Atheists delusional?

[pocaracas]

The line of reasoning sees a big picture and not only that one detail.

There likely was a good man who probably had his life cut short… not necessarily by crucifixion, but it’s nice to use one of the most excruciating killing methods of the time to make the tale more extraordinary, huh?
Paul then came along and turned a few lose ends into a religion.
Possibly, those other messiahs never had a Paul to advertise for them.

Speaking of Paul, it’s interesting to look at a map and see how the road to Damascus passes very close to where the Dead Sea scrolls were found…

 

[IWantGod]

There likely was a good man who probably had his life cut short…

Because he claimed to be the son of God. He was either a liar or he was telling the truth. It seems absurd to me that he was a liar because of the impact he had on Jewish people within the context of Judaism as a religion.

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

There likely was a good man who probably had his life cut short…

Because he claimed to be the son of God.

That is indeed the official story.
I’m unconvinced.

He was either a liar or or he was telling the truth. It seems absurd to me that he was a liar because of the impact he had on Jewish people within the context of Judaism as a religion.

Or maybe he meant it metaphorically… god is viewed (and was already viewed back then) as a fatherly figure.
But the writers of the story gave it a slight literalistic bend… and Paul sealed the deal.

Yahweh, as it seems, was, at some point consort to Asherah… who was also consort of another father god: Anu. So I don’t find it strange that such a “son of god” claim was indeed meant metaphorically… and it should have been used by many people in the region.

Wasn’t the main thing against Jesus the fact that he was claimed to be king of the Jews?

 

[IWantGod]

Or maybe he meant it metaphorically…

And that’s why he was killed? And that’s why a religion was erected in glory of him by Jews because he never really mean’t he was God it was just a metaphor.?. The thing is you have to assert that somewhere along the line somebody is lying. But when placed with the context of strict Judaism it doesn’t make sense why any Jew would believe he was the son of God or risk becoming outcasts for that idea. The existence of Christianity does not make sense if what your saying is true.

 

[Russell_SA]

Nothing rude or overly sharp. Any response to rudeness with rudeness would be absurd for me to get irritated over. Hope your week is going well and you find time to get out and enjoy the day. Or just stay in and watch the Princess Bride. Greatest movie ever.

 

[Russell_SA]

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 do agree we are the results of directed evolution. Just like physics can create a beaver dam and a snow flake and other complicated items, so are we. Just this is all we can justify at this point for the explanation for how we were evolved. There is zero data for a mind external of a brain that is directing anything, so I don’t see how it is reasonable to even suggest this.
Douglas Adams - “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”

But our convictions and unwillingness to have our beliefs changed can certainly preclude it from being a choice.

Our convictions about believe is based on the level of evidence supporting that conclusion. Like the level of belief in the Theory of Gravity vs belief in magic. We have enormous amounts of data on gravity found in reality and only have magic coming from our imagination. Magic has not been demonstrated to be part of our reality at all so far.

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”.

Why couldn’t it be universe creating pixies? They match this requirement as well. When a universe is created, they self annihilate and create a universe.

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

We have predictive models of undiscovered reality based on references of already discovered reality. Just like you can see a pattern of atomic particles and how they combine their subatomic particles, so you can predict that other undiscovered atoms should occur again based on what you know now. We have no data on the supernatural at all. You can not make predictions on zero data to start with to make a model to predict future discoveries of zero data.

 

[Russell_SA]

You’re taking abstract concepts and applying a materialistic rationale to justify its existence in a concrete manner.

I’m kinda lost here too.

I’m kinda lost here

Ok, you logically conclude X, then you test your logical conclusion in an experiment that spits out a result Y. Which one are you going to go with? X or Y? I go with Y since it is reality that justifies our logic. The other way around is to define X into existence which is not possible.

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).

Sure I can follow a logical path, but if we can not falsify it, then it’s just an idea to me that’s up on the board with other ideas. But if the path takes us out of the known possibilities of our experienced reality, then I have to stop because how do we know if our logic applies in this new area of reality at all. Like in a place without time, how can you have thought? thought is necessarily linear. What does it mean to exists in negative time or zero time? These become problems to the logic, so I just don’t go any further than that.

 

[Russell_SA]

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

This sounds like a snarky remark to the religious by implying that atheists are delusional for even engaging the religious by implying a conversation with the religious is delusional by definition. I disagree. Our beliefs shape our actions. So if someone believes in prayer healing, they will harm their children and other loved ones. If someone believes the ever after is more important than this life here, then they may not care for the well being of this planet and the development of civil society. If someone believes in the divine command theory instead of being taught how to think, then we will still be fighting for minority rights of women, LGBT, poor, children, etc. They can’t keep it to themselves. Also within every Abrahamic religion there is a death wish for this world to end. For the rapture and armageddon to take place and end this stage of the deity’s experiment of buggering around with people. Now that we have thermo-nuclear weapons, we have the power to make this happen and I don’t want that power in the hands of people with a world view that has this as part of its identity.

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

Or maybe he meant it metaphorically…

And that’s why he was killed? And that’s why a religion was erected in glory of him by Jews because he never really mean’t he was God it was just a metaphor.?. The thing is you have to assert that somewhere along the line somebody is lying. But when placed with the context of strict Judaism it doesn’t make sense why any Jew would believe he was the son of God or risk becoming outcasts for that idea. The existence of Christianity does not make sense if what your saying is true.

Oh wait… wasn’t he killed because he destroyed the Temple money changers’ workplaces?

The belief that the man resurrected and was the son of god came well after, if I remember correctly.

 

[IWantGod]

Abrahamic religion there is a death wish for this world to end.

That’s laughable. If metaphysical naturalism is true, then we are going to cease to exist. What is it exactly that we are trying to maintain here? Why are we doing this? These things that you find so important don’t actually mean anything if you are going to deny that people have objective moral value. It means something to you subjectively speaking, but if you are driven by your emotions to speak out then you are most certainly being irrational if you think that people ought to care because of how you feel.

Don’t you agree?

. .

 

[IWantGod]

Oh wait… wasn’t he killed because he destroyed the Temple money changers’ workplaces?

You are just making things up now, the very same thing you are accusing Christianity of being.
That still doesn’t explain why Jews thought he was the messiah and why a religion exists depicting a man hanging on a cross.

If you are honestly going to approach the origins of Christianity you have to accept that it is rooted in the context of Judaism as a religion and is also rooted in real experiences. If Jesus existed, that means that the Jews of his time followed him because of who they thought he was, and he was killed because of the claims made about him by those who witnessed him. He was a threat to powerful people; that’s why he was killed. But he could not have became such a threat without the support of the Jewish people within the context of their religious beliefs. It is only possible if he had first convinced people he was the messiah and the son of God, fulfilling a prophesy. If he were just an ordinary man, who didn’t claim to be anything more than a poor carpenter, who didn’t perform miracles, and was just a charismatic teacher, it would not make sense for Jewish people to act against their religious convictions and against their religious leaders and erect a religion in the name of a man who was slaughtered for blasphemy…

That’s absurd.

 

[Russell_SA]

No, it is not laughable. The religion claims that the end of days is by a decision of your deity to destroy our reality and just have the realm of the supernatural. The religion spells this out as an inevitable end and some religious people use this as an excuse to self-fulfill this prophesy by undermining civil government developments and human rights. The end of the world due to natural means beyond our control is not the same.
As to the side point of ultimate meaning in the universe, this is irrelevant to me that my life will end and I will not be remembered for the rest of forever. I have meaning here and now. Just like my car will ultimately rust away, but it has meaning now. I can have a better career because of it, I can have a better relationship with my friends because of it, I can experience a fuller life because of it. I am thankful for that.
This does not mean that I don’t care that the future for people. I do care that I am making the world better for future generations to thrive because I was able to work to solve problems they don’t have to deal with any more like fighting against groups that are sexist, fascist, homophobic, etc. I hope the next generation doesn’t have to reinvent that wheel. That is my version of immortality, that I was apart of the movement that ended institutions that indoctrinated children into those mind sets.

 

[IWantGod]

No, it is not laughable.

You just claimed that Abrahamic religions have a death-wish because they believe in the end of the world, as if to say that this is a negative aspect of their beliefs. I pointed out that if metaphysical naturalism is true then we are all going to cease to exist; so you actually believe in the existential annihilation of the personal mind…

So yes, what you said is laughable.

 

[pocaracas]

If you are honestly going to approach the origins of Christianity you have to accept that it is rooted in the context of Judaism as a religion and is also rooted in real experiences.

Agreed, but not just any Judaism. That’s what I’ve been saying with the appeal to the group that followed the Teacher some 200 years before… and, I guess, his successors.
I can see a disciple from this group becoming somehow disenfranchised and going into Jerusalem to preach his own version, overturning the moneychangers’ businesses and getting nailed in the process. In the meantime, he would have said many things that would resonate with the poor. Many things that they were already aware, as those ideas would have also somehow spread for the 200 years prior.
In a time of City-States, these differing Jewish sects would naturally have formed. Some would more easily follow the notion of the messiah, others not so much.

Clearly, Israel did not become a monolithic Christian nation. Clearly, many that would have been actual eyewitnesses did not come to follow him.

the Jews of his time followed him because of who they thought he was, and he was killed because of the claims made about him by those who witnessed him.

And here lies the major problem. Were those claims factual, or exaggerated? Bolstered by the pre-existing mythology of the Teacher? Or some other hope? Some other prophecy?
If the claims were factual, why didn’t the whole of Jerusalem lift itself from Judaism to Christianity in one day?

It is only possible if he had first convinced people he was the messiah and the son of God, fulfilling a prophesy.

I don’t think so.
All it takes is a charismatic person to convince people to follow him. Following him, if he preached sharing of possessions with the poor, universal access to the Temple and that sort of thing, would have meant following some ideas that would be against the status quo of the elites. And that is a simple way of getting on the wrong side of “the law”.

(cont’d)

 

[pocaracas]

it would not make sense for Jewish people to act against their religious convictions and against their religious leaders

For some, certainly not.
For others… the poor and downtrodden by the religious leaders?.. possibly. The slaves? Those who felt the laws were being adhered to too strictly? Likely.

Just like you don’t see, nowadays, all Catholics as believing and following the exact same things, also the Jews at that time would have been a hodgepodge of particular beliefs.
Those that behaved like you claim they all would remained Jews and were responsible for the maintenance of Jerusalem as a Jewish city.
Others would have followed the new thing, as they learned some extra bits and bops about the teacher - and, as expected, different ways to follow his teachings became available >> more hodgepodge! You surely know of the gnostics, as possibly the second largest such following in the second and third centuries. There were others that we know of. Surely there would have been others that have been lost to time.
Humanity doing what it does.
During that initial propagation of the message, bits and bops would have been easily added to make the story more believable(?), more extraordinary(?), more in line with prophecy(?), more appealing to those Jews who would already be receptive to it?
Some even wrote it down.

 

[Russell_SA]

I believe I asked this before and didn’t get a response. Can you explain what you mean by metaphysical naturalism.
According to dictionary.com existential deals with existence, so yes that would be the annihilation of the minds of people via naturally through the heat death of our sun but not through your world view. I don’t see what your point is here other than laughing at the idea of believing that the heat death of our sun will destroy our planet and the people on it verses the religious world view of mass murder by a deity or by the followers trying to force the end times.

 

[IWantGod]

I don’t think so.

All it takes is a charismatic person to convince people to follow him. Following him, if he preached sharing of possessions with the poor, universal access to the Temple and that sort of thing, would have meant following some ideas that would be against the status quo of the elites. And that is a simple way of getting on the wrong side of “the law”.

It is not reasonable to think that Jews, poor or rich, would act against their religious convictions and claim that somebody is the son of God when they know they are not and possibly die for blasphemy knowing they would go to hell. If Jesus was just a social liberator he would have been remembered as such because we are still talking about Jews at the end of the day… Jesus’s teachings were religious in context, they were not just calls for social change. The things he said were perceived as a challenge to Judaism itself insofar as his words appeared blasphemous; he was not just challenging the political structure of society, he was claiming to be equal with God.

Creating a different sect of Judaism is one thing. creating a messiah is a different thing entirely. If you had any respect or understanding of Jewish beliefs to begin with, you would realize how absurd your claim really is.

It’s absurd.

 

[IWantGod]

verses the religious world view of mass murder by a deity or by the followers trying to force the end times.

You are questioning the bible hoping to induce some kind of moral guilt on behalf of God. But If God does not exist, existence does not mean anything or hold any value at all. Life is just a subjective preference in your head. As for scripture, i don’t take everything literally, but hypothetically speaking, even if God did take people’s lives, he would only be taking what belongs to him in the first place. If God does exist, i don’t imagine he is obliged to keep anybody alive, because they all live because of his power. Only in our arrogance would we think that he is taking something that belongs to us. Nothing we have belongs to us; it belongs to God. Secondly, i believe that God does things for a reason. Thus If it’s a qeustion of keeping people alive versus saving as many souls as possible. I vote saving as many souls as possible..

 

[mytruepower2]

If i’m in error here please point it out as this is something that has been swirling around in my head for quite a while so i’d like to hear different points of view. Thanks

From what I can see here in your first post, there’s only one potential error in it, and that is in how you define “delusional.”

I’ve heard people define “delusional” (incorrectly) as “believing something that the balance of evidence does not support.” In that case, Atheists would definitely be delusional.

I’ve heard people define it as “believing something which is not true.” In that case, again, they are delusional.

I’ve heard it defined as “believing something that you have no good reason to think is true.” In this case, I think whether they’re delusional or not will depend on the atheist. Some just haven’t heard the good counter-arguments against the Logical Problem of Evil or some other atheist argument, and they might still be rational in that case.

However, the best definition I’ve ever heard of “delusion” is “a firm, fixed, false belief, which is not open to reason or experience.” Many, many atheists fall into this category, merely dismissing all the evidence from the dozens of good arguments for God’s existence, rather than actually trying to refute it. Their goal is not a deeper understanding of truth, but just persisting stubbornly in their already-existing belief, and trying to get some jabs in against their least favorite deity in the meantime. In short, most of the ones I’ve encountered are atheist by faith; not reason.

And, of course, anyone; Christian, atheist or otherwise, can hold a firm, fixed, false belief which is not open to reason or experience, about something unrelated to their religious beliefs, and be delusional that way.

So, bottom line; it all depends.

 

[KindredSoul]

Hope your week is going well and you find time to get out and enjoy the day. Or just stay in and watch the Princess Bride. Greatest movie ever.

Thanks! And yes, that’s an awesome movie. Epic tale of humor, adventure, and mawwiage.