Arguments for God?

[Glennonite]

Yes, if by “historic fact,” you mean, “claimed in a few manuscripts liberally peppered with supernatural events and written decades – at the earliest – after the supposed events.”

To be clear, I’m not saying that there definitely was no Jesus – in fact, I think it likely that there was a person upon whom the legends were based – but I am saying that there is insufficient evidence to think that the Jesus depicted in the Gospels actually existed.

Or c) they were sincere in their beliefs and mistaken.

Or d) they were fictional parts of the Gospel legends, possibly based on real people

What about him? He never met Jesus – he just claims to have had some kind of “experience” on the Road to Damascus. People nowadays have all sorts of experiences – of Jesus, Krishna, Shiva, Buddha, and all kinds of other gods. They also have experiences of UFO abductions, seeing Bigfoot, etc. Many of these people are very sincere in their beliefs, but they are mistaken.

You can be sincere and still mistaken.

Very well said. A couple of outside sources really wouldn’t hurt. I mean, there are schools of thought that say:

Marco Polo was a literary invention.
Aristotle invented Plato and Socrates to illustrate philosophies that he, himself held, but latter changed.
Isaac Newton’s apple was a story to illustrate a concept.

The purpose of myth is to get a point across, not to describe actuality.

Glennonite

 

[samiam1611]

For Brenlae:

I do not know how an atheist or skeptic can reasonably deny this without getting into baseless assertions of conspiracy and fraud. But even if they can find some reasonable way to deny it, it can no longer be said that a person cannot rationally assent to the truth of Catholicism since any person can look at the data and reasonably conclude that it lends credibility to the claims of Christianity. So the charge of “irrational belief” is simply emptied of any power it may have had. And so, as far as I am concerned, my belief in Catholicism is rationally supported and true, and that atheists who withhold assent do so on psychological grounds, not reasonable ones.

That was for Brenlae, but may I respond?
From your first link:
doxazotheos.com/?page_id=96
“The more interesting question is whether belief in God can be rational or justified
i. What does it mean for a belief to be rational or justified?”

Take out the belief in God part, since we’re not allowed to go there, let’s make it say The …question is whether belief that Jesus was divine can be rational or justified.
And that leads to the question What does it mean for a belief to be rational or justified?

What I find interesting, and am baffled about, is how, on most subjects, we can agree on what is rational and justified; but when it comes to religious beliefs, we are so utterly divided on what is considered rational and justified.
In my time on this forum, I have been shocked at how people really do think their beliefs in magic and the supernatural are rational and justified - and they don’t just say it - they give examples that they believe is valid evidence that justify their beliefs. (Now, there are also those that admit that sometimes it comes down to faith, not reason.)
Using the Lord of the Rings example, I agree that it is rational to believe that the Lord of the Rings is a good movie and book if numerous people tell you so. We have different religious beliefs, but we both agree that that is a rational and justified conclusion, given the evidence. We could come up with numerous examples I’m sure.
Why do our standards for what is rational and what is justified differ so drastically when it comes to religious claims?

 

[danserr]

I agree that a number of independent eyewitness reports from a wide variety of people who do not share the same assumptions would be sufficient to confirm that something happened, perhaps something that looked like a “flying saucer.”

It would not be enough to confirm that aliens actually abducted my friend and brought him to Disney world.

In the case of the Gospels, you do not have independent eyewitnesses. You have a bunch of stories that came from a community of believers.

What makes you say this? What is your evidence? What makes you say that they were written later? If they were written later how do you know the stories did not originate earlier? (This is NT Wright’s belief, he accepts the accounts may have been written later, but says there is internal evidence the accounts themselves originated earlier).

Anytime you care to consider the evidence, you can go back to a previous discussion:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=549205

Alternately, one might read some NT Wright, or Carsten Peter Thiede, Eyewitnesses to Jesus, or his Jesus: Man or Myth

 

[danserr]

Very well said. A couple of outside sources really wouldn’t hurt. I mean, there are schools of thought that say:

Marco Polo was a literary invention.
Aristotle invented Plato and Socrates to illustrate philosophies that he, himself held, but latter changed.
Isaac Newton’s apple was a story to illustrate a concept.

The purpose of myth is to get a point across, not to describe actuality.

Glennonite

We have outside sources. Tacitus confirms follows of Jesus Chrestus being killed in Nero’s persecutions; while the Jewish Historians Josephus talks about Jesus and says “this man was the Messiah.” (Not “is” the messiah, which indicates, he was not a Christian. He believed that Jesus was a messiah, but that ended with his death.)

Those who think the gospels are legends fall into a small and radical minority today.

 

[Glennonite]

"

A 3 ‘O’ deity silly? Compare that to any of the regular series of attempts to justify existence without one. Then tell me God is technically more complicated!

Mystic banana is about whatever he’s in the mood to about, thankyouverymuch!!!

As usual, I like your way of thinking/explaination (re: the bulk of your last response).

I didn’t say the Abrahamic God was ‘silly’, just infinately (by definition) far from a simpler explaination.

My question was about the meaning behind your tag, not you personally; just curious if there was a story behind it.

Glennonite

 

[Windfish]

That was for Brenlae, but may I respond?
From your first link:
doxazotheos.com/?page_id=96
“The more interesting question is whether belief in God can be rational or justified
i. What does it mean for a belief to be rational or justified?”

Take out the belief in God part, since we’re not allowed to go there, let’s make it say The …question is whether belief that Jesus was divine can be rational or justified.
And that leads to the question What does it mean for a belief to be rational or justified?

What I find interesting, and am baffled about, is how, on most subjects, we can agree on what is rational and justified; but when it comes to religious beliefs, we are so utterly divided on what is considered rational and justified.
In my time on this forum, I have been shocked at how people really do think their beliefs in magic and the supernatural are rational and justified - and they don’t just say it - they give examples that they believe is valid evidence that justify their beliefs. (Now, there are also those that admit that sometimes it comes down to faith, not reason.)
Using the Lord of the Rings example, I agree that it is rational to believe that the Lord of the Rings is a good movie and book if numerous people tell you so. We have different religious beliefs, but we both agree that that is a rational and justified conclusion, given the evidence. We could come up with numerous examples I’m sure.
Why do our standards for what is rational and what is justified differ so drastically when it comes to religious claims?

No one in this forum believes in magic. That is a strawman.

But your question is easy to answer. Epistemological warrant (i.e., warranted belief) is shaped by our individual presuppositions. I imagine an atheist thinks the supernatural is so absurd that it is difficult for them to understand how any could believe in it - this is why atheists talk so much about fairies and leprechauns. But the basis for that incredulity is not rational. Rather, it is a psychological attachment to the presumption of methaphysical naturalism. That is a presumption that is so much a part of an atheists self-understanding and worldly-understanding that the supernatural is simply out of the realm of the possible. But that is a presumption us Catholics not only not share, but emphatically deny. And we do so on philosophical and historical grounds (i.e., miracles). I mean, take a look at the miraculous example I gave. Just one in thousands that have been well-attested and/or scientifically examined.

 

[samiam1611]

So, my friend the burden of proof falls on you as well. Since you are making an affermative statement, i.e. that your “sane and well-respected friend” is lying to you, while he has no apparent motive to do so.

Again, my not believing my friend is not the equivalent of claiming that he is lying.

All I’m saying is that I do not accept his claim. Whether he is lying or crazy or mistaken or stupid or confused or any combination of the above is a separate question, and I do not have to assert any of those claims in order not to accept his claim.

The burden of proof remains squarely on the person making the claim.

Right as always. I posted this quote not long ago but I’m going to do it again:
“If a man has failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God…”
If AntiTheist has failed to find a good reason for believing that his (her?) friend went to Disney World after being abducted by aliens, it is natural and rational that he should not believe it.
AntiTheist needs no proof whatsoever to deny the claim. Sure proof would be nice, maybe a picture taken of him at a toll booth that’s on the way there. But lack of proof for AntiTheist’s denial of the claim does not in any way make the claim more believable.

Without a doubt, the burden of proof of is on those making the supernatural claims. Which brings me back to my question of how on earth does the available evidence meet your (y’all’s) burden of proof bc it soooo does not for me.

 

[rick43235]

For what it’s worth, I’ve considered starting a blog that would function as a sort of “Best of AntiTheist Posts” collection.

Oh wow!!! Go for it. I’d subscribe to that blog.

 

[samiam1611]

No one in this forum believes in magic. That is a strawman.

But your question is easy to answer. Epistemological warrant (i.e., warranted belief) is shaped by our individual presuppositions. I imagine an atheist thinks the supernatural is so absurd that it is difficult for them to understand how any could believe in it - this is why atheists talk so much about fairies and leprechauns. But the basis for that incredulity is not rational. Rather, it is a psychological attachment to the presumption of methaphysical naturalism. That is a presumption that is so much a part of an atheists self-understanding and worldly-understanding that the supernatural is simply out of the realm of the possible. But that is a presumption us Catholics not only not share, but emphatically deny. And we do so on philosophical and historical grounds (i.e., miracles). I mean, take a look at the miraculous example I gave. Just one in thousands that have been well-attested and/or scientifically examined.

I’d like to talk about this! PLEASE explain to me why to you, supernatural is in the realm of possible, but you do not believe in fairies or leprechauns. (I am assuming.)

 

[samiam1611]

Which brings me back to my question of how on earth does the available evidence meet your (y’all’s) burden of proof bc it soooo does not for me.

Oh I just realized you answered it while I was typing that. Nevermind.

 

[Windfish]

I’d like to talk about this! PLEASE explain to me why to you, supernatural is in the realm of possible, but you do not believe in fairies or leprechauns. (I am assuming.)

I am not sure what you are asking. We do not believe in fairies or leprechauns because, among other things, they do not exist. We believe in the supernatural because reason proves the existence of God without a doubt, because reason shows materialism to be false, and because historical precedent (i.e., miracles) shows the supernatural to exist.

 

[samiam1611]

I am not sure what you are asking. We do not believe in fairies or leprechauns because, among other things, they do not exist. We believe in the supernatural because reason proves the existence of God without a doubt, because reason shows materialism to be false, and because historical precedent (i.e., miracles) shows the supernatural to exist.

Yeah I was about to delete that post cuz it was dumb.

 

[danserr]

I’d like to talk about this! PLEASE explain to me why to you, supernatural is in the realm of possible, but you do not believe in fairies or leprechauns. (I am assuming.)

because there is evidence for the supernatural, ie. fine-tuning of the universe for life, philosophical and scientific evidence for the origins of the universe, the explanation of why something exists rather than nothing, the existence of objective moral values and duties. The Philosopher Alvin Plantinga recently listed 2 dozen or so reasons, philofreligion.homestead.com/files/Theisticarguments.html

On the other hand, I have no evidence for the existence of leprechauns, though if you want to provide some, I will be happy to consider it.

 

[authenticity]

I neither have “faith” that they were mistaken, nor do I attempt to “prove” it.

I’m not the one with the burden of proof here.

I’m guessing you are talking about proof that God exists. God is being. You can not prove God exists in an empirical sense because one cannot compare being to non-being. Being is all knowing because it includes all things. Being is omnipresent, a thing existing outside of existence is a self-negation. Being is all-powerful because all causality rests upon existence itself.

We cannot comprehend being, only the order of forms that proceed from being, which is the Logos or objective Truth or Reason. So when we talk about something being true or false, it is on the basis of comparison to objective Truth.

We cannot say that anything is true in an absolute sense. However, we know that there is Truth because it is the basis for any inference about what is true. That is what faith is: the recognition that there is an objective Truth even though there is no empirical proof of it’s existence.

And this isn’t some new explanation, it goes back throughout Christian history prior to faith being divorced from philosophy (and particularly before the introduction of Aristotle in my opinion).

This is the problem, prevalent since the Enlightenment, is the denial of absolute Truth as the basis of all relative truths. In other words, “man is the measure of all things” instead of God being the measure to whom we compare and contrast.

The person claiming that the events actually happened – with all the magic and bells and whistles – has to provide sufficient evidence, and, as I’ve demonstrated, eyewitness testimony by itself is not sufficient to confirm magic. [And, of course, the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses]

And the Bible was not written as an empirical proof that the events happened. It is written as a manual for theosis-- the deification of man-- and much like you couldn’t do more than regular maintenance based on your car manual, you couldn’t very well understand how to commune with God just by reading the Bible.

Catholic Christianity is a sacramental religion. That means that simple physical actions and objects have a metaphorical purpose in a person’s sanctification. The Bible is a reference for the sacraments–the means of salvation–and taken out of that context, the Bible is meaningless.

You have to understand that this is not a standard of proof that I hold only for the Gospels – I hold the same standard of evidence for any supernatural claim. That’s why all the “eyewitness testimony” of ghosts, aliens, bigfoot, and the like will never be enough to convince me.

There is a difference between superstition and faith. Within the context of sanctification, all beliefs within the Church make reasonable sense. Superstition doesn’t make sense in any context.

Some people – you, for example – jump at ghost stories as some kind of “evidence” that “the truth is out there,” but the rest of us understand that they are quaint tales that are more at home in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I don’t know who you are talking to, but there is plenty of empirical evidence that most atheists are atheists for the sake of being pompous jerks. The burden of proof is on you for that one.

 

[samiam1611]

I am not sure what you are asking. We do not believe in fairies or leprechauns because, among other things, they do not exist. We believe in the supernatural because reason proves the existence of God without a doubt, because reason shows materialism to be false, and because historical precedent (i.e., miracles) shows the supernatural to exist.

Well it was dumb, but I am glad I didn’t delete it before you responded bc I’d like to comment on your response.

We do not believe in fairies or leprechauns because, among other things, they do not exist.

People have believed in fairies for millenia - pre-Christianity. Especially ancient Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic cultures. You can’t say they do not exist. Tons and tons of people believed in them. (Some still do - Feri Tradition and Fairy Wicca) You have not seen evidence or proof that fairies exist. You deny the claim that fairies exist. That’s quite rational given that there is no proof that they do. BUT YOU CAN’T SAY THEY DON’T EXIST SO ASSUREDLY. All you can do is doubt it. Have you even looked for evidence that they exist? (Since it’s not a common belief anymore, you may not be aware of the evidence that the believers use to justify their beliefs.) For all you know, fairies DO exist, they just haven’t shown themselves to you yet!!! (Like how some people want God to show Himself to them bc their certainty is shaky)
If historical precedence plays a significant role in your belief in Jesus’s divinity, you should be equally open to the possibility that fairies exist since they have been believed in a lot longer than Jesus (who couldn’t help when he was born) so let’s say they have been believed in for longer than the Abrahamic God. I assume that the historical belief in fairies means nothing to you in regards to convinving you of their existence. Therefore, historial belief should mean nothing to you in regards to convincing you that Jesus was divine/had supernatural powers/performed miracles. (If you tell me that you were unaware that people truly believe in fairies, and will change your outright denial to doubt, then I will “allow” you to use historical precedence as a valid reason to believe what you do. By allow, I mean acknowledge that historical precedence is a valid reason to form a belief from. If you don’t do that, then nope, sorry, you can’t use that as justification for your beliefs.)
The other things you said I could comment on but I have to go now so maybe later if I feel like it.

p.s. I don’t believe in fairies, but I like them, so glad you brought that up! My dog is wearing a fairy costume in the picture below. You can’t really tell from that angle though.

 

[Glennonite]

"

Those who think the gospels are legends fall into a small and radical minority today.

"

Thanks, I’ll verify. BTW being small and a minority doesn’t affect the truth of a stance. Radical isn’t necessarily wrong either. Be nice.

Glennonite

 

[samiam1611]

oh yeah, and get this - some Christians DO believe in fairies!
A third belief held that they were a class of “demoted” angels.[22] One popular story held that when the angels revolted, God ordered the gates shut; those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became devils, and those caught in between became fairies.[23] Others held that they had been thrown out of heaven, not being good enough, but they were not evil enough for hell.[24] This may explain the tradition that they had to pay a “teind” or tithe to Hell. As fallen angels, though not quite devils, they could be seen as subject of the Devil

I guess it probably wasn’t Catholics though that believed that. Still. If you believe in angels, which there is no proof for, why stop there? Why not believe in fairies, if you don’t need proof to believe something?

I know I know! Because it’s make believe! It’s myth! Fantasy! All of it.

 

[samiam1611]

Ugh, I hate how I dis others’ beliefs as if they cannot possibly be true but I can’t prove it either so I shouldn’t be making my statements with certainty either

As much as I hate to admit it, it is my opinion that it’s all myth and fantasy. Ahhh so hard to say that! I give you a teeny tiny chance to be right even though I feel 100% certain in my heart.

 

[Windfish]

The concept of belief is not always the same as the Christian concept of belief. An example would be modern day Satanists. They do not really believe in Satan as an entity that exists - rather, their “belief” in Satan is really a linguistic and literary abstraction for concepts they honor such as “freedom” and “individualism.” Of course, some Satanists really do believe in the existence of the devil, but they are in the minority. What I am trying to get at it is that the concept of belief outside the monotheistic religions is typically more fluid. So if we find folklore about leprechauns and fairies as we go back in time, there really is no justified inference to say that those peoples really did believe in their existence.

But all of that is beside the point. Absence of evidence for X is evidence of absence for X if we should expect evidence for X or expect more evidence than we have for X. So if there was an elephant in my room, I should expect all kinds of evidence for its presence - its intruding mass and so forth. But there is no such evidence. Under your view, samiam1611, I would only be reasonable in doubting its existence in my room:

You:

BUT YOU CAN’T SAY THEY DON’T EXIST SO ASSUREDLY. All you can do is doubt it.

Why can’t I say, assuredly, there is no elephant in my room? Under your view, all I can do is doubt it. But that’s not right. Using the principle I wrote above, we can say that the absence of evidence for the elephant in my room really is evidence of absence.

We can say the same for fairies if they are creatures like elephants.

 

[samiam1611]

Elephants are not like fairies. Elephants aren’t supernatural. Also, they’re really big. It is easy to prove, without a doubt, if there is or is not an elephant in your room bc elephants are made of matter. If there is no evidence of an elephant in your room, then there is not an elephant in your room. The same can’t be said about fairies or you-know-Who. As AntiTheist said, the *nature * of the claim changes what the burden of proof is.