Dishonest Apologetics

[tqualey]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

Let’s see what we can do here…

I’m curious whether you agree that someone could make the same arguments to show that the Koran is divinely inspired. If not, I’d be really interested in hearing what criteria you use to reject the Muslim arguments and accept the Christian ones.

Mohammed did not predict his death at the hands of others and then predict that he would rise from the dead. In fact, Mohammed did not rise from the dead…he is buried in Medina!

God bless

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

Let’s see what we can do here…

Mohammed did not predict his death at the hands of others and then predict that he would rise from the dead. In fact, Mohammed did not rise from the dead…he is buried in Medina!

God bless

I wasn’t talking about Christianity and Islam in general. I was talking about the arguments that certain passages were so scientifically accurate that they must have been divinely inspired. I think those arguments are pretty bad, and I think it’s hard to say that they work for Christianity but not for Islam.

But there are certainly many other reasons for believing in Christianity. I wasn’t trying to say that in general all the reasons are the same.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

I guess I am ignorant on this point about Divine Inspiration. My understanding (and this is my own working definition) is that the entire Bible is inspired by God in the sense that God’s message of salvation is contained in the Bible without contradiction. There is a difference in the message based on what is actually being told to us. For example, it may be that the message told in the verses of 1st and 2nd Kings (historical records) is not as meaningful as Christ telling us (John 6) to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood.

In the former, secular confirmaiton of what was told in the Bible was found by scientists, while in the latter we simply must take the Word of God as being valid.

I wasn’t talking about Christianity and Islam in general. I was talking about the arguments that certain passages were so scientifically accurate that they must have been divinely inspired. I think those arguments are pretty bad, and I think it’s hard to say that they work for Christianity but not for Islam.

But there are certainly many other reasons for believing in Christianity. I wasn’t trying to say that in general all the reasons are the same.

So, by viewing the Bible as the story of God Gathering His People in the OT and the story of Christ Leading His People To God in the NT, one gets a an overview.

God bless

 

[tqualey]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

This is what you asked: I’m curious whether you agree that someone could make the same arguments to show that the Koran is divinely inspired. If not, I’d be really interested in hearing what criteria you use to reject the Muslim arguments and accept the Christian ones.

And I told you that Christ told His followers that He would be put to death and then rise from the dead. This He did. Mohammed did not make such a statement, and did not rise from the dead. He is buried in Saudi Aribia. The criteria used is simple and straight-forward: The Word of God is Divinely Inspired because it contains the Prophecies of God and what He will do (and then did) in human history. The same can not be said about the Koran.

I wasn’t talking about Christianity and Islam in general. I was talking about the arguments that certain passages were so scientifically accurate that they must have been divinely inspired. I think those arguments are pretty bad, and I think it’s hard to say that they work for Christianity but not for Islam.

But there are certainly many other reasons for believing in Christianity. I wasn’t trying to say that in general all the reasons are the same.

I think I have given you a valid criteria - you may reject it for any number of reasons - but, not by restating the quesiton after I answered the original one.

God bless

 

[Worthy5]

Worthy5;5459580:

If an evil spirit is doing anything to me, than that means there is some me upon whom it is acting.

I think therefore I am. I can’t be certain exactly what form “I” take, and an evil spirit could theoretically be misleading me into thinking that I am a human. But at the very least, I know that something exists.

Wow Atheist: You have read Descrates. But Kierkegaard did damage to that, right. I think, therefore I am. But does not the thinking already pre-suppose an existence. So what have you really said with that argument.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

anEvilAtheist;5460705:

Wow Atheist: You have read Descrates. But Kierkegaard did damage to that, right. I think, therefore I am. But does not the thinking already pre-suppose an existence. So what have you really said with that argument.

I’m aware of Kierkegaard’s criticism, though I haven’t looked at it in detail. But from what I’ve read, it seems like his criticism involves whether it’s proper to call the thing that thinks “I”. But I think Descartes’s argument could still be valid if you use “I” in a very loose sense. At the very least, I think it still shows that there is some entity that exists. If you’ve studied Kierkegaard, do you think this is a fair assessment, or did he do more damage to the argument than I thought?

 

[Tanner9188]

I obviously disagree with this.

Makes sense.

I think that you should be more careful about using the scientific accuracy of the Bible as evidence for its truth. Some of what you cite does not seem to indicate any special knowledge. For example, someone who knew nothing of science and who wanted to know how everything got here might easily hypothesize that at one point, God created everything. I don’t think that Genesis 1:1 indicates anything more than this. So for a lot of these passages, we need to consider whether the only plausible explanation is divine inspiration. Another problem is that there are many passages that appear to be contradicted by science. Of course you can twist these around to make it seem like there are no contradictions, but I think this makes it harder to argue that the scientific accuracy of the Bible shows it was divinely inspired. Finally, if you consider the things you mentioned to be good evidence for Christianity, there is phenomenal evidence for Islam. I recently saw a video that I think you should check out which shows an unbelievable amount of scientific “miracles” in the Koran. Of course I don’t believe that they represent true miracles. Sometimes the video twists the meaning of the passage, sometimes it translates a word differently in order to make a mundane passage sound prophetic, and sometimes it gives a misleading picture of current science. I would be really interested in your reaction to the video. I don’t think that either one has miraculous scientific accuracy, but I am curious how you could see stuff like this as evidence for the divine inspiration of the Bible and reject it as evidence for the divine inspiration of the Koran.

I checked out your links. I found them interesting, although not in the way you were probably hoping.

In the first one, the skeptical arguments he was attacking are not ones that I make. For example, I don’t think that copying errors were a big problem. He also attacks other religions for things that he would not consider problems for Christianity. He calls it a gross error when the Koran says that man was created out of clay, but presumably sees it as factual when the Bible says that Adam was created from dirt.

In the second link, I thought he was really stretching it a lot of times. In my opinion, the Koran video made a better case for amazingly scientific accuracy than he did. If someone would reject an argument when others make it but use similar arguments themselves, I consider this dishonest (at least if the person is aware of it).

I’m curious whether you agree that someone could make the same arguments to show that the Koran is divinely inspired. If not, I’d be really interested in hearing what criteria you use to reject the Muslim arguments and accept the Christian ones.

First of all it is the second Koran, not the first. If that were true with the Bible, then it would be destroyed based on that alone. The Koran has no way of escape except through murder. Whereas the Bible comes from a personal God who cares and has provided a way for all to escape His judgment. The Koran is full of historical, geographical, and scientific errors. If one error or contradiction were found in the Bible, then it would cease to be the Word of God.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

This is what you asked: I’m curious whether you agree that someone could make the same arguments to show that the Koran is divinely inspired. If not, I’d be really interested in hearing what criteria you use to reject the Muslim arguments and accept the Christian ones.

And I told you that Christ told His followers that He would be put to death and then rise from the dead. This He did. Mohammed did not make such a statement, and did not rise from the dead. He is buried in Saudi Aribia. The criteria used is simple and straight-forward: The Word of God is Divinely Inspired because it contains the Prophecies of God and what He will do (and then did) in human history. The same can not be said about the Koran.

I think I have given you a valid criteria - you may reject it for any number of reasons - but, not by restating the quesiton after I answered the original one.

God bless

Maybe I still don’t understand exactly what you thought I was arguing. I was just saying that I don’t think scientific “miracles” in the Bible are sufficient evidence to show that it was divinely inspired. I think that they typically involve twisting the words in the Bible to match the current scientific evidence, and vice versa. And it’s hard to say that the Bible was amazingly accurate when a lot of passages seem to blatantly contradict modern science. I think that if you see these scientific “miracles” as sufficient to accept the Bible as divinely inspired, you should also accept the Koran as divinely inspired. I agree with you that there are many other arguments that the Bible is divinely inspired, but if so, you should focus on those. I think the “scientific miracles” argument doesn’t work and should not be used. Do you agree or disagree with this?

 

[anEvilAtheist]

First of all it is the second Koran, not the first. If that were true with the Bible, then it would be destroyed based on that alone. The Koran has no way of escape except through murder. Whereas the Bible comes from a personal God who cares and has provided a way for all to escape His judgment. The Koran is full of historical, geographical, and scientific errors. If one error or contradiction were found in the Bible, then it would cease to be the Word of God.

I don’t think that your assessment that the Koran provides “no way of escape except through murder” is correct, but I’m not here to defend the Koran. I was only saying that I thought the argument for the Bible from science is particularly weak, and was trying to show that when you allow people to twist what passages literally say, the Bible wouldn’t be the only book that has scientific “miracles”.

I agree that the Koran has scientific errors, but I think the Bible also has scientific errors. You can certainly try to twist the literal meaning of passages of the Bible in order to defend it, but I’m sure Muslims can do the same thing about the apparent errors in the Koran. One such apparent error in the Bible is Leviticus 11:6 which says that hares chew their cud. Some literalist apologists try to say that it’s true because hares chew their feces (which have been digested, and so are somewhat like cud that has been partially digested). But hares do not chew their feces, they merely swallow them whole. Maybe there’s a way of reconciling this, but I think you have to twist it quite far from what the passage actually says. And there are many other apparent errors like this. If you want more examples, most of the items in this list are passages of the Bible that seem to be scientifically incorrect (I may not agree that every single thing in the list is an actual error, but I think that many of them pose a problem for those who interpret the Bible literally).

I’m not trying to use these scientific errors to show that the Bible is false. I think all they show is that it can be dangerous to try to take every single passage in the Bible as literal fact.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

And I told you that Christ told His followers that He would be put to death and then rise from the dead. This He did. Mohammed did not make such a statement, and did not rise from the dead. He is buried in Saudi Aribia. The criteria used is simple and straight-forward: The Word of God is Divinely Inspired because it contains the Prophecies of God and what He will do (and then did) in human history. The same can not be said about the Koran.

I obviously don’t agree that Jesus actually rose from the dead. I think that there are more likely natural explanations. I’ve also looked at a lot of the prophecies in the Bible and I don’t think that they provide much evidence for Christianity. Of course there are many things that the Bible says Jesus did which would fulfill Old Testament prophecies, but you would first have to establish that the Jesus narrative given in the Bible is factual. It is easy to add prophecy fulfillment to a story after the fact. And there are many biblical prophecies that were not fulfilled. For example, the prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar and Tyre and Egypt were not completely fulfilled (Ezekiel 26:1-14, Ezekiel 29: 1-19, Ezekiel 30: 10-12).

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

Now, honestly … we really do have to stay in the real world if we are going to get anywhere. The examples you give, from theoretical physics, are … just that… theoretical! There were not many subjects i dreaded in college … but, physics managed to push almost all of my buttons!

I am staying in the real world. Quantum physics is pretty well established in general, and the virtual particles I discussed are also well evidenced. This article might help give you a basic overview. Just because it may seem weird to you, and me , doesn’t mean that it’s false. For example, it seems incredibly weird that as things move faster, they get bigger and move more quickly through time, but that is what relativity teaches. If a scientific theory is extraordinarily well evidenced, then I accept it, even if it disagrees with my intuitions. My intuitions may be accurate when it comes to dogs and trees and people, but I don’t assume they’re correct when it comes to areas outside my experience such as sub-atomic particles.

Originally Posted by tqualey
**1. Observation of motion: Everything that is moved is moved by something else. Things are moved by other things and these things are moved by still others - but, this can not go on infinitely because there would be be no first mover – and this all men know as God. **

I actually think this is pretty similar to the efficient causation argument. It says that there must be a cause for all motion. This appears to be true at the everyday level of observation. But I think there are good reasons, both logical and empirical, for doubting whether this must be true in all cases. Research into quantum physics indicates that there are virtual particles which appear for brief periods of time, and for which there is no cause of their behavior. Also, there are scenarios outside of quantum physics in which motion could happen without cause. If the universe was a singularity at one point, it would have been incredibly unstable, and perhaps there is some analog to the previous scenario. I’m definitely not an expert on this, but I just haven’t heard any good reasons to think that our intuitions about motion and causation must hold at the extremely small scale as well (and this is the scale that is relevant to discussions of the universe’s origin).

One other thing is that I never really understood why there had to be a first mover. For example, I could envision a universe that has been constantly changing between two different states for eternity.

Here is the problem - and, it is not with your imagination, for obviously, you can imagine anything you want! If you do not restrict yourself to simple reality that is readily testable, we will be forever chasing the possibly possible cause - in a simply effort to ‘disprove’ common experience. It is as if to say, “If I can imagine I have won this argument by imagining something - then, I have won it with mere imagining!” But, real debates are not won with theoretical proofs.

I am not trying to “win” a debate with a theoretical proof. I was merely giving a variety of reasons why you make a dubious assumption. Both your argument, and Kreeft’s argument that I discussed earlier, assume that everything has a cause. You are relying on a strong version of the principle of sufficient reason. This is a philosophical assumption which neither of you defend, and which most current philosophers believe it is false or even necessarily false, especially in the strong version of it that you are trying to use (Quentin Smith 1995). But even if your assumption was plausible, you would need to do more than show it is plausible, you would need to show it is true. For example, it is plausible that there is a pigeon in my yard, but that doesn’t mean that this argument (1. There is a pigeon in my yard. 2. All pigeons are birds. 3. Therefore there is a bird in my yard.) proves that I have a bird in my yard.

But I’m not just saying that you haven’t given me any reason for believing your undefended assumption, I’ve given reasons why I don’t believe in it. I gave philosophical reasons for rejecting your assumption. I also gave scientific reasons for rejecting it. Of course it’s always possible that there’s some untestable cause of quantum phenomena, but “if you do not restrict yourself to simple reality that is readily testable, we will be forever chasing the possibly possible cause”. Even if every single thing in the universe, from the big to the small, appeared completely uncaused and random, it’s always possible that there could be some cause (in some higher dimension or parallel universe or something). However, that wouldn’t mean we should assume that everything definitely does have a cause. Similarly, science has shown that there are uncaused phenomena at the incredibly small scale which would be relevant to discussion of the creation of the universe. I certainly don’t know everything, and I could be wrong in rejecting the first cause argument, but I just don’t see any good reasons to accept it, and see some pretty good reasons to reject it.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

A long time ago on a Walt Disney show, I saw a large table filled with mouse traps that had been all set - and a ping-pong ball placed as the ‘bait’ in each trap. We have all of this potential energy just waiting tor the Announcer to take the one ping-pong ball in his hand and toss it onto the table. Well the ball landing on the first trap, immediately set it off and the violent reaction of the first trap set off several other taps and as the balls went flying and the traps went moving, more and more traps were sprung. Now, while it is convenient for the Announcer to be seen as the “First Mover” - he really isn’t. All of those traps had to be painstakingly set with a ping-pong ball being carefully placed in the bait section!

Your comments, ‘moved’ me to write in response to what you said. My comments ‘moved’ you to respond, and so on … back and forth. But, to imagine an infinite number of comments simply because you think this disproves the argument is just not logical.

Of course. There has to be someone who made the first comment in a forum. Threads have a definite beginning.

Something can be taken to ‘infinity -1’ … but, then the argument simply stops because there is no one less then infinity (if there was, then why not infinity + 1 … and if that is so, there is no infinity!

Infinity is not a specific number. Your criticism here doesn’t make sense to me.

Seriously, motion is all around us, and as we watch, we see other things being effected and begining their own motion.

I agree, but the argument rests on everything having a cause. Just because it appears to be true on some scales of observation doesn’t mean that it’s true on all scales. Newtonian physics works great on some scales such as the everyday world we observe, but Einstein and others proved that it does not apply to all situations.

Seconds change into minutes and they in turn change to hours and then days, weeks and so on. But to take time as just an example - it is finite: a second is just so long and no longer - any longer and it becomes the beginnig of the second second.

Just because something is measured in finite units does not mean it is finite. For example, the number line is broken up into one-unit-long pieces, but it is infinitely long.

The argument ultimately rests on nothing - at least in the real world with which we have common experience - being able to perpetuate itself forever. The projections are for our world to eventually slow down to a stop, and, on a larger scale, for the universe to no longer hold together. It is all depends on something else to keep it moving. This post may inspire you to respond back - it may also inspire others to respond - but, eventually, we will run out of both responses and responders. And, this is the common experience.

According to some theories the universe will eternally expand, and under others it will collapse back in on itself at some point. Under some theories, the natural world is eternally old and under others, it had a definite beginning. Until we have a proven theory of quantum gravity, we won’t be able to know what happened before Planck time.

In an infinite chain of causes, it would still be true that if one of the causes was removed, the effect would be removed. So it seems like it would be possible for there to be an infinite series of causes, whether or not there’s a God. Of course there’s still the question of why the sequence of causes itself exists. Whether you say that the sequence exists because God exists, or because the universe exists, you’re still left with the question of why there is something (God and/or the universe) rather than nothing. I don’t think this is any more answerable under theism than under atheism.

I think this is an interesting observation. We did not have to exist - to be brought into existence. There is no logical progression, given “a” there must necessarily follow that there is a ‘b’… or, substitute ‘a’ and ‘b’ for ‘!’ AND ‘@’ if that gets us out of the alaphabet sequencing approach. The ‘Unmoved Mover’ (God ) moved us into existence - and He did not have to do this. Given that there are ‘creatures’ there must be a ‘Creator’. or said differently, given clay pots there must be a pot maker quite different from the pots he has made!

God bless

We know from experience that pots have pot makers, but do not know from experience that creatures have a personal entity that created them, aside from their parents. But this is a completely separate argument. I’ve already discussed it, but I’m okay with discussing it again. I just think that we should finish up discussing the first cause argument before moving on to another argument.

 

[Tanner9188]

I don’t think that your assessment that the Koran provides “no way of escape except through murder” is correct, but I’m not here to defend the Koran. I was only saying that I thought the argument for the Bible from science is particularly weak, and was trying to show that when you allow people to twist what passages literally say, the Bible wouldn’t be the only book that has scientific “miracles”.

I agree that the Koran has scientific errors, but I think the Bible also has scientific errors. You can certainly try to twist the literal meaning of passages of the Bible in order to defend it, but I’m sure Muslims can do the same thing about the apparent errors in the Koran. One such apparent error in the Bible is Leviticus 11:6 which says that hares chew their cud. Some literalist apologists try to say that it’s true because hares chew their feces (which have been digested, and so are somewhat like cud that has been partially digested). But hares do not chew their feces, they merely swallow them whole. Maybe there’s a way of reconciling this, but I think you have to twist it quite far from what the passage actually says. And there are many other apparent errors like this. If you want more examples, most of the items in this list are passages of the Bible that seem to be scientifically incorrect (I may not agree that every single thing in the list is an actual error, but I think that many of them pose a problem for those who interpret the Bible literally).

I’m not trying to use these scientific errors to show that the Bible is false. I think all they show is that it can be dangerous to try to take every single passage in the Bible as literal fact.

**An example is always from the perspective of those to which it speaks. So when someone says the sun rose; we know the sun doesn’t rise, but that is what we say. We don’t say; ahh what a nice earth revolving. It is not a science book, but the things it does talk about are accurate. Remember at the time it was written down; most of those writers had no idea what they were writing when it came to these types of things and the prophecy alone is remarkable.

I do appreciate you taking the time to read the first and part of the second.

I am out of this thread; something tells me you are not the evil atheist; maybe the good intention atheist or something perhaps the kind atheist…anyway if you have an additional questions concerning the Bible then send me a PM.

Have a good week!

Tanner**

 

[anEvilAtheist]

**An example is always from the perspective of those to which it speaks. So when someone says the sun rose; we know the sun doesn’t rise, but that is what we say. We don’t say; ahh what a nice earth revolving. It is not a science book, but the things it does talk about are accurate. Remember at the time it was written down; most of those writers had no idea what they were writing when it came to these types of things and the prophecy alone is remarkable. **

Yeah I don’t think criticizing the Bible for saying the sun moves is really a good criticism. But I disagree with you when it comes to prophecy. If the New Testament story of Jesus’ life was correct, then there is a substantial amount of fulfilled prophecy, but the difficulty is in establishing that it is correct. And I think that the evidence of “scientific prophecy” is particularly poor. I’m still interested in whether you think there is some way to defend the Bible as scientifically prophetic, and yet reject similar “scientific prophecy” in the Koran. But I won’t press the issue.

**I do appreciate you taking the time to read the first and part of the second.

I am out of this thread; something tells me you are not the evil atheist; maybe the good intention atheist or something perhaps the kind atheist…anyway if you have an additional questions concerning the Bible then send me a PM.

Have a good week!

Tanner**

It was nice talking with you. Take care.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

While several things can be said … let me just focus on one… I have highlighed the item you wrote below:

Maybe I still don’t understand exactly what you thought I was arguing. I was just saying that I don’t think scientific “miracles” in the Bible are sufficient evidence to show that it was divinely inspired. I think that they typically involve twisting the words in the Bible to match the current scientific evidence, and vice versa. And it’s hard to say that the Bible was amazingly accurate when a lot of passages seem to blatantly contradict modern science. I think that if you see these scientific “miracles” as sufficient to accept the Bible as divinely inspired, you should also accept the Koran as divinely inspired. I agree with you that there are many other arguments that the Bible is divinely inspired, but if so, you should focus on those. I think the “scientific miracles” argument doesn’t work and should not be used. Do you agree or disagree with this?

I have read somewhere that about 90% of all the world’s scientific knowledge was not even in existence 20 years ago. Basing anything involving God - on science - is a futile activity. While we can say (and you can dismiss) that God exists - basing this on our current knowledge of science is no argument at all. Only 40 years ago this week - the first man walked on the moon. Prior to that, it was the stuff of science fiction writers like Jules Verne, and prior to that it was the dismiss as the stuff of madmen.

Dismiss the existence of God if this is your true belief - but, do not do so because of science. Catholics believe Faith is a Gift of God. While it can be said that you do not have this Gift … you know, there is nothing stopping you from asking for it. Give it some thought … and some prayer…

God bless

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

While several things can be said … let me just focus on one… I have highlighed the item you wrote below:

I have read somewhere that about 90% of all the world’s scientific knowledge was not even in existence 20 years ago. Basing anything involving God - on science - is a futile activity.

I disagree. If studies repeatedly showed that people could be healed by Catholic intercessory prayer, but that other forms of prayer were ineffective, I would consider this pretty good evidence in favor of Catholicism. I don’t consider the fact that studies have found no effects to be evidence against Christianity, since God could merely grant prayers so extremely rarely that it cannot be detected by such a study. But science certainly could give evidence for a religion, so I don’t think that God and science are completely separate. And a God that answers prayers and performs miracles could, in theory, be observed by science.

While we can say (and you can dismiss) that God exists - basing this on our current knowledge of science is no argument at all. Only 40 years ago this week - the first man walked on the moon. Prior to that, it was the stuff of science fiction writers like Jules Verne, and prior to that it was the dismiss as the stuff of madmen.

I definitely do not base my disbelief on our current knowledge of science. I think that would be a little silly because no matter what we observed, it would be consistent with at least some conception of God. The main reason that I am an atheist is that I just don’t think there are good reasons for believing in God. By ‘good’ I don’t mean something that satisfies my desire to have a high degree of certainty about God, I mean thinks that makes the existence of a certain type of God more likely than not, or at the very least not extremely unlikely.

I agree with you that our own knowledge is very limited and that scientific discoveries often cause us to revise our old beliefs. However, this doesn’t mean that our current knowledge isn’t valuable or that none of our scientific beliefs are well established. While it is theoretically possible that we will one day discover that the earth is flat, the roundness of the Earth has been confirmed by so many independent lines of evidence that it seems inconceivable that it could ever be shown to be false.

Dismiss the existence of God if this is your true belief - but, do not do so because of science.

I do not disbelieve because of science. For example, I do not think that evolution disproves God. I also disagree with Dawkins who said that before Darwin it was impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Just because science does not currently have an answer to something doesn’t mean that we must assume God did it, for our current scientific knowledge is still so limited. Before Darwin, atheists had to say that they had no idea how humans could have come about without God. Since we’re so amazingly complex, this answer might be unsatisfying. But we will probably never know every single thing about the universe, and people could always say that maybe God had something to do with that thing we don’t yet know. I don’t think that this argument works, unless we have very strong evidence that we know enough about the field that if there was a natural explanation, we’d already know it. Of course there’s probably no way to prove or disprove God with absolute certainty, but I think that something like that would give a good scientific reason for believing in God.

Even though I don’t disbelieve because of science, I do think that science can be useful in explaining why certain arguments don’t provide evidence of God. For example, consider an argument like this: (1. The universe and the earth began to exist approximately 6000 years old. 2. There can be no plausible natural explanation for this. 3. Therefore God exists.). I think we have good reasons for believing number 2, but I would disagree with number 1. If I had no scientific knowledge, I could just say that I don’t think there are good reasons to assume that number 1 is true, but with science, I can give reasons why I think that it is not true. Of course, all our current scientific beliefs could theoretically be wrong. But I still wouldn’t have any reason for believing the argument.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Catholics believe Faith is a Gift of God. While it can be said that you do not have this Gift … you know, there is nothing stopping you from asking for it. Give it some thought … and some prayer…

God bless

A little while ago I did sincerely pray for God, if he existed, to reveal himself to me. When I say that though, some Catholics say that I was making an unreasonable request. I figure it couldn’t hurt to ask once, but I’m just not going to devote my whole life to searching for something that I increasingly think is extremely unlikely to exist.

I realize that faith in Catholicism might be a gift, but Catholicism teaches that it’s at least possible to know that some God exists using reason. The Vatican Council declared that if anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema. If after a couple thousand years of brilliant theologians and apologists, there is still not a single solid argument which shows that God exists, it is really hard to believe this statement. If someone had come up with an argument for God’s existence that wasn’t flawed, I don’t think they’d be hiding it. Certainly it’s true that it’s theoretically possible that they will one day come up with a good reason, but that’s true of anything. If someone had declared thousands of years ago that pigs can, on their own, sprout wings and fly around, I would see this as a false statement. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that pigs have been hiding this talent from us or could still do it one day, but I don’t think it makes sense to see this as a true statement.

I have thought deeply about the issue over the years, and the more I read and think, the less likely it seems that there actually is a God. You can dismiss me as a liar and as someone who doesn’t really want to find God, but I know in my heart that I really do want to believe in God, if he exists, and have tried looking for him.

 

[Angie_Baskin]

A little while ago I did sincerely pray for God, if he existed, to reveal himself to me. When I say that though, some Catholics say that I was making an unreasonable request. I figure it couldn’t hurt to ask once, but I’m just not going to devote my whole life to searching for something that I increasingly think is extremely unlikely to exist.

I realize that faith in Catholicism might be a gift, but Catholicism teaches that it’s at least possible to know that some God exists using reason. The Vatican Council declared that if anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema. If after a couple thousand years of brilliant theologians and apologists, there is still not a single solid argument which shows that God exists, it is really hard to believe this statement. If someone had come up with an argument for God’s existence that wasn’t flawed, I don’t think they’d be hiding it. Certainly it’s true that it’s theoretically possible that they will one day come up with a good reason, but that’s true of anything. If someone had declared thousands of years ago that pigs can, on their own, sprout wings and fly around, I would see this as a false statement. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that pigs have been hiding this talent from us or could still do it one day, but I don’t think it makes sense to see this as a true statement.

I have thought deeply about the issue over the years, and the more I read and think, the less likely it seems that there actually is a God. You can dismiss me as a liar and as someone who doesn’t really want to find God, but I know in my heart that I really do want to believe in God, if he exists, and have tried looking for him.

Maybe you are trying too hard. God has a gentle quiet voice. He never forces Himself on anyone and has infinite patience in waiting for your trust. It is obvious you are extremely intelligent and have an enquiring mind. This also means that your mind is never still. It also means that you have come to trust in your own intelligence. (Not that there is anything wrong in this). Unfortunely, this sometimes brings about a condition where you have a foot in both camps. Trust in the ‘world’ & hope in ‘eternity’. These are opposities of each other one finite, one infinite. They can’t be both true at the same time. You live in the light OR you live in darkness but never both at the same time. That is why 2 people living the exact same existance can realize completely opposite experiences. (glass half empty or half full theory). It is also why Jesus said ‘to be IN the world but not OF the world’. God GAVE you your intelligence for your pleasure and His. He does not want to take anything from you. But maybe YOU need to let go & let God. You stated you have already reached out to God. God has HEARD you and ANSWERED you (as is promised)but having trust in one camp disallowes you to see the other. God is right in front of your nose but you don’t recognize Him. Again, let GO and let God. Gods love Blesses you

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Maybe you are trying too hard. God has a gentle quiet voice. He never forces Himself on anyone and has infinite patience in waiting for your trust. It is obvious you are extremely intelligent and have an enquiring mind. This also means that your mind is never still. It also means that you have come to trust in your own intelligence. (Not that there is anything wrong in this).

I don’t always trust it. It’s been wrong in the past and I’m sure it will be wrong in the future. But it’s all I have. Even if I thought that I was fairly unintelligent and wanted to rely on someone else’s beliefs on everything, I would have to use what intelligence I had to choose who to rely on. But in my experience, conclusions that I reach after looking critically at both sides are right more often than not. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and it’s all I’ve got.

Unfortunely, this sometimes brings about a condition where you have a foot in both camps. Trust in the ‘world’ & hope in ‘eternity’. These are opposities of each other one finite, one infinite. They can’t be both true at the same time. You live in the light OR you live in darkness but never both at the same time. That is why 2 people living the exact same existance can realize completely opposite experiences. (glass half empty or half full theory). It is also why Jesus said ‘to be IN the world but not OF the world’. God GAVE you your intelligence for your pleasure and His. He does not want to take anything from you. But maybe YOU need to let go & let God. You stated you have already reached out to God. God has HEARD you and ANSWERED you (as is promised)but having trust in one camp disallowes you to see the other. God is right in front of your nose but you don’t recognize Him. Again, let GO and let God. Gods love Blesses you

I wouldn’t say that I had trust in atheism when I prayed for a sign. It was only after that point that I began investigating things in earnest. But after studying things, it seemed less and less likely that the God of Christianity existed. I admit that I could be wrong about Christianity, but I could also be wrong about each of the thousands of other religions. Without some sign or good reason to believe in Christianity, I don’t think it makes sense to accept it merely because my reason is imperfect (and I couldn’t accept something for this reason even if I tried). I don’t think I can prove that no God exists and I’m not certain that there isn’t one; I just haven’t seen any reason to think that a God, or the Christian God, does exist.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

I don’t always trust it. It’s been wrong in the past and I’m sure it will be wrong in the future. But it’s all I have. Even if I thought that I was fairly unintelligent and wanted to rely on someone else’s beliefs on everything, I would have to use what intelligence I had to choose who to rely on. But in my experience, conclusions that I reach after looking critically at both sides are right more often than not. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good, and it’s all I’ve got.

I wouldn’t say that I had trust in atheism when I prayed for a sign. It was only after that point that I began investigating things in earnest. But after studying things, it seemed less and less likely that the God of Christianity existed. I admit that I could be wrong about Christianity, but I could also be wrong about each of the thousands of other religions. Without some sign or good reason to believe in Christianity, I don’t think it makes sense to accept it merely because my reason is imperfect (and I couldn’t accept something for this reason even if I tried). I don’t think I can prove that no God exists and I’m not certain that there isn’t one; I just haven’t seen any reason to think that a God, or the Christian God, does exist.

Do you believe that all people naturaly seek happiness in principle?
If so,
What would you consider a satisfactory argument to believe this.

I ask you this because in Catholicism,
Happiness is God.