Aside from the; obvious bullahit of relegion that you can figure out for yourself quite early .... not to be a bully to get what you want. It's near ubiquitous, from police to government, to wealthy people, business owners etc anyone with an asymmetric relationship gets what they want that way. As a boss, do what I want or I fire you and you starve etc etc.
I still see them pedaling the same lies to children today, bullying and cowexison are linked to inextricably liked to what we call success we are fine with it, the weird part is the denial and lieing to kids about not being a bully .
Hah I had the opposite reaction, I'll surprised how many people there are in this comment section arguing that God is real. I didn't know religious people knew how to use the internet tbh
Some religions like Islam prevent you from doubting it, so it’s essentially a way in which many are just stuck in it.
But yea when you see political elections, takes on certain subjects etc… don’t expect people to take the time to find the info.
There might be some errors and mistakes that point towards religions being fake and man-made, but there aren’t really any obviously accepted error. Most of the time, they’ll end up with "it meant something else" or something like that.
They are subjects to some bias, yes, but that doesn’t mean they’re braindead, else you would consider vast majority of people on earth to be braindead.
You can at least understand that some people believe that the universe was created by some sort of entity, as the odds of all of this being created, with such a perfect balance, and having a creature with a developed conscience (humans) is extremely rare and lucky.
You're allowed to be atheist of course, but do you have any more proof that there are no gods than they have that gods exist?
EDIT: Y'all can have your opinion, no one's questioning that. You're allowed to believe there are no higher powers, but I'm not allowed my personal belief that there is?? Not one person has provided proof that there is no Higher Power. Grow up....
I'm not against religion, but that's not how evidence and proof works. Do you have any proof that tiny invisible pink elephants aren't hiding in your fridge?
No, you can't prove that something never happens or that something doesn't exist. You can sometimes prove something that contradicts the existence of something, but that's not proving that the thing itself doesn't exist, because it's epistemologically not possible
That's not really how it works though. If I tell you there's an invisible dragon living under your bed who will burn your house down at some time in the future if you don't give me $10. You can't disprove it, but because I'm the one making the claim that the dragon exists the burden of proof is on me.
The burden of proof tennis is quite tricky here because it's not about whether you claim something exists, it's whether you claim something that goes against what's generally accepted. If I claim quantum mechanics don't exist, it's not on you to prove they do.
And that's before we get into the fact that there isn't a general consensus on whether God (or any gods) exist.
Your premise is incorrect. The burden of proof for quantum mechanics is on the people claiming they exist. They provided those proofs, which is why people believe in them. I haven't studied quantum mechanics, but if you asked somebody who does, they could offer proof or evidence. And if they couldn't, then your claim it doesn't exist (until proof was proffered) would be correct.
You're missing the point. It's not a one time thing. Evidence existed, that evidence was found, and that's what made it change to being accepted.
That evidence still exists, so if you claim dinosaurs don't exist, we can just point to the evidence that still exists. That evidence didn't get spirited away like golden plates to heaven. We're still finding dinosaur bones.
If you claim dinosaurs don't exist, I would point to the wealth of evidence that they do. If you were raised in some religious cult that never taught anything about dinosaurs and taught that the Earth was 6000 years old, and therefore didn't think giant creatures existed hundreds of millions of years ago, it would absolutely be on the person claiming they exist to show you dinosaur bones. Which is evidence.
I see your point, but the idea here is that, since I'm starting from the assumption that dinosaurs don't exist, I conclude that the fossils came from some source other than dinosaurs, so they can't be used as pro-dinosaur evidence. But at the same time I don't offer an alternative explanation on where they came from.
The existence of dinosaurs is well-established through a variety of scientific evidence. Here are some of the key proofs:
1. Fossil Evidence
Bone Fossils: The most compelling evidence for the existence of dinosaurs comes from fossils. These are preserved remains found in sedimentary rocks that have formed from sediments laid down in ancient rivers, lakes, and seas. Dinosaur bones show distinct features, such as air-filled cavities that indicate they were adapted to support massive bodies while being lightweight, similar to modern birds.
Tracks and Footprints: Fossilized footprints and tracks give clues about the behavior, movement, and size of these creatures. Sites like the Paluxy River trackways in Texas and others around the world show clear, sequential dinosaur footprints.
Egg Fossils: Fossilized eggs have been found in many locations around the world, providing direct evidence of reproduction in dinosaurs. Some nests even contain embryos, which help scientists understand growth and development in these creatures.
2. Geological Distribution
Global Spread: Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent on Earth, including Antarctica. This widespread geographic distribution is consistent with the known plate tectonics and continental drift over geological time scales, supporting the timeline in which dinosaurs are said to have existed.
3. Radiometric Dating
Age Determination: Radiometric dating methods allow scientists to determine the age of rock layers where dinosaur fossils are found. These methods typically use the decay of naturally occurring isotopes, such as uranium-lead or potassium-argon dating, to establish the age of rocks as ranging from about 66 to over 200 million years old—corresponding to the Mesozoic Era, the time period during which dinosaurs thrived.
4. Comparative Anatomy and Phylogeny
Anatomical Similarities: The study of dinosaur fossils allows scientists to reconstruct their skeletons and infer muscle attachments and body shapes. Comparisons with modern animals can help interpret their posture, diet, and lifestyle.
Evolutionary Relationships: Dinosaurs share many features with other groups of vertebrates, especially birds. In fact, modern birds are considered the direct descendants of theropod dinosaurs, a relationship supported by numerous anatomical and genetic data.
5. Soft Tissue and Molecular Evidence
In some rare cases, soft tissues have been preserved in dinosaur fossils. For example, flexible blood vessels and cells have been reported in Tyrannosaurus rex fossils. While controversial and rare, such findings can provide insights into the biology of these ancient creatures.
6. Paleoenvironmental Reconstructions
Contextual Clues: Fossilized plants, pollens, and associated animal fossils found alongside dinosaur remains help reconstruct the environments they lived in, further validating their existence and providing context about the ecosystem dynamics of the past.
Collectively, these evidences from paleontology, geology, and biology robustly demonstrate that dinosaurs existed as real, living organisms on Earth millions of years ago. Their study continues to provide valuable insights into the history of life on our planet.
It sounds like you're taking a skeptical stance towards the conventional interpretation of dinosaur fossils without proposing an alternative hypothesis for their origins. This approach can be useful for critically examining evidence but might limit understanding if alternative explanations aren't explored. In scientific discourse, it's typically valuable not only to critique existing theories but also to propose viable alternatives that can be tested and evaluated against the evidence. If the goal is to challenge established views like the existence of dinosaurs, developing a coherent alternative theory on the origin of fossils could strengthen your argument and provide a new perspective for consideration.
Just to address the chatgpt comments, I assumed you were a troll but I now see that you're a real person, deserving of a real answer.
My standpoint is that science should enhance religion: as they approach different problems, they should be compatible. Science deals with the workings of the natural world and how things happen, while religion often addresses why the world exists and what our purpose might be.
For this reason I'm against dismissing scientific discoveries solely due to religious teachings. Some see new discoveries about the universe as enhancing our understanding of God. Just because the bible was written without the understanding we have today doesn't mean that the progress of all modern knowledge is false. And similarly when specific bible teachings are disproven doesn't mean that the underlying purpose or values are invalid.
In summary, ai think the purpose of religion is to improve society and wellbeing by addressing fears, providing a deep need for community and creating a moral code. I think problems and frictions arrive when, the moral codes develop over time due to new understanding of what is right or fair, and knowledge of the world improves. There are religions that accept that they should change over time and accept these new viewpoints, such as evolution, dinosaurs, or to respect womens rights. There are other hardline religions that believe that the world is 6000 years old, that women have no rights, that dinosaurs are false creatures created by the devil, and that technology is evil and should be avoided. Right now you seem to be leaning towards more hardline standpoints, which can anger some people, as you've seen by the down votes. I would encourage you moving forwards to not see new viewpoints and scientific understanding as a challenge to your religion, and instead accept that the world is beautiful and this knew knowledge was a gift to you from God. Gay marriage is legalised, so God accepts that people should be allowed to be happy in themselves, accept that into your religion. Dinosaurs are found and thousands of people work to understand them, God has given those people a gift to work in such an exciting career, accept the gift into your religion. To dismiss knowledge, is to dismiss a gift from God. Ancient wisdom and modern understanding should go hand in hand.
The dinosaur thing was just an example to deal with the concept of burden of proof. So I suppose in a way I was trolling about it, or at least I didn't make it clear enough that it wasn't what I actually thought.
I do believe in science, and I haven't found that scientific discoveries conflicted with the Bible. Interpretations of the Bible do change over time, but the actual text in the Bible does not go out of style. Well, I guess translations do, but you know what I mean. The Bible says God created the planet in a week, and that includes all the plants and animals. We have evidence of evolution, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the creation story. God is fully capable of kicking off, directing, and accelerating evolution so that it still fits within the allotted time.
I take issue with your line of reasoning in the gay marriage sentence, but to be clear, I'm not saying it should be illegal, just addressing the logic. Just to avoid misconceptions, let's apply the same reasoning to alcohol instead. Something being legalized has nothing to do with whether God accepts it. Yes, God ultimately has all authority, and yes, the Bible says to follow the laws of man, but the laws of man are ultimately the laws of man, and there's a clause that the laws of God take precedence in a conflict. But even if that weren't the case, if the laws of man say we're allowed to get drunk, that doesn't mean we have to. The Bible still says it's a sin (which I think is because it leads to unwise choices and other sins that you could blame on the alcohol,) and what mankind thinks doesn't change that.
Also, to be clear, since you think I'm a hardline kind of guy, something being a sin does not mean we have to fight to make the laws reflect that. There's a lot of talk in the Bible, especially in the new testament, about how the laws are not enough to make someone righteous, and that was the whole point of Jesus. I do take hardline stances in that what the Bible says is true, but I'm not going to condemn people around me for working on the sabbath, and I'm certainly not going to try to make it illegal. (Well, a law against employers requiring you to work 7 days a week would be good on its own merit, but it doesn't have to line up with the sabbath.) Another biblical principle is that the way to reach someone is by love, not force.
So if everyone believed in the invisible dragon under your bed, would that shift the burden of proof to you? I don't see what the general consensus has to do with anything.
The people who say quantum mechanics exists don't just claim it, they can demonstrate it through peer reviewed evidence. Quantum mechanics is also a theory based on observable facts intended to propose testable mechanisms by which those facts can be explained. My claim of a dragon under your bed has no such backing.
As smarter people than me have said, that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Yeah, if everyone believes there's an invisible dragon under my bed, then that means the burden of proof is on me to claim there isn't. And I'd probably address that with a stick.
As for assertion without evidence, how do you feel about eyewitness accounts of miracles? Or sociological reasoning on the odds of the disciples keeping a conspiracy for their whole lives? Or how about the origin of the universe - we had all the matter in the universe condensed into a single point, complete with laws that would lead to such interesting things as nuclear fusion, complex planetary orbits, and even pockets of life. Do you take it as a given that it's far more likely for that to have come out of nowhere than for a higher power to exist and have arranged it as such?
You're free to discount the evidence (though I'd be happy to debate it with you,) and dismiss the claims because it doesn't align with your experiences. But note that the idea that all this happened without God is as absurd to me as the existence of God is to you, and equally unsubstantiated.
No no a stick won't work, the invisible dragon is very small and agile and would easily dodge your stick. It only makes itself known when it wants to.
I feel the same about eyewitness accounts of miracles. Eyewitness testimony is not evidence. It could be a good place to start to investigate miraculous claims but that's all.
I'm not dismissing claims because it doesn't align with my experiences, but because there is no reliable evidence. In fact depending on the type of diety you propose I think many claims can be shown to be false because they a contradictory with reality.
I'd be interested to hear the evidence you have for sure. I'm open to changing my views. I'm not scholar but my understanding is that the best we have is a collection of anonymously written books which isn't enough for me to accept such a huge claim.
I don't know about the origin of the universe but I don't think anyone claims things came from nothing, we simply don't know what was before the big bang. Not knowing the answer to me isn't a good enough reason to assume a divine entity is responsible.
Eyewitness testimony isn't evidence, eh? Before I get too invested in this, I want to know what you do consider to be evidence. Suppose that, hypothetically, I run a study where I recruit 1000 people off the street. I tell them that at some point over the next 10 days, I'm going to pray for them to experience peace. For each person, I roll a 10 sided die to choose which day to pray on, do so, and record the result. Then at the end of the 10 days, I bring them all back and ask them to indicate on which day they felt the most peace. ~600 of them say the same day that I rolled for them, ~150 of them are one day off, and ~100 can't give an answer. If this were to happen (solely hypothetical, ignoring any arguments about whether God would play along for a study,) would that count as evidence?
Yes that would count as evidence but only if you modified your experiment slightly:
Don't tell anyone that you will pray for them.
Instead of personally praying for each person, give the list of participant names to someone you trust.
This person can then pray for a subset of the people listed on random days, recording the person they prayed for and the day.
You conduct interviews with the people as you suggested.
After you record the results of the interviews, you then look at the data from the person who prayed and see where things matched up. You can then observe if there are any statistically significant differences between those who were prayed for and those who were not
The reason this counts as evidence is because it's not eyewitness testimony, it's a controlled experiment which should be reproducible by anyone. By itself it doesn't prove anything but it would help to start building a body of evidence that prayer can work, or not depending on your results.
So if it doesn't meet the standards of a double blind study, it's worthless as evidence? What about case studies?
I get that double blind studies are superior because they combat bias, but sometimes double blind studies aren't what's been done. Other types of studies aren't invalid, you just have to take them with salt and consider alternative explanations - just as you do with a double blind study.
Case studies are similar in my mind to anecdotes or eyewitness testimony, an interesting starting point or indication that something might be worth digging into but not really evidence.
And yeah I suggested a double blind study because it has the most value for providing potential evidence although even that is no guarantee depending on the experiment design. It'd definitely be a good start though at the very least. You could do a non blind study but then the fact that it's non blind will be the first thing to come up and cast doubt on the results. If you want to provide solid evidence I don't think you would want to settle for less than that if you can avoid it.
FWIW I think there have already been studies done on prayer but they don't seem to be conclusive from what I could tell at least but hey, I'm not a scientist. You just asked what I'd consider evidence so hopefully this has helped answer that somewhat. Even with a double blind study though I think you would have some work ahead of you but you'd definitely have my interest!
Honestly, I'm getting flashbacks from old debates where people were really picky about evidence. If you don't mind a too-long backstory, read the next paragraph. Otherwise, skip it. Sorry for the amount of context needed.
There was a certain mobile app I played with an arena gamemode, where each player was part of a certain arena pool, and you could go up in the ranks by attacking others or go down by being attacked. I figured that, for each arena pool, there's a certain point of no interest, beyond which nobody would bother attacking you because they don't play that gamemode. As part of a debate on Reddit, I wanted to give a general indication of where this point was. To do this, I set my defense team to actual garbage (that anyone who unlocked the gamemode could stomp,) stopped doing offense, and recorded my arena ranking as it dropped. This went on for many weeks, and I published my results to Reddit, figuring that when it stops dropping, I'm probably somewhere near the point of no interest. The other guy refused to accept that it had any worth as an indication, though, because it was a sample size of one and too stochastic. We argued about it for... probably weeks, I can't remember.
Anyways, because of that argument, I'm cautious about dealing with internet debaters who have rigorous standards about what counts as evidence. I'm just a guy on the net, not a professional scientist, I don't have the energy to do research papers to convince one person of something they're probably not going to believe anyways. This thought especially comes up when I hear things like "if it doesn't meet the standard, it's worthless." Though looking back, it appears I put that word in your mouth, sorry.
To be honest, you're still setting off that red flag in the back of my mind, but unlike everyone it's been a problem with before, you seem pretty friendly about it (unless you're one of the people downvoting my every comment.) I'd be willing to talk about it, but it would have to be with the understanding that I don't have scientifically rigorous evidence because I'm not a scientifically rigorous professional. What I do have is personal experience about subtly yet distinctly answered prayers, paired with mental note-taking to ward off confirmation bias. I also have a couple anecdotes that work better as funny little stories than evidence. And I also have, as mentioned before, a line of reasoning showing that it's extraordinarily unlikely for the disciples to have been conspiring or hallucinating when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus, though I'd have to dig up my notes on that.
Yeah that's a totally fair point about the standard of evidence and a good one to bring up. The example you used is a good one too, personally for that kind of thing I would say my standard of evidence would be much lower because I would judge it to be more reasonable, I might not even need evidence at all there and just be willing to take your word for it unless I was particularly passionate about the game then what you provided would likely suffice to me.
I think in this case a good thing to consider might be what standard of evidence you would hope is used by the manufacturer of your car when it comes to the safety systems, materials etc as assuming you drive you place your life in the hands of your car often. Would you hope that the materials were thoughrouly researched, peer reviewed, iterated on and rigorously tested? I'd think so, at least I would. So why in the case of a divine entity potentially torturing you for eternity if you get it wrong would you be willing to accept anything less? What if you get it wrong, and you end up in the hell of some other deity?
I'm not biblical scholar or scientists by any means but my understanding is er actually do not have direct eyewitness accounts recorded for these things. We have second or third hand accounts, or claims that a certified number of people were witnesses but no independent statements from said witnesses beyond the one claim. Even with reliable eyewitness testimony that would not be enough for me to truly believe someone rose from the dead, I would need a lot more than that.
I'm definitely willing to read your notes though if you are willing to post but that's all I can promise. I try to be fairly open minded but I've layed out earlier what it would take to convince me that prayer works and even if that burden would be met, it wouldn't prove to me that a God exists. That I believe is fundamentally unprovable and undisprovable because of the nature of the claim, similar to claiming we are all living in a simulation. So I'll leave it up to you whether you want to spend the effort but I definitely appreciate the engagement. I have not been downvoting you either for what it's worth, I think we've had a good discussion even if neither of us changed our minds.
Sorry for the late reply, I've been too busy with school to set aside a block of time to address this yesterday.
I understand that you want a high standard for proof, and I agree that, if it's available, you definitely want the highest quality proof available before you make a commitment that's going to alter your life and eternal destiny. But if all you have is medium-low quality proof for a god and a "we can't be sure" for there being no god, it doesn't make strictly logical sense to default to no god. I know Pascal's wager isn't going to save souls, but if the risk of getting it wrong is being tortured by some other deity, then it's better to take n-1 risks of eternal torment than n risks, especially if the only evidence available points towards a god. For a mundane comparison, if you're in a burning building and a helicopter lowers a rope ladder to get you out, while the burden of proof would be on them to demonstrate that the ladder is strong enough to hold you, if all they can offer you is a "Billy said it should work," you're still better off taking the ladder (with a risk of falling back into the fire and dying) than staying in the fire and certainly burning to death.
If I were you, I would have made the case about life on Earth instead, because when it's about choosing your lifestyle, there's little risk of the ultimate bad time in the equation, so it makes more sense to be picky about the quality of evidence. You're not going to commit 10% of your income, half a day a week, and obligate yourself to study a book just for a "Billy said it's true."
If you do want to make the case about life on Earth, I'd be happy to meet you on that front, but I don't want to put words in your mouth and then immediately punch them back out without waiting for you to respond. I mean, I'm not planning on throwing punches anyways, I'm more just talking about fair debate principles.
It's historically confirmed that Jesus existed at least as a human. The disciples were, at least after Acts, prominent enough that if one of them made a statement that they never actually saw Jesus resurrected, word would have gotten around and been recorded somewhere. To me, that means there are one of three possibilities:
The disciples really saw Jesus resurrected. Impossible if God isn't real (unless time traveling aliens or something,) but we don't know that.
The disciples conspired to fabricate Jesus' resurrection. It doesn't seem far fetched for 11 people to make something up for clout. There are far more people than that who claim to have seen aliens. But there are three key differences here:
It was a singular event, and everyone present was in agreement. That puts it above most alien sightings, but not all. I'm sure somewhere a group of 20 alien fanatics got together to claim an alien sighting.
The disciples were prominent figures who were subject to investigation and much persecution, pressuring them to concede that Jesus was not the real deal for most of their lives. The scope of that far exceeds any other conspiracies I know about. 5 professional liars couldn't keep Watergate under wraps for even a few years.
Prior to the resurrection, the disciples believed that lying was a sin, and they continued to teach it afterwards. It's not out of the question that a few of them could have reasoned that getting the Gospel out was more important than telling the truth, but for all 11 of them to unanimously decide on that, and not one of them lets it slip in a moment of guilt at any time? These people weren't chosen for their commitment to the cause or their ability to keep a secret.
The disciples hallucinated Jesus' resurrection. It's a known phenomenon that sometimes happens to widows. The person I originally talked about this with told me that 30-60% of widows have this hallucination. I think that number looks a bit too high, but I took 60% for a generous estimate. For all 11 disciples to hallucinate Jesus' return would be 0.6^11 = 0.36% chance tops. Even if 60% is accurate, the chance would still be lower, because they'd all have to hallucinate him in the same place at the same time.
No worries, take your time to reply. I appreciate the detailed post. Let me get into it the best that I can to see if I can articulate my position on what you presented here.
I don't know if it's worth getting into Pascal's wager too deeply. If you're going to buy into that reasoning I think the logical thing to do is not to believe the bible, but to believe in the religion with the worst possible hell. Either way it's not a method for determining what's true or not.
I actually disagree with you when you say we have medium to poor quality evidence for a god and no evidence of no god. Once again it comes back to the burden of proof. We don't have evidence that there are no dragons, because that's not something you can prove and the burden is to provide evidence of the positive claim that there are dragons. I'd also like to clarify my position, I don't claim to know that there's no God, I actually don't make any claims as an atheist, I'm simply not convinced that there is a god because I don't think there is any evidence to warrant such a belief.
Hopefully that helps to clarify my stance a bit. Now as to why I don't find your reasoning there compelling, it seems like you are using the bible to prove the bible. Or in other words assuming the bible is true, and basing your arguments on that at least when it comes to the resurrection claims. As far as I'm aware and please do correct me if I'm wrong here, we don't have any first hand accounts from disciples of the resurrection, with the possible exception of Paul. The gospels themselves are anonymously written texts claiming that these people witnessed a resurrection, and I find it far more likely that they are inaccurate rather than someone rose from the dead and ascended to a heaven which requires quite a lot of assumptions.
To summarise, I believe you are missing another possibility which is that the bible itself is a fictional work even if some of the people may have existed historically, and as such does not count as a claim from the disciples of Jesus because they did not write it. To be honest I even think aliens is even a more plausible explanation anyway than a god existing, but I think what I outlined here is the much more likely explanation unless I'm mistaken in any of my assertions.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by making a case for life on Earth. Maybe it comes down to what I said in an earlier comment about some God's being logically inconsistent and therefore actually in a way disprovable because the claim is not internally consistent. Personally I believe the Christian god falls into that category along with any other claim of an all knowing, all loving and all powerful God. That said, I'm not claiming anything, simply rejecting the claim that a God exists which is why I didn't go down that line if reasoning.
As I said, I don't find the evidence to be satisfactory, in fact for me personally it's pretty far from satisfactory for such a huge claim but I'm also happy to dig more into my specific criticisms of why I don't think the Christian God is logically consistent if that's of interest to you.
Yeah, I agree Pascal's wager isn't a good way to frame your life. I was just using it as a counterpoint to your explanation on why the standards for proof are so high. If it is because you're trying to avoid the risks of a bad afterlife, you're already doing Pascal's wager, just with the wrong approach. The only way I can see that being the best approach is if you're actively evaluating all the known religions to weigh the odds of each against how bad their hells are. But then there also better be reason to suspect that the ideal religion might gatekeep you for having once been part of a different religion, yet not gatekeep you for having been an atheist or for going in with the motivation of Pascal's wager. Otherwise you might as well sign up with the best you know of right now and keep looking. But don't do that because the wager is not a good : )
When I mentioned life on Earth, I was referring to having high standards because it's going to affect your mortal life, rather than because of the risks of a bad afterlife. I think that's a more sensible approach because it doesn't require you to start from the assumption that an afterlife is possible, and the costs can be empirically measured instead of going off whatever the holy texts claim (outside of miracles, of course.) If the cost is 10% of your money and a day a week, then yeah, you probably want to be pretty sure before you commit, but if there are clear benefits, it might be worth it even without a rock-solid proof of a deity. Does that make sense?
Yes, I see what you mean about using the Bible to prove itself. I hadn't noticed that the earliest manuscripts of Mark's gospel didn't have the account of Jesus appearing to the disciples, so that raises the possibility that when Mark (or whomever wrote that) was collecting notes of the stories around Jesus to spin a narrative, he decided to fabricate the idea of Christ appearing to all 11 at once in order to make it seem more credible.
The gospel of Mark is believed by scholars to have been written around 65-73 AD^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible#Table_IV:_New_Testament], predating the other gospels, but it's not the first book of the New Testament to have been written. 1 Corinthians, which scholars are sure was written by Paul, is believed to have been written around 53-57 AD, and it explicitly says that Christ appeared to the twelve disciples^[https://www.bible.com/bible/111/1CO.15.5.NIV].
Now it's not exactly clear how many of the disciples were still alive by then, and at least one of them had died, but there were still some of them around. Seeing as they were still kicking, it wouldn't make sense for Paul to make up an eyewitness testimony on their behalf, and if he did, they would have heard about it. His letters weren't exactly kept secret. So even though we don't have a direct claim from the (probably illiterate) disciples that they saw Jesus resurrected, it's safe to conclude that they did make that claim.
EDIT: Though I suppose this brings up a fourth possibility (or fifth if you count aliens) that Paul was a chessmaster who made up the appearance to the twelve, and arranged to have any disciples who disagreed with his plan executed before he wrote about it... I think that's pretty far-fetched.
It's not necessary about how to frame my life. I just want to believe true things. If someone can make me believe in things that aren't true then they can limit my ability for self determination and making good decisions with my life. That's why a lot of our conversation has revolved around evidence and what would be a good enough standard of evidence to accept an extraordinary claim like someone rising from the dead after 3 days and ascending to a place called heaven which is supposedly a paradise.
I think the fundamental difference we have and why we seem to be reaching different conclusions is in his much stock we place in the bible. To me as a non believer it's just a collection of anonymously written stories. Maybe some of the characters in those stories are even real but I have no more reason to believe the extraordinary claims of the bible than the stories of King Arthur who may well have been a real king but I doubt be had a magical sword pulled from a stone.
I'm not saying everyone one should have the same standard of evidence but I hope I've at least managed to convince you that I am being quite reasonable in not accepting such an extraordinary claim. I definitely appreciate your willingness to engage and have an interesting discussion either way though.
Yeah, I understand where you're coming from, which is why I'm citing historical analysis of the Bible. Most scholars don't think King Arthur was real, and if he was, the stories weren't written when he was alive, so you can't put any stock in the story because no witnesses were around to verify nor dispute it. On the other hand, even if you believe the Bible is a book of myths, there are still historical facts that have been independently verified, like:
There was a guy named Jesus who got crucified^[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus]
The disciples were real people^[https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1qn6r4/are_there_any_historical_proof_that_all_12/]
Paul's letters (or at least most of them) were written by Paul while he and at least some of the disciples were still around^[As previously cited]
The early church was significant and persecuted^[Tacitus again]
Because the early church was significant and the disciples were real people, I conclude that they were famous.
Because they were famous, I conclude that if they said anything surprising, word would have gotten around.
Because Paul's letters were written while the disciples were around, and the disciples were famous, I conclude that if he said anything surprising about the disciples, they would have heard about it.
If the disciples heard a story about them that never happened, they would have confirmed it, denied it, or evaded the question.
If they confirmed a story, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true, but it does mean they wanted people to believe it's true.
If they denied a story, that would have been surprising, and word would have gotten around, so there would have been some mention somewhere.
If they evaded commenting on a story, that means they wanted people to believe it's true (and hints that it was untrue, but that part doesn't really matter for my purposes here.)
Thus, if Paul wrote something about the disciples while they were around, and there's no mention anywhere of them denying it, that indicates that the disciples wanted people to believe it's true.
Paul wrote about Jesus appearing to the disciples after resurrection, and there's no mention of them denying it. This doesn't necessarily mean that the resurrection was true, but it does mean that the disciples were at least complicit and refused to deny it even in the face of persecution. As for conclusions from there, see my earlier comment.
Is that line of thinking solid enough, depending on historically verified facts instead of taking the Bible as an accurate account at face value?
Also, something that bugged me about your earlier comment: You say you make no claim as to whether a god exists, you just aren't convinced. And you say there's no proof for a lack of a god. Yet you also said that you think aliens causing the resurrection (or appearance thereof) is more plausible than a god existing.
Aliens having the technology, knowledge, and motivation to cosplay as God is already highly unlikely, whether in a world with a real god or not. Jesus being the real deal is fairly likely if in a world with God, but impossible if in a world with no god.
So if you're telling me that Jesus being the real deal is less likely than aliens cosplaying God, that tells me you think there being no god is significantly more likely than God existing. In the absence of evidence in either direction, they should be treated as equally plausible (though not equally valid, as burden of proof is still a thing.) The fact that you don't tells me you actually do lean towards the lack of a god.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm definitely biased towards God existing. I'd just like you to introspect and examine your bias so you're aware of it. Though I'd also appreciate it if you adjusted your parameters and leaned a little more this way ; )
The King Arthur analogy was definitely not perfect, and to be totally clear, I'm willing to grant that Jesus was likely a real person and even his disciples and that he was crucified. I don't have a problem with those particular claims because they are fairly ordinary and I understand there is at least some evidence of Jesus which is about as good as you can get for a random carpenter that lived at that time (as opposed to an emperor or something who would have a lot more evidence).
My problem is solely with the claim that God exists and Jesus was resurrected. These are quite extraordinary claims I think you will agree, so I need a much higher standard of evidence. What you've presented here is not strictly evidence, but an assumption that because the claims weren't denied by the disciples specifically (as far as we know) that these extraordinary claims are likely true. I disagree, as I don't think that lack of recorded denials counts as evidence otherwise we might believe all kinds of things. To me it reads as a number of assumptions leading to an extraordinary conclusion.
In terms of the aliens being more plausible, my comment was a bit toungue in cheek and hyperbolic. May main point is they are more likely to exist in my mind because we already have examples of intelligent life. Sure they might not be interested in us but aliens by definition have alien motivations so who knows? It's at least possible but if someone made that claim I would also likely reject it due to lack of evidence.
I also have to disagree strongly with the idea that there are two unprovable hypothesis and therefore a 50/50 chance. The number of competing hypothesis doesn't mean they are equally strong and therefore equally likely. I could just as easily claim that, once again, there is an invisible dragon under your bed and given you can't provide evidence to disprove it and I can't provide evidence to prove it, we have to conclude it's a 50/50 chance which is clearly wrong.
You are correct though that I think the possibility of God existing is far far less than the possibility that there is no God. That's why I'm an atheist after all. Everyone has their own standards of evidence though and reasons for believing or not as I said before. It's ok for us to keep our respective positions but with more understanding of each other.
Makes sense. I guess I'm not so much demonstrating that the resurrection is true as that, if it's not true, the accounts surrounding it are still very extraordinary and probably worth looking into.
Not really though? Non-existence of anything is the default. Existence of something puts the burden of proof on whoever claims this something exists. "Quantum mechanics" is a bad example, it's a set of theories, not a single theory (like "a god exists"). Depending on what is being claimed, you can easily show people papers, such as this one which shows experimental observable proof of principles of quantum theory.
At one point, quantum mechanics didn't exist and wasn't generally accepted. Physicists like Heisenberg took upon them the burden of proof and provided it.
General acceptance is how it is treated since then, by non-physicists, but it is simply possible to follow the proof of it if you really wanted to. There are experiments that have been performed and that can be performed again that create observable evidence of the principles of quantum mechanics.
The burden of proof still lies on proponents of quantum mechanics. What you're talking about is more of a societal shortcut, accepting that the burden of proof has been verified by other people, not by yourself, as it's impossible to go deep enough into every subject to actually verify every proof you come across. That's why specialization exists.
The difference is that 99% of physicists confirm the proof of quantum mechanics. Specialists on religion are all very much divided on which god(s) or whether at all one exists, and no proof exists for any religious theories.
You should familiarize yourself with the concept called Burden of Proof. They (those who believe in God, and claim he exists and created all things, etc) are the ones where the burden lies. It is not for the rest of us to prove their beliefs for them, or you.
Careful, many online atheists don't understand that they have to prove a negative. That they have to prove the assertion: "There is no god."
The default position is that there is yet insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion.
Edit: Thank you for the downvotes, you have provided me with further evidence that online atheists don't understand that they have to prove a negative. Your butthurt fuels me.
The second one is wrong, there is no god is not a claim that requires evidence in the same way there are no fairies in my fridge doesn't require evidence
Otherwise a safety engineer can go to a regulator and say "There are no structural issues with this building." He is claiming there are no issues, he needs to back that up with evidence.
That's making a positive claim about a negative outcome. "There is enough evidence to be confident there aren't structural problems" is what they're really saying.
This doesn't work for god because there's nothing to check, there's never been any evidence for god, but there's been plenty of evidence for structural issues existing.
In that instance, the claim is "There is evidence of X problem"
They then provided the evidence of that problem and were ignored, the burden of proof was on the person making the claim that there was a problem, and there was a problem, they provided proof, and were ignored.
This has nothing in common with the previous scenario.
Let’s start with clarifying an element of the question:
Which characteristics define a god? Do these characteristics violate the laws of physics and/or internal logic? If these characteristics do not violate the laws of physics, then what aspects distinguish a god from a mundane or natural entity?
The default position is that we don't know if a specified thing exists. To prove or disprove it, you need evidence. I can prove that the Christian God doesn't exist, as it is logically impossible, but it's possible that some other version of a god might exist, I don't know. I don't have evidence either way.
Unless you claim, as OP did, that you can actually disprove it.
I agree that the Bible is not sufficient in the sense that it proves anything or sews up their arguments, but to suggest its historical value as evidence is the same as modern day fiction is absurd.
For example, omnipotence is a self-contradictory term, as you have a dilemma - if a being is all powerful enough to give itself limits, it is not omnipotent as it wouldn't be able to do the things it limited itself to do. Whereas if it can't self-impose limits, it's also not omnipotent as it isn't able to self-impose limits. Another example is that suffering exists in the world, which would be a contradiction if an all-powerful being that wanted to end suffering existed, since it should, but it isn't.
And these are just contradictions within God's character. If you want to look at the things he actually claims to have done, you'll find numerous more in the Bible. Just as one example, Jesus's last words are different in almost every gospel.
None of this is new or hasn't been thought about, written about and deflated for centuries. I doubt you have any theologians shaking in their boots.
The meaning of omnipotence as it translates to Good has always been nuanced. There have always been things God can't do - sin being the obvious example. You could debate whether he can, but just never would because of his character, but it amounts to the same thing and has been orthodoxy for centuries.
The apparent contradictions on the Gospels (especially synoptic) have been done to death. Debated and answered more times than you've had hot dinners. There is no serious theologian or biblical scholar who would hear that argument and be at all concerned by it.
Honestly the same applies to the idea of a good god and suffering.
And that's fair enough. Claiming you can definitively disprove the existence of the Christian God and having some objections that you haven't heard a convincing response to aren't the same thing though...
One of the countries I spend a lot of time, the police are amazing. There is no crime, so the police truly are just to assist. They don't carry weapons. They don't give out traffic tickets, it's all automated. They do give out directions, photo ops, perform ritual ceremonies, distribute free meals to anyone who wants one, give free workout sessions on the beach, give free sports training, lead free expeditions into nature, etc. It's a sense of community spirit that is their mission.
I'm sure there is a bad apple somewhere but every single one I've seen or interacted with has been pleasant to wonderful. I'm not even terrified to approach them as I am in the USA where I've almost been murdered twice by pigs.
Where I live they were systematically nice people that helped keep everybody safe. If they found some drunk/high person that needed help, they would drive them home. When we were teens and had beach parties, a couple of them would typically hang around somewhere out of the way, and only intervene if someone was being an asshole trying to start a fight (and they would tell people to pick up their glass bottles so kids wouldn't get hurt the next day). If we were otherwise hanging around they might chat to us and ask what was going on around the neighbourhood, and nobody had an issue telling them anything, because we knew they were just there to look after and help people.
Obviously, I can tell that my experience with police growing up is far from what can be expected a lot of other places. I really do wish more places had police like we did.
In Catholic school in the nineties and early 2000's, we were all told that the sex abuse scandal was serious but that it was also "a small number of incidents." That we needed to pray for the victims and the souls of the perpetrators.
Then I went to college. Come to find out not only was the child rape widespread, not only did the church actively hide monsters from legal scrutiny, not only was this all directly effecting the local arch diocese (not my school specifically, but church leaders were forced to quickly rename another high school when allegations against a dead bishop proved too numerous to ignore)... not only all that but that it's still going on, just not in first world countries with robust networks of journalists and legal systems. That an alleged pedophile was (while I was in college) living in the Vatican, being directly sheltered from extradition by South American authorities.
I guess the lie was that it was all over. That it was a small problem. That the church was a safe place people could turn to. I left the church at 18 over it, became an atheist by 19, and that's where I'm at now at 35.
You probably had the same damn book I did, with an illustration of him eating an orange and seeing the wings of a butterfly coming up over it and supposedly realizing they look just like the sails of a ship and so, gasp, the world must be round like this orange!
Nah even statistics is perfectly logical and right, but not because truth is absolute (there may be such a thing, but we definitely don't have access to it in that case. [At this time?]), but rather because math defined there to be a way in which all you derive from it is 'absolutely' true. It just might be 'absolutely' true in a system that isn't ours, or isn't useful for answering anything we want to ask...
That pulling levers in the basement furnace room wouldn't blow the house up. It wasn't until my 20s when it randomly popped into my head and I thought about it with my adult brain and was like "wait... Why would someone install something that would blow the house up?"
Not as such. But it also doesn't mean that it can't have catastrophic results.
Your water heater has an overpressure valve, but just one. A failure in that valve and a temperature regulator and you can have your hot water heater shooting up through your roof.
Your furnace has a control board. It turns the gas on, hits the igniter, watches for flame. An older, shittier designs, it was entirely possible for just one or two sensors to go bad and run the furnace to the point of melting down and have the house burned down. Source: happened to me on vacation many decades ago.
Because it was sponsored by grain industries. Similar to the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” and “milk is good for your bones!” myths.
The food pyramid is commonly taught in American schools as the “ideal” diet.
It was started as a sales tactic to boost grain sales, but was marketed as scientific research. And since this was started decades ago, you couldn’t simply google their sources to verify whether or not the studies were legit.
Turns out it’s a crock of shit, and teaching it to kids does make childhood obesity rates worse. Because of course it does, an excess of carbs is horrible for you.
Had to learn this pyramid but never applied it. I mean, what did people eat for millions of years? Grains, roots, vegetables and fruits from foraging and now and then a ton of flesh (you can count dairy as extra-fatty flesh). So a lot of full-grain, vegetables and inbetween fruits and once or twice the week flesh and dairy it is for me.
When I was a little kid, I asked my grandfather what the bumps in the middle of the road (the reflectors) were for. He told me that it was so blind people could drive. It made perfect sense to me, and I believed that for longer than I should have!
interesting, never thought of that before. Las Vegas Nevada (never snows there!) has excellent road infrastructure and these dots are everywhere. You can tell casino dollars and tax dollars are well used in Las Vegas. The roads are very nice.
Bott's dots -- first thing that came to mind was like Dippin' Dots
“Ignore them and they’ll go away” really is rubbish advice. But that’s of course not to say that the only other step is violence.
My oldest daughter didn’t have a great time in secondary school (UK, age 11-16) but through persistent discussions and alarm raising to the school, the bullies eventually got the message and left her alone. I’m happy to say she’s having a wonderful time in college now (UK, age 16-18).
Unfortunately that's a minority of cases. Most bullies in my experience, and especially those bullies that are themselves using physical violence, only respond to violence.
Don't meet violence with violence as your first option. But keep it on the table. It's a viable solution if nothing else works. Some people just don't respond to anything short of getting punched in the mouth, especially kids/teens with their brain chemistry fucked six ways to Sunday by puberty.
Don't meet violence with violence as your first option. But keep it on the table.
Something something “speak softly but carry a big stick.”
Basically, pacifism without the capacity for violence is simply inviting abuse. If you don’t have the capacity for violence, pacifism isn’t a choice; It’s being forced upon you as a tool of oppression. In order to be used effectively, it must be a choice, which requires the threat of violence if pacifism fails.
Yep, I had a bully in elementary school and my mom tried to work with the system of teachers, principal, admin, etc. for months, and nothing at all was ever done about it.
Finally when the bullying escalated to physical levels and started to impact my personality outside of school, my parents basically told me that while I might still get in trouble at school, they wouldn't be upset with me at home if I did decide to stand up to the kid. They stressed to me the fine line between standing up for yourself and becoming a bully yourself, and sent me on my way.
A few days later, my bully found me at lunch and started messing with me. Pushing over my stack of booking, taking some food off my tray...I didn't do anything until he tried to push me out of my seat then it was kind of blurry, but basically I just took a swing at him and knocked him back out of his seat and he hit his head against the wall and started crying.
I did get in some trouble at school but nothing too bad (especially once Mom was called in and she explained how if they tried to suspend me, she'd put them on blast for how they'd ignored the situation for so long), and that kid was nice as pie to me for the rest of our schooling.
In middle school, I had an incident where a kid a grade above me (he was held back, so he should've been a high schooler by this point and was HUGE) began to mess with me, unprompted, at the end of the day.
He stepped on my shoes as we walked, poked me, called me names, etc. When I turned around and called him a bitch and kept walking, he sucker punched me and ran. It was so bad I ended up in the emergency room with stitches.
Anyways, my parents were called and they threatened legal action. The school begged them not to, because they were "going to take care of it, we promise." Once we found out he was only suspended for a week, my parents got all the info they needed to press charges for assault. He ended up in juvie.
Looking back, it's a shame he ended up "in the system," but that's what he gets for being a bitch. Lol
My father pulled that "just ignore it" shit, too. Somehow it wasn't the bully's fault for attacking me, it was my fault for being such an entertaining target.