Defining God

[Maze1125]

In all honesty I'm having a hard time coming to grips with your argument. I guess that makes us equal. I mean, I guess there *could* be some sort of wild, alternative hypothesis, but you're, to date, the only person I've ever heard argue something like this. All skeptics I've read simply argue that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

He's not arguing that Jesus did rise from the dead, it just that someone else did it.
He's arguing that if it was proven that Jesus rose from the dead that still wouldn't prove Christianity.

Even granting your points, though, if Jesus did rise (and it doesn't somehow prove the Christian God), it would prove at least *a* God. Even if it was, supposedly, the result of another prophet with this power, someone had the power of God to restore Him to life. That is a huge jump, as at least we've arrived at some kind of theism. Even if it isn't Christianity.

It doesn't prove that a god did it at all. It might have been super advanced aliens. An absurd idea yes, but I personally find the idea of aliens that people mistake as God to be more plausible than the idea of God himself.

Also, the word "God" should only have a capital G when you are using it as a proper noun. In phrases like "a god" or "the Christian god" it should have a standard g.

 

[eels05]

I lean more to the belief that God is a concept that humans have tried to express through myth and language.
This concept has something to do with humans,through their own efforts,lifting themselves out of their infantile/animal nature onto a higher plane of existance.

It may be that this is completley beyond most of us to achieve,hence myths morphing into religions that attempt to moderate our behaviour.

 

[The Man Who Is Thursday]

Agreed. Or alternatively some 'higher', supernatural power that necessarily isn't a god. It might very well be that we ourselves would be unable to distinguish between a sufficiently power entity and God. But from a certain point of view there might not even be a difference between them and there is no problem at all if do not demand God to be all-powerful.

Yes, we would have pretty strong evidence of a God. But we would, based purely on that, have no idea of the attributes of this God.

I'm going to get more speculative here. I'm no philosopher or logician, so I naturally have a hard time with these things. Perhaps you can help me. What if we took Occam's Razor into account here?

Supposing that, yes, Jesus claimed to be God, was killed for it, and then was miraculously alive three days later, wouldn't Occam's Razor compel us to just accept His version of the narrative? That one has the least convoluted alternative explanations. There are no separate prophets, aliens (damn it!), or confused semi-deities. Now, you could never disprove those, of course, but it looks to me like the razor would rationally compel us to go against them. I believe this is why skeptic scholars universally deny Jesus' resurrection, instead of going with these other things.

Also, if Christ is God, then we can go a long way further in developing the attributes of God. It's still not 100% clear, but, as Paul said, Jesus is "the image of the invisible God."

On this we agree. But I still think it a bit odd, if nothing else. Perhaps it is even somehow tied down to the Old Laws and of not naming the God in vain? Who knows?

That's an interesting way of looking at it, and not one I'd thought of before. It is strange, though, because Jesus refers to the "Father" in a very personal way. What with addressing prayers as "Abba, Father," which essentially means "daddy." You're right about the Old Law forbidding that. And we know that pious Jews were afraid to even say God's name. That Jesus would start doing this is unorthodox to say the least.

Long section on the rise of Christianity!

That's some good stuff there. Unfortunately I am not as learned in this aspect of history. I do think you make some good points about the early Christians trying to disguise their practices in order to avoid persecution. That's very interesting. However, the fact that they were persecuted so violently shows how out of line they were with Roman society. We have the early anti-Christian writers like Celsus (who accused the Christians of being atheists, LOL) to show us this.

I've heard that the sociologist Rodney Stark has written some very good books on this topic. They're probably from an objective standpoint, as he was an agnostic when he wrote them. Although he says he's a Christian now...

So was I. Just as with any historical document, we seek confirmation on the events described from other sources. If no other sources can be found, then the information contained within cannot be confirmed or denied.

You make good points about the external sources, but I think that you're making them more problematic than they have to be. Firstly, I definitely get a chuckle from reading that Tacitus excerpt, mostly because of his inflammatory style and diabolical hatred of Christians. But the thing of it is, you're exactly right that we can't glean much from that excerpt. And every other pagan or Jewish source about Jesus is not explicit in and of itself. However, when you put it all together, you can arrive at a pretty substantial narrative of Christ's life, as we talked about earlier.

Now, the importance of this should neither be overstated nor understand, and I think we've both been doing that. Is it possible that Tacitus didn't know anything about Christianity and was just assuming what they said was true? Very possibly. But he still wrote it in his histories. If he thought it was false he probably would have said so. He obviously hated Christians, so he would never say anything good about them if he didn't have to. On the other hand, it would be dishonest of me to grab this excerpt (and the others) and proclaim Christianity proven. There's not enough information in them. Either way, we must always be wary of trying to have our cake and eat it too.

Assuming the first gospel (discounting Paul's letters as he didn't witness Jesus himself and only briefly mentions crusifixion.) was written around 60-70 AD. Let us go with 65 AD. Jesus died around 33 AD at an age of around 37 years old. His ministry began supposedly at 27 AD.

Assuming his youngest diciple at the time was a measly 15 years old, he'd have been born in 12 AD. With a life expectance of under 40 years, this diciple would have died around 52 AD of natural causes. This is at least 10 years before his version of the events was written down. Because of this, we have no first-hand eyewitness accounts and possibly not even second-hand accounts.

I'm not exactly sure where you're pulling this life expectancy thing. I mean, yeah, I guess that they had shorter life expectancies then, but this is some pretty heavy speculation.

According to the early church fathers and Christian sources (like Papias), John was the youngest of the disciples, and he lived a very long time. Possibly to almost 100AD (Papias claimed to be a disciple of him). So he was most certainly around way after 65AD. John even wrote his own gospel, and since he hung around for so long, perhaps we could theorize that why John is so different from the synoptics is that he was familiar with them and chose not to repeat their information.

Also, the other Apostles lives longer than 52 AD as well. Paul, as we've established, lived till the mid 60s. Peter lived longer, and I think James did too (although I need to check that). Luke (who wrote Luke and Acts before Paul died, dating it around 60AD), though not an Apostle, endured for a while too.

Now, yes, that still leaves some 20 years between events and the gospels, but historically it's a ridiculously small amount of time. If the disciples had, as you say, gotten together on just "one day" to decide on Jesus living, then this is hands down the most impressive and unbelievable conspiracy theory to ever be formulated. Somehow *all* the contrary records (assuming they'd exist because...wouldn't they have to if this is a conspiracy?) were lost and destroyed. Somehow no pagan or Jewish sources claimed that Jesus was still in His tomb. Paul claimed anyone who wanted to confirm his witness should just ask the people who were there (over 500 of them), a strange thing for a conspirator to say. Also, all of these men were murdered for this. But no one is ever willing to knowingly die for a lie. And yet, nNone of them renounced their beliefs in the face of physical pain, suffering (throughout their whole lives), and death.

The apostles at least *believed* that they saw Jesus resurrected. This must be explained. The suggestions of the skeptic scholars I've read, who claim that the disciples hallucinated or stated this metaphorically, I do not find persuasive at all. If I held that viewpoint, the gnawing doubt would probably kill me.

My only point is that, from a historical standpoint, the New Testament is unparalleled.

Mostly agreed. But it is not the commonplace things that are in question, it is the extraordinary claims made in it.

Ah, therein lies the rub, if you'll excuse my Hamlet. It's not the history of the Bible that's the problem, it's the content. But if we're going to take exception to the Bible's content, we must not tweak the history so that the Bible is somehow in a position of being "guilty until proven innocent." It would be impossible to ever get around that.

But you are entirely correct that the extraordinary claims are tough to swallow. As they should be. The NT has better and more sources than we have for the lives of Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, or Alexander the Great. But, as you say, none of these men (and women) had followers who claimed they died and rose from the dead. So we are at a bit of an impasse. It goes, then, from a history problem to a philosophy one. And then we must make a choice, which leads to...

An interesting choice. You know that you know nothing, therefore you hope? That is refreshingly agnostic, coming from a theist. Most of the time I seem to meet believers who are convinced byond anything else that they know for certain Jesus is with them. And then, paradoxically, evidence is a great sticking point for them.

While I don't agree with your conclusion, I can certainly respect that.

I myself went a step further and a bit to the side so to speak: Since I know nothing of the supernatural, I cannot acertain the truth value of any supernatural claim. Therefore the logical choice is to adopt a netural stance of non-belief.

This is because truth and honestly are great sticking points for me personally. Since I cannot know the truth, I have no belief in anything.

Heh, I guess you could call me an agno-theist, if you wanted. What a term! I've been occupied with this question for some years now, and I've found that the more I've learned, the more complicated and difficult everything becomes. I am certainly a Christian, but it's sort of hard to explain my stance. I believe the evidence is compelling, but I also believe that it will never be "complete." When something is scrutinized to this extent, it never will be.

I guess that's where faith comes in. Since neither of us think it's possible to unequivocally "know" the truth, whatever we decide will have an aspect of faith to it. Well, I guess you technically don't , but an militant atheist (like the ones who write all those books) certainly would.

This is a most refreshing and invigorating discussion, it has been some time since I have been able to discuss religion in non-flamewar environment. For that alone, I thank you.

You're welcome, and I thank you in return. I am very glad to be having this discussion. It's a welcome break from all those "God or no God?" threads where people immediately go "this ain't endin' well!11!LOL" and just start bashing each other.

While I disagree with you, I can see that you have clearly thought about this extensively. I definitely respect that. You have a very thorough knowledge of the issues, and I think it eclipses mine.

 

[YYZed]

I personally dont beleive in God, but if there is a God then hes a complete dick and does not deserve praise or worship...

 

[Zacharine]

What if we took Occam's Razor into account here?

Ah, Occam's Razor. Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate, or in english, Plurality must never be posited without necessity. Or more commonly referred to as 'Of several acceptable explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is preferable, provided that it takes all circumstances into account.'

The unfortunate things here is that going by this, resurrection never happened. Because the simplest explanation is a fraud, since we do not have to posit the existance of the supernatural.

But if we assert the resurrection to be true, then we have already asserted the supernatural to be true (otherwise resurrection would have been impossible after three days). That would make god, or something equally powerful, pretty much the simplest explanation. On that we agree. However, that would not be proof. It would be merely an indication, albeit strong one.

I believe this is why skeptic scholars universally deny Jesus' resurrection, instead of going with these other things.

Of course. Because then we do not have to suspend disbelief and we can leave supernatural out of the list of unprovable things we would have to immediately accept to be true.

Also, if Christ is God, then we can go a long way further in developing the attributes of God.

Agreed. But this relies on yet another assertion, that Jesus=God.

However, the fact that they were persecuted so violently shows how out of line they were with Roman society.

Indeed, one of the main contention points (of which the christians refused to compromise at all) was the fact that they held God to be a greater authority than the Emperor.

This did not go down well for the people in power at the time.

However, when you put it all together, you can arrive at a pretty substantial narrative of Christ's life, as we talked about earlier.

On this we disagree. Because I hold the narrative constructed in this manner to be either lacking in details or being of suspect origins. Personally, I do not hold such a narrative to be anything more than mildly indicative and capable of giving any more than just the broadest strokes.

This is greatly a manner of opinion however, of how much one is willing to trust such texts.

He obviously hated Christians, so he would never say anything good about them if he didn't have to. On the other hand, it would be dishonest of me to grab this excerpt (and the others) and proclaim Christianity proven. There's not enough information in them. Either way, we must always be wary of trying to have our cake and eat it too.

Agreed. All that we can be certain of based on Tacitus text is that a leader of sorts, called Christus by some, was executed by Pontius Pilate and now his followers have spread all the way to the city of Rome. To say anything more would involve varying degrees of guesswork.

But either way, we must not read too much or too little to such excerpts. This is why studying ancient history takes so long for the professionals: One must not make hasty assumption to one direction or the other.

I'm not exactly sure where you're pulling this life expectancy thing.

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/lifeexpectancy.htm

"Historic Life Expectancy
During the Roman Empire, Romans had a approximate life expectancy of 22 to 25 years."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/340119/life-expectancy

"In ancient Rome and medieval Europe the average life span is estimated to have been between 20 and 30 years. Life expectancy today has expanded in historically unprecedented proportions, greatly increasing the numbers of people who survive over the age of 65..."

So, according to both sources the chances of you being dead before your 30th birthday during Jesus' time period within the Roman Empire would have been over 50%. So I expanded that to 40 years. My personal extimation is that the chances of being dead before that are roughly 80%

According to the early church fathers and Christian sources (like Papias), John was the youngest of the disciples, and he lived a very long time.

True, John lived for a long time and did die around 100 AD according to most sources. However, there is doubt if he is actually the author of anything beyond the Revelation or if that is the work of some other John. Some scholars think that some of John?s disciples wrote the Gospel and the epistles and that John himself wrote only the Revelation. True, this does not detract from the writing, but his old age certainly does. As I said, memory is an iffy thing.

But again, this becomes a question of trust. How much do you trust that John was the direct author? How much do you trust that his memory of the events was clear? How much do you trust he did not lie?

Also, the other Apostles lives longer than 52 AD as well. Paul, as we've established, lived till the mid 60s.

True, but we've discussed how much Paul talked of the actual Jesus and his life.

Peter died 64 AD in Rome, by crusifixion.
By James I assume you mean James, son of Zebedee. He died in 44 AD, by the sword of Agrippa I and became the first martyr from among the Twelve.
Luke the Evangelist died in 84 AD. He himself (in the gospel) denies having witnessed Jesus ministry with his own eyes.

Now, yes, that still leaves some 20 years between events and the gospels, but historically it's a ridiculously small amount of time.

Historically yes. But not for humans, specially when the life expectancy is around 30 years or less. Pleanty of things can happen in 20 years.

If the disciples had, as you say, gotten together on just "one day" to decide on Jesus living, then this is hands down the most impressive and unbelievable conspiracy theory to ever be formulated.

True, it would be convoluted and highly so. But if we use the logic of one mythological Sherlock Holmes: 'Once you remove that which is impossible, what remains, no matter how impropable, is the truth.'

Also, according to Occam's Razor a conspiracy theory, no matter how convoluted, would still posit less unknows than the existance of any supernatural being.

Paul claimed anyone who wanted to confirm his witness should just ask the people who were there (over 500 of them)

True. But then again, we have even today people who are willing to swear they have seen Jesus with their own eyes. Charismatic leaders can make people do pretty silly stuff. I'm not saying this happened with any certainty, I'm just syaing that as long as it remains a possibility we cannot fully accept such 'witnesses' as perfectly reliable evidence.

But no one is ever willing to knowingly die for a lie.

I would beg for you to rethink that statement for a while. Certainly, no one would be ready to die for something they think is a lie. But people don't always know the truth.

Because according to your logic, they

Spoiler

are therefore right in their beliefs.

The apostles at least *believed* that they saw Jesus resurrected.

And the audience there believed they just saw a woman fly. Tell me, would such a trick two millenia ago have branded you as a sorcerer of great might? Or perhaps a messenger of gods...

Just because we believe something, does not mean it is real or even justified. We have UFO nuts left and right, we have people seriously claiming that 9/11 was an executed with a tactical nuke. We have and always have had people who are, for the lack of a better word, nuts.

This is but a single alternative explanation for the belief the apostles had.

Ah, therein lies the rub, if you'll excuse my Hamlet. It's not the history of the Bible that's the problem, it's the content. But if we're going to take exception to the Bible's content, we must not tweak the history so that the Bible is somehow in a position of being "guilty until proven innocent." It would be impossible to ever get around that.

Of course. But the burden of proof, if you forgive the expression, lies on the claimant. The bible claims there was a resurrection. Yet provides no evidence aside from few eyewitnesses. Who happen to be known associates of the claimant, being akin to bestest friends or even comparable to brothers. This does not satisfy the burden of proof.

It goes, then, from a history problem to a philosophical one

Indeed. Which is partly why I think that no-one who says they have proof or strong evidence of christianity are speaking truthfully.

Heh, I guess you could call me an agno-theist,

I think the term 'agnostic theist' has already been coined Almost all Lutheran denominations begin with the idea that 'I believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost. Material proof and evidence are not needed/ are inconsequential. Faith is all that matters.'

I've been occupied with this question for some years now, and I've found that the more I've learned, the more complicated and difficult everything becomes.

Indeed, as with everything else. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. But the more you know, the more informed choice you can make and the closer you are to finding out the truth.

I am certainly a Christian, but it's sort of hard to explain my stance.

I believe you have made it fairly clear and I think I understand your thoughts on this matter.

When something is scrutinized to this extent, it never will be.

But does it need to be? Science teaches us that with it's method we can never arrive to a point where we know everything. We can approach that point ever and ever closer but we will never reach it. This is more than enough for me, because knowledge gained in such a way refines itself, rejects knowledge which can be demonstrated to be false and makes no false claims of reality.

I simply choose to apply the same methodology to religious topics.

I guess that's where faith comes in. Since neither of us think it's possible to unequivocally "know" the truth, whatever we decide will have an aspect of faith to it. Well, I guess you technically don't , but an militant atheist (like the ones who write all those books) certainly would.

Oh yes. Spot on. Because they claim there is no God. I claim I cannot know if there is or isn't one, therefore lack belief in gods but also that any statement of mine might be wrong.

You have a very thorough knowledge of the issues, and I think it eclipses mine.

Thank you, but it is the result of years of serious study on my free time from school. And yes, back then it made my head hurt really badly. Imagine reading of this stuff and trying to understand it when you're 15...

 

[The Man Who Is Thursday]

Whoa, this is a long one! Haha, good show, though.

The irony of this thread seems to be that we agree on almost everything, but, as you said, I am more willing to trust the apostles as well as their claims. I suppose this is the "faith" aspect, again. But I think, because their historicity is so good, that they are worthy of consideration. And, also, I already believe in God, so that takes away one massive hurdle and also changes the way I look at the Occam's Razor thing.

Anyway, since this is at the point of spiraling out of control and becoming book-length, I'll just respond to a few of your points.

The unfortunate things here is that going by this, resurrection never happened. Because the simplest explanation is a fraud, since we do not have to posit the existance of the supernatural.

But if we assert the resurrection to be true, then we have already asserted the supernatural to be true (otherwise resurrection would have been impossible after three days).

Right, but since I already hold the supernatural to be true, this is not much of a problem for me. But if we go into it, we'll have an even longer thread.

The resurrection itself boasts far greater explanatory power than the alternatives, either fraud or unknown deception. Both of those require the postulation of a myriad of other circumstances, like the conspiracy theories, destroyed truthful documents, the disciples either A) stealing the body or B) hallucinating their visions of Christ (and if B, why the Jews were unable to quell the cult by producing Jesus' rotting corpse). It must also take into account how, if this is all true, the church managed to arise and become such a force in the first place.

But, of course, if you don't believe in the supernatural, then you are, as you said through Sherlock Holmes (excellent quote, by the way), forced to accept even the most wild alternative theory if it eliminates it. This puts us, again, out of the realm of history and into philosophy. Our pre-suppositions are, then, what determines our conclusions.

Now, the other thing I want to mention is that about the disciples clearly believing Jesus resurrected.

But no one is ever willing to knowingly die for a lie.

I would beg for you to rethink that statement for a while. Certainly, no one would be ready to die for something they think is a lie. But people don't always know the truth.

This is exactly my point. You took it further than I, but I meant only what I said. That the disciples did not think their beliefs were a lie. This, of course, does not prove them true. Far from it! But it is a very important historical fact that must be taken into consideration.

My "logic" had nothing to do with proving their testimony because they believed it. I never said that.

All I wanted to show was that they thought they saw Christ resurrected. The historian must ask "Why?" Why did they believe this? None of the other first century Jewish messiahs (there were dozens of them) had their followers claim that they resurrected. There was no precedent for it. Every other time this happened, the privilege passed to the deceased brother. But we know from Josephus that James (Jesus' brother) did not inherit His role, and actually professed to have seen Him alive as well. And this despite not believing his brother throughout the gospels. A historian cannot say, "Well, people believe all sorts of crazy things." That does not explain this. It has to be examined in more detail.

I've never found the skeptical explanations for this very satisfying, though. The two main ones I've seen are, A) the account is primarily metaphorical or B) the apostles and the other 500 people (or more) were all hallucinating somehow. While these are popular...I don't think I could ever accept them. There are others, though, but I am (unfortunately) not familiar with them. My favorite was this California professor who argued against William Lane Craig that the only alternative explanation is that Jesus had an identical twin brother separated at birth, and this man happened to stumble into Jerusalem three days after Jesus was crucified.

Call it "faith," but I'll believe the disciples over the "long lost brother" thesis, even if Sherlock Holmes wouldn't. Like I said earlier, waging my eternal soul on the alternatives would drive me insane with doubt. At least this way, if I'm wrong, nothing happens to me. Yay Pascal's Wager!

I think the term 'agnostic theist' has already been coined Almost all Lutheran denominations begin with the idea that 'I believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost. Material proof and evidence are not needed/ are inconsequential. Faith is all that matters.'

Well damn, I thought I came up with a new title! Oh well. More specifically, though, I guess my "official" title would be non-denominational evangelical Christian. But it's a pain to say that. Haha. So I prefer other things.

Besides, so much ill has been associated with Christians that the name has really been marred. Perhaps I should go with "Jesusian," maybe that'll divorce me from the crimes of my wayward brethern. Maybe...

Indeed, as with everything else. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less. But the more you know, the more informed choice you can make and the closer you are to finding out the truth.

That is a very good point, and actually makes me more optimistic, in light of "knowing we know nothing"!

I don't mean to prematurely put a lid on this conversation, because I've greatly enjoyed it, but I think it's coming to the point of "agree to disagree." Again, as I started this post, it seems we agree in most of what we've said, but the issue is one of faith.

Anyway, I must thank you again for this great discussion, and again for maintaining this civil and friendly tone throughout. Perhaps we have proven that the Escapist can handle religion threads after all.

 

[Ezekel]

Problem with the life expectancy statistics is high infant mortality rates skew the number much lower than it realistically is.

http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html

If you actually manage to not die at childbirth or soon after you have a good chance of making it into the 50s and 60s and even 70s. Over 17 percent of the population of Roman society was over the age of 50, so it is not improbable that there were many people who would be considered eyewitnesses well into the 80s, and even the early 90s.

While yes people will die for a lie, not many, if any will die for something they know is a lie. All the disciples run away from Jesus and hid, and then only a few weeks later are boldly proclaiming his resurrection, even to the point of persecution and death. Something must have occurred. So either they all experienced some mass hypnosis/hallucinations or they did in fact see a risen Christ.

 

[Zacharine]

The resurrection itself boasts far greater explanatory power than the alternatives, either fraud or unknown deception. Both of those require the postulation of a myriad of other circumstances,

True, but not the postulation of new entities. And that is what Occam's Razor is about. We only need humans capable of lying to make it a viable possibility.

like the conspiracy theories,... It must also take into account how, if this is all true, the church managed to arise and become such a force in the first place.

All true and agreed upon.

However, if we turn this thing particular piece of logic around to some other religion, we get the following question:

Assuming the premise that the pagan Roman pantheon is built upon human imagination and not a supernatural truth, How could it have risen and survived for so long, until it was almost violently ousted by christianity? Or how it could have been given birth in the first place?

One thing I have noticed is that suddenly many arguments for or against a particular religion sound quite not so convincing when they are applied to other religions. This is good indication of a poorly formulated or poorly thought out argument. While yours is neither, it is getting a bit close to the invisible line as one only has to find a fairly matching set of circumstances from an other religion for the conclusion of the argument to immediately apply to both religions.

As an FYI, many theists who are uneducated and/or poorly versed in logic are so focused on proving their god, that they do not think of how many other gods the same argument would prove.

Our pre-suppositions are, then, what determines our conclusions.

To a great degree, yes. After all, all logical constructs begin from the premises. If the logic employed is sound and the premises are true, then the conclusion is also true. But in these kinds of cases, where we cannot know for certain what premises are true or false, even with similarly true logic the conclusions may vary greatly.

My "logic" had nothing to do with proving their testimony because they believed it. I never said that.

You did not, I freely admit that. However, we are extremely close to a slippery slope here and must tread extremely carefully. I simply wanted to cut this chain of thought right at the root ; Because we are only one step away from completing the all too popular, but false, thought model of

1. No one dies for a belief they know is false
2. People die for their beliefs
3. Therefore they are convinced beyond anything their beliefs are true.
4. This conviction must come from somewhere.
5. Such a conviction would not be possible unless the belief was true.

which has been used in the past to 'prove' that the martys are evidence of the truth of christianity etc.

All I wanted to show was that they thought they saw Christ resurrected.

And this is what we mostly agree upon. They certainly act as if they believe they saw Christ resurrected. To go from that to 'Thus they believe they saw Christ resurrected' is a natural and fairly easily defensible step of logic, but one that is not the only possibility. And to go from that to 'Thus they saw Christ resurrected' is an unfounded step.

One must be aware of this and certainly we would wish to not jump into hasty conclusion. I know my arguments are not that great when it comes to the alternatives, but they too must be considered. Someone has to play the devil's advocate.

A historian cannot say, "Well, people believe all sorts of crazy things." That does not explain this. It has to be examined in more detail.

True. But the problem here is that we have nothing to base the examination upon. We have no personal diaries, letters to family, secular/pagan/rivalling religion sources from the time collaborating these details.

We simply lack the material. We have one source for most of this stuff, the Bible.

And we've dealt with that subject enough, I think.

Call it "faith," but I'll believe the disciples over the "long lost brother" thesis,

And perfectly understandably so, considering our differing base philosophy. The lost brother thesis is a bit farfetched, but is still the more likely alternative. At the very least, it is an alternate theory which must be considered.

At least this way, if I'm wrong, nothing happens to me. Yay Pascal's Wager!

Yay, I guess Personally I find Pascal's Wager to be an extremely poor reason to begin believing and not all that much better when given as an additional reason for pre-existing belief. If for no other fact, then for the payoff table for 'God not existing' should not be zero.

Instead I use the Atheists Wager, a derivative of Pascal's:
Believe or not, God exists or not. In all combinations, leading a good life is always preferable

Well damn, I thought I came up with a new title! Oh well. More specifically, though, I guess my "official" title would be non-denominational evangelical Christian. But it's a pain to say that. Haha. So I prefer other things.

I get that perfectly.

In fact, atheists are pretty much the only group commonly indentified by what they do not believe, instead of what they do.

An interesting video, Rejecting Atheism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0zSCpsOSSw

While I do not agree on some of the stuff said by Thuderf00t on this, he still does make valid point.

It is just so much simpler to call myself an agnostic atheist.

I don't mean to prematurely put a lid on this conversation, because I've greatly enjoyed it, but I think it's coming to the point of "agree to disagree." Again, as I started this post, it seems we agree in most of what we've said, but the issue is one of faith.

Unfortunetaly that is true. I do not think there is much left to be said on this subject without us coming to a perfect standstill. You have a good amount of knowledge on the subject and no misconceptions that I can see.

We both see the same coin. We even acknowledge there is the other side to the one you or I see. But we stand nonetheless on different sides, because we both believe our side to be more beautiful-

Perhaps we have proven that the Escapist can handle religion threads after all.

Not proven, but given an indication

Sorry, couldn't resist. And thank you as well.

 

[CroutonsOfDeath]

I think that religion is something that should be personal, and that each human being should have their own unique and individual belief. But seeing as the human race as a whole comprises of a flock of sheep, churches will always exist. While I don't belong to any of these churches, I am not an atheist nor am I an agnostic. I know damn well what I believe in. As far as "god" goes, god isn't some sentient being that watches over us and demands worship. Feel free to call me a Hippie but I feel like "god" is essentially all life and is more of an essence than a true "being."

 

[Ninja_X]

We all have ideas of God, for better or for worse, but perhaps the reason we have so much conflict is that the idea of God is based upon an improper construction. So let us being anew.

Let's define omnipotence as being all powerful.
Let's define God as whatever has the attribute of omnipotence.
Let's define omniscience as being all knowing.
Since God is omnipotent, God can grant himself omniscience.

So can God be both omnipotent and omniscient?

Query: If God is omniscient, then he knows exactly what he is going to do, but if he cannot change this he is not omnipotent. If he can he is not omniscient and therefore not omnipotent as well.

Thus God cannot be what we define him to be as. So this version of God is impossible. If we create a "lesser" version of God, then he is not God.

So here we sit at the crux of the problem. We cannot know what this "God" is. We cannot know anything about God unless we forgo logic (i.e. redefine omnipotence to include the impossible such as drawing a square circle). If we forgo logic then what we say past that is nonsensical.

My point is that we cannot construct anything above us. If we do it is futile by design and this is perhaps all we can know. Just as a dog cannot perceive the complexity of our intelligence compared to its own, we cannot perceive anything above us. This leads me to believe faith in a higher being is the only logically correct alternative a person can pursue other than agnosticism. I cannot explain to my dog why the road is dangerous, he cannot comprehend it. My dog will simply have to learn (or not) through lessons I try to teach it. Such is how I believe whatever exists above us treats us.

The question I have to those who are atheists is such:
1. How can you claim my God doesn't exist when you cannot understand him?
2. Why isn't Nihilism the only conclusion to your world view?

I do not mean any disrespect to all of you, I understand the world is a harsh place and life is unfair. I know some of you have parents, siblings, spouses, and friends who have seemingly needlessly suffered or died. What I am saying is some people do not believe in god for these things. They don't believe in god because why would he allow 800,000 people to be slaughtered in Rwanda, let the millions die in WW2, let the spanish flu kill 50 to 100 million people, or let even one innocent person die. The lists goes on about how could god allow world poverty and hunger, or more specifically god ordering homosexuals to be killed. This god that wants all these things to happen, I do not believe in him either. I do not know why these things happen, but I do believe God has a purpose for us that we cannot yet comprehend.

Excuse me, did you just bash atheists?

I will not stand for this. You believe in god if you want, but do not start trying to raise your belief over ours.

Some of us do not believe in god because there is no proof he exists, the fact that there is no proof is NOT evidence that god may be real. That just doesn't make sense.

Atheists are not bad people, we just don't like the idea of god. Why can't more christens just respect that? I don't mind that you believe in god, so why the hate?

 

[notsosavagemessiah]

Well, as the OP stated, if god is real, and therefore is all of the above (this is going with his assumptions on the subjects of his absolute power) then we cannot comprehend him, because he is beyond our reasoning. But I believe, that if, and I stress IF, there is a god, then perhaps we need to adjust our notions of him. There are so many religions in the world, all of which teach a specific way to reach and touch the divine, if only in a small way. But perhaps this is not part of a greater plan? Suppose that we merely get it wrong by dividing the messages that are sent, and thusly dividing our people? Isn't it possible, that each religion, each divine teaching is merely one part of a greater whole? While it may be impossible to grasp the whole of the divine (if it exists, and for the sake of my comment we're going to posit that it does) through the narrow views of one religion, perhaps a greater view is granted when we do not exclude the views of others. While this may result in contradiction between relgions, perhaps it's time those religions alter their inherent views to try and define for themselves where they would fit in the greater divine scheme. That is to say, if the goal of the religious is to align oneself into the divine's plans, how can you do that when you exclude so much of it? You cannot, so therefore you must change, not just to survive, but to benefit yourself and be made aware of the greater divinity. Comprehension of anything comes from knowing the facts, as it is impossible to completely know the facts of the divine, it stands to reason that you should not exclude anything else accepted as such. Granted, these things often cannot be tested, but what can be tested is a person's faith in the divine, seeing the strength of the faithful, and how many there are, should be proof enough that perhaps, just maybe, the world religions (outside of one's own) contain plenty of merit to warrant a serious study and understanding on all sides. Even if this were to occur however, there is one vital piece of the puzzle missing, a unified message. This can only happen if one acknowledges the worth of another individual's views and inalieable rights. But isn't that the point of all religions? Don't they assert the inherent value of humanity and decency? So why then should it be so fractured on how to get there? All religions teach respect and love for one another, perhaps it's time they themselves got on board with it.

Long story short: we cannot comprehend god (if he exists) if we refuse any part of any message purportedly sent by him. It'd be like trying to understand the whole of physics, while only knowing newton's third law. It's a good starting point, but that is all, you have to seek out and learn more if you wish to achieve greater understanding.

 

[Pendragon9]

Can God create an object so heavy, even he can't lift it? Of all the arguments, that one compels me the most.

 

[The Man Who Is Thursday]

Instead I use the Atheists Wager, a derivative of Pascal's:

Believe or not, God exists or not. In all combinations, leading a good life is always preferable

I definitely agree with this. Well put.

Not proven, but given an indication

Sorry, couldn't resist. And thank you as well.

I couldn't let this conversation end without admitting that I actually did laugh out loud at that.

Good work!

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

"We cannot know what this "God" is. We cannot know anything about God unless we forgo logic"

I love that. Simply because of the implications it has. I can't say I beleive one way or another, I've called myself an athiest, a non-theistic Satanist, but I'm drifting towards agnostic. If there is some form of "God", we will never be capable of comprehending it. If there isn't, there will always be those who beleive there is, for it's existince can neither be proved nor disproved. The question of it's existence tears at the core of intelligence: curiousity. We will always wonder if such a being exists, but we can never know. We will have to accept that it is impossible for us to truly know if such a being truly does exist.

Because of these facts, I beleive it is useless to depend on the existence of some higher being. If we will never see the truth of it's existence, why pit our life on the bet that it does? Following the ideals of Anton Szandzor Lavey, I beleive we should live our lives to their highest potential, we should enjoy what there is to enjoy while we can. For there is no knowing what will come once we die, we could be sent to an alternate form of existence, or we could rot in the ground. Never to think or feel again.

 

[muffincakes]

Can God create an object so heavy, even he can't lift it? Of all the arguments, that one compels me the most.

Simply put, if God were human, then obviously not. But why would God be human? Also, the idea of creating an object so big or heavy that it cannot be lifted follows the ideas of human physics. If there is a God, then I think it would be safe to assume that he created those physics, and that they do not apply everywhere in the universe. Most importantly, God, being the creator of the physics that we believe in, does not have to follow the rules of said physics, because he is God.

Can God make a rock so big that he cannot lift it? The question needs no answer because the question has no logic. Can a human create life from nothing? Of course not, but if you believe in God, then you believe that God created life from nothing. The whole point is that God does not fit into the boundaries of human comprehension, and we as humans need to stop trying apply our logic and "understanding" to things that we could not possibly understand.

 

[Pendragon9]

snip

.....that answered my question perfectly. Thank you!