Dishonest Apologetics

[anEvilAtheist]

Maybe it would be more helpful to use the word “mistakenly” instead of “incorrectly.”

Then,
It sounds like you naturally desire happiness in principle?

Yes, happiness is not the only thing I desire, but it’s definitely one of the things.

How would you distinguish between
A mistaken way to happiness
From an unmistaken way?

I don’t think there’s any foolproof way distinguishing. One way is that if a similar thing made me happy in the past.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi, EvilAtheist,

You said a couple of things that I would like to comment on … but, the biggest comment goes to the nice post sent to you by the New Member, Angie. That was really a great post, Angie

God is NOT a star. God in NOT our sun. And, by the same token - no one really has Faith that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. (Now, it may be that their sun won’t rise tomorrow…or, any other following day - but, that is a different story.) Faith is the virtue by which something not seen (or other-wise measureable since we can’t see the air but we can scientifically prove it is there) is believed from evidence presented.

Children believe in the storeis that their parents tell them: Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. As they get older the children find out that while there is something going on - it is not as was described to them. While the majority simply move on - this is not true for everyone…and that may be worth a deeper assessment for another thread.

We can not treat God like the sun and say, “Show yourself and I will believe”. You probably do not say that to the sun every morning as its light chases away the darkness. Why? Because you (along with a lot of other people) have accepted its approximate 24-hour daily journey ‘back’ to us. Wondering if the sun will rise tomorrow is certainly a valid thought - because one day, when its fuel is exhausted, it won’t!

But, just like God is not the sun - He is also not a genii that we can command by rubbing a newly found lamp. God is not here to do our bidding. Actually, this is turning the actual relationship on its head. We are here to love and honor and serve God. We did not create ourselves - we were created (along with EVERYTHING ELSE) by God.

People seem to be pretty divided on whether it is reasonable to ask for a sign of God’s existence. I just thought it couldn’t hurt to try. If God exists, I think he would realize that my intentions were good.

To actually look - as you claim - at EVERYTHING ELSE - and say it just happened into existence takes far more faith then I have.

Whether or not you believe in God, I think you have to believe that there’s something that just happened to exist. I don’t think there can be any better explanation for why God and the universe could have happened to have existed than there is for why the universe alone could have happened to exist. I think that regardless of what is true, there will be some why questions that we will never be able to answer.

I have limited experience in the area of geunine atheists. From this admitted limited sample size I have come up with my own pet theory that goes something like this (and credit the Schlitz beer commercial of many years ago…) “Life is short, so go for all the gusto you can.” This implies at least two things: an acknowledgement that life is finite and that pleasure is the real end of life and ultimate consequences are the stuff of children’s fairy stories. The people I knew were no more concerned with the consequences their lives were experienceing then they were about being hit by a low-flying pig.

I also don’t claim to be an expert on atheists, but a lot of the ones I’ve met care deeply about other people and are not just greedy pleasure seekers.

As you look around at all of the pagan deities from arund the world - the one thing they all have in common is a power higher then themselves was/is responsible for EVERYTHING they saw/see. The Vatican pronouncement you criticized simply takes this simple fact into account as it says, you can know that there is a higher power. Now, you still have a free will to choose to accept this - or, to reject it.

I honestly think this is where we are today.

God bless

But just because most people have believed in God doesn’t mean he exists. Over the years people have had quite a few beliefs that we might now see as silly. I still don’t think that we can know whether God exists by the natural world, but if I ever find a good reason to believe that God exists, then this statement would obviously no longer be a problem.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Lets look at your previously mentioned principle of “cause and affect" with human nature and the behaviors of Christ and His followers. Cause in this case referring to the driving force that causes man to do or not do something based on the results that will be incurred, not might be incurred in these cases, but will be.
Jesus was well aware of what His fate was as He at various times told His disciples of the passion He stood to confront. Whether we believe He actually knew or not in advance is irrelevant because His actions among the Romans and the Jews alike led to the course of events that befitted what was prophesized in the Old Testament as it was recorded over thousands of years in advance. Now, knowing the horrid torture and death He stood to undergo if He continued His ministry, the question is why would a man place himself in such a position?

I’m not an expert on why people do the things they do. But there have been plenty of people over the years who were willing to die for a cause.

Taking it further, the apostles write that Jesus performed many miracles during the time they accompanied Him.

I don’t think we really know who wrote the gospels. Most scholars seem to think that they were not written by the apostles, and I certainly don’t think we have strong evidence that they were the authors.

These supernatural healings and returning people from the dead and curing illnesses including those of the blind and crippled, many people they were familiar with and knew to be handicapped is what was claimed to be the supporting evidence for them that this was the Messiah. Other experiences that occurred in their presence led to their believing Jesus was in fact the Son of God.

I don’t assume that just because people 2000 years ago thought something was magical, that there could not possibly be a natural explanation. I don’t know if the miracle stories were a later addition, but even if they were a recording of something that actually happened, I don’t think that this is evidence of a God. I’ve heard of too many stories of people even in the modern world who use magic or fake healings in order to convince people to believe (such as Benny Hinn). If people fall for stuff like this today, I think they’d be even more likely to have believed it 2000 years ago.

So, first we have Jesus fulfilling His ministry against fears and leading to results that would drive the normal man to silence and seclusion, for no gain but His claimed knowledge of God and eternal life, A violation of cause and affect. Then we have 12 men convinced through their own witness to supernatural events that their teacher was the Messiah and Son of God. A belief so strong they also defied the anticipated outcome. Another violation of cause and affect.

I really do think that there are ways in which a group can come to firmly hold a false belief.

Moving on, when the time came, Jesus willingly awaited His accusers in the garden knowing what was about to take place once He was in their custody. Another violation of cause and affect. Ah, but once Jesus’ accusers arrived, a confrontation ensued, the apostles first attempted to defend against the accusers but when all seemed lost, they ran for their survival. These responses natural and in union with the cause and affect principle.
Jumping ahead to the passion and death of our Lord, it became common knowledge what Jesus suffered once everyone saw Him. The apostles remained in hiding having lost faith because the God-Man whom they thought to be their Messiah was now dead after extreme torture and crucifixion. These responses natural and in union with the cause and affect principle. The faith they gained in His teachings and witnessing His works and miracles was not strong enough to overcome their human responses once the results came to pass leading to His crucifixion. Rational response many would say. So what could possibly happen to lead them from such fear of their lives and hiding from everyone to going public and proclaiming the very teachings they ran from knowing full well the death it would lead them to? Their faith was dashed by the death of our Lord. All was lost as far as they were concerned. The only thing left that could reassure their faith and belief in Jesus and His proclamation of the kingdom of God with eternal salvation was His final promise, His resurrection from the dead. There is nothing else that could reaffirm to them He was the Truth and was the Son of God. He did just that and this was the final reassurance removing all doubts for them as to the truth in Jesus, salvation, eternal life and the Kingdom of God as Jesus proclaimed. Otherwise major violations of cause and affect. We can then go on to the successors of the apostles who also accepted their positions knowing what would happen but some knowing from their experience the truth.
Do you have a reasonable explanation?

It seems to me that when something that one expects based on one’s religion does not happen, there is first a sense of disappointment, but people usually end up revising their old beliefs instead of rejecting them. For example, the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses) made specific dramatic predictions, none of which came to pass. Instead of abandoning their old beliefs completely, they slightly modified their beliefs or chose a new date and said that the evidence they used to establish the previous date was wrong. I really think that if they had dreams of Jesus after his death, they might have seen this as demonstrating that he was not actually dead.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Yes, happiness is not the only thing I desire, but it’s definitely one of the things.

Do you desire those other things because they lead you to happiness?

I don’t think there’s any foolproof way distinguishing. One way is that if a similar thing made me happy in the past.

From those similar things,
What would you consider are the attributes of happiness?
What would you consider are not the attributes of happiness?
(e.g. clarity vs. ambiguity)

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Do you desire those other things because they lead you to happiness?

No. I also value the happiness of those I care about. If I had to choose between being deceived into thinking that someone I care about is happy when they are instead being tortured, and being deceived into thinking they were being tortured when they were actually happy, I would choose to have them be happy. Of course this example is somewhat contrived because in all decisions there’s a bit of both. I help those around me both because I want them to be happy and because them being happy makes me happy.

From those similar things,
What would you consider are the attributes of happiness?
What would you consider are not the attributes of happiness?
(e.g. clarity vs. ambiguity)

I don’t really know what you mean by the attributes of happiness. A wide variety of things make me happy. I don’t have any a priori way of telling what makes me happy, but through experience I can tell what specific things result in the sensation of happiness.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

“I’m not really sure what you mean by your last statement.”
Something must be conceivable before it can be assumed. Man cannot conceive of the supernatural, which is why some people such as yourself have such difficulty.

I meant inconceivable in the sense of being implausible or absurdly unlikely. I guess the more common definition is for it to be literally unable to be conceived, which led to the confusion. I was saying that the chance that things like the fact that the earth is not round will be shown to be false is virtually nil. As far as God, I don’t think difficulty forming a conception of him is the main reason I don’t believe. Even though I can’t conceive of the three in one of the trinity, I never saw this as a substantial reason for me to disbelieve.

But do you understand at all why God doesn’t pop in on each person who can’t believe without proof?

No. I don’t understand anything about what God is like if he exists. If you mean from a Catholic perspective, I have some ideas but I don’t know what the official stance is.

“ I was saying that for many of the assumptions, so many independent pieces of evidence in so many different fields have been consistent with them, that it seems absurdly unlikely that they would be false.” This is exactly my point to you and why I say you are selective without just cause in this case. Apply the underlined of your sentence to the existence of God. Lets face it; you like many others have a very difficult time accepting God without proof.

The thing is that based on my current knowledge, the Catholic God seems less like a well established scientific fact and more like something that could be theoretically possible but that I think the evidence points against. Right now both my gut and my head lead me to think that there is no personal God. I guess I can’t know for certain how I would react in a hypothetical situation, but I think that a 51% chance that Catholicism is correct would be more than enough for me.
twb1621;5477433:

That doesn’t make you a bad person, as Saint Thomas was as skeptical as you when it came to the resurrection of our Lord. But what you DON’T want is to be confronted by God before you make a real choice to believe and accept or refuse. In gathering the knowledge of God you will realize He is real and not before then because you do seek proof. That is also where you will find yourself open to receiving the grace necessary for true faith and from that your relationship with Him. The existence of God is unquestionable and it appears the time is coming when the last warning will leave no doubt but it will not be pleasurable to learn through that. Sincerely, I realize this means nothing to you at this point but it will during your lifetime.

I guess I’ll see.

Yes, check the links out….

I’ve been checking them out but I haven’t finished them yet. I’m trying to respond to the posts in this thread first and then I’ll ask any questions I might have about them. Feel free to respond to my posts as I post them or wait until I finish.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

We know from numerous archeological discoveries including those of early Greek, Christian and Hebrew heritage as well as recorded history that any of the people held in high positions of respect were buried along with numerous articles not only for their journey (depending on their beliefs) but articles that belonged to them personally and from others as a sign of respect and affection from those who loved that person buried there. With the respect that Jesus and Mary received, it would have been disrespectful not to follow this practice to some degree, yet nothing was found to identify this site.

Do you know what kind of personal items we could identify as something that only Jesus would have? If there are such things, I think does a good job of answering the question of whether it was the right grave. By the way, what site are you talking about? I don’t think I ever mentioned a specific site.

One could say they wouldn’t to protect the bodies but then the bodies would not have been buried in a tomb if that were the case. These things along with the finding of the scholars in their individual fields of study completely discount this site. Besides, the site had been discovered years before by other archeologist and was determined not to be related to Jesus Christ or Mary.

But I still don’t know why the Jews couldn’t have placed someone else in Jesus’ tomb after realizing that he had been resurrected. When I try to put myself in the shoes of a believer, I just don’t think a discovery like that would be able to shake my faith.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

But in this case you see what you do? Instead of looking at all the findings that are accumulating in support of Christianity you disbelieve with the premise that they couldn’t find proof against it. That is in opposition to your acceptance of other theories and conceivable assumptions.

That’s definitely not why I disbelieve. I disbelieve because I don’t think that there is good positive evidence in favor of Christianity and I think the evidence points towards it probably being false. The reason why I’m discussing whether a finding could provide strong evidence against Christianity is because you claimed that the lack of evidence contradicting Christianity is evidence that it’s true. I think there are some things that seem to contradict the archeological record, such as the prophecy that Nebuchadnezzar would leave Egypt completely barren for forty years. I don’t claim that any of them prove that Christianity is false, and there are probably ways of reconciling them, but I think that if you are okay with going a little bit out on a limb in order to reconcile stuff, there would be no way to find strong evidence against Christianity even if it was false. If that’s the case then the lack of evidence disproving Christianity is no evidence that it’s true.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Yes there is all though I am not a specialist in this area, I have looked into these and know it requires the research of several scholars in their individual fields and with their testing procedures such as dating and such but they can and have determined not only the periods of these documents but if an entire document was written by one author or tampered with or if something is suspected of being fraudulently added at another time or by another writer. They also cross reference with other documents and available information. There is a great deal involved but it actually is fascinating.

I know you’re not an expert, but do you know if there would be any way to identify an early forgery made by a single author? It definitely seems possible that as Christianity was spreading those opposing it might circulate false documents. I don’t think it would be hard to have such a document be written by a single author.

It is reasonable to assume and should be conceivable that no man would subject himself to such a fate unless there was something well worth the risk.

Or at least he thought there was something well worth the risk.

We are always finding items of records and documents including land transactions and transfers, arrest documentation and narrations from Roman historians.

I wouldn’t think that any of those things would allow us to find out what went on in Jesus’ head and know why he did the things that he did. But I guess it’s possible that he could have had some ulterior motive that we might be able to find evidence for. I guess that might work as circumstantial evidence against Christianity, but I don’t think it’s the kind of evidence that would be likely to exist, even if Christianity was false. And if tons of evidence like this does exist, as in the case of Mormonism, religions still survive.

He fulfilled all the prophecies made that the earthly Messiah could and the rest will come. There can be no coincidence with the years separating the prophecies from their occurrences and the number of prophecies involved.

We clearly have different views of biblical prophecy.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

That’s pretty much how I understood things to be. What I originally said was: “The doctors do not assess the possibility, merely whether they know of any natural explanation. There are occasionally people who recover from even severe illnesses for no known reason, regardless of whether religion was involved.” From what I’ve read it does seem that the doctors base their decisions on whether an explanation is known. Of course some diseases are not yet fully understood, so someone may recover from them for an unknown reason regardless of whether there was any divine intervention. I don’t think it’s safe to assume that our medical knowledge is complete and that any recovery that cannot be fully explained by medical science must have been caused by something supernatural.

If you have 100,000 people who have suffered a specific permanent paralysis over a given period of time and the only one who recovers within minutes or an hour after visiting Lourdes, you have to accept this in your theory of assumption and conceivability or you are denying your principles.

It would certainly be one thing to consider. Of course it would be useful to look at more than one data point and see overall whether people who went to Lourdes were significantly more likely to recover.

anEvilAtheist;5475902:

I read those articles, as well as some others about his case and multiple sclerosis in general. From what I’ve read, it seems like there is a lot about MS that is still poorly understood. It is somewhat common for people to have their condition improve or worsen without an obvious cause.

And be eating and walking within an hour of their visit? Get me one please.

Apparently it does sometimes just disappear for no known reason. It’s not just limited to those who visit Lourdes.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Only if your concept of reward and punishment is like this: if you do this the carrot, if you don’t the stick.

The concept of salvation and reward in heaven is much deeper than that. You have to understand first the concept of sin, original sin and how God effects salvation.

I think a simpler way to regard reward and punishment vis a vis the spiritual life is that the reward is inbuilt in the actions. Bang your head against the wall and you get a nasty bump, jump in front of a speeding car and you will get killed.

Okay, but I think that however you view it, there are certain actions that make you more likely to go to heaven and actions that make you less likely.

It does not really matter whether you worry about it or not, now, because face it you will. Those who baked their bodies into skin cancer was not worried until they were at deaths door.

I agree. If I find out that I am going to hell and that it is eternal torture, it won’t be a pleasant realization. But I think that if I had to face that today, I would still think that my position was the best guess I could make based on what I knew.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Whoever told you that it is an unreasonable request is wrong. Keep praying. Even if just after waking and before going to bed.

At this point I think I would feel weird praying for the same thing again and again. It just seems like if God exists and does not yet think it is the right time for me to know of his existence, me praying would not make a difference.

Aahh,but there are solid arguments that God exists. The ones proposed by Aquinas for one. The one that we have been discussing a few pages back. You claim that you have debunked these argument but you have not.

I don’t claim to have debunked all forms of the argument because there are probably versions of it that I haven’t seen yet. I can’t conclusively say that there are no valid arguments for God’s existence, no matter how heavily I think the evidence points to that conclusion.

To say that one is looking for God would be like a mouse looking for a cat . God will find you. You flee, you run but God will find you. There is no doubt about it. But… that is just one of my so called assertions.

And of course only time will tell whether you’re correct.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

anEvilAtheist;5385430:

Fair enough. Now someone just needs to prove that “causality in nature exists but that causation has to stop somewhere.”

And if you go a few posts back, that is exactly what I tried to demonstrate with regards geneaology. One cannot go back ad infinitum to caused-causes.

I just don’t think that you demonstrated that. I think that humanity going back forever is really hard to believe because of our background knowledge about human origins and our complexity. But I don’t think that there’s any similar reason to think that you couldn’t have a universe eternally expanding and contracting.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

You said "We have no basis for making definitive conclusions about what natural laws would hold in a state of absolute nothingness.”

But the point that the “Uncaused-cause” (UC-C for short) makes is not about natural laws in operation. Natural laws are in operation only because we have the natural world. The question we are asking is how did the natural world come into existence. Something cannot come from nothing.

Two of my points were that we don’t have evidence that something can’t come into existence uncaused and we don’t know any reason that time couldn’t be finite, in which case there would never be nothing before there was something.

I think the reason you fail to grasp this concept is that you keep interchanging concepts and terminology. We are not talking about tasks but matter. You are right, if the universe has no beginning then that would hold true but you now again fall back into an eternal universe. A few posts back you accepted the theory of the Big Bang as the going theory for the origiin of the universe. If the universe has an origin then it has a beginning. I think you are being rather disingenous here.

We’ve been over this before. The Big Bang theory does not say that the universe had a beginning; it merely shows how it developed after Planck time. We just don’t have the data to know whether the universe had a beginning.

You know very well I defined this term many posts back. An Uncaused-cause is one that does not depend on anything for its existence. A caused-cause is that which causes or determined some other being’s existence but was itself caused into existence by another being.

Please cut me a little slack, I occasionally forget things over the course of about a thousand posts. I think you could say that maybe the universe is the first cause and it was the reason for the existence of either an eternal or non-eternal sequence of events.

That you cannot understand it does not prove it does not work. All it demonstrates is that you cannot comprehend it.

Well I don’t think it demonstrates that either. It could be many things. It could be flawed. Your presentation of it could be flawed. Or my reasoning could be flawed.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Maaan, are we back on that roundabout again? It does not matter whether it was contracting or expanding. The question is whether it had a beginning.

Right. I still don’t think you’ve established that it did. I have tried explaining why either possibility we have matches the current data. I still haven’t seen any philosophical or evidential reasons to reject either possibility.

Based on current evidence, since you accept hte Big Bang and concur that this is the accepted theory, the universe has a begnning. We are going on circles here.

I have already told you that the Big Bang theory does not mean that the universe must have had a beginning. I have consulted a number of sources on this, and that seems to be the general consensus.
.

If the unvierse is eternal then it goes beyond time’s limits because the concept of time relates the natural world. If the universe is eternal then it must transcend time.

But if the natural world can be eternal, than time could be eternal.

Since we do not have any data to support any of the theory of what happened before planck time, why are we even considering this. This is bordering on the mythical.

Because you assert to know more than physicists about what happened. We don’t yet know whether the universe has always existed.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

When people speak of that it is experiential. And people have experienced this. I have experienced this.
I started a thread called “if there is no heaven will you still love God?” A lot of people were angered by it but a lot of people answered in the affirmative.

When it happens to you, you will know how true it is.

St Augustine who lived a rather “un-christian life” for many years finally came to this realization and he penned that famous quote: “You have created us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Again, this, personal and deep knowledge of God is not arrived at through reasoning. The most you can arrive at is the Creator God (which of course is a very big aspect of God). This is a gift. A gift we can always pray for. But a gift that God gives in His own time. Prepare to be surprises by the God of surprises.

I still don’t think that there must be a creator God, but if God does exist I guess I’ll be very surprised someday.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

You will not be able to grasp this at this stage in your life but we will always seek for more and never ever be satisfied because our hearts were made by God for Him alone. As I pointed in my above post, St Augustine is 100% correct when he wrote that our hearts will always be restless until they rest in Him.

And interestingly enough relationships are formed by the bond of Love. We Christians say God IS Love. All we do is mirror God who created us out of Love.

We also say God is a Trinity of Father. Son and Holy Spirit. The Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father and this love between the Father and Son is the third person - the Holy Spirit…

So yes, it is about relatinships.

I obviously don’t agree with this since I don’t believe in God. But thanks for giving me insight into how you view God.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

http://www.2001principle.net/2005.htm

I’ve seen arguments like this before. What I’ve read suggests that we don’t really know how likely these constants are to take the values that they do. When I tried looking at where people get the odds that they do, it seems like the odds they assign are pretty arbitrary because we don’t really know the probability of a constant taking any given value (even if we assume that none of the constants take the values they do due to necessity). You can’t have a constant probability distribution over the set of real numbers, so there must be greater probabilities for some values than for others. Until we have a good understanding of how likely each constant actually is, I don’t think we should see this as evidence one way or another. If you know of any cases where scientists have been able to find out how likely a given value is to come about by chance, I’d be interested in reading how they determined the probability.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html

Wow, that was quite an in depth article. However I had heard each of his core arguments before and had come across responses in the course of my research that I think explain why those arguments are not significant evidence against atheism. And I noticed a few other problems with various things that he said. But I certainly can understand why some people who read it would find it very persuasive.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

No. I also value the happiness of those I care about. If I had to choose between being deceived into thinking that someone I care about is happy when they are instead being tortured, and being deceived into thinking they were being tortured when they were actually happy, I would choose to have them be happy. Of course this example is somewhat contrived because in all decisions there’s a bit of both. I help those around me both because I want them to be happy and because them being happy makes me happy.

It sounds like you reject that,
The principle of happiness supersedes all desires.

I don’t really know what you mean by the attributes of happiness. A wide variety of things make me happy. I don’t have any a priori way of telling what makes me happy, but through experience I can tell what specific things result in the sensation of happiness.

Do you experience the “sensation of happiness,”
When you experience ambiguity or logical contradiction?