Quote:
Originally Posted by
piesquared
I am not absolutely sure that there isn't an invisible, insubstantial dragon living in my garage. This is, after all, completely impossible to prove. However, I would not describe myself as agnostic toward the possibility of garage-dwelling dragons.
Since an invisible dragon would be part of nature, it has a cause, so even if there was an invisible dragon living in your garage, that doesn't do damage to the proof of the fact that since nothing in nature is without a cause, therefore the uncaused Creator must exist.
Do you have any evidence for dragons let alone invisible dragons? If not, then why speculate on something that you have no evidence for. If you are atheist towards invisible dragons, then you are not an agnostic towards then, but you shouldn't be atheist towards them because of your feelings, but because you can't find anything in nature like that. Whereas God is not part of nature, but outside of nature for being that uncaused which is needed to start up the universe, since no other possibility is known to exist. We go with the current understanding of our present knowledge of possible choices and we are left with just this one choice--the uncreated Creator did it!
Quote:
I also can't be absolutely sure that there is no god. I am, however, absolutely sure there is no personal god as described in the bible - the ascribed properties (i.e. all-loving, forgiving) do not match the observed actions (i.e. killing every man, woman, and *child* on earth except one family). A more deistic god, however, is impossible to disprove so I can't honestly say that I'm absolutely sure one doesn't exist. However, I'm exactly as agnostic toward such a god as I am toward faeries and invisible dragons.
You misread the Bible. The flood was a local flood, their perspective world. The sins were so horrible at that time they were irredeemable, so the flood was necessary. A loving God who is all forgiving realized they would never repent, so it would be unloving God to let them persist to infect those who were redeemable, that is, Noah and his family.
You can disprove a deistic god, because a deistic god is one which has no personal interest in his creation, but that is illogical, for why create the universe and then not care about it? That is purposeless. Whereas God of the Bible is personal as humans are. Why should God hold to a lower standard than humans? And there is nothing more personal than entering into creation to grow up as a man and pay for the sins of all mankind on the cross. Throughout the Bible you find how personal Jesus really was.
You seem to contradict yourself, because you said you were not agnostic towards an invisible dragon in your garage, but you are agnostic towards fairies and then said you were agnostic towards invisible dragons as you are to a deistic god. Yet, you are atheist towards God of the Bible? It seems to me that in proving the deistic god false and there being no evidence for invisible dragons in nature, that it would be strange indeed to be agnostic towards these and atheist towards God of the Bible, for God of the Bible is personal, just, holy and pure. He has the solution to our sin problem, but your other entities do not.
Quote:
Such attempts at word bending ("if you can't be ABSOLUTELY SURE then you have doubt!!!!") is misleading at best and more likely deliberately dishonest. Science doesn't declare absolute truths, so reserving a word for people who declare god's non-existence as an absolute truth is an exercise in futility - it wouldn't apply to anyone, making it a useless word.
But you apply this same standard to the law of cause and effects in which if you can't be God and know all things, then it's possible God might not exist because you still hold out hope something could happen all by itself in nature. That doublestandard is deliberately dishonest. If you admit you can't be absolutely sure, then you are agnostic, not atheist. For an atheist is sure God does not exist. Be what you are, don't be embarrassed by it. Unless you are honest with yourself, how can you be honest with others. I am not afraid to say I am a Christian, that Jesus is God, and I know this with 100% certainty. If you can't say the same about your atheism, then you are agnostic. Otherwise you are just playing mindless games. Because we are 100% in God's existence and Jesus is God we can have fellowship with Him. Whereas there is always lingering doubt in your faith as there should be for these reasons given why atheism and agnosticism are false. You should be honest with yourself and call yourself what you are, an agnostic. Otherwise you are an atheist which says 100% there is no God. Otherwise you confuse the terms agnosticism and atheism. You should know in your mind what the difference is between agnosticism and atheism.
Quote:
Opps, you appear to have made a horrible mistake. This point alone discredits your entire "moral objectivity" argument.
FACT: The vast majority of the religious establishment today (including your "christian morality") abhors slavery as morally despicable. However, can you guess which side the vast majority of the religious establishment was on at the time of the civil war? Hint: they quoted the bible as the source of their morality and their side name rhymes with "the mouth".
From wikipedia:
"'Every hope of the existence of church and state, and of civilization itself, hangs upon our arduous effort to defeat the doctrine of Negro suffrage.'
-Robert Dabney, a prominent 19th century Southern Presbyterian pastor"
Since the Bible doesn't teach slavery, then anyone professing to be a Christian who condones slavery is not a Christian. Therefore, your argument fails. It is a sin to bear false witness and realize you can't prove it in the Bible. So those who were promoting slavery were atheists, agnostics and false Christians. In fact it was the Christians who fought against slavery.
Quote:
Flaws in the fine tuning argument:
1.) It may be as possible for the "fine tuned" states to be different then they are as it is for the value of "pi" to differ.
2.) It may be possible that there are many universes.
3.) It may be possible that the vast majority of values for the constants would eventually develop life - just in some radically different form.
1) The independent constants and quantities may be different, but they are still fine tuned.
2) Even if there are many universes, they still need fine tuning.
3) Still finely tuned as you need to set them just right.
Quote:
If any universe requires a creator, then any creator requires a creator. Therefor "goddidit" answers nothing, as usual.
That is illogical since God is not in nature. What we have proven is true of nature, but since God is not in nature, it does not apply to God. What God is is the uncreated that is required for the first cause.
Quote:
Yawn. Do you doubt the existence of mass witnessed miracles for the truth of Islam? But lets look at your silly claims anyway.
Yes, I see no evidence for it, and you didn't show any. Why play pretend?
Quote:
1.) Wow, mass visions. Just like UFO's. Also our only accounts of these are through the authors of the bible, whom it has been proved added things in whole hundreds of years later. Not reliable accounts of witnesses, and even if they were not reliable witnesses.
2.) Wow, someone stole a body. Amazing. The dead guy must be jesus if someone would steal his body. Again, if that even happened.
3.) Yea, obviously people who declare themselves his "disciples" aren't ready to believe in him. Color me crazy but I don't think someone who dedicates their lives to a man can be called a "skeptic".
4.) Getting killed for saying something doesn't prove its truth, only its undesirability.
1) UFO's are off in the distance and these eyewitnesses were not claiming a vision, but bodily resurrection they could tough, talk with, eat with and walk with as they did in various group settings. Multiple visions in various groups is group hallucinations, but group hallucinations are impossible according to DM-4 for modern psychology. There no such things. Since the church that was built in the fist century was founded on the resurrection, the resurrection was not added. The early church fathers in the late first and second centuries quoted 25 of the 27 NT books, so the Bible was written in the first century, not as you mistakenly claim of things added centuries later. Nobody is more reliable than those who spent 3 years with Jesus, and the skeptic Paul and the skeptic James, brother of Jesus. They did not believe Jesus could be resurrected, but then He was. Since you can't find anyone who is a better eyewitness, then accept these as the best eyewitnesses.
2) Who would steal the body? Not the Jews, for they rejected Jesus being God. Not the Romans, for they could care less about the King of the Jews. The Romans gave permission to a member of the Sanhedrin to put the body in a tomb and the Jewish documents record this. It is illogical to think the disciples stole the body and then lied about Him being resurrected because people don't die for something they know is a lie. And none of the disciples ever changed their minds.
3) Paul did not believe in Jesus. He was a skeptic and then converted based on the appearance of Jesus to him personally. The same is true of James, the brother of Jesus. The disciples who spent 3 years with Jesus thought it impossible a person could rise from the dead, but when Jesus did they had no explanation other than that He must be God.
4) People don't die for something they know is a lie. The disciples were put to death for their eyewitness testimony, so they truly believed it. If you can't find a naturalistic explanation to explain it away, it must be true.
Quote:
That's an easy one. The experience of god has recently been scientifically replicated with a little carefully controlled magnetism.
Here are a couple explanations.
That article disagrees with your conclusion, for read it to the bottom where it's conclusion is "There is a limit, though, to how far this argument can take us" and lists two reasons why God is still using these faculties. Therefore, what is the true test? The true test is whether the experience agrees with the data. What data? The data we have is the resurrection of Jesus. If a faith in some channeling or talking to dead spirits occurs, you know this does not agree with God's Word, so it is an experience not of God but from demons or other source.
