Your "that is ..." doesn't follow your first q.
Are you asking for something related to history and the spread of christianity or are you asking about the validity of the claims of christianity?
Evidence that God is real
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
Are you asking for something related to history and the spread of christianity or are you asking about the validity of the claims of christianity?
Yet more dishonest posting* from an overt Abrahamic theist:
Note that the prospect of getting anything relevant to the thread from them - anything along the lines of providing or discussing evidence that their God, or anyone else's, is "real" - is seen in that response to be hopeless, and seen by the normality of that response to never have been a serious possibility.
* In response to this: "Can you show a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the spread of Christianity and the Bible?"
The only question of interest is why: Why do these guys pretend to misread, post misrepresentations, and so forth, on these science forums?
Note that the prospect of getting anything relevant to the thread from them - anything along the lines of providing or discussing evidence that their God, or anyone else's, is "real" - is seen in that response to be hopeless, and seen by the normality of that response to never have been a serious possibility.
* In response to this: "Can you show a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the spread of Christianity and the Bible?"
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Yes. At one point, Jan told me that Santa Claus is a "real fantasy figure". But when I asked him if it would then be fair to describe God as a real fantasy figure, I don't think he ever managed to give a straight answer. Funny about that.
But that, in itself, is an interesting outcome from the thread, I think.
I mean, it's a simple question: what's the evidence that God is real? Is there any?
If the theists can't or won't attempt an answer, what does that say about their belief? To me, it suggests that (a) they regard the commonly-suggested evidences to be too weak to stand scrutiny, and (b) their belief is therefore not evidence-based.
I wonder if any of our resident theists will be willing to admit that their belief is not based on evidence.
That would be a boast - not an admission.
Or any of the last twenty threads involving that crowd.
As I keep pointing out, over and over: the only interesting question their postings raise is why they are here, posting like that.
Look at it from the side: a good many self-described atheistic posters here can provide solid evidence of the reality of God. A direct route would be to bootstrap from one level of complexity to another, reaching the observation that human reason cannot handle the context of human reason - that all of our thoughts and perceptions and dreams and so forth can derive meaning only from an enveloping context, exist themselves as substrate for patterns incorporating them entire. All the world's a stage.
But those patterns affect their substrate - and these effects register, impinge on perception. We perceive shadows and echoes of a higher realm, in a sense. And as with all perception, we register them in translation or model - wavelengths become colors or tones, shifting patterns become moving shapes, the shadows of the higher realm become god(s). Such gods would be as real as the color red.
This kind of approach is just sitting there on the table, on a science forum. But it does not disparage science or scientists, even allows the label "atheistic" if that seems best. It does not suit the agenda, apparently.
But those patterns affect their substrate - and these effects register, impinge on perception. We perceive shadows and echoes of a higher realm, in a sense. And as with all perception, we register them in translation or model - wavelengths become colors or tones, shifting patterns become moving shapes, the shadows of the higher realm become god(s). Such gods would be as real as the color red.
This kind of approach is just sitting there on the table, on a science forum. But it does not disparage science or scientists, even allows the label "atheistic" if that seems best. It does not suit the agenda, apparently.
Yes.
You claimed that the Bible is true because Christianity became popular (message #138). So yes, it is about history and the spread of Christianity - and yes, it is about the validity of he claims of Christianity.
So the question, again, is: Can you show a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the spread of Christianity and the Bible?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I think that might misrepresent the earlier exchange.
Spidergoat had said:
Which I agree with. In my opinion, the Bible (and other "scriptures") simply don't read as of they are revelations from the Ultimate Source of Reality. They read as if they were the products of their own time and place, of the ancient cultures that generated them. They are hugely ambiguous, and often seemingly self-contradictory. They can be interpreted in many different ways.
But having expressed that agreement, it needs to be said that it's a stylistic point.
To which Musika replied:
In other words, whatever we think the Bible's stylistic deficiencies are, no matter how far we think it deviates from what we would expect a Revelation from the Ultimate Source of Reality to look like (something transcendent, something that exceeds the limitations not only of its time and place, but of the human condition itself), Musika is right in saying that historically, it's been exceedingly successful as a religious text.
JamesR replied:
Of course not. It's evidence that the Bible has been a tremendously influential religious text, hence "great" in that particular sense. History shows that it works as a religious scripture, despite its stylistic and other deficiencies.
"Great" in the cultural-influence sense doesn't necessarily equate to "true" in the ontological sense. So the Bible being a great book still doesn't tell us very much about whether or not God exists.
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Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Jan will never commit to anything when asked directly. You should know that by now. Committing to something would mean having to defend it, and Jan prefers to always be on offense, never on defense.
To be fair, Jan did write this in post #61:
"I've already told you what I think is good evidence, things like the cosmological, and teleological argument, or most things by William Craig Lane. I don't base my theism on them, but they are basically good in my opinion."
The second sentence might strike some people as an evasion, but I'm less sure.
Let's change 'knowledge of God's existence' to 'knowledge of good and evil'. Most of our Sciforums atheists aren't amoral, they believe very strongly that they can discern evil and differentiate it from good. In fact many of them seem to my eye to be puritanical-style moralists, always casting judgement when the topic is social-issue politics or something like that.
The question here is what justifies moral judgements. Some people might be adherents of various metaethical theories such as utilitarianism, but I suspect that most of them would say, as Jan said, that their moral judgment that 'X is wrong' isn't really the result of utilitarian calculation. It's going to be more intuitive than that. The metaethical justification for the intuition only appears after the judgment has been made. (And then continually adjusted until its result conforms with the original intuition, reducing mush of ethics to little more than sophistry.)
So if moral intuition is not only admissible, but somehow required in order for somebody to be considered something more than a psychopath, then why isn't religious intuition being given the same courtesy?
Similar points could be made about mathematics and logic I think. It's easy to talk grandly about mathematical proofs, but at the end of the day whatever logical necessity a proof expresses still has to be intuited.
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Utilitarian "calculation" is as fully rooted in "intuition" as anything else.
Kant elaborated on that theme, made some progress. Internal coherency, answering to reason, would be one criterion. Not grounded in weakness or addiction - fully supported by the will - another.
There is no such thing, at that level. It would be like basketball intuition, or programming intuition - a borrowed or exapted faculty.
Religion is famous for that kind of usurping/abetting of human capabilities etc.
Computers can do math proofs and reason logically.
Fair enough. You could have said that in the first place and saved us all a lot of bullshit.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
I believe that there are only so many shapes and colors, so theroretically there is a capacitation to life and nature, and thus in a singularity we would exist impermenantly forever. I call it continum flux capacitaion.
It's not directly about God, but it is certainly a miracle.
It's not directly about God, but it is certainly a miracle.
Maybe all our religious instincts are wrong. Isn't that an argument from self indulgence? Historically, heroin addiction has been exceedingly successful as a lifestyle.
Sure.
I indicated as much by the example of a hungry person being satisfied by eating food.
"In practice" is what it is all about. Without the practice of eating, one can never arrive at the point of knowing the satisfaction that arises.
Sure.
We do it all the time.
In fact you could say it is an absolute necessity for anyone living in a human society.
If you have ever taken a car to a car mechanic, there is a very good chance you have accessed evidence or knowledge beyond the limits of what your 5 senses and mind can deliver.
Once again, there are no "usual methods". There are only appropriate epistemologies for appropriate problems. Anything else is just a clamor of trying to slam round pegs in square holes.
Because God, by definition, doesn't fall into the category of "regular objects of this world", epistemologies specific to that category will not work. For instance the CEO may be accessible by a means of elevators and doors. A knowledge of the use of elevators and doors does not grant audience however. Rather there is an issue of one's personal qualification. Generally that would be one talking of official means to get past their 6 secretaries and handlers... although one could swing through the glass window like some military spec ops expert. In the case of God (since He occupies a vastly different ontological position than a mere CEO ambitiously pursued by military operatives), the former is relevant and not the latter.
The "specialness", if that is what you want to call it, is specific to the object of knowledge (or how the object is defined) and the relationship between things. There is no "one size fits all" epistemology, although it may be possible to assemble such epistemologies in some sort of hierarchy. Looking at a telescope through one end is good for astronomical pursuits. Looking through the other is good for cleaning dust from the lens that obscures vision. So it is seen that the dust cleaning process occupies a position of serving the need to use the telescope by looking through the other end.
Its not clear how you are presenting a path to move beyond "self indulgence".
IOW one could just as easily question whether you are wrong in thinking religious instincts are wrong.
The regressive introduction of slippery slopes, and all that ...
Nobody has presented any personal qualifications relevant to knowledge of God, or even a general description of what they might be. You have been asked, more than once, to explain what you are talking about when you refer to such matters. So far, meandering gibberish and bs about telescopes and elevators and whatever you mean by "epistomologies" has comprised the whole of your response.
Or Jan's.
Or any overt Abrahamic theist's on this science forum.
Because it is a silly question.
What do you mean by ''fair''?
Is my description of Santa, correct, or merely fair?
It may be fair to someone who does not know Santa is a fantasy, but has a hunch that he is.
It wouldn't be fair to someone who believes Santa is real, not fantasy.
Regarding God. You come under the banner ''there is no God'' (irrespective of there might be a possibility of God).
You can only approach it from that point. So every point you make has the ''there is no God'' presupposition at its base.
jan.
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You can approach it only from the "there is a god" presupposition, (willfully?) ignorant of the possibility of no god.
Along with the inexcusable rude childish presupposition that atheists know there is a god.
James & I & many others have repeatedly told you we do not exclude the possibility of a god. How do you continue to express ignorance of it?
You are the 1 with problematic presuppositions.
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Once again, you are just off the scale with the bullshit factor as you seek any opportunity, either real or imagined, to ply the bullshit abrahamic atheist identity politics bullshit.
Scriptures (regardless whether one is talking exclusively or not of the abrahamic variety) are jam packed with prescriptive details of personal qualifications for knowing God.