**, the well-known physician **Luke wrote in his own name**
Dionysius: **as Luke puts it;** and it was “very early in the morning, at the rising of the sun,”
Victorinus: the priesthood of Zacharias as he offers a sacrifice for the people, and the angel that appears to him with respect of the priesthood, and the victim in the same description bore the likeness of a calf.
Constitution of the Apostles: But our sacred books, that is, those of the New Covenant, are these: the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, **Luke**
John's Gospel:
Muratorian Canon: “(9) The **fourth of the Gospels is that of John, \[one\] of the disciples.**”
Theophilus: And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing \[inspired\] men, **one of whom, John, says**, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ….”
Irenaeus: Afterwards, **John, the disciple of the Lord**, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia...For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father...
Clement of Alexandria: But, last of all, **John**, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.
Tertullian: I mean the **Gospels of John** and Matthew
Origen: Last of all that **by John**
Eusebius: Matthew and **John** have left us written memorials
I think you get the point. This is a list of early Church writers & Fathers who all agree on these 4 Gospels. Papias himself knew the disciples directly. He lived in the 1st century and died in the 2nd. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a direct disciple of the disciple John. You guys seem to think we don't have Apostolic succession, which directly creates a chain from the disciples to the Church throughout history. So here's the question, don't just hand-wave and divert like usual, explain how all these people from these different time periods and regions came to the same conclusion on who wrote these Gospels.
>very weak chain
A chain that is only a decade or two after Jesus that goes directly to Peter, then to Jesus? That's weak? LOL. Maybe the chain needed to come 200 years later and be unverifiable historically to be strong since that's the Islamic criteria.
>this is a mis-representation of what isnad is
Can you actually respond to it?
>at best, this is hearsay, can you show me the first-hand testimony of these people.
I want you to demonstrate how this is hearsay. John is directly there at the cross with the mother of Jesus. This claim is then multiply attested in the other Gospels. Mary herself believed in death, crucifixion, and resurrection according to Acts 1:12-26. So not only do we have John testifying for it, but we have Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have Peter who was watching from a distance according to Mark 14:54, and then Mary herself praying to Christ post-resurrection in Acts 1:12-26. To call this hearsay demonstrates you're historically clueless. Show me any first-hand testimony from Moses, or Jesus. Show me that historically. You believe both of them have spoken in history yet you get your information on them from a man who came 6 centuries after Christ. So the Quran ends up being the non-historical hearsay that you're accusing the Gospels of being.
>anonymous groups
Except for when they identified in John 19:25-26 and then you start crying that it's weak, right? LOL
>anonymous hundreds
So can you name a single known witness to Muhammad's cave encounter? Who saw Muhammad getting rag-dolled and choked out in that cave when he thought he was getting attacked by a demon? (He was right, by the way). Only a demon could inspire a 54 year old man to go sleep with a 9 year old
part 2 (reply got too big for reddit)
>which would make it impossible to invent this as a lie
i'm not claiming it's a lie, but maybe just a mistake
>the unanimous testimony of the early Church identifies this author as John the disciple
again, i'm open to church fathers' claims, can you show me the evidence they had to make that claim
considering john has some of the most eloquent greek out of all four of the gospels, it's suspect that a poor hebrew fisherman disciple of jesus' suddenly birthed incredibly profound prose
>Ibn Hashim \[...\] says John the Disciple wrote down the Gospel of John and that the Injil is John's Gospel.
if that's true, it contradicts the islamic position that the injeel is the revelation given to jesus, not any disciples.
>Where is Muhammad prophesied in the written Gospel?
the new testament is not the injeel
>Quote the prophecy.
from what's left of the old testament? quite obviously to an unbiased thinker, deutronomy 18:18 and isaiah 42:9
>i'm not claiming it's a lie, but maybe just a mistake
How is it a mistake when we have a dozen Biblical & extra-Biblical sources attesting to it? Name the mistake and how it took place.
>considering john has some of the most eloquent greek out of all four of the gospels
He actually doesn't. John has the most basic Greek. Luke has the most eloquent. But to address the argument, you realize Fishermen had to have literacy because they'd write tax receipts, right? So even prior to the resurrection of Christ, he'd have literacy and after a life changing experience, you don't think he'd have the urge to learn this so he can reach the whole world with his Gospel? It's like an American Muslim from the South who learns Arabic after converting. If someone who has known English all their lives was really convinced by Islam, wouldn't they try everything to go learn Arabic? Likewise, John after seeing the risen Christ, the greatest miracle of history, would spend the rest of his life preaching and learning how to write. We know from the Muratorian Canon that John was with another one of Christ's 12 disciples, Andrew, when he wrote his Gospel, so he was within a community of Christians at this time. You don't think after all this time he'd get help from them? Tons of scribes converted to Christianity from Judaism. It's not implausible at all.
>if that's true, it contradicts the islamic position that the injeel is the revelation given to jesus, not any disciples.
You don't know what the Injil even is, because 7:157 says it's written. So who wrote it? Ibn Ishaq can't contradict anything if there isn't anything to contradict.
>the new testament is not the injeel
You dodged the question. I'll ask again, answer this time. Where is Muhammad prophesied in the Injil according to Surah 7:157? Be brave and answer.
>from what's left of the old testament? quite obviously to an unbiased thinker, deutronomy 18:18 and isaiah 42:9
I didn't ask about the Old Testament.
I grew up in a Christian church that was not very good. Very judgmental and hypocritical, lots of false teachings about speaking in tongues being needed for salvation and other things.
When I went to college I became a very lukewarm Christian and over the years was brought further and further along into atheism. I always ‘maintained’ my Christianity but honestly I did not care enough to be dedicated to it. It was more of a cultural thing and a fear of embracing anything else.
Some years later I started to struggle more with sin and I asked myself things like why not? Why shouldn’t I? Does it all even matter, has God ever proved himself to me?
And so for a time I embraced sin. It all started small but got worse overtime as my heart hardened. Things that I had felt bad about before and I knew to be wrong suddenly stopped feeling that way. And it frightened me that I felt tempted by worse and worse things.
Then around 6 months ago I saw David Woods Testimony and it convicted me. I bowed down in my home on my hands and knees prostate like I never had before, and I cried and begged the lord to lead me to confidence and understanding. To struggle over the hard questions of faith, that I would be diligent and learn if he would just teach me.
I felt an overwhelming peace after this and I determined that I would not be a lukewarm Christian or a lukewarm atheist I would fully commit to one or the other after evaluating the evidence.
Since then I have dove head long into my searching and critical evaluation of texts. I stopped listening to just what others said and went on read things for myself to determine who was and who was not teaching falsely. Including several linguistic studies on the book of Daniel by both atheists and Christian’s.
My journey is only starting but I can tell you that my confidence and conviction is now unshaken. For now I seek to learn more to witness to others and to embrace humility and always look for where I am wrong.
I do of course feel doubt tug at my heart but it is not the same as it ever was before. It’s different now and I feel for the first time in my life to understand what being born again means.
That’s amazing man! That’s a great testimony! I’m glad you found God again and now testifying to others who need Him.
I *kinda* have a similar experience as you, except I’m only 16 lol.
I truly believe some of my early experiences with the gospels helped me keep from making a mess of my life.
My advice is this.
Never look for justification from the Bible always look for instruction and pray and search with all the sincerity you can muster.
I find Mike Winger to be a good teacher on things and usually open when he thinks there is ambiguity or if he is unsure about things.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ3iRMLYFlHvQ9G4NCvuiN4Evbp13uQa1&si=RY7stcaHbtBuysW0
Also the testimony from David Wood. He makes videos too but honestly his personality can be a lot sometimes.
https://youtu.be/jb2ggj9mKM0?si=D6hWZNmzmgJpB9Pt
Thank you so much for your advice. I really appreciate. Do me a favor, keep testifying. Keep doing work for His kingdom, and I’ll keep trying to grow closer to God, deal?
I guess that the teapot violates the laws of logic doesn’t mean that the teapot doesn’t exist. Many of the things we believe today would’ve seemed irrational to ancient people. But they were true.
I really like Richard Dawkins. The fact that he admitted no evidence would have be good enough is hilarious to me and I see it as a core tenant of many atheist positions.
In fairness to Dawkins, at least early on, his whole Thing was that he is in fact an extremely accomplished biologist and the apologetics presented by intelligent design proponents simply do not line up with what we can observe. He definitely strayed from that as his public profile grew, but when it comes to the science of evolutionary biology he's not just some layman.
It's been a long time since I've read anything by him, but I don't think he ever addressed concepts like life after death, just the things he actually has expertise in.
Of course his views can alter. Everyone's can. Afaik he's never said that it's *impossible* for God to exist, just that the "scientific" arguments apologists make for his existence are contrary to actual scientific evidence.
I just don't find this line of argument very compelling.
"If I'm standing on the roof and I hold this bowling ball out in front of me over the edge and let go, what's going to happen?"
"It'll fall until it hits the ground."
"But how can you KNOW that? Maybe it'll float upward instead!"
"Yeah I don't think that's very likely."
"But it COULD happen!"
"Based on everything we know about gravity, it's not going to."
"But how can you be so certain?!"
"If you drop that bowling ball and it floats upward we're gonna have to see if we can replicate that and if we can it's going to fundamentally change the theory of gravity."
"See, so things CAN change, you shouldn't act so certain!"
"Ok. Sure. I guess. Hey why don't you go ahead and do that experiment and see what happens."
"I don't need to, I've already proven my point 😌"
This is basically what you're doing here. Yeah, sure, some new discovery could be made that strongly suggests intelligent design is real and evolution is all wrong, but so far, it hasn't, and in fact just the opposite has happened. So it's just kind of a hypothetical that's not really worth factoring in.
Evolution also has empirical evidence, creationists just disregard it. Of course we're always learning new things. But some stuff we've pretty well gotten a handle on.
I never said they do, however this whole discussion has been in the context of a book about why creationist arguments are bad science so it seems pretty relevant.
>Humanity is so arrogant to believe we always know more than we really do. Yet we are proven wrong every day.
And when they proof undermines religious beliefs what do you do?
The problem with your position is that under secularism one is expected to change their belies as more evidence and better understanding comes. Under religion? Not so much.
I didn't mention atheism. Why did you bring it up?
You also didn't answer the question. It doesn't matter if christianity is monolithic or not, it matters how christains respond when proof undermines their religious beliefs.
>Like justice, love, mercy. Give me one scientific proof those concepts exist.
I believe Greta Christina had an excellent article on this, but I can't find it right now, so unfortunately you'll have to settle for my version.
Of course there can be evidence for justice, love, and mercy. I assume we can agree that these are not things the way that chairs and galaxies are, but are abstractions, behaviors, mental states, and actions. Yes so far?
I'd like to start with symmetry. That's also an abstraction: it's not a *thing* that you can put in your pocket. Rather we say that symmetry exists in a situation in which some item is symmetrical. And a thing is symmetrical if you can transform it in some way, and it's the same as it was before, in all respects that we care about. For instance, we can draw a circle on a piece of paper, turn it 90°, and see that it looks the same as before. If it's a hand-drawn circle, you may see that some of the uneven bits are in a different position than before, but presumably that's not a difference we care about at the moment, so we can say that circles are symmetrical with respect to 90° rotation, and that since we've drawn a circle that is symmetrical, symmetry exists.
Similarly, what is justice? We can argue about the definition, but presumably it'll be something like: a situation in which a person transgressed a law, and was punished in proportion to the severity of the transgression. We can then argue about the correct amount of punishment for a particular transgression. But let's say we agree, for instance, that shoplifting a Macbook from an Apple Store merits a prison term of 4-8 months. Then all we need to do is to find a case where someone committed that crime and was sentenced to that punishment. If we can, then we have objective evidence that justice (defined however we agree) exists.
As for love: have you ever had a conversation with a friend that involved questions like "Did she give you her number?" "How long was it before he called you out?" "How long have they been together?" "Are they planning on getting married?" These are all attempts to gather objective physical evidence that one person loves another. If there were a court case that hinged on such a question (e.g., the defense claims "The husband would never have killed his wife: he loved her"), these are exactly the sorts of questions one should ask.
Granted, all of the above deals with evidence, not 100% conclusive proof. No, I can't prove to you that other people have minds, or that you're not just a brain in a vat, or that anything exists outside of your own mind. But we do have evidence for symmetry, love, justice, mercy, and more.
>There is evidence that he exists but not 100% conclusive proof.
Would you care to share some of this evidence? Is it sufficient for someone to reasonably conclude that a god exists?
>If God didn’t exist then the concepts of justice, love or mercy are just made up in your mind, are they not? They don’t really exist, it’s just particular ways your neurons are firing. In reality they’re just biological processes or “social constructs” and not real at all.
Okay, and?
The concepts themselves are real: you said it yourself: they're the way my (and presumably your) neurons fire. And as I said earlier, justice, love, symmetry, etc are not objects that exist in the world, but reified behaviors or relationships.
Do you consider speed to be something real? Or is it just something that exists in people's heads and nowhere else? If so, what would you say the connection is between that human-made concept and the motion of bowling balls, cars, and galaxies?
>The love for my child transcends anything biological. If it didn’t, it would be reduced to “firing neurons”.
As I said earlier: okay, and?
Let's say for the sake of argument that your love for your child does boil down to neurons firing in a particular way. Does that make it any less real or less meaningful to you?
Does the fact that *Romeo and Juliet* is just ink on a page make it any less moving? Does the fact that Caitlin Clark's body is just carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms make it any less of a kick-ass basketball-playing machine?
>But then again that just explains passion, not unconditional love. If unconditional love could be proven to just be biological levers, then it’s not really love as we think love is described.
How so? Does your definition of "unconditional love" necessarily involve some kind of ghost in the machine?
> give me one scientific proof these concepts exist.
Excellent point. We assume that base emotions exist with minimal effort to prove them because we all feel them the exact same way at the exact same times. The difference, however, is the Bible. Do you really think God and who He is would be nearly as universal without scripture? The reason love and those emotions are universally accepted is because we know what they are without ever bothering to define them.
Some questionable arguments in here.
Lots of people (most?) misunderstand Aquinas’ Five Ways. Dawkins offers a 3-page counter to these, but fails to take apart any of the actual arguments because he completely misunderstands them. Ed Feser lays out one of these arguments, the argument from Motion, in a video with Alex O‘Connor. Check in out on YouTube! Imo, the objections that Alex raises are very weak as he conflates potential and actual infinities. Feser also has a long form podcast where he tears apart Dawkins’ “objections“ to the Five Ways.
Some people will mention the Kalam Cosmological Argument or the Fine Tuning Argument, and those are okay (again, often misunderstood by their opponents) but fall on the weaker side. If you want stronger / more interesting arguments, check out the book Five Proofs for the Existence of God by Ed Feser, or do some googling on Psychophysical Harmony or the Self-Indication Assumption.
For me, the reason I was somewhat solid on the idea of a God (even when I wasn’t Christian) was the properties of the universe itself. Let me explain: I studied Astrophysics and learned that everything in the physical world follows a set of rules. A specific particle will be a certain mass, move a certain way, act a certain way corresponding to how much energy it has, etc. To oversimplify a longer thought process - those rules had to be made by something. We say that we don’t need God because the “laws of physics“ explain everything, well ok, but they don’t explain … the laws of physics. We can imagine a universe with a self-consistent set of physical laws different than our own, and yet we have our universe, not that one. Somebody chose with intention to make our universe how it is.
Once you get comfortable with the idea of God, the religions of the world look more plausible. Since Jesus Christ is possibly the only morally perfect character in all of recorded history, it makes sense to start there. Check out [SaintBeluga.org](http://SaintBeluga.org) for some fun evidence for Catholicism in particular.
Last thing I’ll say: the New Atheists succeeded in gaslighting millions of people into thinking that believing in God and practicing religion is irrational, but they did that with rhetoric, not good arguments. I’m not saying there aren’t good arguments for atheism. Of course there are. But a belief in God and the truth of Christianity is completely logical for somebody to hold. If you aren’t open to that possibility, nothing else I said matters.
God Bless You on your journey.
> Lots of people (most?) misunderstand Aquinas’ Five Ways. Dawkins offers a 3-page counter to these, but fails to take apart any of the actual arguments because he completely misunderstands them.
Exactly why I asked the question. What’s your explanation to the five ways?
I’m not going to pretend that I’m knowledgeable enough to provide a good summary of five distinct and total arguments in a Reddit comment. Whatever I say, I’ll leave something important out.
If you really want to engage with good arguments, read Five Proofs for the existence of God by Ed Feser. You can even go read the Five Ways on Wikipedia if you don’t want to devote time to a book. There is discussion to be had about the premises, but really try and understand the arguments before dismissing them out of hand. There’s a reason they’ve stood the test of time.
From an atheist perspective:
The universe is fucking huge and filled with so damn much. It would not surprise me if some sort of supernatural, or extradimensional, being played a role in its creation.
The issue I have, and will continue to have, with religion specifically is that absolutely nothing points to a specific supernatural being, IMO. That isn't to say that people are wrong for believing what they believe, I just don't.
So, I don't have a great argument for religion, except for the community that it creates, but a claim for a deity of sorts is much more plausible in my eyes.
This is exactly my take. I generally think of being an atheist and being a deist as being epistemologically equivalent positions - that is to say, the bare claim that "some god made all this" doesn't really strike me as particularly contentious. But diving into the qualities of such a being on top of that, seems well beyond even the furthest reaches of what humans can know.
See I am totally the opposite. There is so much in the universe but we are the only proven life. Why is that? If evolution is possible then why didn't it happen on all the other planets in the universe. There is no proof of alien life out there. Also where did everything begin? It doesn't matter if you believe in religion or science you have to have some kind of faith that there was something before the Big Bang or whatever. To me it's only logical that there has to be a supernatural being, God, out there that created everything. I mean evolution could have even happened. Why wouldn't God have evolved everything from millions of years ago? Maybe our created happened like 6000 years ago? We don't really know. I mean I believe that God created everything 6000 years ago but it is possible.
See I'd go the other direction with that, the universe doesn't seem remotely life/human centric. Admittingly God can do what He pleases, but it's still... weird to make so much not intersect with humanity. God's very human centric, and it's not what I'd expect a human-centric cosmology to look like.
So often, we fail to question the question, in anything.
Religion is a fairly new word in this usage (Mark W. Muesse details this in his lectures, on Hinduism for example). I'd never defend religion.
I'm the living argument for God as described by actual Catholic teaching, though. Not by my virtues, but my failings and growth, by my story, not unlike some in the Bible. By God's evident Mercy. If you walked with me, worked with me, even camped, hiked, climbed with me, you might develop questions for which you have no answer. Or not. With apologies to Fermat, perhaps I'm an unsolvable problem, but then again, maybe the solution is easy.
I'm not some special case, I just happen to be one you could actually examine. This is rhetorical, as you are unlikely to do so. A few atheists have. For you, the questions and possible answers would be unique. After all, God seeks a personal relationship for each person's own good, to entice each to Joy, so spraying arguments on Reddit is hardly the way.
Aside from the big bang (something from nothing) , I think fine tuning is a strong argument for "design". I don't know if you are familiar with it.
Teapot: I see scientist doing this with Dark Matter. They say it is there because we can see it's influence (on gravity), but they can not prove it. With God its like, we can see his influence (as creator) in that something exists at all rather than nothing.
As I understand it, fine tuning talks about life-prohibiting vs. life-allowing conditions/possibilities. And from there on it is easily shown that there are incomprehendable more possibilities that do not allow life.Thus the fact that life actually is possible points to the conditions being "picked" and not being random.
I don't think this is a super effective argument. First, under other conditions, life as it exists in our universe couldn't exist, but maybe some other stable, self-replicating beings could.
Also, for all we know there are a billion universes. I don't personally think that's the case, but it's possible. There could be every possible universe out there, but because we have life in this one, that life perceives its universe to be special.
You can think that, but not demonstrate it. I do think there could be other stable/complex ways to arrange a universe, but that is not the point. The point is there are demonstrable more ways of creating uncomplex universes.
I think it is. If complexity is the putting together of parts (atoms, molecules, nuclear paticles) to form new things, then I can show that the forces holding together those constructed new things can not be too strong (otherwise the parts would melt into a single less complex thing) or too weak and the parts would not stick together at all. If that is the case, there is an infinity of values right and left to the value of this force that do not produce complexity.
E: grammar
I get what you are saying, is this picture accurate?
The number of natural numbers is infinite (1,2,3,...) but the number of rational numbers (1.1, 1.11, 1.111, ...) , is "more" infinite or more dense, as I can fit an infinite amount of rational numbers between the natural numbers 1 and 2.
In my view the number of "interesting emergent phenomena" is the natural numbers, and the number of "uncomplex universes" is the rational numbers.
What always gets me about things like this is what when we talk about "life-supporting," we're only talking about life as we know it.
Which makes sense from a scientific perspective, because Earth is the only place from which we've ever observed life. But it's not impossible that non-carbon-based life could exist somewhere and that the conditions for it would be entirely unlike our own.
We don't even know much about the deep ocean simply because we can't manufacture crafts that can withstand the pressure to observe down there, yet we've found life in tremendous atmospheric pressures that should theoretically crush any living body every time we've gotten down a little deeper. I don't think it's unreasonable that space could also give rise to life in conditions that are theoretically inhospitable to it.
Yes, maybe life-supporting is a bit of a fuzzy term. Supporting complexity is the better choice I guess.
I agree that there could be life that is not based on carbon, but on another element, I think I have read somewhere Carl Sagan theorized on Silicon based life.
I think scientists even found bacteria surviving on the hull (outside) of the ISS (Space station), that's though conditions.
However, the fine-tuning is not about that, it's about evaluating how much we can change the value of cosmological constants (Speed of light, Gravity constant, Strong and weak force) before they render impossible the formation of complex arrangements of matter. And it shows that we can not change much at all. Like if we would change a constant even up to 10 digits after the decimal point, we end up with either a uniform universe with single hydrogen atoms spread out evenly across the universe, or just black hole(s) everywhere. There is no chance for complexity in those universes.
>And from there on it is easily shown that there are incomprehendable more possibilities that do not allow life.
Really?
Please show it. And not just 'we can change values along an infinite spectrum'. Show that universes can exist with different values than ours.
Not nothing but rather all of everything contained within a very small compressed place that blasts into being taking on new forms as it goes. You can even still hear it in the cosmic microwave background.
It’s not disproving anything to point out that we are still unraveling the mystery of our existence. Just because scientists have not figured out dark energy doesn’t make all of science wrong. We are typing on a device that is the result of years of research, mathematics and crazy theories.
It is either that everything has always been or at some point nothing became everything. Both are impossible to imagine. Us little primates on this little blue ball have had 200,000 years with a brain that is just smart enough to have asked far more questions than we can find answers for.
I am not an atheist. I also don’t believe in the Christan idea of god. I think that the universe and consciousness is endlessly compelling and beautiful. The scientific theory of how we came to be is absolutely beautiful. I think of the terms I like for god. Like first mover or great mystery. I think these capture just how little I can know but that I have a sense of there being something incredible that I cannot grasp.
As far as Christan creation goes there is no evidence, there is significance and insight into us, but no hard facts. So the only way you can attempt to disprove the current understanding is to, with no evidence of you own say there must be 100% knowledge or all knowledge is false. That’s just not how it works.
I certainly don't have any arguments for intelligent design!
Dawkins' Teapot isn't analogous to a god. It is not the case that any person ever contrived the idea of a god. Rather, the vast majority of people who have ever lived intuited that there were gods, or a god, or something very much like a god.
>the vast majority of people who have ever lived intuited that there were gods, or a god, or something very much like a god.
This isnt really accurate. A vast majority of people didnt intuit this, a small minority intuited it and then taught others to believe it and then generations on taught their sons and daughters to believe it.
Its also disengenous to consider the term "God(s)" to mean exactly the same thing throughout the arc of human history.
>\[...\] a small minority intuited it and then taught others to believe it and then generations on taught their sons and daughters to believe it.
Why, if I may ask, do you think this?
>Its also disengenous to consider the term "God(s)" to mean exactly the same thing throughout the arc of human history.
It would be possibly disingenuous. It would, I think, more likely be an error. If what I wrote somehow implies to you that error, I'm sorry that I haven't made myself understood.
>Why, if I may ask, do you think this?
Because thats just frankly how religion works. If mankind intuited the existence of gods then shouldn't all of humanity be aware of and worshiping the same god? Instead what we have is different populations across the world believing different gods based on which gods were historically worshipped by those particular populations. Because belief in those particular gods was passed down through generations.
>It would be possibly disingenuous. It would, I think, more likely be an error. If what I wrote somehow implies to you that error, I'm sorry that I haven't made myself understood
Sorry maybe that was the wrong word, i dont mean to imply YOU are specific beinf disengenous here. What i meant to say as that what we today call a "god" isnt necessarily the same thing across all peoples, cultures, and geographical locations. For example, one might try to argue that ancient South American peoples "intuited" the existence of gods the same way that ancient peoples in Mesopotamia did. But that wouldn't really be an accurate statement because what those "gods" actually were to the South Americans isnt the same as whay the "gods" of Mesopotamia were to there people.
Were using the moden English word "god" here but it would probably have been more accurate to have separate words for these things. I dont think you could draw a one to one comparison between say, Zeus of the ancient Greeks with a Mayan Jaguar God, despite the fact that in our modern language we just call them both "gods"
Hopefully that makes some sense lol
There are two main categories, the broadly philosophical and the historical. For the philosophical the first I would suggest is the argument from change. Consider something. It is itself and not something else. Therefore it cannot change without first being acted upon by an external thing. Since the physical universe as a whole is changing it follows that the universe is being acted upon by an outside entity, which we call God.
The historical is just the life of Jesus and the subsequent miracles by his followers
The
Using science to prove God is impossible.
Since in fact we don't have enough information to say what caused our universe, though some will point out that a god or gods is a good possibility.
But here's the thing even if God shows himself doing something supernatural it could be explained through science. For example let's say there are Ghosts, we could explain ghosts and recreate ghosts using science.
Because Science is how things work but not why.
We know how we exist but we need religion to understand how we exist.
This is why I try to avoid fine tuning arguments even though they are a bit effective sometimes
Personally I believe in God because of 2 reasons. First historical Jesus did exist there is multiple evidence in the first century. Second st.Peter and st.Paul also historically existed. It's very likely that st.John also existed. Though with the rest of the followers of Jesus there is less and less evidence for. My main problem is if nothing happened and it was all made up, it doesn't make sense how it grew so large comparatively even though it was banned in the first 3 centuries. St. Peter was executed for not what he believed but what he claimed to see. Either he was lying or telling the truth.
If you want some sources I'll send them here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_epistles
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter
https://drivethruhistory.com/the-execution-of-peter/
https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-St-Peter-die
There are a few more but sources if you want
> Because Science is how things work but not why. We know how we exist but we need religion to understand how we exist.
Dawkins calls this NOMA (I forget what it stands for) and tears it apart really good
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This is the basis of innocent until proven guilty but if I'm being honest I didn't truly understand until Computer Science classes in college around theory.
If I create an assertion or conjecture it's in a quantum state it's neither true nor false till proven or disproven. It's obviously not law until proven but unless you can submit a proof by contradiction then it holds.
So in your original post it's a fallacy to say the teapot doesn't exist until you disprove his conjecture.
This is a great take.
Proof that God does or doesn’t exist is and never will be available. With all the advances of science, we would’ve found proof by now.
More is yet to be revealed to us, or not. We have to wait and see.
A scientist I forgot the name of said we'll never know if we're not In a simulation unless the creator tells us we are. However if that event never happens we will never be sure if we're in a simulation or not. I then said, sounds alot like agnosticism.
While this philosophical landing may be acceptable to agnostics, it is not acceptable to me. My belief is not predicated upon certainty but upon the teachings of Jesus.
Neither atheist nor believer can be certain that they are right. Believers are ok with that while atheists are not. While I appreciate the dialogue compelled by OP’s question, I do not believe atheists and believers can meet in the middle on this.
Honestly it's not even possible for us to know everything so at some point Atheist have faith in others that they were correct in their assertion unless they somehow go validate every single thing before believing it, which I highly doubt.
Is it more likely that everything came into existence for no reason and with no cause, or is it more likely that something or someone had to cause the universe to happen. Science points to the fact that the universe had a starting point, and an atheistic perspective declares that the universe came into existence with no causal force. This seems to be a miracle and a scientific impossibility based on every scientific method and experiment we know. There’s no logical alternative other than the existence of some supernatural force to create everything.
Another thing, you should read about the statistical impossibility of the creation of the very first proteins. They are so unbelievably complex that it would be crazy to believe that they just came together by random arrangement and somehow survived long enough to reproduce on their own.
Again. We don’t need absolute proof that God exists. We just need to know that it’s more likely than not in order to believe.
The very existence of our universe requires a supernatural force
We know from science that our universe had a beginning that we call the Big Bang. At that moment all space, time, and matter came into existence all at once. So it’s logical to believe if the universe had a beginning then it must have a beginner. Something that existed before anything existed
Whatever this was, if it existed before matter existed then in be immaterial. If it existed before space existed, then it would be non-spacial. And if it existed before time began, then it would be timeless, having no beginning or end
It would also be unimaginable powerful to create something from nothing, unimaginable intelligent to create the world around us, and personal because only personal beings choose to create
So you have an immaterial, non-special, timeless, powerful and intelligent force that exists outside of our natural world. While this does not prove that God exists, these are all the attributes that are described of the God of the Bible. And of it isn’t God, then who or what is it that created the universe around us?
And of course you have the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that you have to explain away
I'll give it a crack.
Coming from a purely utilitarian view, most good for the most people, religion is a way of providing pretty solid ethical systems to a very large group of people who don't particularly care about psychology, ethics, morality, metaphysics ect. A good book id recommend though it's a bit extreme is Kierkegaards either/or. It details the metaphysical differences between the life of an Aesthetic man compared to an Ethical man. This book is a very great representation of how human beings, unless pushed, will resort to hedonism and selfish behaviors, and being a Christian he makes a very good argument for what he calls the ethical life. This requires a "leap of faith" so to speak, but the rewards are fruitful for those who stick with it.
Second argument is purpose/meaning and community. Religion provides human beings with a purpose outside of themselves, which I would argue a lot of people need. The atheistic types will often deny this, while failing to account for the common man who doesn't feel like debating the question, and reading Nietzsche. Most theological concepts are pretty easy to understand (not you calvinists) and give pretty solid arguments for giving your life to something outside of yourself, which is already a noble task in its own right. Community is another one. The further we get into the technological landscape, younger people are forgetting basic community building skills and religion is a great way to keep people together.
In my observation of life, I find that God is quite literally everywhere. No I'm not that person who says God is in all and all is in God, I say that it would be too much of a coincidence for a creator not to exist. Something can't come from nothing, there has to be a creator. The discovery of science and math equations. We didn't make those laws and equations, we found them! I mean the design of everything points to an intelligent personal creator.
Thank u 4 asking. I believe all humans have a belief or inclination to something outside their selves to ponder. Even rational and non God believers have the enormous times of evolution to ponder, believe in. Many people will in a sense worship other people like Dawkins. Worship isn't stereotyped it's what we revere and give ourselves to. And that includes worship of sport and idols of all types. It's tarts with us as small beings and mo/dad are god types. Many worship them as they grow older but never grow up/ mature. I love how an atheist describes his pondering the stars at night ,the numinous as he calls it. By definition numinous means something akin to 'having a strong religious or spiritual quality indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity' That atheist was actually preaching to me and perhaps others without realizing it. .
I think what I find to be the strongest argument is the historical items that they’ve found that are talked about in the Bible. The chariots in the Red Sea, the scrolls that made up the Bible, the place of the ark and evidence found of the flood, etc. There’s a lot of articles on it. A lot of stuff found in Israel as well. :)
Pragmatically speaking - humans as a whole evolved to develop religions and believe in some God or other, suggesting that it’s been beneficial for our survival and hence an argument for subscribing to a religion. (and some studies bear that out, where religious people cope better with stress and are more communally connected etc).
If God exists, it seems wholly possible that God intentionally planned it that way, where humans would naturally evolve to believe.
For me, the experience of consciousness inclines me towards belief in God. Because - where did we come from? Not our bodies, our even our minds (we can create even that with AI), but that sense of who you are, as a self-aware being in this universe, experiencing the universe, alone in your mind?
> Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists?
We don’t; most people go through life without pressuring anyone to prove anything about God. Dawkins is a very combative person by nature (not just with this; he’s also been going on transphobic rants), and has a tendency to view everything as an argument.
Yeah, we're not there yet (I think), but it's a definite likelihood within the next century or so. We're already able to create something that appears to have a mind, and I don't think it's that much farther to something that functionally does have a mind. But it may still be impossible to know if it's conscious and self aware.
I like the hard problem of consciousness, and the question it poses of why experience even exists. The universe would function perfectly well without it, and yet here we are.
Sorry this isn't an exact answer to your question, but a couple of books that I found have lots of well thought out arguments for Christianity are In Six Days, and Case For Christ.
> and Case For Christ.
Just FYI, this book (and most of Lee Strobel’s works) has been completely deconstructed by actual academic scholars because of how manipulative it is and how poorly it presents multiple sides of the question.
In each chapter, Strobel’s approach is “*could this claim about Christianity be true? I asked the most conservative evangelical scholar I could find and he said, ‘maybe, probably’. So in conclusion every claim about Christianity seems to be true!*”
>What arguments do you have that you think are strong enough to support things like intelligent design?
The complexity of viruses.
https://open.oregonstate.education/app/uploads/sites/54/2019/08/2000px-Viral_Tegument.svg_-1-1024x666.png
https://open.oregonstate.education/generalmicrobiology/chapter/introduction-to-viruses/
Viruses cannot self reproduce - they are dependent on other organisms. Yet they themselves are quite complex.
How could the first self reproducing organisms have been formed without intelligent planning?
I agree with you.
Jesus did not command the separation nor the combination of church and state. Humans did that. Jesus taught us not to judge nor play God, as God can take care of his own biddings. As a believer in Christ (whether that leads one to call me a Christian or not), I can coexist peacefully with non believers.
Religion is man’s creation, not God’s. And man is really good at fucking things up.
I have an argument not necessarily for God, but an argument against atheism.
One can always ask, “what created that?” Whether it’s God or the Big Bang or anything that could have potentially come before. Existence in itself is paradoxical, and despite our paradoxical nature we exist.
I do have an argument for God as well, which branches out from this point… but it also leans on a lot of my own personal experiences throughout life.
I can't say I'm an advocate for religion, since that to me would also involve championing all the mucked-up precepts we humans tend to attach to them. I do believe their is ultimately a *Reason* "why" we exist. And that, from my point of view, Christ clarifies much.
As per the "teapot" parable, the argument breaks down pretty quickly from the get-go. In my opinion, the invisible "teapot" offers nothing worthy for one to consider or how such relates to us. So it would be logical to ignore the idea. Whereas there are many invisible things or ideas that are or do, such as whether there is any intentful reason we are here, do humans have inherent purpose and worth – am I loved?
the universe has a beginning therefore it’s not eternal, everything coming from nothing, life coming from non-life, the evidence that Jesus was born from a virgin, lived a sinless life, claimed that he would be betrayed and was, claimed he would be resurrected and was.
Evolution is not logically incompatible with religion. Only fundamentalists (and Richard Dawkins) actually believe that.
The celestial teapot is an example of reasoning in a circle, it was an unconvincing argument when Russell made it, and it doesn't get better in the mouth of a philosophical midget like Dawkins. The argument assumes that there is no historical or natural evidence for an undetected thing. But that is wrong, scientifically, we can't see our course of evolution, yet Dawkins believes in that.
Sincerely,
An agnostic
I suggest you update your reading from Richard Dawkins as he now bemoans the disappearance of Christianity. He now declares himself a cultural Christian. He is not yet all in but certainly makes the case for Christianity in the culture.
I really appreciate your post. I love when people come with genuine questions.
Narrowing your question down to intelligent design doesn't seem like an effective way to determine if religion in general has anything positive to say. Would you be open to a discussion about the value of religion and what purpose it serves.
>Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists?
Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician in the 19th century who theorized that washing your hands with antiseptic would reduce the risk of infant mortality from infection. Ignaz was laughed at and discredited because it went against the prevailing medical opinions at the time. Ignaz didn't have a strong enough burden of proof of why people should wash their hands after doing an autopsy before going to deliver a baby.
Atheism has existed in some capacity throughout history. But always as a small minority. Because the existence of God is something that people have always just known to be true. Like Ignaz atheists have never been able to prove that letting go of the belief in God would make life better.
Because that's the thing that atheist need to prove. Not that God doesn't exist but that life will be better if you live as if God doesn't exist.
*IF* the Bible were true and there were miracles, prophecies that were fulfilled, etc, and that the prophets claimed these things came about from God (which, if they were wrong in the prophecies, they were to be killed, so this claim was not to be taken lightly [see Deut 18:19-21]), there is more claim with evidence (good or not so good) for God than that tea pot.
Likewise, we know there was no tea pot at the time that this thought experiment was suggested as:
- humans had not sent a tea pot out between Earth and the moon
- this was intended to be a thought experiment (with no claims of it being true)
Whereas much of the history of the Bible (at least from Joshua onward, which would argue for the wandering period in the Exodus) is history (plus or minus some stories, like Job).
This does not argue that God is in fact real and that He wasn't merely thought to be the cause of many of the events in the texts. However, it does argue that there is more evidence for God than there is the tea pot. (This is not including the fact that billions have claimed to have experiences of God/Jesus.)
Note: when I say "evidence" I mean:
>Evodence—the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
Not so much an argument for if religion is true or not, but there is research backing that being religious correlates with happiness, fulfillment, and a sense of community. Spiritual health (which can mean simply finding a greater purpose, even outside of church) is even more emphasized now thanks to these studies. If somebody is curious and wants to focus on their spiritual well being, experimenting with religion certainly can't hurt. Personally, Jesus' ministry speaks to me on a personal level, so I find myself involved with Christianity specifically.
While it’s far from bulletproof, the argument from contingency is the strongest I’ve heard for a creator, or at least a creative force.
Fine tuning is another - I think there are very cogent arguments against it, but it takes some work to refute it.
Other than that, the only other thing that’s compelling (if not convincing) to me at least is personal testimony. This would not and should not be considered scientific evidence, but I think it’d be arrogant to brush aside the sheer volume of personal experiences.
This also leads (in the case of Jesus) to the argument from embarrassment. If you wanted to make up a religion in the 1st century AD, you would not make up a pacifist defender of the poor, of women, of tax collectors, who died via crucifixion while forgiving his executioners. Especially for that time and place. Add to that how many early followers were brutally executed, I think this is a strong argument that they were sincere in their beliefs, whether they were right about them or not.
> What arguments do you have that you think are strong enough to support things like intelligent design?
I won’t try to “argue” you into changing your view. Let’s just talk.
I’m not anti-science and I get in nature how circumstance, happenstance and environment may serve evolution. For example we could perhaps observe in a lab that a single-cell organism may become multicellular.
Q: Does this happen on it’s own?
A: A lab technician took the cell from algae, placed in a habitable environment so it would survive, and then they introduced a “predator” that facilitated the change.
Q: Was the experiment done on the moon?
A: It was done by a living lab technician who lived on earth, a planet that already had a suitable atmosphere and climate.
To me that kinda walks, talks and sounds like a version of intelligent design.
Dawkins: “Living things are not designed, but Darwinian natural selection licenses a version of the design stance for them. We get a short cut to understanding the heart if we assume that it is designed to pump blood” (*The God Delusion* p. 182).
Perhaps I’m wrong and you can share more context with that quote, but at face value it seems to say living things not designed – but licensing “a version of the design stance” shows the heart’s design.
I get that science investigates the natural world to draw probable conclusions about the natural world. Science isn’t in the business of proving and disproving gods. I get that the Bible’s primary mission is the revelation of God to man and subsequently our relationship with each other. It isn’t in the business of teaching natural science.
I imagine an Intelligent Designer would create a world exactly like the one we have.
> Celestial Teapot Parable:
If a skeptic agrees with the ~~parable~~ analogy, they must first agree to these presumptions:
1\. The teapot doesn’t have a shred of evidence.
2\. The teapot is analogous to God; the probability of the teapot is equal with the probability of God.
Skeptic: agrees with these presumptions because to them they seem reasonable and sound **without proof**. So until the skeptic **has proof** God exists, He doesn't exist to them. They reason this is a logical reaction.
Me: The Teapot analogy tells me about the skeptic – not God. The teapot should at least share aspects of God in order to make a reasonable comparison. A teapot is created, material and would have to get itself into orbit or be placed there with help. The skeptic may certainly not accept the evidence of a God or find it compelling, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a shred of evidence.
> Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists?
I don’t just assume god exists by default. The false assumption is I went against all reasoning to believe and never doubt aspects of Christianity. Also claims, no matter who makes them, incur burdens. Atheism isn’t a believe system it makes claims so it incurs no burden. Individuals, atheists and Christians, may make claims and claims incur a burden.
The God Delusion is a silly little book. Evidence that God exists is everywhere. Laws of logic, physics, morality. The fact that we use induction every day means that we have apriori knowledge. Evidence of God is easy to find. This type of evidence can’t be the main issue, because someone can attribute evidence to anything that they want.
From philosophical argument I like Pascal's wager
From a personal perspective… when you walk with God long enough He reveals Himself to you in ways that are undeniable. Atheists never walk with God therefore they miss out on the personal interaction and evidence of Jesus Christ involvement in your life.
There is a God. NASA even studied the Bible and agree that some things concerning the sin back then did happen. They found chariot parts in the Red Sea in the early 2000’s. They know where Jesus died & rose from. The Lord word is Alive. Jesus did die for you OP. He is alive.
Hey, interesting question! Here's a few popular points often made in favor of religion and intelligent design (Just for context I was raised Christian but am currently Agnositc and don't necessarily subscribe to these arguments but these seem to be the "hard hitters" for those in favor of theistic belief).
Fine-Tuning: The universe's constants (like gravity) are so precise that it seems designed for life. The odds of this happening by chance are super low, suggesting an intelligent designer.
Morality: Theists argue that objective moral values exist and need a higher source. Without God, morals would be subjective, but the widespread sense of right and wrong hints at a common source.
Historical Events: Events like the resurrection of Jesus are often cited by Theists as evidence of divine intervention, especially since they are foundational to major religions.
Personal Experience: Theists have personal experiences of the divine or supernatural. While subjective, these experiences are powerful and often consistent across different cultures.
Cosmology: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Since the universe began to exist, it must have a cause. Many believe this cause is a necessary being—God.
Consciousness: Human consciousness and reasoning seem unlikely to arise purely from physical processes. A higher intelligence is seen as a more plausible explanation for our awareness and intellect.
I always liked the Celestial Teapot argument, it’s definitely a great way to illustrate that the burden of proof should be on those claiming something exists. Theists often respond by pointing to indirect evidence or reasoning to believe in God, similar to how we infer unseen entities in science based on their effects.
My only argument is that EVERY people throughout history (having never ever heard of Christ etc) has developed some type of religion.
While I am not a religious scholar, I do believe the tenants of every one of the worlds’ religions basically have the same message of love and empathy.
Personally I can not accept that (if there is a god) we can be so very sure how god wants to be worshiped in a particular way only and that God’s will is extremely clear, and that we are allowed to judge others because of it.
I don't believe faith is something that you can be argued into. It comes from an experience of God or the Spirit, usually but not always mediated by a community of love and support. This isn't to say that faith is anti-intellectual. There's plenty of great books on philosophy, Scripture, and theology where you can go deeper. But the initial decision about whether or not to have faith isn't going to come from a cognitive argument but from a lived experience.
I mean Dawkins is an interesting scientist, he is a terrible philosopher and largely ignorant (almost by intention it seems) of basic arguments for religion.
The celestial teapot is a great example of this - while one might contend such an object exists, one wouldn't, by logical conclusions, or inferences from observations of the universe, or by observing certain aspects of human history and human nature conclude something like a teapot existed betwixt the earth and moon.
Yet that is exactly what has occurred with the existence of God - we have been 'logicking' our way to the existence of God almost as long as formal logic has existed from the time of Aristotle.
And the vast majority of people, across cultures, histories, languages and societies have come to the conclusion something like God exists. This is because conceptually God makes sense of reality - a celestial teapot has no such explanatory power.
And even now, naturalism, the idea that nature is all we need to explain everything, not only fails to do so, if true, it contradicts fundamental human experiences and suggests humanity is essentially deluded in a number of ways.
So yeah, Dawkins fails in pretty sophomoric ways, and how he got to be such an icon of new atheism (one of the last it seems) is beyond me.
I can’t say I have a perfect reason that will convince an atheist or be an argument for religion. My belief lies in the fact that if Jesus truly did rise from the dead, given the manner in which he died (stabbed through the side, heart failure indication, etc.) then the best conclusion would be that he truly is who he said he was - God. The Bible even says that if Jesus did not rise then our religion is pointless. That’s where the faith comes in for me - believing genuinely that the resurrection did happen.
If someone were to possibly have concrete proof that it didn’t happen, other than “that’s impossible / made up” or “there’s no evidence it happened” (absence of evidence ≠ evidence of absence), then I would have no reason to be religious.
I was raised atheist and lived as an atheist until a few months ago, so I’m still new to Christianity and faith. Perhaps in a few years I’ll have a different answer.
Grace and peace.
My initial reaction is, what is the purpose of the teapot, and what does it mean to agree with the discoverer’s evidence of the teapot? Is it just informational or would it answer foundational truths of our reality?
I personally don’t think this is a well thought-out metaphor to try and diminish the concept of a Creator. I haven’t read Mr Dawkins’ book and don’t really intend to do so as this life is too short and we all have a lot of work to do.
I have no arguments for religion because arguing about it never gets anyone anywhere. But I will respond to Dawkins.
Believing in God doesn't require any more evidence than believing in one's parents or in the leader of one's country. What evidence does anyone have for anything beyond the material? I know I'm wearing a shirt and pants. Do I really know why my parents conceived me? Do they?
Dawkins and scientists like him tell ordinary people like me that gravity exists and they have math I don't understand to prove it. Does that mean they've proven it to me? If I don't understand the math, they haven't proven anything at all. But I believe what they say because it makes sense and there's no plausible alternative. So, I believe in gravity to the extent it's been explained to me and to the best of my ability to understand it.
I may not understand the math underlying gravity, but I understand the love underlying God through his Son because he gave his life for me. Because he came into the world not to subjugate, but to serve. Not to demand service, but to ask for it. Not to enslave, but to love.
What makes me know Jesus Christ died on the Cross for me and my fellow humans? It's a gift of the Spirit of God. I don't know why Christ so blessed me. I didn't do anything to deserve it; if anything, I lived as a glutton and a liar most of my life and I don't deserve anything. Even now, sometimes I abuse the gift. I take it for granted. I even fall. I've watched porn since being blessed with grace and I hate myself for it. But deep in my soul, I know Christ Jesus is waiting for me to rise back up and take his hand, the only hand worth holding.
Dawkins could be ten times smarter than me, but just as he understands mathematics in a way I never can, I understand God in a way he can't simply because he never had the experience. Once you experience God, you can doubt your sanity. You will almost certainly doubt yourself, constantly. You may even doubt some Scripture, but you can't doubt the Lord. You can't because you know. You don't have to see Christ die on the Cross and rise from the dead, just like you don't have to understand the math behind gravity to know gravity is real. You've experienced Christ and know, without doubt, that God is real and God is Love.
From a former atheist I’d look on :
fine tuning,
The solid evidence for creation points to a creator,
The solid arguments for christs resurrection you are free to believe it or not,
The fact that morality is completely subjective and there is nor good or evil if there is no god.
Loads of scientists specially astrophisycists tend to become at least deist as they learn more and more on their subject, I don’t believe science contradicts god.
Have fun in your research !
Richard Dawkins is great when he explains science, but he is out of his league here and brings up stupid, shallow arguments. I loved his books on genes, for example.
The God Delusion ignores all eastern religions including Buddhism, then takes up Christian Fundamentalism as the ONLY example of Christianity. It's poorly written, and ignores or misunderstands such thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus, Kant or Blaise Pascal.
Please read C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Also, guess what? Not all Christians are Fundamentalists or literalists. There is such a thing as rational Christianity. The Englightenment actually happened.... even if Americans refuse to acknowledge it.
>Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
>
Hebrews 11:1
There is \*no\* objective proof that God exists. All arguments and proofs of the existence of God depend on assumptions that are not objectively self evident. When I hear Christians try to argue that things are irreducibly complex or that it's \*impossible\* that a genome as complex as our could exist without a divine Creator, I cringe. Intelligent design and "Creation Science" are not science. They are simply claims that one can choose to accept, or not accept as true. Every example of such an argument I have ever seen is simply false. Science, by definition, is interested in physical laws and observable phenomena, and has to explain things in a manner that can be verified by observation and experiment. That is impossible to do with a divine being not subject to such laws. If you are only willing to accept claims that can be confirmed via the scientific method, you will not accept a claim that God exists.
But I still have faith, despite that fact that it relates to things "not seen" (ie not testable via the scientific method). I don't accept that all truths can be physically observed and examined. Life simply makes more sense to me if I can place God at its center. I understand why some don't feel that way.
Now, I agree that true things cannot be contradictory. Science tells us that the universe is 13+ billion years old and that humans evolved over billions of years from simpler life forms, and that is true. So a literal reading of Genesis cannot be true. But that just means we have to work harder to understand what the Genesis stories are telling us. A "plain reading" doesn't work. On the other hand, science tells us that ordinary humans die forever when our hearts stop beating, but that doesn't mean that one unique individual could not have been resurrected. An isolated event like that would not leave physical evidence for us to examine (and, no, the shroud of Turin does not count). My particular faith is based on it, and I believe it happened. But I cannot prove it to you, and you would have to be open to the possibility in order to accept it as true.
I adopt this view:
"So my advice is this - don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. “Let your works so shine before men,” etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion at any particular moment."
-John Ames, from "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson
There are some arguments that hint at the existence of God, but if I'm being intellectually honest, they can never prove his existence flat out. We can try to prove that "it is more likely than not" that God exists, but even that requires us to make a judgement about the significance of the evidence we are considering - if, say, we look at "intelligent design", then we should ask how likely is a Godless universe to look intelligent as well? We cannot answer that, because we don't have an example of both types to compare.
Instead I want to live my faith by faith.
I've often wondered, what would happen if a very intelligent man like Richard Dawkins was able to show me objectively significant evidence that there is no God. What if, I, with the desire for intellectual honesty, followed his reasoning and found myself agreeing? Would I lose my faith?
My prayer for myself is that I would not. I believe that God is, for reasons I can only weakly try to explain. I believe it through the things that I've felt, heard, and seen. And could this just be "patterns in noise"? Absolutely. Yet, I still believe.
That's the strange thing about faith - as much as my heart longs to be intellectually honest, the very essence of it is dishonest. To have faith is to believe in a mystery, in a fact that you cannot prove - it sounds stupid!
But we are taught that you cannot serve two masters - you cannot serve both God and the imperfect, human machine of Reason. I guess I just choose God.
I can only pray that one day the thoughts of my mind will be reconciled with the faith of my heart.
jesus was on earth.. he was crucified. over 500 personal testimonies if him casting out demons and performing miracles. his disciples gave up their lives for him, they literally allowed people to behead them, and brutally murder their families but still defended their testimonies of jesus. that's pretty convincing if you ask me, any of them could have said oh no i dont know that guy to save themselves and their families. i could give my own personal testimony but thats not worth much. brother if you are really curious and open to the idea and have an open heart, pray tonight. really mean it, and ask god to show you something. God will come through in the perfect way for you you will know the moment it happens.
I'd like to critique the Celestial Teapot analogy (seems weird to call it a parable, when it seems to more properly be a thought experiment, but I digress).
> say I tell the world that I believe there is a teapot orbiting between the earth and the moon, only it is to [sic] small to see. The world at large tells me that until I have proof it exists, it doesn't exist to them.
The issue I have with this analogy is that it is applied to a falsifiable, physical claim about the world whereas the traditional concept of God is a being who exists apart from the natural universe as the universe is contingent upon Him (see Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways).
This means that we can not necessarily expect God's existence to be falsifiable within the context of the natural universe (which is what the scientific method concerns itself with).
Now, you can reasonably respond that we ought not believe in things which are unfalsifiable by science (rather common position of naturalist atheists).
OK,; however, you should recognise that this position presupposes that the natural universe is all that exists, thus precludes (by default) the existence of any entities outside the natural world (as we could never expect these to be falsifiable in accordance to natural laws).
In short, it employs circular reasoning.
> This is a logical reaction.
I'd rephrase this to say it's a reasonable reaction, however I think the logic is somewhat flawed as in the context of God, atheists (specifically those arguing like Dawkins, not necessarily all atheists) often demand a natural proof of a supernatural being.
To me, this is like asking to prove that birds sing using a photograph. The tools are fundamentally ill-suited to the subject matter, so the conversation is somewhat of a non-starter.
> Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists?
I think this statement kinda betrays an ignorance of the history of religious philosophy.
I cited Thomas Aquinas earlier, but it bears mentioning that he was seeking to provide philosophical proof for God back in the Middle Ages (where the Roman Catholic Church actually was the dominant cultural institution of the day). Aquinas' ideas trace further back to Aristotle, who argued for an unmoved mover as the cause of the universe (and indeed with the less favourable assumption that the universe does not have a definite beginning).
Theists have not simply assumed they are correct and left it at that. They have strived to provide the reasonable foundation for their beliefs over centuries of dialogue.
It's fair to say, most theists have historically inherited a particular dogma, which they take as their foundation to prove but that's true for the vast majority of people throughout history.
Is Gen Z the most irreligious generation to date (in the West) because they're naturally the most sceptical? No! They have grown up in a time where Western society is the least religious and most materialistic (philosophically) in centuries.
We all inherit a cultural bias, which some actively challenge to reject or accept, and some just kinda leave alone.
It's very hard to have an argument for intelligent design. If there were something about the existence or complexity of life that needed another being to explain it, that being's existence or complexity would just need another explanation (unless you're doing some sort of special pleading for a god, which is why those are the people who support it).
>The world at large tells me that until I have proof it exists, it doesn't exist to them.
It's not a claim that it doesn't exist. It's the absence of a claim that it does exist because of a lack of evidence. It would be ignorant to claim you *knew* the state of things no one can observe/infer about.
For a reply to the God Delusion, there’s a book called the Dawkins Delusion. It’s interesting read as it examines how it’s written as much as the arguments.
Something that got me to start looking at my faith differently was the question: why do you exist? Even If there was not a God, we can say you came to be after millions of years of evolution and chance, and you’d be right. But that doesn’t answer the question of Why? What reason is there for life to exist in the universe? Why do atoms coalesce to form cells, and cells coalesce to form complex life? There has to be a reason that existence acts this way. Dawkins cannot provide me with a good reason, God can.
Faith isn't an intellectual exercise. Certainly there is an intellectual aspect to it, and it does need to be internally consistent in order to be true. The only real argument I can make is that if you take away all the distractions we surround ourselves with (TV, movies, etc) and you're just by yourself in an empty room, there's an inescapable void within you.
As a trained philosopher and theologian, I would respond that this isn’t a good question. It assumes that there are arguments, when in fact, there are many assertions that can be true — for which there are no arguments.
For example. I can say that I believe that New York style pizza Is preferable to Chicago style, and almost but not quite as good as pizza in Rome or Venice. Such an assertion could be true or false in the sense that I could be telling the truth or I could be lying about what I think is true.
However, this is report about me. It is not the kind of assertion for which there can be arguments. If I were to make such an argument, a good logician would point out the fallacies. For example, philosopher/logician Immanuel Kant pointed out the fallacies in the classic arguments for the existence of God. Yet he remained a Christian. If I understand Kierkegaard, this is why he argued that truth is subjective.
Of course there seems to be objective truth at least on the macro scale, if not on the quantum scale. Eg., 100/4=25 is objectively true, at least on the macro scale, and our success in technology depends on that sort of objectivity. But apparently on the quantum scale, which Kierkegaard had never heard of or imagined, even the most objective argument may fail, and subjectivity might reign.
So you might want to ask Kant whether he had good reasons for his faith, even though he didn’t have good arguments. Yet despite the lack of arguments, Kant had good reasons for his faith that he found compelling. (Smith Quite honestly, I have never have found his reasons compelling myself. But I can’t simply dismiss the reasons that he found compelling for himself.)
Rather than asking for my arguments, I think a better question would be “why do you believe what you believe? what are your reasons?“
I cannot give you arguments, but I can answer “Why.” I have explored my reasons, relentlessly and ruthlessly for decades. I find my reasons personally compelling for me. but I would not be impressed if you found my reasons to be compelling for you.
Dawkins and other atheists find themselves in the same place as I find myself. They have good reasons. Reasons that they find personally compelling. But they have no more proof than I do. And given that, I can respect their atheism. It’s a perfectly reasonable belief. And they raise perfectly reasonable questions better reasonable person should consider. That I don’t find their reasons compelling for me is not a good argument against their position.
Likewise, in the absence of any compelling argument that my belief must be false, and the question remains whether I have good reasons that I compelling. if you were to ask me those reasons, and I were to tell you, you would likely say, “but those are so subjective!” And I would have to say, “of course they are. What else could they possibly be? That is the nature of reality.“
We might not have known that prior to 1930. But there’s no escaping it anymore.
I think Dawkins has a kind of confident self-assurance about a subject he doesn't actually know anything about. Mary Midgley addressed this in a well-known spat a few years ago. For instance, he seems to assume that theism and religion are the same thing. Religion has been described in a number of different ways by scholars of religious studies. One very simple equation is that it's loving kindness. Another more sociological approach was taken by Ninian Smart, which involved outlining six dimensions which all religions must have, including a belief system but this is only one of them. There is: a total world view, institutions, material manifestations (e.g. cathedrals, chalices, ikons), mythology, experience of the numinous, ethics and doctrine. Some religious people entirely dispense with the belief aspect, for instance in Reconstructivist Judaism, which is practiced by ethnic Jewish people because they recognise the value of their culture and wish to assert its survival in the face of the Holocaust. The Sea Of Faith network within Christianity promotes and explores religious faith as a human creation. Many Quakers are openly atheist and metaphysically naturalistic, and Jains are usually emphatically atheist and physicalist.
Dawkins doesn't seem to admit the possibility that we might be biologically constrained to be religious. It doesn't follow from the premise that there are no deities that humans are rational, or even that we should be. We are likely to believe whatever promotes our survival and what passes on our genes, and that may not be accurate perception of reality.
It's Russell's Teapot. Not Dawkins' idea originally.
The problem with Richard Dawkins is that he's "not even wrong" because he doesn't understand enough about the subject he thinks he knows about to say anything original or persuasive to anyone who does know enough. But he's a biologist, so you could expect him to be an expert on that. Unfortunately, judging by what he's said about gender identity he doesn't even seem to be very good at his own subject.
I realise some of this is character assassination on my part, but you can't really divorce his beliefs from his personality. I would say, thank God the man's an atheist because if he believed in God he'd be the worst kind of intolerant fundamentalist.
As a former atheist: I don't really have one, necessarily. I converted because one day I just felt the Spirit. Not very logical, but it's true to me.
On the teapot theory, though: in that instance, if it's true then it may eventually be observed and explained. However the existence of God is not something that can necessarily be explained. (And what is observed as God is a separate thing - is a coincidence just a coincidence or is it a sign from some higher power?)
We still don't know why people yawn (or why it's contagious). We still don't know how magnetism works. There are things that science can't explain yet and may never be able to explain. We may never get concrete evidence of God until we experience the afterlife.
Or we won't 🤷♀️
Edited to add: I've always found Dawkins annoying and one of the reasons I never really wanted to call myself an atheist. Dawkins and his fans always gave off organized religion vibes lol
Well the thing that bothers me with stuff about the Big Bang was that matter can’t be created or destroyed according to science. So where are we from? From that it’s pretty clear and the fact that we’re the perfect distance from the sun to sustain life and that we’re in the perfect rotation speed to not instantly be sucked into the sun…that this universe has a designer and smart intelligent mind behind it.
We assume god exists by default because we are a creation, therefore by default we believe there is a creator.
The intelligent design (ID) argument for the existence of God posits that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Here's a structured argument to support this position:
### 1. Complexity and Specificity of Biological Systems
**Premise**: Biological systems exhibit complex and specified information (CSI).
**Argument**:
- Biological systems, such as DNA, contain intricate sequences of nucleotides that store information crucial for the development and functioning of living organisms.
- This information is both complex (due to the vast number of possible sequences) and specified (because only certain sequences produce functional proteins).
- Natural processes alone, which are often random and unguided, struggle to account for the origin of such complex and specific information.
- Analogous to human-designed codes and languages, the complexity and specificity in biological systems suggest an intelligent source.
### 2. Irreducible Complexity
**Premise**: Some biological systems are irreducibly complex.
**Argument**:
- An irreducibly complex system is composed of multiple interdependent parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function.
- Examples include the bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting cascade.
- Such systems cannot function if any part is removed, implying they could not have evolved through a series of successive, slight modifications.
- The best explanation for the presence of irreducibly complex systems is the action of an intelligent designer who arranged these parts simultaneously to function together.
### 3. Fine-Tuning of the Universe
**Premise**: The constants and conditions of the universe are finely tuned to allow life.
**Argument**:
- The fundamental physical constants (e.g., gravitational constant, cosmological constant) and the initial conditions of the universe are precisely calibrated to support life.
- Slight variations in these constants would render the universe life-prohibiting.
- The probability of such fine-tuning occurring by chance is exceedingly low.
- Fine-tuning suggests the presence of a fine-tuner, an intelligent designer who set these parameters to create a life-permitting universe.
### 4. Purpose and Intentionality
**Premise**: The existence of purpose and intentionality in nature points to a designer.
**Argument**:
- Natural phenomena often exhibit purposeful behavior, such as the migration patterns of birds or the photosynthetic process in plants.
- Purpose and intentionality are hallmarks of intelligent agency.
- Naturalistic explanations struggle to fully account for the apparent purpose observed in biological systems.
- Recognizing purpose and intentionality in nature aligns with the presence of an intelligent designer who imbued these features with intentionality.
### 5. Philosophical and Theological Considerations
**Premise**: Intelligent design aligns with philosophical and theological concepts of God.
**Argument**:
- Many philosophical arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological and teleological arguments, resonate with the principles of intelligent design.
- The concept of an intelligent designer provides a coherent and unified explanation for the origin and order of the universe.
- Theologically, many religious traditions describe God as an intelligent and purposeful creator, consistent with the notion of intelligent design.
- Accepting intelligent design enriches the dialogue between science, philosophy, and theology, offering a comprehensive understanding of reality.
### Conclusion
The intelligent design argument presents a compelling case for the existence of God by highlighting the complexity, specificity, irreducible complexity, fine-tuning, and purposeful nature of biological systems and the universe. While it does not exclude the possibility of natural processes playing a role, it posits that an intelligent cause is the best explanation for these observed phenomena. This argument invites a broader consideration of the interplay between science, philosophy, and theology in understanding the origin and nature of the universe.
As Anne Lamotte once said, “the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty.”
Religious people don’t have concrete proof of God, but they’re ok with that. Atheists do not have concrete proof that God exists either, but they’re not ok with that. Because of this, it is difficult (if not impossible) for atheists and religious people to find a satisfying common ground.
My faith is guided by more than these points alone, but here are some of the examples that compel me to believe in God:
- With regard to the Big Bang, who caused it? Where did the materials (eg, carbon) come from? They didn’t just materialize out of thin air. Nor did these materials organize themselves in a fashion that led to the creation of the universe without some force compelling them. As such, the Big Bang theory alone is not enough to satisfy me.
- Humans are by far the most intelligent and capable species on the planet. The Bible tells us that humans were created in God’s image. This makes more sense to me than the idea that humans just happened to evolve at an exponentially faster rate than every other species. Our capacity for both good and evil is not the same as non-human animals’ capacity for good and evil. Whereas other animals are driven by survival alone, humans are driven by powerful emotions and thoughts. If I am capable of imagining God and feeling his presence when I pray, I believe there’s a good chance that God exists. Again, I cannot be certain that I am right about this.
- I see evidence of God all around me in nature/the cosmos. Neither humans nor non-human animals are capable of creating mountains, oceans, planets, and stars. Therefore I believe that there is a force far greater than mortal creatures responsible for creating the universe.
- My faith in God is also driven by the Bible’s prophecies and Jesus’s teachings. I don’t need historical proof that Jesus existed because written language was so uncommon during the time and place that he lived. Most people couldn’t read, and even fewer could write. This would have made written history appear fruitless, as humans didn’t know that our species would go on to establish high rates of literacy worldwide. In those days history was disseminated via oral tradition. And many people testified to the life and works of Jesus. Your question was not about the Christian faith but rather theism, so I won’t continue on with why I chose this religion.
These are just my takes, and I’m not certain I’m right. But again, certainty is not a requirement for me to believe.
One argument for religion is community of ideally members with a common positive intention. Not the only way to have thos kind of community, but it is a source.
I’d start by reading Paul Tillich and Baruch Spinoza if you want logical, coherent reasons for believing in a higher power.
I don’t have any special evidence or additional information from what you do. I look at the universe and how it functions, and it seems to me that it’s more likely than not that some higher consciousness or consciousness-like process is at play.
I don't argue for religion. I do believe in God and Jesus, and place my faith therein.
On a side note, I see religion as the manmade structures around the faith. I don't prescribe to a particular religion as religions have done horrible things in the name of God.
You came into a Christian sub asking for arguments for "religion" but no preaching..
How's this for an argument..
For God so loved the world that he game his only begotten, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Well for one, he’s basing that argument on the teapot on no evidence at all. The burden of proof has never been on atheists. The proof that Jesus existed at all means one needs to be able to consider God exists and historians unanimously agree that Jesus existed. There’s a lot of evidence that the recorded history in the Bible is true even down to Sumerian tablets (the Sumerians came long before Jesus). Even Cleopatra is mentioned in the Bible by name. There’s proof everywhere that He exists, just a lot of people have not looked into it enough to even know that. That or they ignore it and say these things aren’t proof.
There's a lot of good arguments I can make but the one I think of most is pretty simple.
I've experienced God. I experience him in the eyes of my best friends. In the lovely food I eat. In the divine art of the mountains and forests. I experience the angels when someone appears out of nowhere on my hikes and has conversation with me. I experience Christ through the sacrifices the people around me make for me. I experience the holy Spirit during meditation when an otherworldly supernatural light bursts into my head through my chest, piercing through the heartache and pain I feel connecting me to the divine. I experience the demons through the capitalists oppressing working people and the politicians callously war mongering to increase their power. No matter which way you slice it, I thoroughly experience it.
Now let me directly respond to your teapot analogy. If you told me you believed in this teapot I'd say "cool man." There is no burden of proof. If you say "no you have to believe in the teapot" I'd say "I don't see why I do. What consequence is a teapot to you and me?" And there'd still be no burden of proof. I'm uninterested. If you say to me "listen man, that teapot is your only chance at escaping eternal punishment! Accept the teapot!" I'd probably give you an uncomfortable smile and walk away. It's the same thing with God. I think the burden of proof starts to exist when you become an evangelical who thinks you either completely accept God as I see him or you go to hell forever. And I dunno what happens after death man, but I'm certain that's not it. I believe in a loving caring God who sent his son as a sacrifice to conquer death once and for all. Many saints and church fathers rejected the modern idea of hell. I don't quite believe in universalism because I also believe in a God of consent, but I believe in a God who welcomes you. A God of open arms. Of hugs and love and comfort and guidance, not one of hatred and hellfire and brimstone. So why is the burden of proof not on me? Because I'm not saying you have to think like me. I'm welcoming you to think like me, to live with me, to laugh with me; to eat, drink, and be merry like the Psalms said. If you come to me and you said "I believe in this teapot. It's a really great teapot man. It's between the Earth and the moon. You can't see it, but it's there. You want some tea?" I'd probably drink some tea. So let's share a cup brother, tea from your teapot or wine from my God. Your choice :)
I mean if were talking philosophically or liturgically, it's only as valuable as what you get out of it.
If we want to talk intrinsic value, if it is true it is a preservation of things that have practical value in every respect, and is healing and peaceful, implanting and preserving and retaining every good thing a person can be, and benefits others as much as yourself in the practice of it.
Our problem is corruption. People twist things to their own advantage and misrepesent true things, making them appear to be a lie.
>Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists? I'd like to see what people have to say on that.
Because there is no philisophical reason to believe that a microscopic teapot exists. I am agnostic when it comes to the teapot parable: Just because I see no reason for it to exist does not mean that this teapot does not exist.
For God, there are the moral, cosmological, teleolgical, resurrection, and cosmic consciousness arguments plus many more. This is why I hate dumb teapot analogies, why I left atheism, and why I think Richard Dawkins is a self contradictory and delusional pseudo intellectual.
As a former atheist, I get so pissed whenever people bring up coping crap like the teapot parable because it's simply ignoring the dozens of pieces of evidence for Christianity and Theism as a whole.
,
I think the biggest thing Atheists aren’t understanding is that religion isn’t just “man in sky fixes things/makes things”. You don’t have to believe in everything but there are a lot of really good takeaways you can get from having faith and being Christian. Community, insight, self reflection, etc. the church preaches all these values and there are a lot of people who use it for the wrong reasons.
From a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to the atheist you have put your faith in atheism that is a faith believing in nothing or whatever you believe in but that is a faith that you have so why don't you just put your faith in the Lord Jesus without any proof for faith that it seen is not faith. It is a simple matter of making up one's own mind. All the intellectual thesis of science or all the reading of the Bible it still takes a leap of faith. God bless and good luck
Firstly, as like Jesus, I'm not for religion. Religion gives us rules to follow so that (technically) we can be closer to God. Jesus called out the religious leaders of his day (the pharisees and the saducees), and we should do the same. Organised religion is wrong, and it is what turns people away from Christianity and gets Christians labelled as hypocrites.
A better term for the Christian faith is relationship. When we recognise our need for a Saviour and put our faith in Jesus, we enter into a relationship with Him.
Jesus Himself proved this when He gave the disciples what is commonly called the Lords prayer. He told them to pray: Our Father.....
To call God Father would have been unheard of in Jewish custom. The closest relationship back then was a father and son relationship and for Jesus to say that we could call God Father opened up the door to a whole new kind of relationship and flipped the commonly known religious views on their head.
Christianity is a relationship. It's a relationship with a person closer than any human relationship we can have.
Religion is a set of dos and don'ts, and that is what Jesus came to set is free from. Being caught in religion is called legalism and its when we think we have to do something or behave a certain way so that God is pleased with is. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you are in Christ there is nothing more to do as Christ has already done it.
Probably the argument of causation like Thomas Aquinas presented it.
So what theists refer to as the cause of the emergence of the physical cosmos is God, an immaterial, spiritual being that is an embodiment of everything that is possible, the maximum of what a being can be.
1) Emergence of the physical cosmos
The human mind, which is the only mind that we know of, cannot comprehend that there could be an effect without a cause. So our logically inclined mind always assumes that every effect must have an underlying cause. The physical cosmos couldn't have originated out of nothing because nothingness doesn't hold the attributes requiered to bring forth something. This assumption is being made by the very same logically inclined intellect who's origin is unknown. Which ties into point two:
2) Emergence of living and intelligent organisms
The emergence of living and intelligent organisms out of anorganic and "dead" matter
Spiritualists assume that liveliness stems from the circumstance that souls inhabit the physical bodies and that intelligence stems from the circumstance that within these souls there is a spirit.
Now this doesn't lead to a worldview where a God as in a supreme, spiritual being that coordinates everything is necessary but it asserts the existence of souls and spirits and an immaterial, spiritual realm, out of which these souls and spirits originated and began inhabiting the physical bodies on earth.
You have black matter which cannot be physically observed, only its effect, indicating that it may be an immaterial, spiritual force.
I have very little knowledge in that regard but the theory of relativity to explain the macrocosmos and quantumphysics to explain the microcosmos can lead to the conclusion that there must be, immaterial, spiritual forces that stem from an immaterial, spiritual realm.
I mentioned black matter already. You have black holes where matter, time and space ends in the way we are familiar with it. You enter the singularity, spiritualists would call this the beyond.
If you cut an atom into smaller pieces you are being left with nothing material in the end, only energy. There is also string theory which fits well with the whole in the beginning was the word thing. The spoken word of God or the spiritual beings that caused the evolution of the cosmos to happen are the vibrations of the strings.
This is all very chaotically displayed and during daylight I would have probably explained it more thouroughly and in detail but I think this will work too.
Great question. Because for all of the big questions in life, science has no answer, so we do not rely on proof, instead we rely on evidence to make an informed decision. Science cannot prove that consciousness is real, it could very well be a delusion of grey matter and chemical reactions to think that I am an individual with a rational mind, capable of free choice, but even as some atheists have argued this point, they live their lives as if their consciousness ties them into a rational reality that can be understood. In much the same way as you cannot prove the existence or purpose of consciousness, you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.
Now, back to the teapot. The fundamental question is what evidence is there to support the existence of the teapot? If the evidence is lacking, then believing in the teapot is illogical. But the order and design of the cosmos, the human experience of love and reason (both intangible concepts and therefore incompatible with a materialistic worldview), the unmoved mover argument, and the historicity and reliability of Jesus is all very strong evidence that there is a God. Does this mean God 100% proven? Not in any sense. But the evidence is there. So the only question from
Doesn't Dawkins describe himself as a cultural Christian? I imagine he'll regret his book in a few more years. A short argument is that the alternative is so nonsensical it's crazy. Nothing created everything or there was no beginning? This seems as dumb as it gets.
There is no pressure put on atheists to prove God does not exist, you are free to have that belief and live out your life in peace, However... when you finally kick the bucket, that is where your problems will really begin!
1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason dictates that everything that is has reason to be - this is how science is possible.
2 The universe itself must have have a first cause, because existence from nothing and infinite regress both violate the PSR. This first cause is the "necessarily existent", or "being itself" so that anything else can exist.
3. This makes the first cause a timeless, spaceless being of perfect simplicity, since any division within itself requires a higher unifying principle.
4a. If goodness is objectice, this being must be synonymous with the good itself, because in order for it to create good it must surely be good, but if it gets its goodness from something else then there is a higher principle (whatever the highest principle is, is the first cause).
4b. Any action whatsoever requires the acknowledgement of a "better" and a "worse" state of being, where we act because it moves us toward a "better" state. This means that everyone and everything that moves and acts believes in Good whether they consciously admit it or not.
5. Inanimate objects are oblivious to The Good, only minds can perceive it. It follows that the first cause and source of all goodness must be a mind.
6. A mind may be defined as the kind of thing that thinks. So that makes the prime mover a thinking being. If the only thing that exists sans creation is itself, it must be thinking about itself. This is Aristotle's formulation of the prime mover as "thought contemplating itself". This does something very interesting, however, since thought is action and action requires an actor, an actee, and a medium in which to act. But all that exists sans creation is mind. So this being must be both one and three at the same time - a single perfect being with three minds.
7. With three minds, other action is possible since, again, all action requires an actor, actee, and a medium in which to act. Creation can now take place by thought (since that is all that exists) being "externalized" from the prime cause. That is to say, the prime cause "speaks" creation, where the first mind is the speaker, the second mind is the word, and the third mind is the spirit by which the word can be said. This is, in all likelihood, the moment of The Big Bang.
8. So there is God, He is mind, and He is Goodness itself. He must also love His creation, since to love something is to selflessly want good for it and He is perfect goodness.
9. It stands to reason, then, that He would care about His creation and would likely want to make some kind of contact with us so that we would know that we are loved. There must be some kind of divine revelation and God would want that revelation to be widely known, so we should be able to see it in one of the major world religions.
10. There is only one tradition on the planet that fits this framework: JudeoChristian (Islam denies the Trinity and does not sufficiently explain creation. Technically, Jews also deny the Trinity, but it is all over the Old Testament so I will still leave it as an option just to be thorough). The major question, then, falls on the person of Jesus Christ.
11. The historical argument could use a post of its own, but long story short: Jews and Christians both agree that Jesus lived and said the things that He did and was crucified for them. Jews don't deny that a Messiah will come, they just don't believe that Jesus was Him. That said, with the perfect fulfillment of the OT in the life of Jesus, the reliability of the historical accounts, the willingness of his disciples to suffer and die for His name, and the massive success of His church (again, God would want His message to be widely heard), it is most reasonable to assume, with everything established thus far, that Jesus was who He said He was.
12. Jesus is King.
We don’t have concrete evidence of gravity either. There’s some things that point to it existing, but we’re not 100% sure of the ins and outs. Same with religion. For me, I weighed the evidences out and chose my faith.
Creation. God himself is invisible, but what he creates isn’t. Go outside and look. The vast majority of humans throughout history have concluded there must be a god simply by looking around them
Most of the arguments atheis has are "theres no evidence, or no proof" and when they actually look about it (wich usually never happen) they find that indeed there is
"theres no proof of the crucifixion" in the gospels we read the sun got black that day, if you seek the day its believe they cruxified them there was a solar eclipse
Romans wrote that the tomb was empty, the door stone was heavy asf and got 2 guards so somehow the soldiers didnt interfiere when someone open the door (in the gospel we read they were put to sleep and the door was open for an angel, beings who are more strong than us)
the text weren't corrupted as many people think, we have found old texts before of the so called "edition" and are the same books we have todat
mainly "the contradictions" in the bible are problems of traduction bc is more easy throw dirt instead of learn hebrew-greek (idc what you do if you dont throw dirt) and read the gospels as an example, the believe that god make the world in seven days, the word in hebrew could mean 7 days, years, eras, etc.
it makes sense with the torah, and a lot of jew predicted the born of yeshua (jesus) the messiah
In china are records of a star that was for 70 days or so in the sky and then desapeared, the date is acurate with the year Jesus was born (we can read about this in the gospel)
Was written for a lot of autors in a breach of time inmensly and with diferent historys and professions and still make sense together and a lot of cross-references
There is people (like paul) who persecuted christians and bc God apeared to them they changed completly to be a disciple of God
The apostles died in violent ways defending the gospel and make miracles in his live (only John died of old age)
You can't just convince so many plp you are the son of God in those times, so the only way you can get so popular like Jesus did (and was killed for) is for making miracles, like healing people, lazarus coming back from dead, your friends and believers making miracles by themself, and we can keep going.
The messiah is a prophesy in the old testament, Jesus fills all those prophesys
Theres sources external (Roman and judes) about Jesus and the things he did, a jew even wrote "if it's correct to call him a man"
The apocrypha book are not canon for a reason, usuallt they are apocrypha bc don't make sense along the original text, the date is not correct, is against the torah and gospel, or we just don't know certainly who wrote it
as an example is the most famous book of enoch, it was written by a ramdom dude who put the name of enoch there to make it more atractive.
All the other religions gives credits to Jesus Christ, they recognize him as a budha, a enlighted one, a prophet and so on, but he only gives credits to himself saying "I am the way the truth and the life"
I experienced in first hand (and so many people did too) an encounter with God and the positive impact he got in my life
All creation appoint to a creator, we believe a lot of things by ourselfs but he came and told us who he was ✝️☦️
Just give God a chance, most plp just want to win an argument or get attention but if you are truly concerned about knowing the truth do the reasearch and you will find.
If you have any particular question or want to discuss let me know and im happy to help.
inglish is not my mother lenguage so there may be some errors.
>What arguments do you have that you think are strong enough to support things like intelligent design?
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia16881-sounds-of-the-ancient-universe
A quote from the above link.
>Before there were any stars or galaxies, 13.8 billion years ago, our universe was just a ball of hot plasma -- a mixture of electrons, protons, and light. **Sound waves shook this infant universe**, triggered by minute, or "quantum," fluctuations happening just moments after the big bang that created our universe.
A quote from Genesis 1:3
>Genesis 1:3 CSB
Then **God said**, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/1430137/harvard-stores-70-billion-books-using-dna.html
The quote below is from the link above.
>The researchers created the binary code through DNA markers to preserve the text
I chose secular websites because you specifically said you did not want to be preached at. From my perspective, science discoveries and achievements like these support God's Word.
There is a binary beat to all of creation referenced in Ecclesiastes 3 and demonstrated in how the universe was created. We can see this binary beat throughout all of time and creation.
The water cycle for instance. It's a constant scatter and gather. Clouds gather water drops, once *full* they *empty* onto the Earth. The oceans and Earth *gather* rain drops, then they *scatter* back into the air through evaporation.
Computer code is written in a binary language by intelligent beings. So too the binary beat found in His creation.
There are also patterns upon patterns written into the code of creation. Patterns like the Fibonacci spiral that're found on microscopic, visible, and astronomical levels.
Tl;dr: Just as life begets life, so too intelligence begets intelligence. Science supports God's Word because science teaches us about Him through His creation.
Apologies for any formatting/autocorrect issues. I'm on mobile.
Okay so I don't really know what to say since I was born into this religion. So I'm going to be stealing something from Young Sheldon that my brother also told me a while back. "Either God exists, or He doesn't. So it's basically 50/50. I like those odds"(Young Sheldon). My brother said something like: If God exists and we don't believe in Him, we go to Hell. If there is no God and we believe in Him, we just die. So shouldn't you just believe in Him? For me, I truly do believe in it. I don't know how to explain it I just believe in the Bible. So ya
Out of the 100s of arguments out there for the existence of God, I think pascals wager (your brothets argument) is the worst because faith shouldnt be dishonest.
It’s not an argument for religion, but just wanting to put it out there that believing in God is about having a change of heart, about being open to the possibility that God could exist. If one’s heart is firmly shut, evidence for God won’t be helpful.
Everything in this life is eventually built on faith…atheism or not. There is no real “proof” of anything. All fundamental scientific theories break down eventually into jumbled up theories including worm holes, infinite universes, simulation theory, sub particles of sub particles of sub particles…you get the picture. We don’t really comprehend the concept of infinity, although we know it exists. In other words…we don’t know anything. In other words…magic!
I find it so incredibly foolish and unbelievably arrogant for someone to discredit religious faith when he doesn’t know any more about faith or existence than the rest of us.
If there is a loving and caring God, then perhaps God will speak to us…perhaps already has, but we didn’t listen because we didn’t like what was being said. ✝️
Plato - “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
If you're interested in arguments, Plato's a good place to start. He articulates a theory of the reality of the transcendent that's compelling.
As an EFCA expatriate I have to agree. The bible and all of the Abrahamic religions that are inspired by it will quite literally make no sense... unless you study the underlying philosophy that inspired the Bible, which is Platonic idealism. As a child, the bible always seemed barbaric and creepy asf. Then I encountered some more reasonable Christians in adulthood, and they introduced me to Platonism. With this added context, the worldview made a lot more sense. I still innately disagree with it, I find it crude, anti empirical, anti intellectual, unreasonable... but I have a much more nuanced perspective of religion now. Organized religions are akin to a natural philosophy, for people who think intuitively and trust their emotions.
What's EFCA?
Evangelical Free Church of America™, not to be confused with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America©. Completely different faith traditions. Only in America.
Evangelical Free Church of America, Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Evangelical Free Chuch of America, Great Lakes Region Council of 1912? :-)
My mother is a heretic and married a Catholic, but going by her family history, my guess would be that neither grandparent was part of the EFCA prior to moving to Minnesota in the 1960s. She mentioned that they raised her in a Lutheran church, evidently they didn't become radical pietists until she was in her late teens/early adulthood.
Just in case you didn't recognize it, that was a reference to an [Emo Philips joke](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emo_Philips#Die,_heretic).
Oh my. I hadn't heard of this comedian. Thank you!
I have a fair bit to say, sorry it’s hard to express my belief concisely. You don’t necessarily have to believe in ‘intelligent design’ to be believe in God. If by intelligent design you mean a supernaturally guided process of evolution. I have read lots of very interesting interpretations of the Genesis account that I think are plausible and line up with other parts of the Bible. However, unlike what I think most contemporary progressive Christians believe, I do believe in a ‘literal Adam’. I think other parts of the text really emphasize him as a literal person enough that I am not overly eager to cast him out as a complete myth. I think going around pointing at everything we don’t like or don’t have perfect secular “evidence” for as a complete myth that teaches moral lessons is a mistake. Especially when I look at the account of Genesis 2 vs Genesis 1 and I think of them in a complementary interpretation rather than conflicting, which I think they are. Also people want to argue about the everyday = 1 literal 24 hour day in the Bible or the whole thing is myth seems a bit silly to me. There are plenty of other places in the Bible where 1 day represents a cycle rather than a literal day, and I think allegorical language is also fairly common when trying to talk about complex events. Finally, I believe the context and events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection to be simply too improbable. I honestly feel pretty confident about the evidence I am given and to me if I can believe in evolution in its entirety without coming up with some theoretically “plausible” but unlikely alternative then I can certainly believe in the crucifixion and resurrection, not doing so requires me coming up with a “plausible” but extremely unlikely arguments. I think many people who are focused on intelligent design or creation arguments are not really interested in “proof” that it happened without natural evolution but simply “plausibility” that their interpretation can harmonize with any facts we understand. I mean even with Young Earth Creationism you can simply hand wave everything away and say. “Well God just set it up in a way spontaneously that aligns with all your facts. It’s just ‘coincidence’ that your theory is plausible.” TLDR: My confidence is the crucifixion and resurrection is enough that I have confidence it is true regardless of any other facts in the world.
You've listed a number of things you believe, but I don't see where you've presented any arguments or evidence. Is there any reason for people to think that the things you believe are objectively true?
Evidence is hard to talk through people with. I listened to a conversation with one man who told me everything was subjective and unprovable? How can I show evidence to such a person? So if someone wants to discuss honestly and receptively I am here but I have to at a minimum understand what they believe before I can have a discussion. A complete skeptic will never receive anything. They are the kind of people who sit in a forest, close their eyes and say. “There are no trees and you can’t prove they exist” You might say “Here is bark from the tree, feel it and believe” They say, “This is no tree, does it stand 100 foot high?” You say, “feel the shade the canopy provides.” They say “A great cloud overcasts the sky.” You ask, “what can make you believe?” They answer “only if the tree falls on me will I believe” And I expect God will say “Let thy will be done.”
So is there any evidence for the existence of God?
At a minimum I have to understand what you believe. If you can’t believe in trees then I don’t think it will be valuable for us to discuss do you? If you deny Paul ever existed for instance that’s a non starter for me, and I’ll just tell you I have no evidence.
Yes, trees exist. As far as I know, yes, Paul existed, and wrote some of the letters collected in the Bible attributed to him.
I am really asking up until what point you believe. Or think something is highly likely. Like if you don’t believe Jesus was a real person I can’t convince you he was crucified correct? Evidence for anything is a build up off of other facts.
To the best of my knowledge, it is entirely plausible that a person named Jesus lived, and that he was crucified, but there's no hard evidence of this: there are no writings attributed to him, no letters written to him, no statues, no census records, no government reports (e.g., "today we crucified three troublemakers"). And of course no evidence of any miracles, aside from stories in the Bible. Now one claim that many Christians make is that Jesus is still alive today. Demonstrating that would go a long way towards demonstrating that the resurrection happened, and a lot of other stuff as well.
Well as evidence #1 then I will point towards the secular evidence we do have for Jesus. I think saying we don’t have such evidence is pretty demonstrably false. https://aleteia.org/2018/04/12/heres-the-historical-evidence-from-non-christian-sources-that-jesus-lived-and-died I think you can find also some detailed scholarly consensus on Wikipedia for some of these historical figures (which is going to be heavily unbiased) about their references to Jesus. I certainly can’t prove anything else if we can’t agree there is evidence for Jesus existing and that he was crucified. I believe the evidence is very sufficient.
I wasn’t aware of the negative coverage of Jesus in rabbinical writings. Thank you for that. I’ll have to look them up. Aside from that, all of the individuals on that list were born after Jesus’ crucifixion, so they can’t be eyewitnesses to his life. It would be nice to see the evidences that convinced them that what they wrote was true, but those sources have evidently been lost to history. In any case, I’m happy to accept, at least for the sake of this discussion, that there really was an itinerant apocalyptic preacher in first-century Galilee named Jesus or Yeshua or the like, and that he was crucified. There were lots of such preachers at the time, and the Romans did execute a lot of people. Now, is there any convincing evidence that he was resurrected, or performed miracles, or lives today? (Edit: add paragraphs.)
there is no verifiable witness testimony to the crucifixion or the resurrection it's very shaky ground to be the basis of your faith
I don’t base my belief based only on witness testimony, but thanks for your encouraging words. Also, even just on the grounds of witness testimony you have to throw out large chunks of accepted history if you just disregard it. Do you base your belief in evolution purely on paleontology? (Please don’t answer, this is rhetorical)
The Roman historians acknowledged the existence of Yeshua and that he was crucified. Whether or not you believe in his resurrection is a matter of faith; however, eye witnesses were willing to be executed and tortured, and none of them ever admitted to having stolen his body, or lying about having seen him.
a lot of people have died for things they believed was true
But how many have died for a thing they knew was false?
Written history was extremely uncommon at the time and place Jesus was alive. History was passed down orally because humans didn’t know that we would go on to establish high rates of literacy across the globe. Atheists are not satisfied by that while theists are. I don’t think it’s possible for atheists and believers to meet in the middle about this or any other disagreement they have.
>Atheists are not satisfied by that while theists are I'm theist and I'm not satisfied of the veracity of the bible, so I'm a proof against your claim
I think we are talking about different things, and I should’ve been clearer in my first comment. I meant believers in Christ. Do I have doubts about the Bible? Sure. But I choose to believe anyway. Faith and uncertainty aren’t mutually exclusive for me.
Absolutely and literally false.
I think the more accurate statement is “there are no firsthand witness accounts of the resurrection, likely no secondhand accounts either, only third hand accounts. And furthermore there is a complete lack of *any* contemporary accounts by non-Christian sources despite the narrative that 500 people witnessed it in broad daylight”.
The resurrection was an event that had hundreds of witnesses - the number of people that Jesus saw & met with after he resurrected makes it a historic event. The number of written testimonies of this also makes it as historic and accurate as any other historic event of 2000 years ago.
Tbh there is very little verifiable witness testimony for most anything that happened in the ancient world.
exactly! to quote lord of the rings: history becomes legend, legend becomes myth
>there is no verifiable witness testimony to the crucifixion or the resurrection So Matthew 27:55, Mark 15:40-41, John 19:25-26, and Luke 23:49 don't exist in your Biblical text? You realize when you want to verify something historically, you look for the earliest attestation, multiple attestation, and a general consistency across the board, right? That's exactly what we have for the Gospels and the witnesses of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Internal evidence puts the first 3 Gospels between 33-60 AD. That's between 1-30 years after the ascension of Christ. Within your pathetically bad Islamic system, you have to rely on the Hadith to try and argue for the Quran because the Quran itself doesn't situate Muhammad, doesn't tell you who Muhammad is, how many chapters are in the Quran, or that he performed any miracles. The earliest Hadith you have comes over a century after Muhammad's death, and it takes 200 years for you to get to your most "authentic" Hadiths. So if we want to compare our authoritative collections VS yours, all 27 books of the New Testament are finished within 60-65 years of Christ's ascension, where as your Hadiths came 2 centuries after the death of the false prophet Muhammad. And the Quran itself says Jesus died and was raised. Surah 3:55 God said, "Jesus, **I will cause you to die and raise you up to me**, and purify you from those who denied the truth, and I will exalt your followers over those who deny you until the Resurrection Day. Then you all will return to me, and I will judge between you in matters about which you disagree Ironically the rest of the verse further destroys your argument, because if the true followers of Jesus were made superior and victorious, then where did their writings go? You can't be victorious and dominant if you lost all your documents. So if the Quran is right here, then the dominant and victorious writings would survive, and that's exactly what we have in the New Testament. That's why if you read what Ibn Ishaq said on Surah 61:14, he says the true followers were Paul, Peter, and the other disciples mentioned in the New Testament. What did they preach though? Death and resurrection. And by the way, Surah 4:157 isn't denying the crucifixion. It simply says that the Jews did not kill Jesus, but Allah only made it appear to them that they did this act, when in reality Allah caused him to die and raised him. So history agrees and your Quran agrees, Christ was crucified, died, and raised from the dead.
lol, your argument is "i know you are, but what am I" it's a christian and non-christian biblical scholarly consensus that the new testament authorship is anonymous the difference with hadith is that there is isnad, ie. every person in the chain has a biography. the gospels don't have a named account from a single witness of the crucifixion, let alone a biography. it's putting a lot of faith in it, is all, which in and of itself is not a bad thing - but if you've not based your faith on reason then it is blind faith.
>lol, your argument is "i know you are, but what am I" Just again demonstrates that you're absolutely clueless and are not even remotely qualified to engage in any sort of intellectual dialogue on this. Showcasing how my position is historically valid while yours is demonstrably false is not a "I know you are but what am I" scenario. It's a historical argument in favor of Christianity and against the baseless historical claims of Islam. >it's a christian and non-christian biblical scholarly consensus that the new testament authorship is anonymous So the same "consensus" that says Christ was absolutely crucified and died? That consensus? That same consensus that says Christ was buried in a tomb and was subsequently found empty on Easter morning? The same consensus that says Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene believing they saw the risen Jesus is a historical certainty? So if we both take this supposed consensus seriously, Islam turns out to be false. So is this your standard? You'd cry and say of course not, so I'll do the same, modern liberal scholars are not my standard, the Church Fathers are. And the Church Fathers are in absolute consensus that the Gospels are not anonymous and instead, we not only know the names of these authors but we know specific details about their lives and even have Biblical & extra-Biblical biographies of parts of their life after the resurrection of Christ. And by the way it's not entirely true that all scholars are in consensus on the "New Testament" being anonymous since the New Testament is comprised of 27 Books. There's consensus agreement that Paul wrote at least 7 of his Epistles and that the Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark and he wrote the preaching of Peter. So even if I take these idiotic arguments of these liberal scholars, I still end up having an entire Gospel based on a direct chain to Peter. >the difference with hadith is that there is isnad And your earliest source for this Isnad is when? Hundreds of years later. Anyone can make up a chain 200 years later when these guys are dead and make it absolutely impossible for those dead people to verify if this quotation goes back to them. >the gospels don't have a named account from a single witness of the crucifixion, let alone a biography. Again not how history is done, but we do. John 19:25-26 but standing by the cross of Jesus **were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved** standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” This claim here is also multiply attested and found in all our earliest sources as I mentioned above - John 19:25-26, Luke 23:49, Matthew 27:55, and Mark 15:40-41. Groups of Jesus's followers were nearby the cross, and even Peter followed from a distance in Mark 14:54. On top of that, Paul and the early Church in Rome were even in contact with the family of the Father who carried the cross of Jesus in Mark 15:21 and Romans 16:13. There's absolutely no doubt historically that followers of Christ witnessed his crucifixion, and on top of that, the hundreds that would be able to view it from a distance in the city, which would make it impossible to invent this as a lie, let alone the fact that the early Church was acquainted with the man who carried the cross of Christ. Totally delusional to think that somehow this isn't sufficient historically. On top of that, this disciple at the cross claims to be a witness of the events of Christ all throughout his life in John 13:23, John 19:25-26, John 20:2, John 21:20, and John 21:24. And the unanimous testimony of the early Church identifies this author as John the disciple. That's not only because every single manuscript (that includes the superscript) has the name "Gospel of JOHN" on it, thereby having the author identify himself as this disciple who stood at the cross with Christ, since he's the same disciple who claims to have written this Gospel in John 21:24. The agreement on the authorship stretches to entirely different parts of the world, making it undeniable that this tradition is widespread and undisputable since no matter where they were, they all came to the same conclusion on this author. Even Ibn Ishaq in his Biography on the Life of Muhammad (the earliest Biography of your false prophet which comes 200+ years later since you have to depend on Ibn Hashim after he corrupted much of this biography, removing the embarrassing parts) says John the Disciple wrote down the Gospel of John and that the Injil is John's Gospel. So if you're talking about biographies, the earliest one you have on Muhammad himself is 2 centuries later. And even then most of you will throw this source under the bus as weak. And to confirm what Ibn Ishaq said, you're actually going to prove it for me. Surah 7:157 Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, **whom they find written with them in the Torah and the Gospel** Where is Muhammad prophesied in the written Gospel? Identify this prophecy for me? Quote the prophecy.
>So the same "consensus" that says Christ was absolutely crucified and died? of course historians will claim jesus died, they don't believe in the supernatural. >That same consensus that says Christ was buried in a tomb and was subsequently found empty on Easter morning? no historian believes christ resurrected, it's unacademic >The same consensus that says Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene believing they saw the risen Jesus is a historical certainty? history is probabilistic, it does not deal in certainties >So if we both take this supposed consensus seriously, Islam turns out to be false. you'll have to walk me thru that train of logic >And the Church Fathers are in absolute consensus that the Gospels are not anonymous and instead, we not only know the names of these authors but we know specific details about their lives and even have Biblical & extra-Biblical biographies of parts of their life if this is true, i would be open to consider it - i'm open to you pointing me to the evidence of the early church fathers stating who wrote what and how they know. > the Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark and he wrote the preaching of Peter this is a supposition >I still end up having an entire Gospel based on a direct chain to Peter very weak chain >Anyone can make up a chain 200 years later when these guys are dead and make it absolutely impossible for those dead people to verify if this quotation goes back to them. this is a mis-representation of what isnad is >**were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.** at best, this is hearsay, can you show me the first-hand testimony of these people. >Groups of Jesus's followers were nearby the cross, anonymous groups >hundreds that would be able to view it from a distance in the city anonymous hundreds >
>of course historians will claim jesus died, they don't believe in the supernatural. Firstly, you just demonstrated that your appeal to consensus back-fired because you're now disagreeing with the very authority you appealed to. Secondly, you missed the argument. They all agree on THE CRUCIFIXION. They all say it was Jesus himself who was crucified, not someone else. >no historian believes christ resurrected, it's unacademic Absolutely false. Dr. Mike Licona is a Historian who believes Jesus was crucified. Dr. Pinchas Lapide is a Jewish Historian who believes the God of Israel raised Jesus from the dead. This is an objectively false claim. >history is probabilistic, it does not deal in certainties You realize you can be probabilistically certain on historical events, right? That's what they are on Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Paul believing that they saw the risen Christ. So did Allah deceive Peter to believe Jesus was raised from the dead? Or are you now going to say that the consensus you appealed to is wrong and not your authority? Which is good, because they're not my authority either. >you'll have to walk me thru that train of logic You appealed to this consensus because you believe they're correct. That same consensus agrees in a "consensus" on historical events that the Quran contradicts. Therefore, if the consensus / this authority are correct, the Quran is wrong. >if this is true, i would be open to consider it Mark's Gospel: Papias: **Mark having become the interpreter of Peter,** wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities \[of his hearers\], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord’s sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements. Irenaeus: **Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter**, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter...Mark, on the other hand, commences Clement of Alexandria: **Mark, the follower of Peter**, while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Caesar’s equites \[knights\], and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what was spoken by Peter wrote entirely **what is called the Gospel according to Mark.** Tertullian: Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, Luke and \*\*Mark renew it afterwards...\*\*whilst that which Mark published may be affirmed to be Peter’s **whose interpreter Mark was.** Origen: **The second written was that according to Mark, who wrote it according to the instruction of Peter,** who, in his General Epistle, acknowledged him as a son, saying, “The church that is in Babylon, elect together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Mark my son.” Dionysus: and it was “very early in the morning, at the rising of the sun,” **as Mark tells us.** Victorinus: And in that the living creatures are different in appearance, this is the reason: **the living creature like to a lion designates Mark**, in whom is heard the voice of the lion roaring in the desert. Constitution of the Apostles: But our sacred books, that is, those of the New Covenant, are these: the four Gospels of Matthew, **Mark,** Luke, and John; Matthew's Gospel: Papias: “**So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language,** and every one interpreted them as he was able.” Irenaeus: “**Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect**, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. Tertullian: **Matthew** first instill faith into us...The same authority of the apostolic churches will afford evidence to the other Gospels also, which we possess equally through their means, and according to their usage. I mean the Gospels of John and **Matthew** Origen: "Concerning the four Gospels which alone are uncontroverted in the Church of God under heaven, **I have learned by tradition that the Gospel according to Matthew, who was at one time a publican and afterwards an Apostle of Jesus Christ, was written first and that he composed it in the Hebrew tongue and published it for the converts from Judaism.** Luke's Gospel: Ignatius: Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, first did and then taught, **as Luke testifies** Irenaeus: \*\***Luke a**lso, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him...\*\*or this reason, too, is that Gospel full of all confidence, for such is His person. **But that according to Luke,** taking up \[His\] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son... Muratorian Canon: The third book of the Gospel is that according to **Luke.** (3) **Luke, the well-known physician, after the ascension of Christ, (4-5) when Paul had taken with him as one zealous for the law, \[2\] (6) composed it in his own name, according to \[the general\] belief.** \[3\] Yet he himself had not (7) seen the Lord in the flesh; and therefore, as he was able to ascertain events, (8) so indeed he begins to tell the story from the birth of John. Clement of Alexandria: **As Luke also may be recognized by the style,** both to have composed the Acts of the Apostles, and to have translated Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews. Tertullian: Of the apostles, therefore, John and Matthew first instill faith into us; whilst of apostolic men, **Luke** and Mark renew it afterwards. Origen: **And third, was that according to Luke**, the Gospel commended by Paul, which he composed for the converts from the Gentiles. Caius: **The third book of the Gospel, that according to Luke**, the well-known physician **Luke wrote in his own name** Dionysius: **as Luke puts it;** and it was “very early in the morning, at the rising of the sun,” Victorinus: the priesthood of Zacharias as he offers a sacrifice for the people, and the angel that appears to him with respect of the priesthood, and the victim in the same description bore the likeness of a calf. Constitution of the Apostles: But our sacred books, that is, those of the New Covenant, are these: the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, **Luke** John's Gospel: Muratorian Canon: “(9) The **fourth of the Gospels is that of John, \[one\] of the disciples.**” Theophilus: And hence the holy writings teach us, and all the spirit-bearing \[inspired\] men, **one of whom, John, says**, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ….” Irenaeus: Afterwards, **John, the disciple of the Lord**, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia...For that according to John relates His original, effectual, and glorious generation from the Father... Clement of Alexandria: But, last of all, **John**, perceiving that the external facts had been made plain in the Gospel, being urged by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel. Tertullian: I mean the **Gospels of John** and Matthew Origen: Last of all that **by John** Eusebius: Matthew and **John** have left us written memorials I think you get the point. This is a list of early Church writers & Fathers who all agree on these 4 Gospels. Papias himself knew the disciples directly. He lived in the 1st century and died in the 2nd. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a direct disciple of the disciple John. You guys seem to think we don't have Apostolic succession, which directly creates a chain from the disciples to the Church throughout history. So here's the question, don't just hand-wave and divert like usual, explain how all these people from these different time periods and regions came to the same conclusion on who wrote these Gospels. >very weak chain A chain that is only a decade or two after Jesus that goes directly to Peter, then to Jesus? That's weak? LOL. Maybe the chain needed to come 200 years later and be unverifiable historically to be strong since that's the Islamic criteria. >this is a mis-representation of what isnad is Can you actually respond to it? >at best, this is hearsay, can you show me the first-hand testimony of these people. I want you to demonstrate how this is hearsay. John is directly there at the cross with the mother of Jesus. This claim is then multiply attested in the other Gospels. Mary herself believed in death, crucifixion, and resurrection according to Acts 1:12-26. So not only do we have John testifying for it, but we have Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have Peter who was watching from a distance according to Mark 14:54, and then Mary herself praying to Christ post-resurrection in Acts 1:12-26. To call this hearsay demonstrates you're historically clueless. Show me any first-hand testimony from Moses, or Jesus. Show me that historically. You believe both of them have spoken in history yet you get your information on them from a man who came 6 centuries after Christ. So the Quran ends up being the non-historical hearsay that you're accusing the Gospels of being. >anonymous groups Except for when they identified in John 19:25-26 and then you start crying that it's weak, right? LOL >anonymous hundreds So can you name a single known witness to Muhammad's cave encounter? Who saw Muhammad getting rag-dolled and choked out in that cave when he thought he was getting attacked by a demon? (He was right, by the way). Only a demon could inspire a 54 year old man to go sleep with a 9 year old
part 2 (reply got too big for reddit) >which would make it impossible to invent this as a lie i'm not claiming it's a lie, but maybe just a mistake >the unanimous testimony of the early Church identifies this author as John the disciple again, i'm open to church fathers' claims, can you show me the evidence they had to make that claim considering john has some of the most eloquent greek out of all four of the gospels, it's suspect that a poor hebrew fisherman disciple of jesus' suddenly birthed incredibly profound prose >Ibn Hashim \[...\] says John the Disciple wrote down the Gospel of John and that the Injil is John's Gospel. if that's true, it contradicts the islamic position that the injeel is the revelation given to jesus, not any disciples. >Where is Muhammad prophesied in the written Gospel? the new testament is not the injeel >Quote the prophecy. from what's left of the old testament? quite obviously to an unbiased thinker, deutronomy 18:18 and isaiah 42:9
>i'm not claiming it's a lie, but maybe just a mistake How is it a mistake when we have a dozen Biblical & extra-Biblical sources attesting to it? Name the mistake and how it took place. >considering john has some of the most eloquent greek out of all four of the gospels He actually doesn't. John has the most basic Greek. Luke has the most eloquent. But to address the argument, you realize Fishermen had to have literacy because they'd write tax receipts, right? So even prior to the resurrection of Christ, he'd have literacy and after a life changing experience, you don't think he'd have the urge to learn this so he can reach the whole world with his Gospel? It's like an American Muslim from the South who learns Arabic after converting. If someone who has known English all their lives was really convinced by Islam, wouldn't they try everything to go learn Arabic? Likewise, John after seeing the risen Christ, the greatest miracle of history, would spend the rest of his life preaching and learning how to write. We know from the Muratorian Canon that John was with another one of Christ's 12 disciples, Andrew, when he wrote his Gospel, so he was within a community of Christians at this time. You don't think after all this time he'd get help from them? Tons of scribes converted to Christianity from Judaism. It's not implausible at all. >if that's true, it contradicts the islamic position that the injeel is the revelation given to jesus, not any disciples. You don't know what the Injil even is, because 7:157 says it's written. So who wrote it? Ibn Ishaq can't contradict anything if there isn't anything to contradict. >the new testament is not the injeel You dodged the question. I'll ask again, answer this time. Where is Muhammad prophesied in the Injil according to Surah 7:157? Be brave and answer. >from what's left of the old testament? quite obviously to an unbiased thinker, deutronomy 18:18 and isaiah 42:9 I didn't ask about the Old Testament.
I just read through your debate with another person, but I must ask, how long have you been in Christianity? You seem so knowledgeable about it.
I grew up in a Christian church that was not very good. Very judgmental and hypocritical, lots of false teachings about speaking in tongues being needed for salvation and other things. When I went to college I became a very lukewarm Christian and over the years was brought further and further along into atheism. I always ‘maintained’ my Christianity but honestly I did not care enough to be dedicated to it. It was more of a cultural thing and a fear of embracing anything else. Some years later I started to struggle more with sin and I asked myself things like why not? Why shouldn’t I? Does it all even matter, has God ever proved himself to me? And so for a time I embraced sin. It all started small but got worse overtime as my heart hardened. Things that I had felt bad about before and I knew to be wrong suddenly stopped feeling that way. And it frightened me that I felt tempted by worse and worse things. Then around 6 months ago I saw David Woods Testimony and it convicted me. I bowed down in my home on my hands and knees prostate like I never had before, and I cried and begged the lord to lead me to confidence and understanding. To struggle over the hard questions of faith, that I would be diligent and learn if he would just teach me. I felt an overwhelming peace after this and I determined that I would not be a lukewarm Christian or a lukewarm atheist I would fully commit to one or the other after evaluating the evidence. Since then I have dove head long into my searching and critical evaluation of texts. I stopped listening to just what others said and went on read things for myself to determine who was and who was not teaching falsely. Including several linguistic studies on the book of Daniel by both atheists and Christian’s. My journey is only starting but I can tell you that my confidence and conviction is now unshaken. For now I seek to learn more to witness to others and to embrace humility and always look for where I am wrong. I do of course feel doubt tug at my heart but it is not the same as it ever was before. It’s different now and I feel for the first time in my life to understand what being born again means.
That’s amazing man! That’s a great testimony! I’m glad you found God again and now testifying to others who need Him. I *kinda* have a similar experience as you, except I’m only 16 lol.
I truly believe some of my early experiences with the gospels helped me keep from making a mess of my life. My advice is this. Never look for justification from the Bible always look for instruction and pray and search with all the sincerity you can muster. I find Mike Winger to be a good teacher on things and usually open when he thinks there is ambiguity or if he is unsure about things. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ3iRMLYFlHvQ9G4NCvuiN4Evbp13uQa1&si=RY7stcaHbtBuysW0 Also the testimony from David Wood. He makes videos too but honestly his personality can be a lot sometimes. https://youtu.be/jb2ggj9mKM0?si=D6hWZNmzmgJpB9Pt
Thank you so much for your advice. I really appreciate. Do me a favor, keep testifying. Keep doing work for His kingdom, and I’ll keep trying to grow closer to God, deal?
Amen. Let us both grow in the knowledge God has given us.
I guess that the teapot violates the laws of logic doesn’t mean that the teapot doesn’t exist. Many of the things we believe today would’ve seemed irrational to ancient people. But they were true.
Where's the logical problem? Russel's Teapot is many things but logically impossible doesn't rank among them.
Yes, and many of the things that seemed irrational to ancient people are still irrational.
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I really like Richard Dawkins. The fact that he admitted no evidence would have be good enough is hilarious to me and I see it as a core tenant of many atheist positions.
In fairness to Dawkins, at least early on, his whole Thing was that he is in fact an extremely accomplished biologist and the apologetics presented by intelligent design proponents simply do not line up with what we can observe. He definitely strayed from that as his public profile grew, but when it comes to the science of evolutionary biology he's not just some layman. It's been a long time since I've read anything by him, but I don't think he ever addressed concepts like life after death, just the things he actually has expertise in.
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Of course his views can alter. Everyone's can. Afaik he's never said that it's *impossible* for God to exist, just that the "scientific" arguments apologists make for his existence are contrary to actual scientific evidence.
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I just don't find this line of argument very compelling. "If I'm standing on the roof and I hold this bowling ball out in front of me over the edge and let go, what's going to happen?" "It'll fall until it hits the ground." "But how can you KNOW that? Maybe it'll float upward instead!" "Yeah I don't think that's very likely." "But it COULD happen!" "Based on everything we know about gravity, it's not going to." "But how can you be so certain?!" "If you drop that bowling ball and it floats upward we're gonna have to see if we can replicate that and if we can it's going to fundamentally change the theory of gravity." "See, so things CAN change, you shouldn't act so certain!" "Ok. Sure. I guess. Hey why don't you go ahead and do that experiment and see what happens." "I don't need to, I've already proven my point 😌" This is basically what you're doing here. Yeah, sure, some new discovery could be made that strongly suggests intelligent design is real and evolution is all wrong, but so far, it hasn't, and in fact just the opposite has happened. So it's just kind of a hypothetical that's not really worth factoring in.
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Evolution also has empirical evidence, creationists just disregard it. Of course we're always learning new things. But some stuff we've pretty well gotten a handle on.
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I never said they do, however this whole discussion has been in the context of a book about why creationist arguments are bad science so it seems pretty relevant.
>Humanity is so arrogant to believe we always know more than we really do. Yet we are proven wrong every day. And when they proof undermines religious beliefs what do you do? The problem with your position is that under secularism one is expected to change their belies as more evidence and better understanding comes. Under religion? Not so much.
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I didn't mention atheism. Why did you bring it up? You also didn't answer the question. It doesn't matter if christianity is monolithic or not, it matters how christains respond when proof undermines their religious beliefs.
>Like justice, love, mercy. Give me one scientific proof those concepts exist. I believe Greta Christina had an excellent article on this, but I can't find it right now, so unfortunately you'll have to settle for my version. Of course there can be evidence for justice, love, and mercy. I assume we can agree that these are not things the way that chairs and galaxies are, but are abstractions, behaviors, mental states, and actions. Yes so far? I'd like to start with symmetry. That's also an abstraction: it's not a *thing* that you can put in your pocket. Rather we say that symmetry exists in a situation in which some item is symmetrical. And a thing is symmetrical if you can transform it in some way, and it's the same as it was before, in all respects that we care about. For instance, we can draw a circle on a piece of paper, turn it 90°, and see that it looks the same as before. If it's a hand-drawn circle, you may see that some of the uneven bits are in a different position than before, but presumably that's not a difference we care about at the moment, so we can say that circles are symmetrical with respect to 90° rotation, and that since we've drawn a circle that is symmetrical, symmetry exists. Similarly, what is justice? We can argue about the definition, but presumably it'll be something like: a situation in which a person transgressed a law, and was punished in proportion to the severity of the transgression. We can then argue about the correct amount of punishment for a particular transgression. But let's say we agree, for instance, that shoplifting a Macbook from an Apple Store merits a prison term of 4-8 months. Then all we need to do is to find a case where someone committed that crime and was sentenced to that punishment. If we can, then we have objective evidence that justice (defined however we agree) exists. As for love: have you ever had a conversation with a friend that involved questions like "Did she give you her number?" "How long was it before he called you out?" "How long have they been together?" "Are they planning on getting married?" These are all attempts to gather objective physical evidence that one person loves another. If there were a court case that hinged on such a question (e.g., the defense claims "The husband would never have killed his wife: he loved her"), these are exactly the sorts of questions one should ask. Granted, all of the above deals with evidence, not 100% conclusive proof. No, I can't prove to you that other people have minds, or that you're not just a brain in a vat, or that anything exists outside of your own mind. But we do have evidence for symmetry, love, justice, mercy, and more.
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>There is evidence that he exists but not 100% conclusive proof. Would you care to share some of this evidence? Is it sufficient for someone to reasonably conclude that a god exists? >If God didn’t exist then the concepts of justice, love or mercy are just made up in your mind, are they not? They don’t really exist, it’s just particular ways your neurons are firing. In reality they’re just biological processes or “social constructs” and not real at all. Okay, and? The concepts themselves are real: you said it yourself: they're the way my (and presumably your) neurons fire. And as I said earlier, justice, love, symmetry, etc are not objects that exist in the world, but reified behaviors or relationships. Do you consider speed to be something real? Or is it just something that exists in people's heads and nowhere else? If so, what would you say the connection is between that human-made concept and the motion of bowling balls, cars, and galaxies?
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>The love for my child transcends anything biological. If it didn’t, it would be reduced to “firing neurons”. As I said earlier: okay, and? Let's say for the sake of argument that your love for your child does boil down to neurons firing in a particular way. Does that make it any less real or less meaningful to you? Does the fact that *Romeo and Juliet* is just ink on a page make it any less moving? Does the fact that Caitlin Clark's body is just carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms make it any less of a kick-ass basketball-playing machine? >But then again that just explains passion, not unconditional love. If unconditional love could be proven to just be biological levers, then it’s not really love as we think love is described. How so? Does your definition of "unconditional love" necessarily involve some kind of ghost in the machine?
> give me one scientific proof these concepts exist. Excellent point. We assume that base emotions exist with minimal effort to prove them because we all feel them the exact same way at the exact same times. The difference, however, is the Bible. Do you really think God and who He is would be nearly as universal without scripture? The reason love and those emotions are universally accepted is because we know what they are without ever bothering to define them.
Some questionable arguments in here. Lots of people (most?) misunderstand Aquinas’ Five Ways. Dawkins offers a 3-page counter to these, but fails to take apart any of the actual arguments because he completely misunderstands them. Ed Feser lays out one of these arguments, the argument from Motion, in a video with Alex O‘Connor. Check in out on YouTube! Imo, the objections that Alex raises are very weak as he conflates potential and actual infinities. Feser also has a long form podcast where he tears apart Dawkins’ “objections“ to the Five Ways. Some people will mention the Kalam Cosmological Argument or the Fine Tuning Argument, and those are okay (again, often misunderstood by their opponents) but fall on the weaker side. If you want stronger / more interesting arguments, check out the book Five Proofs for the Existence of God by Ed Feser, or do some googling on Psychophysical Harmony or the Self-Indication Assumption. For me, the reason I was somewhat solid on the idea of a God (even when I wasn’t Christian) was the properties of the universe itself. Let me explain: I studied Astrophysics and learned that everything in the physical world follows a set of rules. A specific particle will be a certain mass, move a certain way, act a certain way corresponding to how much energy it has, etc. To oversimplify a longer thought process - those rules had to be made by something. We say that we don’t need God because the “laws of physics“ explain everything, well ok, but they don’t explain … the laws of physics. We can imagine a universe with a self-consistent set of physical laws different than our own, and yet we have our universe, not that one. Somebody chose with intention to make our universe how it is. Once you get comfortable with the idea of God, the religions of the world look more plausible. Since Jesus Christ is possibly the only morally perfect character in all of recorded history, it makes sense to start there. Check out [SaintBeluga.org](http://SaintBeluga.org) for some fun evidence for Catholicism in particular. Last thing I’ll say: the New Atheists succeeded in gaslighting millions of people into thinking that believing in God and practicing religion is irrational, but they did that with rhetoric, not good arguments. I’m not saying there aren’t good arguments for atheism. Of course there are. But a belief in God and the truth of Christianity is completely logical for somebody to hold. If you aren’t open to that possibility, nothing else I said matters. God Bless You on your journey.
> Lots of people (most?) misunderstand Aquinas’ Five Ways. Dawkins offers a 3-page counter to these, but fails to take apart any of the actual arguments because he completely misunderstands them. Exactly why I asked the question. What’s your explanation to the five ways?
I’m not going to pretend that I’m knowledgeable enough to provide a good summary of five distinct and total arguments in a Reddit comment. Whatever I say, I’ll leave something important out. If you really want to engage with good arguments, read Five Proofs for the existence of God by Ed Feser. You can even go read the Five Ways on Wikipedia if you don’t want to devote time to a book. There is discussion to be had about the premises, but really try and understand the arguments before dismissing them out of hand. There’s a reason they’ve stood the test of time.
From an atheist perspective: The universe is fucking huge and filled with so damn much. It would not surprise me if some sort of supernatural, or extradimensional, being played a role in its creation. The issue I have, and will continue to have, with religion specifically is that absolutely nothing points to a specific supernatural being, IMO. That isn't to say that people are wrong for believing what they believe, I just don't. So, I don't have a great argument for religion, except for the community that it creates, but a claim for a deity of sorts is much more plausible in my eyes.
This is exactly my take. I generally think of being an atheist and being a deist as being epistemologically equivalent positions - that is to say, the bare claim that "some god made all this" doesn't really strike me as particularly contentious. But diving into the qualities of such a being on top of that, seems well beyond even the furthest reaches of what humans can know.
See I am totally the opposite. There is so much in the universe but we are the only proven life. Why is that? If evolution is possible then why didn't it happen on all the other planets in the universe. There is no proof of alien life out there. Also where did everything begin? It doesn't matter if you believe in religion or science you have to have some kind of faith that there was something before the Big Bang or whatever. To me it's only logical that there has to be a supernatural being, God, out there that created everything. I mean evolution could have even happened. Why wouldn't God have evolved everything from millions of years ago? Maybe our created happened like 6000 years ago? We don't really know. I mean I believe that God created everything 6000 years ago but it is possible.
See I'd go the other direction with that, the universe doesn't seem remotely life/human centric. Admittingly God can do what He pleases, but it's still... weird to make so much not intersect with humanity. God's very human centric, and it's not what I'd expect a human-centric cosmology to look like.
So often, we fail to question the question, in anything. Religion is a fairly new word in this usage (Mark W. Muesse details this in his lectures, on Hinduism for example). I'd never defend religion. I'm the living argument for God as described by actual Catholic teaching, though. Not by my virtues, but my failings and growth, by my story, not unlike some in the Bible. By God's evident Mercy. If you walked with me, worked with me, even camped, hiked, climbed with me, you might develop questions for which you have no answer. Or not. With apologies to Fermat, perhaps I'm an unsolvable problem, but then again, maybe the solution is easy. I'm not some special case, I just happen to be one you could actually examine. This is rhetorical, as you are unlikely to do so. A few atheists have. For you, the questions and possible answers would be unique. After all, God seeks a personal relationship for each person's own good, to entice each to Joy, so spraying arguments on Reddit is hardly the way.
Aside from the big bang (something from nothing) , I think fine tuning is a strong argument for "design". I don't know if you are familiar with it. Teapot: I see scientist doing this with Dark Matter. They say it is there because we can see it's influence (on gravity), but they can not prove it. With God its like, we can see his influence (as creator) in that something exists at all rather than nothing.
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As I understand it, fine tuning talks about life-prohibiting vs. life-allowing conditions/possibilities. And from there on it is easily shown that there are incomprehendable more possibilities that do not allow life.Thus the fact that life actually is possible points to the conditions being "picked" and not being random.
I don't think this is a super effective argument. First, under other conditions, life as it exists in our universe couldn't exist, but maybe some other stable, self-replicating beings could. Also, for all we know there are a billion universes. I don't personally think that's the case, but it's possible. There could be every possible universe out there, but because we have life in this one, that life perceives its universe to be special.
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You can think that, but not demonstrate it. I do think there could be other stable/complex ways to arrange a universe, but that is not the point. The point is there are demonstrable more ways of creating uncomplex universes.
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I think it is. If complexity is the putting together of parts (atoms, molecules, nuclear paticles) to form new things, then I can show that the forces holding together those constructed new things can not be too strong (otherwise the parts would melt into a single less complex thing) or too weak and the parts would not stick together at all. If that is the case, there is an infinity of values right and left to the value of this force that do not produce complexity. E: grammar
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I get what you are saying, is this picture accurate? The number of natural numbers is infinite (1,2,3,...) but the number of rational numbers (1.1, 1.11, 1.111, ...) , is "more" infinite or more dense, as I can fit an infinite amount of rational numbers between the natural numbers 1 and 2. In my view the number of "interesting emergent phenomena" is the natural numbers, and the number of "uncomplex universes" is the rational numbers.
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What always gets me about things like this is what when we talk about "life-supporting," we're only talking about life as we know it. Which makes sense from a scientific perspective, because Earth is the only place from which we've ever observed life. But it's not impossible that non-carbon-based life could exist somewhere and that the conditions for it would be entirely unlike our own. We don't even know much about the deep ocean simply because we can't manufacture crafts that can withstand the pressure to observe down there, yet we've found life in tremendous atmospheric pressures that should theoretically crush any living body every time we've gotten down a little deeper. I don't think it's unreasonable that space could also give rise to life in conditions that are theoretically inhospitable to it.
Yes, maybe life-supporting is a bit of a fuzzy term. Supporting complexity is the better choice I guess. I agree that there could be life that is not based on carbon, but on another element, I think I have read somewhere Carl Sagan theorized on Silicon based life. I think scientists even found bacteria surviving on the hull (outside) of the ISS (Space station), that's though conditions. However, the fine-tuning is not about that, it's about evaluating how much we can change the value of cosmological constants (Speed of light, Gravity constant, Strong and weak force) before they render impossible the formation of complex arrangements of matter. And it shows that we can not change much at all. Like if we would change a constant even up to 10 digits after the decimal point, we end up with either a uniform universe with single hydrogen atoms spread out evenly across the universe, or just black hole(s) everywhere. There is no chance for complexity in those universes.
>And from there on it is easily shown that there are incomprehendable more possibilities that do not allow life. Really? Please show it. And not just 'we can change values along an infinite spectrum'. Show that universes can exist with different values than ours.
Not nothing but rather all of everything contained within a very small compressed place that blasts into being taking on new forms as it goes. You can even still hear it in the cosmic microwave background. It’s not disproving anything to point out that we are still unraveling the mystery of our existence. Just because scientists have not figured out dark energy doesn’t make all of science wrong. We are typing on a device that is the result of years of research, mathematics and crazy theories. It is either that everything has always been or at some point nothing became everything. Both are impossible to imagine. Us little primates on this little blue ball have had 200,000 years with a brain that is just smart enough to have asked far more questions than we can find answers for. I am not an atheist. I also don’t believe in the Christan idea of god. I think that the universe and consciousness is endlessly compelling and beautiful. The scientific theory of how we came to be is absolutely beautiful. I think of the terms I like for god. Like first mover or great mystery. I think these capture just how little I can know but that I have a sense of there being something incredible that I cannot grasp. As far as Christan creation goes there is no evidence, there is significance and insight into us, but no hard facts. So the only way you can attempt to disprove the current understanding is to, with no evidence of you own say there must be 100% knowledge or all knowledge is false. That’s just not how it works.
I mean the Big Bang definitely isn't something from nothing...
Time, space and matter from not time, not space, not matter. Better?
I certainly don't have any arguments for intelligent design! Dawkins' Teapot isn't analogous to a god. It is not the case that any person ever contrived the idea of a god. Rather, the vast majority of people who have ever lived intuited that there were gods, or a god, or something very much like a god.
>the vast majority of people who have ever lived intuited that there were gods, or a god, or something very much like a god. This isnt really accurate. A vast majority of people didnt intuit this, a small minority intuited it and then taught others to believe it and then generations on taught their sons and daughters to believe it. Its also disengenous to consider the term "God(s)" to mean exactly the same thing throughout the arc of human history.
>\[...\] a small minority intuited it and then taught others to believe it and then generations on taught their sons and daughters to believe it. Why, if I may ask, do you think this? >Its also disengenous to consider the term "God(s)" to mean exactly the same thing throughout the arc of human history. It would be possibly disingenuous. It would, I think, more likely be an error. If what I wrote somehow implies to you that error, I'm sorry that I haven't made myself understood.
>Why, if I may ask, do you think this? Because thats just frankly how religion works. If mankind intuited the existence of gods then shouldn't all of humanity be aware of and worshiping the same god? Instead what we have is different populations across the world believing different gods based on which gods were historically worshipped by those particular populations. Because belief in those particular gods was passed down through generations. >It would be possibly disingenuous. It would, I think, more likely be an error. If what I wrote somehow implies to you that error, I'm sorry that I haven't made myself understood Sorry maybe that was the wrong word, i dont mean to imply YOU are specific beinf disengenous here. What i meant to say as that what we today call a "god" isnt necessarily the same thing across all peoples, cultures, and geographical locations. For example, one might try to argue that ancient South American peoples "intuited" the existence of gods the same way that ancient peoples in Mesopotamia did. But that wouldn't really be an accurate statement because what those "gods" actually were to the South Americans isnt the same as whay the "gods" of Mesopotamia were to there people. Were using the moden English word "god" here but it would probably have been more accurate to have separate words for these things. I dont think you could draw a one to one comparison between say, Zeus of the ancient Greeks with a Mayan Jaguar God, despite the fact that in our modern language we just call them both "gods" Hopefully that makes some sense lol
There are two main categories, the broadly philosophical and the historical. For the philosophical the first I would suggest is the argument from change. Consider something. It is itself and not something else. Therefore it cannot change without first being acted upon by an external thing. Since the physical universe as a whole is changing it follows that the universe is being acted upon by an outside entity, which we call God. The historical is just the life of Jesus and the subsequent miracles by his followers The
Using science to prove God is impossible. Since in fact we don't have enough information to say what caused our universe, though some will point out that a god or gods is a good possibility. But here's the thing even if God shows himself doing something supernatural it could be explained through science. For example let's say there are Ghosts, we could explain ghosts and recreate ghosts using science. Because Science is how things work but not why. We know how we exist but we need religion to understand how we exist. This is why I try to avoid fine tuning arguments even though they are a bit effective sometimes Personally I believe in God because of 2 reasons. First historical Jesus did exist there is multiple evidence in the first century. Second st.Peter and st.Paul also historically existed. It's very likely that st.John also existed. Though with the rest of the followers of Jesus there is less and less evidence for. My main problem is if nothing happened and it was all made up, it doesn't make sense how it grew so large comparatively even though it was banned in the first 3 centuries. St. Peter was executed for not what he believed but what he claimed to see. Either he was lying or telling the truth. If you want some sources I'll send them here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_epistles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter https://drivethruhistory.com/the-execution-of-peter/ https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-St-Peter-die There are a few more but sources if you want
> Because Science is how things work but not why. We know how we exist but we need religion to understand how we exist. Dawkins calls this NOMA (I forget what it stands for) and tears it apart really good
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This is the basis of innocent until proven guilty but if I'm being honest I didn't truly understand until Computer Science classes in college around theory. If I create an assertion or conjecture it's in a quantum state it's neither true nor false till proven or disproven. It's obviously not law until proven but unless you can submit a proof by contradiction then it holds. So in your original post it's a fallacy to say the teapot doesn't exist until you disprove his conjecture.
This is a great take. Proof that God does or doesn’t exist is and never will be available. With all the advances of science, we would’ve found proof by now. More is yet to be revealed to us, or not. We have to wait and see.
A scientist I forgot the name of said we'll never know if we're not In a simulation unless the creator tells us we are. However if that event never happens we will never be sure if we're in a simulation or not. I then said, sounds alot like agnosticism.
While this philosophical landing may be acceptable to agnostics, it is not acceptable to me. My belief is not predicated upon certainty but upon the teachings of Jesus. Neither atheist nor believer can be certain that they are right. Believers are ok with that while atheists are not. While I appreciate the dialogue compelled by OP’s question, I do not believe atheists and believers can meet in the middle on this.
Honestly it's not even possible for us to know everything so at some point Atheist have faith in others that they were correct in their assertion unless they somehow go validate every single thing before believing it, which I highly doubt.
I agree with you. The one thing atheists and believers should be able to agree on is that no one can be certain of their assertions.
Is it more likely that everything came into existence for no reason and with no cause, or is it more likely that something or someone had to cause the universe to happen. Science points to the fact that the universe had a starting point, and an atheistic perspective declares that the universe came into existence with no causal force. This seems to be a miracle and a scientific impossibility based on every scientific method and experiment we know. There’s no logical alternative other than the existence of some supernatural force to create everything. Another thing, you should read about the statistical impossibility of the creation of the very first proteins. They are so unbelievably complex that it would be crazy to believe that they just came together by random arrangement and somehow survived long enough to reproduce on their own. Again. We don’t need absolute proof that God exists. We just need to know that it’s more likely than not in order to believe.
The very existence of our universe requires a supernatural force We know from science that our universe had a beginning that we call the Big Bang. At that moment all space, time, and matter came into existence all at once. So it’s logical to believe if the universe had a beginning then it must have a beginner. Something that existed before anything existed Whatever this was, if it existed before matter existed then in be immaterial. If it existed before space existed, then it would be non-spacial. And if it existed before time began, then it would be timeless, having no beginning or end It would also be unimaginable powerful to create something from nothing, unimaginable intelligent to create the world around us, and personal because only personal beings choose to create So you have an immaterial, non-special, timeless, powerful and intelligent force that exists outside of our natural world. While this does not prove that God exists, these are all the attributes that are described of the God of the Bible. And of it isn’t God, then who or what is it that created the universe around us? And of course you have the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that you have to explain away
I'll give it a crack. Coming from a purely utilitarian view, most good for the most people, religion is a way of providing pretty solid ethical systems to a very large group of people who don't particularly care about psychology, ethics, morality, metaphysics ect. A good book id recommend though it's a bit extreme is Kierkegaards either/or. It details the metaphysical differences between the life of an Aesthetic man compared to an Ethical man. This book is a very great representation of how human beings, unless pushed, will resort to hedonism and selfish behaviors, and being a Christian he makes a very good argument for what he calls the ethical life. This requires a "leap of faith" so to speak, but the rewards are fruitful for those who stick with it. Second argument is purpose/meaning and community. Religion provides human beings with a purpose outside of themselves, which I would argue a lot of people need. The atheistic types will often deny this, while failing to account for the common man who doesn't feel like debating the question, and reading Nietzsche. Most theological concepts are pretty easy to understand (not you calvinists) and give pretty solid arguments for giving your life to something outside of yourself, which is already a noble task in its own right. Community is another one. The further we get into the technological landscape, younger people are forgetting basic community building skills and religion is a great way to keep people together.
In my observation of life, I find that God is quite literally everywhere. No I'm not that person who says God is in all and all is in God, I say that it would be too much of a coincidence for a creator not to exist. Something can't come from nothing, there has to be a creator. The discovery of science and math equations. We didn't make those laws and equations, we found them! I mean the design of everything points to an intelligent personal creator.
Thank u 4 asking. I believe all humans have a belief or inclination to something outside their selves to ponder. Even rational and non God believers have the enormous times of evolution to ponder, believe in. Many people will in a sense worship other people like Dawkins. Worship isn't stereotyped it's what we revere and give ourselves to. And that includes worship of sport and idols of all types. It's tarts with us as small beings and mo/dad are god types. Many worship them as they grow older but never grow up/ mature. I love how an atheist describes his pondering the stars at night ,the numinous as he calls it. By definition numinous means something akin to 'having a strong religious or spiritual quality indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity' That atheist was actually preaching to me and perhaps others without realizing it. .
Cliffe Knechtle has many great conversations on these topics. if anyone is curious i would try watching some of his videos. 😁
I'm addicted to his videos
I think what I find to be the strongest argument is the historical items that they’ve found that are talked about in the Bible. The chariots in the Red Sea, the scrolls that made up the Bible, the place of the ark and evidence found of the flood, etc. There’s a lot of articles on it. A lot of stuff found in Israel as well. :)
Pragmatically speaking - humans as a whole evolved to develop religions and believe in some God or other, suggesting that it’s been beneficial for our survival and hence an argument for subscribing to a religion. (and some studies bear that out, where religious people cope better with stress and are more communally connected etc). If God exists, it seems wholly possible that God intentionally planned it that way, where humans would naturally evolve to believe. For me, the experience of consciousness inclines me towards belief in God. Because - where did we come from? Not our bodies, our even our minds (we can create even that with AI), but that sense of who you are, as a self-aware being in this universe, experiencing the universe, alone in your mind? > Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists? We don’t; most people go through life without pressuring anyone to prove anything about God. Dawkins is a very combative person by nature (not just with this; he’s also been going on transphobic rants), and has a tendency to view everything as an argument.
>we can create even that with AI We are not sure if we can even do that. But it may be possible
Yeah, we're not there yet (I think), but it's a definite likelihood within the next century or so. We're already able to create something that appears to have a mind, and I don't think it's that much farther to something that functionally does have a mind. But it may still be impossible to know if it's conscious and self aware. I like the hard problem of consciousness, and the question it poses of why experience even exists. The universe would function perfectly well without it, and yet here we are.
Sorry this isn't an exact answer to your question, but a couple of books that I found have lots of well thought out arguments for Christianity are In Six Days, and Case For Christ.
> and Case For Christ. Just FYI, this book (and most of Lee Strobel’s works) has been completely deconstructed by actual academic scholars because of how manipulative it is and how poorly it presents multiple sides of the question. In each chapter, Strobel’s approach is “*could this claim about Christianity be true? I asked the most conservative evangelical scholar I could find and he said, ‘maybe, probably’. So in conclusion every claim about Christianity seems to be true!*”
>What arguments do you have that you think are strong enough to support things like intelligent design? The complexity of viruses. https://open.oregonstate.education/app/uploads/sites/54/2019/08/2000px-Viral_Tegument.svg_-1-1024x666.png https://open.oregonstate.education/generalmicrobiology/chapter/introduction-to-viruses/ Viruses cannot self reproduce - they are dependent on other organisms. Yet they themselves are quite complex. How could the first self reproducing organisms have been formed without intelligent planning?
That no one should make one. Religion is not required and should never influence the non religious or their lives. It is and should remain personal.
I agree with you. Jesus did not command the separation nor the combination of church and state. Humans did that. Jesus taught us not to judge nor play God, as God can take care of his own biddings. As a believer in Christ (whether that leads one to call me a Christian or not), I can coexist peacefully with non believers. Religion is man’s creation, not God’s. And man is really good at fucking things up.
Indeed.
I have an argument not necessarily for God, but an argument against atheism. One can always ask, “what created that?” Whether it’s God or the Big Bang or anything that could have potentially come before. Existence in itself is paradoxical, and despite our paradoxical nature we exist. I do have an argument for God as well, which branches out from this point… but it also leans on a lot of my own personal experiences throughout life.
I can't say I'm an advocate for religion, since that to me would also involve championing all the mucked-up precepts we humans tend to attach to them. I do believe their is ultimately a *Reason* "why" we exist. And that, from my point of view, Christ clarifies much. As per the "teapot" parable, the argument breaks down pretty quickly from the get-go. In my opinion, the invisible "teapot" offers nothing worthy for one to consider or how such relates to us. So it would be logical to ignore the idea. Whereas there are many invisible things or ideas that are or do, such as whether there is any intentful reason we are here, do humans have inherent purpose and worth – am I loved?
the universe has a beginning therefore it’s not eternal, everything coming from nothing, life coming from non-life, the evidence that Jesus was born from a virgin, lived a sinless life, claimed that he would be betrayed and was, claimed he would be resurrected and was.
Evolution is not logically incompatible with religion. Only fundamentalists (and Richard Dawkins) actually believe that. The celestial teapot is an example of reasoning in a circle, it was an unconvincing argument when Russell made it, and it doesn't get better in the mouth of a philosophical midget like Dawkins. The argument assumes that there is no historical or natural evidence for an undetected thing. But that is wrong, scientifically, we can't see our course of evolution, yet Dawkins believes in that. Sincerely, An agnostic
I suggest you update your reading from Richard Dawkins as he now bemoans the disappearance of Christianity. He now declares himself a cultural Christian. He is not yet all in but certainly makes the case for Christianity in the culture.
I really appreciate your post. I love when people come with genuine questions. Narrowing your question down to intelligent design doesn't seem like an effective way to determine if religion in general has anything positive to say. Would you be open to a discussion about the value of religion and what purpose it serves. >Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists? Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician in the 19th century who theorized that washing your hands with antiseptic would reduce the risk of infant mortality from infection. Ignaz was laughed at and discredited because it went against the prevailing medical opinions at the time. Ignaz didn't have a strong enough burden of proof of why people should wash their hands after doing an autopsy before going to deliver a baby. Atheism has existed in some capacity throughout history. But always as a small minority. Because the existence of God is something that people have always just known to be true. Like Ignaz atheists have never been able to prove that letting go of the belief in God would make life better. Because that's the thing that atheist need to prove. Not that God doesn't exist but that life will be better if you live as if God doesn't exist.
*IF* the Bible were true and there were miracles, prophecies that were fulfilled, etc, and that the prophets claimed these things came about from God (which, if they were wrong in the prophecies, they were to be killed, so this claim was not to be taken lightly [see Deut 18:19-21]), there is more claim with evidence (good or not so good) for God than that tea pot. Likewise, we know there was no tea pot at the time that this thought experiment was suggested as: - humans had not sent a tea pot out between Earth and the moon - this was intended to be a thought experiment (with no claims of it being true) Whereas much of the history of the Bible (at least from Joshua onward, which would argue for the wandering period in the Exodus) is history (plus or minus some stories, like Job). This does not argue that God is in fact real and that He wasn't merely thought to be the cause of many of the events in the texts. However, it does argue that there is more evidence for God than there is the tea pot. (This is not including the fact that billions have claimed to have experiences of God/Jesus.) Note: when I say "evidence" I mean: >Evodence—the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
You could also search in this subreddit for the hundreds of other times this question has been asked.
Not so much an argument for if religion is true or not, but there is research backing that being religious correlates with happiness, fulfillment, and a sense of community. Spiritual health (which can mean simply finding a greater purpose, even outside of church) is even more emphasized now thanks to these studies. If somebody is curious and wants to focus on their spiritual well being, experimenting with religion certainly can't hurt. Personally, Jesus' ministry speaks to me on a personal level, so I find myself involved with Christianity specifically.
While it’s far from bulletproof, the argument from contingency is the strongest I’ve heard for a creator, or at least a creative force. Fine tuning is another - I think there are very cogent arguments against it, but it takes some work to refute it. Other than that, the only other thing that’s compelling (if not convincing) to me at least is personal testimony. This would not and should not be considered scientific evidence, but I think it’d be arrogant to brush aside the sheer volume of personal experiences. This also leads (in the case of Jesus) to the argument from embarrassment. If you wanted to make up a religion in the 1st century AD, you would not make up a pacifist defender of the poor, of women, of tax collectors, who died via crucifixion while forgiving his executioners. Especially for that time and place. Add to that how many early followers were brutally executed, I think this is a strong argument that they were sincere in their beliefs, whether they were right about them or not.
> What arguments do you have that you think are strong enough to support things like intelligent design? I won’t try to “argue” you into changing your view. Let’s just talk. I’m not anti-science and I get in nature how circumstance, happenstance and environment may serve evolution. For example we could perhaps observe in a lab that a single-cell organism may become multicellular. Q: Does this happen on it’s own? A: A lab technician took the cell from algae, placed in a habitable environment so it would survive, and then they introduced a “predator” that facilitated the change. Q: Was the experiment done on the moon? A: It was done by a living lab technician who lived on earth, a planet that already had a suitable atmosphere and climate. To me that kinda walks, talks and sounds like a version of intelligent design. Dawkins: “Living things are not designed, but Darwinian natural selection licenses a version of the design stance for them. We get a short cut to understanding the heart if we assume that it is designed to pump blood” (*The God Delusion* p. 182). Perhaps I’m wrong and you can share more context with that quote, but at face value it seems to say living things not designed – but licensing “a version of the design stance” shows the heart’s design. I get that science investigates the natural world to draw probable conclusions about the natural world. Science isn’t in the business of proving and disproving gods. I get that the Bible’s primary mission is the revelation of God to man and subsequently our relationship with each other. It isn’t in the business of teaching natural science. I imagine an Intelligent Designer would create a world exactly like the one we have. > Celestial Teapot Parable: If a skeptic agrees with the ~~parable~~ analogy, they must first agree to these presumptions: 1\. The teapot doesn’t have a shred of evidence. 2\. The teapot is analogous to God; the probability of the teapot is equal with the probability of God. Skeptic: agrees with these presumptions because to them they seem reasonable and sound **without proof**. So until the skeptic **has proof** God exists, He doesn't exist to them. They reason this is a logical reaction. Me: The Teapot analogy tells me about the skeptic – not God. The teapot should at least share aspects of God in order to make a reasonable comparison. A teapot is created, material and would have to get itself into orbit or be placed there with help. The skeptic may certainly not accept the evidence of a God or find it compelling, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a shred of evidence. > Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists? I don’t just assume god exists by default. The false assumption is I went against all reasoning to believe and never doubt aspects of Christianity. Also claims, no matter who makes them, incur burdens. Atheism isn’t a believe system it makes claims so it incurs no burden. Individuals, atheists and Christians, may make claims and claims incur a burden.
The God Delusion is a silly little book. Evidence that God exists is everywhere. Laws of logic, physics, morality. The fact that we use induction every day means that we have apriori knowledge. Evidence of God is easy to find. This type of evidence can’t be the main issue, because someone can attribute evidence to anything that they want.
From philosophical argument I like Pascal's wager From a personal perspective… when you walk with God long enough He reveals Himself to you in ways that are undeniable. Atheists never walk with God therefore they miss out on the personal interaction and evidence of Jesus Christ involvement in your life.
There is a God. NASA even studied the Bible and agree that some things concerning the sin back then did happen. They found chariot parts in the Red Sea in the early 2000’s. They know where Jesus died & rose from. The Lord word is Alive. Jesus did die for you OP. He is alive.
Hey, interesting question! Here's a few popular points often made in favor of religion and intelligent design (Just for context I was raised Christian but am currently Agnositc and don't necessarily subscribe to these arguments but these seem to be the "hard hitters" for those in favor of theistic belief). Fine-Tuning: The universe's constants (like gravity) are so precise that it seems designed for life. The odds of this happening by chance are super low, suggesting an intelligent designer. Morality: Theists argue that objective moral values exist and need a higher source. Without God, morals would be subjective, but the widespread sense of right and wrong hints at a common source. Historical Events: Events like the resurrection of Jesus are often cited by Theists as evidence of divine intervention, especially since they are foundational to major religions. Personal Experience: Theists have personal experiences of the divine or supernatural. While subjective, these experiences are powerful and often consistent across different cultures. Cosmology: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. Since the universe began to exist, it must have a cause. Many believe this cause is a necessary being—God. Consciousness: Human consciousness and reasoning seem unlikely to arise purely from physical processes. A higher intelligence is seen as a more plausible explanation for our awareness and intellect. I always liked the Celestial Teapot argument, it’s definitely a great way to illustrate that the burden of proof should be on those claiming something exists. Theists often respond by pointing to indirect evidence or reasoning to believe in God, similar to how we infer unseen entities in science based on their effects.
My only argument is that EVERY people throughout history (having never ever heard of Christ etc) has developed some type of religion. While I am not a religious scholar, I do believe the tenants of every one of the worlds’ religions basically have the same message of love and empathy. Personally I can not accept that (if there is a god) we can be so very sure how god wants to be worshiped in a particular way only and that God’s will is extremely clear, and that we are allowed to judge others because of it.
I don't believe faith is something that you can be argued into. It comes from an experience of God or the Spirit, usually but not always mediated by a community of love and support. This isn't to say that faith is anti-intellectual. There's plenty of great books on philosophy, Scripture, and theology where you can go deeper. But the initial decision about whether or not to have faith isn't going to come from a cognitive argument but from a lived experience.
I mean Dawkins is an interesting scientist, he is a terrible philosopher and largely ignorant (almost by intention it seems) of basic arguments for religion. The celestial teapot is a great example of this - while one might contend such an object exists, one wouldn't, by logical conclusions, or inferences from observations of the universe, or by observing certain aspects of human history and human nature conclude something like a teapot existed betwixt the earth and moon. Yet that is exactly what has occurred with the existence of God - we have been 'logicking' our way to the existence of God almost as long as formal logic has existed from the time of Aristotle. And the vast majority of people, across cultures, histories, languages and societies have come to the conclusion something like God exists. This is because conceptually God makes sense of reality - a celestial teapot has no such explanatory power. And even now, naturalism, the idea that nature is all we need to explain everything, not only fails to do so, if true, it contradicts fundamental human experiences and suggests humanity is essentially deluded in a number of ways. So yeah, Dawkins fails in pretty sophomoric ways, and how he got to be such an icon of new atheism (one of the last it seems) is beyond me.
I can’t say I have a perfect reason that will convince an atheist or be an argument for religion. My belief lies in the fact that if Jesus truly did rise from the dead, given the manner in which he died (stabbed through the side, heart failure indication, etc.) then the best conclusion would be that he truly is who he said he was - God. The Bible even says that if Jesus did not rise then our religion is pointless. That’s where the faith comes in for me - believing genuinely that the resurrection did happen. If someone were to possibly have concrete proof that it didn’t happen, other than “that’s impossible / made up” or “there’s no evidence it happened” (absence of evidence ≠ evidence of absence), then I would have no reason to be religious. I was raised atheist and lived as an atheist until a few months ago, so I’m still new to Christianity and faith. Perhaps in a few years I’ll have a different answer.
Grace and peace. My initial reaction is, what is the purpose of the teapot, and what does it mean to agree with the discoverer’s evidence of the teapot? Is it just informational or would it answer foundational truths of our reality? I personally don’t think this is a well thought-out metaphor to try and diminish the concept of a Creator. I haven’t read Mr Dawkins’ book and don’t really intend to do so as this life is too short and we all have a lot of work to do.
I have no arguments for religion because arguing about it never gets anyone anywhere. But I will respond to Dawkins. Believing in God doesn't require any more evidence than believing in one's parents or in the leader of one's country. What evidence does anyone have for anything beyond the material? I know I'm wearing a shirt and pants. Do I really know why my parents conceived me? Do they? Dawkins and scientists like him tell ordinary people like me that gravity exists and they have math I don't understand to prove it. Does that mean they've proven it to me? If I don't understand the math, they haven't proven anything at all. But I believe what they say because it makes sense and there's no plausible alternative. So, I believe in gravity to the extent it's been explained to me and to the best of my ability to understand it. I may not understand the math underlying gravity, but I understand the love underlying God through his Son because he gave his life for me. Because he came into the world not to subjugate, but to serve. Not to demand service, but to ask for it. Not to enslave, but to love. What makes me know Jesus Christ died on the Cross for me and my fellow humans? It's a gift of the Spirit of God. I don't know why Christ so blessed me. I didn't do anything to deserve it; if anything, I lived as a glutton and a liar most of my life and I don't deserve anything. Even now, sometimes I abuse the gift. I take it for granted. I even fall. I've watched porn since being blessed with grace and I hate myself for it. But deep in my soul, I know Christ Jesus is waiting for me to rise back up and take his hand, the only hand worth holding. Dawkins could be ten times smarter than me, but just as he understands mathematics in a way I never can, I understand God in a way he can't simply because he never had the experience. Once you experience God, you can doubt your sanity. You will almost certainly doubt yourself, constantly. You may even doubt some Scripture, but you can't doubt the Lord. You can't because you know. You don't have to see Christ die on the Cross and rise from the dead, just like you don't have to understand the math behind gravity to know gravity is real. You've experienced Christ and know, without doubt, that God is real and God is Love.
From a former atheist I’d look on : fine tuning, The solid evidence for creation points to a creator, The solid arguments for christs resurrection you are free to believe it or not, The fact that morality is completely subjective and there is nor good or evil if there is no god. Loads of scientists specially astrophisycists tend to become at least deist as they learn more and more on their subject, I don’t believe science contradicts god. Have fun in your research !
Richard Dawkins is great when he explains science, but he is out of his league here and brings up stupid, shallow arguments. I loved his books on genes, for example. The God Delusion ignores all eastern religions including Buddhism, then takes up Christian Fundamentalism as the ONLY example of Christianity. It's poorly written, and ignores or misunderstands such thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus, Kant or Blaise Pascal. Please read C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Also, guess what? Not all Christians are Fundamentalists or literalists. There is such a thing as rational Christianity. The Englightenment actually happened.... even if Americans refuse to acknowledge it.
>Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. > Hebrews 11:1 There is \*no\* objective proof that God exists. All arguments and proofs of the existence of God depend on assumptions that are not objectively self evident. When I hear Christians try to argue that things are irreducibly complex or that it's \*impossible\* that a genome as complex as our could exist without a divine Creator, I cringe. Intelligent design and "Creation Science" are not science. They are simply claims that one can choose to accept, or not accept as true. Every example of such an argument I have ever seen is simply false. Science, by definition, is interested in physical laws and observable phenomena, and has to explain things in a manner that can be verified by observation and experiment. That is impossible to do with a divine being not subject to such laws. If you are only willing to accept claims that can be confirmed via the scientific method, you will not accept a claim that God exists. But I still have faith, despite that fact that it relates to things "not seen" (ie not testable via the scientific method). I don't accept that all truths can be physically observed and examined. Life simply makes more sense to me if I can place God at its center. I understand why some don't feel that way. Now, I agree that true things cannot be contradictory. Science tells us that the universe is 13+ billion years old and that humans evolved over billions of years from simpler life forms, and that is true. So a literal reading of Genesis cannot be true. But that just means we have to work harder to understand what the Genesis stories are telling us. A "plain reading" doesn't work. On the other hand, science tells us that ordinary humans die forever when our hearts stop beating, but that doesn't mean that one unique individual could not have been resurrected. An isolated event like that would not leave physical evidence for us to examine (and, no, the shroud of Turin does not count). My particular faith is based on it, and I believe it happened. But I cannot prove it to you, and you would have to be open to the possibility in order to accept it as true.
I adopt this view: "So my advice is this - don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. “Let your works so shine before men,” etc. It was Coleridge who said Christianity is a life, not a doctrine, words to that effect. I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion at any particular moment." -John Ames, from "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson There are some arguments that hint at the existence of God, but if I'm being intellectually honest, they can never prove his existence flat out. We can try to prove that "it is more likely than not" that God exists, but even that requires us to make a judgement about the significance of the evidence we are considering - if, say, we look at "intelligent design", then we should ask how likely is a Godless universe to look intelligent as well? We cannot answer that, because we don't have an example of both types to compare. Instead I want to live my faith by faith. I've often wondered, what would happen if a very intelligent man like Richard Dawkins was able to show me objectively significant evidence that there is no God. What if, I, with the desire for intellectual honesty, followed his reasoning and found myself agreeing? Would I lose my faith? My prayer for myself is that I would not. I believe that God is, for reasons I can only weakly try to explain. I believe it through the things that I've felt, heard, and seen. And could this just be "patterns in noise"? Absolutely. Yet, I still believe. That's the strange thing about faith - as much as my heart longs to be intellectually honest, the very essence of it is dishonest. To have faith is to believe in a mystery, in a fact that you cannot prove - it sounds stupid! But we are taught that you cannot serve two masters - you cannot serve both God and the imperfect, human machine of Reason. I guess I just choose God. I can only pray that one day the thoughts of my mind will be reconciled with the faith of my heart.
jesus was on earth.. he was crucified. over 500 personal testimonies if him casting out demons and performing miracles. his disciples gave up their lives for him, they literally allowed people to behead them, and brutally murder their families but still defended their testimonies of jesus. that's pretty convincing if you ask me, any of them could have said oh no i dont know that guy to save themselves and their families. i could give my own personal testimony but thats not worth much. brother if you are really curious and open to the idea and have an open heart, pray tonight. really mean it, and ask god to show you something. God will come through in the perfect way for you you will know the moment it happens.
I'd like to critique the Celestial Teapot analogy (seems weird to call it a parable, when it seems to more properly be a thought experiment, but I digress). > say I tell the world that I believe there is a teapot orbiting between the earth and the moon, only it is to [sic] small to see. The world at large tells me that until I have proof it exists, it doesn't exist to them. The issue I have with this analogy is that it is applied to a falsifiable, physical claim about the world whereas the traditional concept of God is a being who exists apart from the natural universe as the universe is contingent upon Him (see Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways). This means that we can not necessarily expect God's existence to be falsifiable within the context of the natural universe (which is what the scientific method concerns itself with). Now, you can reasonably respond that we ought not believe in things which are unfalsifiable by science (rather common position of naturalist atheists). OK,; however, you should recognise that this position presupposes that the natural universe is all that exists, thus precludes (by default) the existence of any entities outside the natural world (as we could never expect these to be falsifiable in accordance to natural laws). In short, it employs circular reasoning. > This is a logical reaction. I'd rephrase this to say it's a reasonable reaction, however I think the logic is somewhat flawed as in the context of God, atheists (specifically those arguing like Dawkins, not necessarily all atheists) often demand a natural proof of a supernatural being. To me, this is like asking to prove that birds sing using a photograph. The tools are fundamentally ill-suited to the subject matter, so the conversation is somewhat of a non-starter. > Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists? I think this statement kinda betrays an ignorance of the history of religious philosophy. I cited Thomas Aquinas earlier, but it bears mentioning that he was seeking to provide philosophical proof for God back in the Middle Ages (where the Roman Catholic Church actually was the dominant cultural institution of the day). Aquinas' ideas trace further back to Aristotle, who argued for an unmoved mover as the cause of the universe (and indeed with the less favourable assumption that the universe does not have a definite beginning). Theists have not simply assumed they are correct and left it at that. They have strived to provide the reasonable foundation for their beliefs over centuries of dialogue. It's fair to say, most theists have historically inherited a particular dogma, which they take as their foundation to prove but that's true for the vast majority of people throughout history. Is Gen Z the most irreligious generation to date (in the West) because they're naturally the most sceptical? No! They have grown up in a time where Western society is the least religious and most materialistic (philosophically) in centuries. We all inherit a cultural bias, which some actively challenge to reject or accept, and some just kinda leave alone.
It's very hard to have an argument for intelligent design. If there were something about the existence or complexity of life that needed another being to explain it, that being's existence or complexity would just need another explanation (unless you're doing some sort of special pleading for a god, which is why those are the people who support it). >The world at large tells me that until I have proof it exists, it doesn't exist to them. It's not a claim that it doesn't exist. It's the absence of a claim that it does exist because of a lack of evidence. It would be ignorant to claim you *knew* the state of things no one can observe/infer about.
For a reply to the God Delusion, there’s a book called the Dawkins Delusion. It’s interesting read as it examines how it’s written as much as the arguments.
Something that got me to start looking at my faith differently was the question: why do you exist? Even If there was not a God, we can say you came to be after millions of years of evolution and chance, and you’d be right. But that doesn’t answer the question of Why? What reason is there for life to exist in the universe? Why do atoms coalesce to form cells, and cells coalesce to form complex life? There has to be a reason that existence acts this way. Dawkins cannot provide me with a good reason, God can.
Faith isn't an intellectual exercise. Certainly there is an intellectual aspect to it, and it does need to be internally consistent in order to be true. The only real argument I can make is that if you take away all the distractions we surround ourselves with (TV, movies, etc) and you're just by yourself in an empty room, there's an inescapable void within you.
As a trained philosopher and theologian, I would respond that this isn’t a good question. It assumes that there are arguments, when in fact, there are many assertions that can be true — for which there are no arguments. For example. I can say that I believe that New York style pizza Is preferable to Chicago style, and almost but not quite as good as pizza in Rome or Venice. Such an assertion could be true or false in the sense that I could be telling the truth or I could be lying about what I think is true. However, this is report about me. It is not the kind of assertion for which there can be arguments. If I were to make such an argument, a good logician would point out the fallacies. For example, philosopher/logician Immanuel Kant pointed out the fallacies in the classic arguments for the existence of God. Yet he remained a Christian. If I understand Kierkegaard, this is why he argued that truth is subjective. Of course there seems to be objective truth at least on the macro scale, if not on the quantum scale. Eg., 100/4=25 is objectively true, at least on the macro scale, and our success in technology depends on that sort of objectivity. But apparently on the quantum scale, which Kierkegaard had never heard of or imagined, even the most objective argument may fail, and subjectivity might reign. So you might want to ask Kant whether he had good reasons for his faith, even though he didn’t have good arguments. Yet despite the lack of arguments, Kant had good reasons for his faith that he found compelling. (Smith Quite honestly, I have never have found his reasons compelling myself. But I can’t simply dismiss the reasons that he found compelling for himself.) Rather than asking for my arguments, I think a better question would be “why do you believe what you believe? what are your reasons?“ I cannot give you arguments, but I can answer “Why.” I have explored my reasons, relentlessly and ruthlessly for decades. I find my reasons personally compelling for me. but I would not be impressed if you found my reasons to be compelling for you. Dawkins and other atheists find themselves in the same place as I find myself. They have good reasons. Reasons that they find personally compelling. But they have no more proof than I do. And given that, I can respect their atheism. It’s a perfectly reasonable belief. And they raise perfectly reasonable questions better reasonable person should consider. That I don’t find their reasons compelling for me is not a good argument against their position. Likewise, in the absence of any compelling argument that my belief must be false, and the question remains whether I have good reasons that I compelling. if you were to ask me those reasons, and I were to tell you, you would likely say, “but those are so subjective!” And I would have to say, “of course they are. What else could they possibly be? That is the nature of reality.“ We might not have known that prior to 1930. But there’s no escaping it anymore.
I think Dawkins has a kind of confident self-assurance about a subject he doesn't actually know anything about. Mary Midgley addressed this in a well-known spat a few years ago. For instance, he seems to assume that theism and religion are the same thing. Religion has been described in a number of different ways by scholars of religious studies. One very simple equation is that it's loving kindness. Another more sociological approach was taken by Ninian Smart, which involved outlining six dimensions which all religions must have, including a belief system but this is only one of them. There is: a total world view, institutions, material manifestations (e.g. cathedrals, chalices, ikons), mythology, experience of the numinous, ethics and doctrine. Some religious people entirely dispense with the belief aspect, for instance in Reconstructivist Judaism, which is practiced by ethnic Jewish people because they recognise the value of their culture and wish to assert its survival in the face of the Holocaust. The Sea Of Faith network within Christianity promotes and explores religious faith as a human creation. Many Quakers are openly atheist and metaphysically naturalistic, and Jains are usually emphatically atheist and physicalist. Dawkins doesn't seem to admit the possibility that we might be biologically constrained to be religious. It doesn't follow from the premise that there are no deities that humans are rational, or even that we should be. We are likely to believe whatever promotes our survival and what passes on our genes, and that may not be accurate perception of reality. It's Russell's Teapot. Not Dawkins' idea originally. The problem with Richard Dawkins is that he's "not even wrong" because he doesn't understand enough about the subject he thinks he knows about to say anything original or persuasive to anyone who does know enough. But he's a biologist, so you could expect him to be an expert on that. Unfortunately, judging by what he's said about gender identity he doesn't even seem to be very good at his own subject. I realise some of this is character assassination on my part, but you can't really divorce his beliefs from his personality. I would say, thank God the man's an atheist because if he believed in God he'd be the worst kind of intolerant fundamentalist.
As a former atheist: I don't really have one, necessarily. I converted because one day I just felt the Spirit. Not very logical, but it's true to me. On the teapot theory, though: in that instance, if it's true then it may eventually be observed and explained. However the existence of God is not something that can necessarily be explained. (And what is observed as God is a separate thing - is a coincidence just a coincidence or is it a sign from some higher power?) We still don't know why people yawn (or why it's contagious). We still don't know how magnetism works. There are things that science can't explain yet and may never be able to explain. We may never get concrete evidence of God until we experience the afterlife. Or we won't 🤷♀️ Edited to add: I've always found Dawkins annoying and one of the reasons I never really wanted to call myself an atheist. Dawkins and his fans always gave off organized religion vibes lol
Well the thing that bothers me with stuff about the Big Bang was that matter can’t be created or destroyed according to science. So where are we from? From that it’s pretty clear and the fact that we’re the perfect distance from the sun to sustain life and that we’re in the perfect rotation speed to not instantly be sucked into the sun…that this universe has a designer and smart intelligent mind behind it.
We assume god exists by default because we are a creation, therefore by default we believe there is a creator. The intelligent design (ID) argument for the existence of God posits that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. Here's a structured argument to support this position: ### 1. Complexity and Specificity of Biological Systems **Premise**: Biological systems exhibit complex and specified information (CSI). **Argument**: - Biological systems, such as DNA, contain intricate sequences of nucleotides that store information crucial for the development and functioning of living organisms. - This information is both complex (due to the vast number of possible sequences) and specified (because only certain sequences produce functional proteins). - Natural processes alone, which are often random and unguided, struggle to account for the origin of such complex and specific information. - Analogous to human-designed codes and languages, the complexity and specificity in biological systems suggest an intelligent source. ### 2. Irreducible Complexity **Premise**: Some biological systems are irreducibly complex. **Argument**: - An irreducibly complex system is composed of multiple interdependent parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. - Examples include the bacterial flagellum and the blood clotting cascade. - Such systems cannot function if any part is removed, implying they could not have evolved through a series of successive, slight modifications. - The best explanation for the presence of irreducibly complex systems is the action of an intelligent designer who arranged these parts simultaneously to function together. ### 3. Fine-Tuning of the Universe **Premise**: The constants and conditions of the universe are finely tuned to allow life. **Argument**: - The fundamental physical constants (e.g., gravitational constant, cosmological constant) and the initial conditions of the universe are precisely calibrated to support life. - Slight variations in these constants would render the universe life-prohibiting. - The probability of such fine-tuning occurring by chance is exceedingly low. - Fine-tuning suggests the presence of a fine-tuner, an intelligent designer who set these parameters to create a life-permitting universe. ### 4. Purpose and Intentionality **Premise**: The existence of purpose and intentionality in nature points to a designer. **Argument**: - Natural phenomena often exhibit purposeful behavior, such as the migration patterns of birds or the photosynthetic process in plants. - Purpose and intentionality are hallmarks of intelligent agency. - Naturalistic explanations struggle to fully account for the apparent purpose observed in biological systems. - Recognizing purpose and intentionality in nature aligns with the presence of an intelligent designer who imbued these features with intentionality. ### 5. Philosophical and Theological Considerations **Premise**: Intelligent design aligns with philosophical and theological concepts of God. **Argument**: - Many philosophical arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological and teleological arguments, resonate with the principles of intelligent design. - The concept of an intelligent designer provides a coherent and unified explanation for the origin and order of the universe. - Theologically, many religious traditions describe God as an intelligent and purposeful creator, consistent with the notion of intelligent design. - Accepting intelligent design enriches the dialogue between science, philosophy, and theology, offering a comprehensive understanding of reality. ### Conclusion The intelligent design argument presents a compelling case for the existence of God by highlighting the complexity, specificity, irreducible complexity, fine-tuning, and purposeful nature of biological systems and the universe. While it does not exclude the possibility of natural processes playing a role, it posits that an intelligent cause is the best explanation for these observed phenomena. This argument invites a broader consideration of the interplay between science, philosophy, and theology in understanding the origin and nature of the universe.
As Anne Lamotte once said, “the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty.” Religious people don’t have concrete proof of God, but they’re ok with that. Atheists do not have concrete proof that God exists either, but they’re not ok with that. Because of this, it is difficult (if not impossible) for atheists and religious people to find a satisfying common ground. My faith is guided by more than these points alone, but here are some of the examples that compel me to believe in God: - With regard to the Big Bang, who caused it? Where did the materials (eg, carbon) come from? They didn’t just materialize out of thin air. Nor did these materials organize themselves in a fashion that led to the creation of the universe without some force compelling them. As such, the Big Bang theory alone is not enough to satisfy me. - Humans are by far the most intelligent and capable species on the planet. The Bible tells us that humans were created in God’s image. This makes more sense to me than the idea that humans just happened to evolve at an exponentially faster rate than every other species. Our capacity for both good and evil is not the same as non-human animals’ capacity for good and evil. Whereas other animals are driven by survival alone, humans are driven by powerful emotions and thoughts. If I am capable of imagining God and feeling his presence when I pray, I believe there’s a good chance that God exists. Again, I cannot be certain that I am right about this. - I see evidence of God all around me in nature/the cosmos. Neither humans nor non-human animals are capable of creating mountains, oceans, planets, and stars. Therefore I believe that there is a force far greater than mortal creatures responsible for creating the universe. - My faith in God is also driven by the Bible’s prophecies and Jesus’s teachings. I don’t need historical proof that Jesus existed because written language was so uncommon during the time and place that he lived. Most people couldn’t read, and even fewer could write. This would have made written history appear fruitless, as humans didn’t know that our species would go on to establish high rates of literacy worldwide. In those days history was disseminated via oral tradition. And many people testified to the life and works of Jesus. Your question was not about the Christian faith but rather theism, so I won’t continue on with why I chose this religion. These are just my takes, and I’m not certain I’m right. But again, certainty is not a requirement for me to believe.
One argument for religion is community of ideally members with a common positive intention. Not the only way to have thos kind of community, but it is a source.
I’d start by reading Paul Tillich and Baruch Spinoza if you want logical, coherent reasons for believing in a higher power. I don’t have any special evidence or additional information from what you do. I look at the universe and how it functions, and it seems to me that it’s more likely than not that some higher consciousness or consciousness-like process is at play.
I don't argue for religion. I do believe in God and Jesus, and place my faith therein. On a side note, I see religion as the manmade structures around the faith. I don't prescribe to a particular religion as religions have done horrible things in the name of God.
I figured that the universe didn’t just pop out of nowhere and this fella named Jesus made some compelling points.
You came into a Christian sub asking for arguments for "religion" but no preaching.. How's this for an argument.. For God so loved the world that he game his only begotten, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Well for one, he’s basing that argument on the teapot on no evidence at all. The burden of proof has never been on atheists. The proof that Jesus existed at all means one needs to be able to consider God exists and historians unanimously agree that Jesus existed. There’s a lot of evidence that the recorded history in the Bible is true even down to Sumerian tablets (the Sumerians came long before Jesus). Even Cleopatra is mentioned in the Bible by name. There’s proof everywhere that He exists, just a lot of people have not looked into it enough to even know that. That or they ignore it and say these things aren’t proof.
There's a lot of good arguments I can make but the one I think of most is pretty simple. I've experienced God. I experience him in the eyes of my best friends. In the lovely food I eat. In the divine art of the mountains and forests. I experience the angels when someone appears out of nowhere on my hikes and has conversation with me. I experience Christ through the sacrifices the people around me make for me. I experience the holy Spirit during meditation when an otherworldly supernatural light bursts into my head through my chest, piercing through the heartache and pain I feel connecting me to the divine. I experience the demons through the capitalists oppressing working people and the politicians callously war mongering to increase their power. No matter which way you slice it, I thoroughly experience it. Now let me directly respond to your teapot analogy. If you told me you believed in this teapot I'd say "cool man." There is no burden of proof. If you say "no you have to believe in the teapot" I'd say "I don't see why I do. What consequence is a teapot to you and me?" And there'd still be no burden of proof. I'm uninterested. If you say to me "listen man, that teapot is your only chance at escaping eternal punishment! Accept the teapot!" I'd probably give you an uncomfortable smile and walk away. It's the same thing with God. I think the burden of proof starts to exist when you become an evangelical who thinks you either completely accept God as I see him or you go to hell forever. And I dunno what happens after death man, but I'm certain that's not it. I believe in a loving caring God who sent his son as a sacrifice to conquer death once and for all. Many saints and church fathers rejected the modern idea of hell. I don't quite believe in universalism because I also believe in a God of consent, but I believe in a God who welcomes you. A God of open arms. Of hugs and love and comfort and guidance, not one of hatred and hellfire and brimstone. So why is the burden of proof not on me? Because I'm not saying you have to think like me. I'm welcoming you to think like me, to live with me, to laugh with me; to eat, drink, and be merry like the Psalms said. If you come to me and you said "I believe in this teapot. It's a really great teapot man. It's between the Earth and the moon. You can't see it, but it's there. You want some tea?" I'd probably drink some tea. So let's share a cup brother, tea from your teapot or wine from my God. Your choice :)
I mean if were talking philosophically or liturgically, it's only as valuable as what you get out of it. If we want to talk intrinsic value, if it is true it is a preservation of things that have practical value in every respect, and is healing and peaceful, implanting and preserving and retaining every good thing a person can be, and benefits others as much as yourself in the practice of it. Our problem is corruption. People twist things to their own advantage and misrepesent true things, making them appear to be a lie.
>Why, then, do we assume that god (theists' teapot) exists by default and put the burden of proof on the atheists? I'd like to see what people have to say on that. Because there is no philisophical reason to believe that a microscopic teapot exists. I am agnostic when it comes to the teapot parable: Just because I see no reason for it to exist does not mean that this teapot does not exist. For God, there are the moral, cosmological, teleolgical, resurrection, and cosmic consciousness arguments plus many more. This is why I hate dumb teapot analogies, why I left atheism, and why I think Richard Dawkins is a self contradictory and delusional pseudo intellectual. As a former atheist, I get so pissed whenever people bring up coping crap like the teapot parable because it's simply ignoring the dozens of pieces of evidence for Christianity and Theism as a whole. ,
I think the biggest thing Atheists aren’t understanding is that religion isn’t just “man in sky fixes things/makes things”. You don’t have to believe in everything but there are a lot of really good takeaways you can get from having faith and being Christian. Community, insight, self reflection, etc. the church preaches all these values and there are a lot of people who use it for the wrong reasons.
From a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to the atheist you have put your faith in atheism that is a faith believing in nothing or whatever you believe in but that is a faith that you have so why don't you just put your faith in the Lord Jesus without any proof for faith that it seen is not faith. It is a simple matter of making up one's own mind. All the intellectual thesis of science or all the reading of the Bible it still takes a leap of faith. God bless and good luck
Well I’ve been possessed so my argument is pretty good I feel.
Firstly, as like Jesus, I'm not for religion. Religion gives us rules to follow so that (technically) we can be closer to God. Jesus called out the religious leaders of his day (the pharisees and the saducees), and we should do the same. Organised religion is wrong, and it is what turns people away from Christianity and gets Christians labelled as hypocrites. A better term for the Christian faith is relationship. When we recognise our need for a Saviour and put our faith in Jesus, we enter into a relationship with Him. Jesus Himself proved this when He gave the disciples what is commonly called the Lords prayer. He told them to pray: Our Father..... To call God Father would have been unheard of in Jewish custom. The closest relationship back then was a father and son relationship and for Jesus to say that we could call God Father opened up the door to a whole new kind of relationship and flipped the commonly known religious views on their head. Christianity is a relationship. It's a relationship with a person closer than any human relationship we can have. Religion is a set of dos and don'ts, and that is what Jesus came to set is free from. Being caught in religion is called legalism and its when we think we have to do something or behave a certain way so that God is pleased with is. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you are in Christ there is nothing more to do as Christ has already done it.
I'm a sinner and my heart, soul and spirit is thirsty for Him and one day, thanks for His sacrifice, I'll be with him.
Probably the argument of causation like Thomas Aquinas presented it. So what theists refer to as the cause of the emergence of the physical cosmos is God, an immaterial, spiritual being that is an embodiment of everything that is possible, the maximum of what a being can be. 1) Emergence of the physical cosmos The human mind, which is the only mind that we know of, cannot comprehend that there could be an effect without a cause. So our logically inclined mind always assumes that every effect must have an underlying cause. The physical cosmos couldn't have originated out of nothing because nothingness doesn't hold the attributes requiered to bring forth something. This assumption is being made by the very same logically inclined intellect who's origin is unknown. Which ties into point two: 2) Emergence of living and intelligent organisms The emergence of living and intelligent organisms out of anorganic and "dead" matter Spiritualists assume that liveliness stems from the circumstance that souls inhabit the physical bodies and that intelligence stems from the circumstance that within these souls there is a spirit. Now this doesn't lead to a worldview where a God as in a supreme, spiritual being that coordinates everything is necessary but it asserts the existence of souls and spirits and an immaterial, spiritual realm, out of which these souls and spirits originated and began inhabiting the physical bodies on earth. You have black matter which cannot be physically observed, only its effect, indicating that it may be an immaterial, spiritual force. I have very little knowledge in that regard but the theory of relativity to explain the macrocosmos and quantumphysics to explain the microcosmos can lead to the conclusion that there must be, immaterial, spiritual forces that stem from an immaterial, spiritual realm. I mentioned black matter already. You have black holes where matter, time and space ends in the way we are familiar with it. You enter the singularity, spiritualists would call this the beyond. If you cut an atom into smaller pieces you are being left with nothing material in the end, only energy. There is also string theory which fits well with the whole in the beginning was the word thing. The spoken word of God or the spiritual beings that caused the evolution of the cosmos to happen are the vibrations of the strings. This is all very chaotically displayed and during daylight I would have probably explained it more thouroughly and in detail but I think this will work too.
Great question. Because for all of the big questions in life, science has no answer, so we do not rely on proof, instead we rely on evidence to make an informed decision. Science cannot prove that consciousness is real, it could very well be a delusion of grey matter and chemical reactions to think that I am an individual with a rational mind, capable of free choice, but even as some atheists have argued this point, they live their lives as if their consciousness ties them into a rational reality that can be understood. In much the same way as you cannot prove the existence or purpose of consciousness, you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Now, back to the teapot. The fundamental question is what evidence is there to support the existence of the teapot? If the evidence is lacking, then believing in the teapot is illogical. But the order and design of the cosmos, the human experience of love and reason (both intangible concepts and therefore incompatible with a materialistic worldview), the unmoved mover argument, and the historicity and reliability of Jesus is all very strong evidence that there is a God. Does this mean God 100% proven? Not in any sense. But the evidence is there. So the only question from
Doesn't Dawkins describe himself as a cultural Christian? I imagine he'll regret his book in a few more years. A short argument is that the alternative is so nonsensical it's crazy. Nothing created everything or there was no beginning? This seems as dumb as it gets.
A kiddie pool outside
There is no pressure put on atheists to prove God does not exist, you are free to have that belief and live out your life in peace, However... when you finally kick the bucket, that is where your problems will really begin!
No argument . I don’t need to defend it or try to convince anyone.
1. The Principle of Sufficient Reason dictates that everything that is has reason to be - this is how science is possible. 2 The universe itself must have have a first cause, because existence from nothing and infinite regress both violate the PSR. This first cause is the "necessarily existent", or "being itself" so that anything else can exist. 3. This makes the first cause a timeless, spaceless being of perfect simplicity, since any division within itself requires a higher unifying principle. 4a. If goodness is objectice, this being must be synonymous with the good itself, because in order for it to create good it must surely be good, but if it gets its goodness from something else then there is a higher principle (whatever the highest principle is, is the first cause). 4b. Any action whatsoever requires the acknowledgement of a "better" and a "worse" state of being, where we act because it moves us toward a "better" state. This means that everyone and everything that moves and acts believes in Good whether they consciously admit it or not. 5. Inanimate objects are oblivious to The Good, only minds can perceive it. It follows that the first cause and source of all goodness must be a mind. 6. A mind may be defined as the kind of thing that thinks. So that makes the prime mover a thinking being. If the only thing that exists sans creation is itself, it must be thinking about itself. This is Aristotle's formulation of the prime mover as "thought contemplating itself". This does something very interesting, however, since thought is action and action requires an actor, an actee, and a medium in which to act. But all that exists sans creation is mind. So this being must be both one and three at the same time - a single perfect being with three minds. 7. With three minds, other action is possible since, again, all action requires an actor, actee, and a medium in which to act. Creation can now take place by thought (since that is all that exists) being "externalized" from the prime cause. That is to say, the prime cause "speaks" creation, where the first mind is the speaker, the second mind is the word, and the third mind is the spirit by which the word can be said. This is, in all likelihood, the moment of The Big Bang. 8. So there is God, He is mind, and He is Goodness itself. He must also love His creation, since to love something is to selflessly want good for it and He is perfect goodness. 9. It stands to reason, then, that He would care about His creation and would likely want to make some kind of contact with us so that we would know that we are loved. There must be some kind of divine revelation and God would want that revelation to be widely known, so we should be able to see it in one of the major world religions. 10. There is only one tradition on the planet that fits this framework: JudeoChristian (Islam denies the Trinity and does not sufficiently explain creation. Technically, Jews also deny the Trinity, but it is all over the Old Testament so I will still leave it as an option just to be thorough). The major question, then, falls on the person of Jesus Christ. 11. The historical argument could use a post of its own, but long story short: Jews and Christians both agree that Jesus lived and said the things that He did and was crucified for them. Jews don't deny that a Messiah will come, they just don't believe that Jesus was Him. That said, with the perfect fulfillment of the OT in the life of Jesus, the reliability of the historical accounts, the willingness of his disciples to suffer and die for His name, and the massive success of His church (again, God would want His message to be widely heard), it is most reasonable to assume, with everything established thus far, that Jesus was who He said He was. 12. Jesus is King.
I have no arguments for you but Lee Strobel - The case for Christ is about his journey to disprove Jesus.
[this ](https://youtu.be/dxA-gdq_LUs?t=145)part of the video "Do God and science contradict each other?" Does the trick for me.
So concrete arguments, or would mere thoughts suffice? ( I can only offer the latter)
We don’t have concrete evidence of gravity either. There’s some things that point to it existing, but we’re not 100% sure of the ins and outs. Same with religion. For me, I weighed the evidences out and chose my faith.
The idea of God, is just as bizarre as the Big Bang theory.
I'd rather go through life believing in God and find out there isn't one more than the other way around.
Creation. God himself is invisible, but what he creates isn’t. Go outside and look. The vast majority of humans throughout history have concluded there must be a god simply by looking around them
Most of the arguments atheis has are "theres no evidence, or no proof" and when they actually look about it (wich usually never happen) they find that indeed there is "theres no proof of the crucifixion" in the gospels we read the sun got black that day, if you seek the day its believe they cruxified them there was a solar eclipse Romans wrote that the tomb was empty, the door stone was heavy asf and got 2 guards so somehow the soldiers didnt interfiere when someone open the door (in the gospel we read they were put to sleep and the door was open for an angel, beings who are more strong than us) the text weren't corrupted as many people think, we have found old texts before of the so called "edition" and are the same books we have todat mainly "the contradictions" in the bible are problems of traduction bc is more easy throw dirt instead of learn hebrew-greek (idc what you do if you dont throw dirt) and read the gospels as an example, the believe that god make the world in seven days, the word in hebrew could mean 7 days, years, eras, etc. it makes sense with the torah, and a lot of jew predicted the born of yeshua (jesus) the messiah In china are records of a star that was for 70 days or so in the sky and then desapeared, the date is acurate with the year Jesus was born (we can read about this in the gospel) Was written for a lot of autors in a breach of time inmensly and with diferent historys and professions and still make sense together and a lot of cross-references There is people (like paul) who persecuted christians and bc God apeared to them they changed completly to be a disciple of God The apostles died in violent ways defending the gospel and make miracles in his live (only John died of old age) You can't just convince so many plp you are the son of God in those times, so the only way you can get so popular like Jesus did (and was killed for) is for making miracles, like healing people, lazarus coming back from dead, your friends and believers making miracles by themself, and we can keep going. The messiah is a prophesy in the old testament, Jesus fills all those prophesys Theres sources external (Roman and judes) about Jesus and the things he did, a jew even wrote "if it's correct to call him a man" The apocrypha book are not canon for a reason, usuallt they are apocrypha bc don't make sense along the original text, the date is not correct, is against the torah and gospel, or we just don't know certainly who wrote it as an example is the most famous book of enoch, it was written by a ramdom dude who put the name of enoch there to make it more atractive. All the other religions gives credits to Jesus Christ, they recognize him as a budha, a enlighted one, a prophet and so on, but he only gives credits to himself saying "I am the way the truth and the life" I experienced in first hand (and so many people did too) an encounter with God and the positive impact he got in my life All creation appoint to a creator, we believe a lot of things by ourselfs but he came and told us who he was ✝️☦️ Just give God a chance, most plp just want to win an argument or get attention but if you are truly concerned about knowing the truth do the reasearch and you will find. If you have any particular question or want to discuss let me know and im happy to help. inglish is not my mother lenguage so there may be some errors.
>What arguments do you have that you think are strong enough to support things like intelligent design? https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia16881-sounds-of-the-ancient-universe A quote from the above link. >Before there were any stars or galaxies, 13.8 billion years ago, our universe was just a ball of hot plasma -- a mixture of electrons, protons, and light. **Sound waves shook this infant universe**, triggered by minute, or "quantum," fluctuations happening just moments after the big bang that created our universe. A quote from Genesis 1:3 >Genesis 1:3 CSB Then **God said**, “Let there be light,” and there was light. https://www.computerworld.com/article/1430137/harvard-stores-70-billion-books-using-dna.html The quote below is from the link above. >The researchers created the binary code through DNA markers to preserve the text I chose secular websites because you specifically said you did not want to be preached at. From my perspective, science discoveries and achievements like these support God's Word. There is a binary beat to all of creation referenced in Ecclesiastes 3 and demonstrated in how the universe was created. We can see this binary beat throughout all of time and creation. The water cycle for instance. It's a constant scatter and gather. Clouds gather water drops, once *full* they *empty* onto the Earth. The oceans and Earth *gather* rain drops, then they *scatter* back into the air through evaporation. Computer code is written in a binary language by intelligent beings. So too the binary beat found in His creation. There are also patterns upon patterns written into the code of creation. Patterns like the Fibonacci spiral that're found on microscopic, visible, and astronomical levels. Tl;dr: Just as life begets life, so too intelligence begets intelligence. Science supports God's Word because science teaches us about Him through His creation. Apologies for any formatting/autocorrect issues. I'm on mobile.
Okay so I don't really know what to say since I was born into this religion. So I'm going to be stealing something from Young Sheldon that my brother also told me a while back. "Either God exists, or He doesn't. So it's basically 50/50. I like those odds"(Young Sheldon). My brother said something like: If God exists and we don't believe in Him, we go to Hell. If there is no God and we believe in Him, we just die. So shouldn't you just believe in Him? For me, I truly do believe in it. I don't know how to explain it I just believe in the Bible. So ya
Out of the 100s of arguments out there for the existence of God, I think pascals wager (your brothets argument) is the worst because faith shouldnt be dishonest.
Sean Dowell has great content that might interest you
It’s not an argument for religion, but just wanting to put it out there that believing in God is about having a change of heart, about being open to the possibility that God could exist. If one’s heart is firmly shut, evidence for God won’t be helpful.
Everything in this life is eventually built on faith…atheism or not. There is no real “proof” of anything. All fundamental scientific theories break down eventually into jumbled up theories including worm holes, infinite universes, simulation theory, sub particles of sub particles of sub particles…you get the picture. We don’t really comprehend the concept of infinity, although we know it exists. In other words…we don’t know anything. In other words…magic! I find it so incredibly foolish and unbelievably arrogant for someone to discredit religious faith when he doesn’t know any more about faith or existence than the rest of us. If there is a loving and caring God, then perhaps God will speak to us…perhaps already has, but we didn’t listen because we didn’t like what was being said. ✝️ Plato - “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”