Atheists delusional?

[IWantGod]

Not irrelevant, they were willing to die for the idea of this person’s teachings and claims.

Jesus wasn’t existing in a vacuum. He was a jew living within the religious culture of Jews. People followed him because he proved to them in particular that he was the son of God, the messiah, and for no other reason. Without that fact, Christianity would not exist. Only Judaism would exist.

Like i said, you are better off believing that Jesus did not exist.

 

[Russell_SA]

Then have him prove it again. Using books to carry the most important message in the universe is really irresponsible since languages change, translations change, texts get left out and new texts get added, etc. Because we can’t tell the difference between myths, legends, fables, historical fiction, and reality without testing these claims today. This deity has the power to reveal itself to me like it did to all his poker buddies. Well that’s a start. But it’s still not doing it. If it’s not revealing itself to me because the condition of that reveal is that I have to worship it or have a relationship with it, then it is not giving me the option to learn more about it and assess the situation properly for me to change my mind. Hard to change my position if I am not given enough evidence to change my mind. Do I really come across as not asking for that evidence? That I would not change my mind based on what reality has presented?

 

[IWantGod]

Then have him prove it again.

There is no need, you just have to use your brain.

Like i said. Jesus wasn’t existing in a vacuum. He was a jew living within the religious culture of Jews. People followed him because he proved to them in particular that he was the son of God, the messiah, and for no other reason. Without that fact, Christianity would not exist. Only Judaism would exist.

 

[KindredSoul]

Your data that you accept as evidence of the supernatural, is not actually evidence to everyone else.

Okay. As long as you know the “What you think counts as evidence isn’t the same as what everybody else thinks counts” goes both ways, that’s just stating the obvious. It proves nothing about which of us is right or wrong, anymore than saying “Well, Theists believe in God, and Atheists don’t” but okay.

Hearsay is not evidence, otherwise the hearsay of a comic character validates that comic character’s existence.

If you’re saying the eyewitness testimony of real life historical people counts for no more or even barely more than the word of fictional characters, then…I’ll just leave you to that. Once you reach a certain level of fundamental difference in what the two sides find logical or admissible as valid reasons to bolster a belief, I’m not even sure how there can be a productive conversation. And equating the value of eyewitness testimony of real life historical people to the value of the dialogue of known fictional characters has almost certainly crossed that line, for me.

 

[Russell_SA]

I have, it’s taken me to this point. I’ve learned enough to know what I can justify and what I can not justify as belief. Your deity should know this and know what approach would work for me and is still choosing to not do anything.

 

[IWantGod]

I have,

I disagree. So lets just agree to disagree.

 

[Russell_SA]

That’s because your historical character has magical powers. I could be on board with a failed carpenter going around with his poker buddies talking about how to live the good life. Just like there is no direct historical evidence of Plato, but I’m fine with the idea that Plato probably actually existed. He was just a man. You’re the one making the man a superhero.
My evidence is demonstrateable and the models can be falsified. Your magic claims can not.

 

[Russell_SA]

Sounds good - Hope your weekend went well and all the family are doing fine.

 

[IWantGod]

Same to you.

 

[KindredSoul]

That’s because your historical character has magical powers. I could be on board with a failed carpenter going around with his poker buddies talking about how to live the good life. Just like there is no direct historical evidence of Plato, but I’m fine with the idea that Plato probably actually existed. He was just a man. You’re the one making the man a superhero.

Okay. I did not “make” Him a superhero, as if I came up with this myself like Rowling writing a Harry Potter novel, but at any rate I disagree that any of this makes real life historical eyewitness testimonies (not even of the man Himself, but the people who claimed to SEE His miracles) merely equivalent, or even close to merely equivalent, in rational value to comic book dialogue, but as I said, I don’t think we can get anywhere once we disagree on that basic a point. Like IWantGod, we just have to disagree.

At any rate, I’m sorry and I do regret if at any point I’ve said anything that was rude or overly sharp. By the way, I think I saw a cake on your profile yesterday? If that means you had a birthday, then I hope you had a happy one. Meant to say that yesterday, believe it or not, but didn’t get around to it. Have a good rest of your day.

 

[pocaracas]

Like i said you have to ignore the implications of his actions and his impact on the culture in those times to even get anything close to the idea of Christianity being based upon a “normal man”.

Had none of the things that is said of him been true, it makes no sense that there is a religion based upon a man hanging on a cross. Even less sense that people risked their lives to pass on this information.

It’s hardly something that some human ego would come up with.

You are assuming that the whole narrative accurately represents the events that took place.
Perhaps it does and Christianity is absolutely right.
Perhaps it doesn’t, and reality turns out to be more complex than the tale.

You say he was a Jew, but never mention what kind of Jew. There seem to have been a few Jewish sects in the region, so it would make sense that the man would belong to one of them, por would have belonged, but had slightly different ideas and left on his own.
When you read the Jefferson bible, you can get the impression that he was a man that knew his Jewish heritage, but also cared for the common folk. He comes off as a teacher, a master.

There were tales of another teacher floating around in the region, if we are to believe some Dead Sea Scrolls. A teacher that came some 2 centuries before… A teacher that led a community of people who would shed their wealth in favor of the poor… A teacher that was expected to return from the dead.
And this community of Jews seems to have a few conceptual commonalities with John the Baptist and then with Jesus.

It is conceivable, though impossible to prove, that the tales of these two teachers became conflated into one character.
It is conceivable that the crucifixion was added to Jesus’ tale, based on many crucifixions that the Romans must have done.

I say this on top of the likely scenario in which most of first century believers only heard the tales.
It also helps to account for extra popular acceptance of the story, as it builds up on a pre existing tale, one that the common folk would be familiar with, but its old age by the first century would have made its details somewhat sketchy in the minds of the people.

And then there’s the total absence of this community of Jews from the Christian texts. Could these have just been similar enough not to warrant any conversion effort? Could they have been the original Christians and wanted to cast aside their previous affiliation with the other teacher?

Who knows?..

 

[gregoryphealy]

If god ever convinced anyone, then he could surely do it again… and again… and again… and again… to every single human being.

Instead, we get the same tactic employed by every other religion: You said it “Catholic theology”.

To be convinced you have to be willing to be swayed. A vehement flat-earther will not believe you regardless of the evidence you provide. The same can be said of God. If you don’t wish to be swayed, that’s your prerogative.

The same free will can be said to exist for any other religion, too…

If Catholicism is the real and true one, why does it keep copying the other unreal and untrue ones?!

If I’m reading you correctly, in order for a religion to be “real” and “true” it must not share any elements with any other religions? Whew, well good luck with that.

Where there is vacuum, or nothing (as in no matter and no energy), something can indeed crop up from the fabric of space-time.

And the origins of the fabric of space-time are…? Why does the space-time fabric have the set of natural laws (such as conservation of energy) that govern us? Why not another set of natural laws? No matter the proposal of natural realm origins, there will be the persistent question of “what caused that?” And that cause, cannot exist within space-time, and that cause can also not have a preceding cause.

 

[pocaracas]

To be convinced you have to be willing to be swayed. A vehement flat-earther will not believe you regardless of the evidence you provide. The same can be said of God. If you don’t wish to be swayed, that’s your prerogative.

True, but if you have a recurring character… recurring throughout your own life, ever since you are very young, until you die, and everyone else around you confirms that the same character also visits them in a periodic manner, then you will take it for granted.
No swaying necessary.

If I’m reading you correctly, in order for a religion to be “real” and “true” it must not share any elements with any other religions? Whew, well good luck with that.

Not the important aspects, like this one.

And the origins of the fabric of space-time are…?

The origin of space-time… How do you expect such a thing to happen?
Space-time is the framework upon which everything else exists and happens.

Why does the space-time fabric have the set of natural laws (such as conservation of energy) that govern us? Why not another set of natural laws?

Why?.. why why why! Why or how?
“Why” implies a rationale behind the rest of the question. I don’t think there’s any rationale behind space-time. It just is.

No matter the proposal of natural realm origins, there will be the persistent question of “what caused that?” And that cause, cannot exist within space-time, and that cause can also not have a preceding cause.

Let me tell you something that will blow your mind: space-time does not exist within space-time. Space-time is just space-time.
Everything we know of - matter and energy - exists within space-time and is bound by space-time. Think of it like the stage where the play of the cosmos plays out.

 

[gregoryphealy]

Just to demonstrate that it is different from an imagined deity. Just show that it exists at all first.

I would argue that the fact that you exist and have a unique consciousness is evidence in and of itself that we’re not the result of happenstance. You’d, supposedly, disagree. I believe we possess intellects by which we can deduce the existence of a god (although our knowledge of what that god is will always be imperfect).

Also belief is not a choice as I understand it.

Maybe, maybe not. I haven’t really thought about it. But our convictions and unwillingness to have our beliefs changed can certainly preclude it from being a choice.

You can be irritated that this is what reality presents and keep looking for ways to disprove it, like the religious with evolution,

Maybe the evangelicals disavow evolution, but Catholics do not explicitly do so.

Enough evidence for me to conclude/belief that it exists.

As i said above, my existence was enough for me to question the atheistic, naturalist philosophies. While it doesn’t necessarily entail the Catholic God, it does entail, at a minimum, an uncaused cause, which comports with the notion that the Church Fathers set forth as “God”. It may not be sufficient to convince you, and that’s been the point I’ve been attempting to convey. At what point does it become incumbent upon the believer/disbeliever to bear responsibility for their decision? And why is your arbitrary line at some undefined incontrovertible evidence the bar which must be met?

No, because we have evidence of other elements, we have evidence of reality.

The keyword in my sentence was “undiscovered”. It may exist, but we have no knowledge of what it is.

 

[gregoryphealy]

We have no evidence of the supernatural.

Yes intellects exist in a biological mind and computer programs it seems.
Yes we have evidence of causes because the events that lead from A to B is what we have labeled as “causes”.

You’re taking abstract concepts and applying a materialistic rationale to justify its existence in a concrete manner. Things you might attribute to an intellect (like brain activity) are not the intellect itself. To take a page from Aristotle, those are particulars (or at least tightly linked to them), and the intellect is a universal. Universals are not discrete things existing within nature. Particulars are substances that exist in their own right. Goodness and love (the universals) are not to be conflated with acts of goodness and love (the particulars). This is why concepts like dualism are gaining traction among atheist circles. As for computer programs, they’re doing exactly as we have programmed them to do.

I can understand how that is logically correct, but I don’t know if that is a true representation of what reality is…
Reality is my measurement of what is logical or not

I’m kinda lost here.

No, we are not on board with calling it god since it has additional baggage as well. We can be on board with calling it, “I don’t know”.

Well, sure. Call it Oogaboogaboinga if that suits you. If by “additional baggage” you mean stuff associated with Catholic doctrine, sure, we don’t have to get into that. But if you were to hypothetically say there were an uncaused cause, your next step would be to assess its characteristics (or those which it does not possess).

 

[gregoryphealy]

“Why” implies a rationale behind the rest of the question. I don’t think there’s any rationale behind space-time. It just is.

You’ve arbitrarily selected a point at which scientific inquisition should end, have you not? Why should I believe that “it just is”. That seems like the kind of argument a religious person would make for their god.

 

[IWantGod]

There were tales of another teacher floating around in the region, if we are to believe some Dead Sea Scrolls. A teacher that came some 2 centuries before… A teacher that led a community of people who would shed their wealth in favor of the poor… A teacher that was expected to return from the dead.

And this community of Jews seems to have a few conceptual commonalities with John the Baptist and then with Jesus.

And i guess there were many people claiming to be the messiah i’m sure. The problem is no jew believed them. That’s why there is not many religions with different messiah’s rooted in Judaism…

Nothing you are saying explains why Christianity would exist. It’s existence makes no sense unless it was founded upon a real person who claimed to be the son of God and died on the cross…

 

[straykat]

The fact that atheists even come to this place tells me how delusional they are. Or talks to Christians at all, for that matter.

 

[pocaracas]

You’ve arbitrarily selected a point at which scientific inquisition should end, have you not? Why should I believe that “it just is”. That seems like the kind of argument a religious person would make for their god.

Well then… I shall begin the religion of space-time!
No worshiping required, for space-time just is.
No praying, for space-time cares not.

Do remember that I was suggesting the idea that the first cause was space-time. Given such a concept, how could I expect science to go past it?

And i guess there were many people claiming to be the messiah i’m sure. The problem is no jew believed them. That’s why there is not many religions with different messiah’s rooted in Judaism…

Perhaps there were many… perhaps only a handful.
And perhaps some jews believed in some of those and disbelieved others.
But it seems those never caught on.

Nothing you are saying explains why Christianity would exist. It’s existence makes no sense unless it was founded upon a real person who claimed to be the son of God and died on the cross…

You know as well as I that Christianity owes most of its existence to Paul who came a bit late to the party.

 

[IWantGod]

You know as well as I that Christianity owes most of its existence to Paul who came a bit late to the party.

Are you suggesting that Paul made up Jesus, and convinced people to give their lives for him? if not, you should drop that line of reasoning, because it’s irrelevant what influence Paul had on the rise Christianity. Paul certainly had a theological impact, but he is not the root cause of Christianity.