Does the claim "there is no God" require evidence/reasoning to support it?

[Windfish]

We’ve gotten horribly off-topic… I’ll see if I can steer it back tonight.

 

[teak421]

We’ve gotten horribly off-topic… I’ll see if I can steer it back tonight.

Start a new thread…???

My fault all… Forgive me… got carried away.

 

[1234]

…um, getting back to Mark.

The history of the New Testament canon, especially that of the gospels, is a real mare’s nest. In Wiki, Mark appears to have been written later than 8–10 years after Jesus died. More like 30 years. But opinions differ…always. If you want to study the origins and documents of the NT, you might start with Wiki, but that’s only a start. You can spend your life d studying the scholarly origins of the NT, learn NT Greek, etc. and arrive at no conclusions.

Mark is felt to have received the teachings from Peter or a disciple of Peter what is striking about Mark is that he starts with the baptism of Jesus by John the B and the earliest copies end with…the empty tomb. No Annunciation, no trip to Bethlehem, no wise Men, no flight into Egypt, no census, no Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents. The Census did not take place–no records of it and it would be illogical to expect hundreds of thousands of people at that time to somehow travel to their birthplaces for this. Ditto the Slaughter of the Innocents–no historical record. Ancient stories of gods and famous people are replete with virgin births, acknowledgement of greatness by sages, and precocity.

Re the inexplicable absence of references in the earliest copies of Mark to the Resurrection and Ascension, people have posited a missing fragment. Logical, to be sure and the only explanation, if one assumes that these events took place. Maybe Mark died before he could finish it.

Re a reference to Socrates or Alexander the Great–I am not sure about the time like of references to these men, who were famous during their lifetimes, but I would be surprised if there were no contemporary references to them. but this is moot. No one is asking anyone to worship them, so the issue is relevant only to historians.

I find it odd that Jesus spoke Greek in referring to Peter. Jesus was a Jew and spoke Aramaic. Although he may have been literate, it is certainly possible that many of the disciples weren’t–Matthew might have been, but …fishermen? Who knew Greek? Maybe some Latin. Jesus surely would have spoken Aramaic to them, so why make a pun on the Greek work for rock? I have not heard of Aramaic references to Peter’s name, vs the word for rock in Aramaic–or its written form, Hebrew. This, like other references in the gospels, sounds like a later addition by Greek-speakers.

 

[Windfish]

In Wiki, Mark appears to have been written later than 8–10 years after Jesus died. More like 30 years.

I was referring to the epistles and letters in the NT as the earliest writings.

Mark is felt to have received the teachings from Peter or a disciple of Peter what is striking about Mark is that he starts with the baptism of Jesus by John the B and the earliest copies end with…the empty tomb. No Annunciation, no trip to Bethlehem, no wise Men, no flight into Egypt, no census, no Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents. The Census did not take place–no records of it and it would be illogical to expect hundreds of thousands of people at that time to somehow travel to their birthplaces for this. Ditto the Slaughter of the Innocents–no historical record.

Actually, there is a debate and discussion on the dating of the census, but there is no question that a census did take place. Previous records show that census’ did require citizens to return to their place of birth.

Ancient stories of gods and famous people are replete with virgin births, acknowledgement of greatness by sages, and precocity.

Notice, however, that these stories arise hundreds of years AFTER the Gospels. I was discussing this with an atheist, and a popular talking point from sites like infidels.org is that other historical figures like Alexander the Great had virgin births attributed to them, but if you study the history, these stories only arise after the Gospels. I will be reading a book on this soon called The Gospels and the Greeks.

Re the inexplicable absence of references in the earliest copies of Mark to the Resurrection and Ascension, people have posited a missing fragment. Logical, to be sure and the only explanation, if one assumes that these events took place. Maybe Mark died before he could finish it.

Or he simply didn’t write about them. It isn’t a problem.

Re a reference to Socrates or Alexander the Great–I am not sure about the time like of references to these men, who were famous during their lifetimes, but I would be surprised if there were no contemporary references to them. but this is moot. No one is asking anyone to worship them, so the issue is relevant only to historians.

No contemporary references that we can find. And yeah, no one is asking to worship them, but this says nothing about the facts. I don’t see your point.

I find it odd that Jesus spoke Greek in referring to Peter. Jesus was a Jew and spoke Aramaic. Although he may have been literate, it is certainly possible that many of the disciples weren’t–Matthew might have been, but …fishermen? Who knew Greek? Maybe some Latin. Jesus surely would have spoken Aramaic to them, so why make a pun on the Greek work for rock? I have not heard of Aramaic references to Peter’s name, vs the word for rock in Aramaic–or its written form, Hebrew. This, like other references in the gospels, sounds like a later addition by Greek-speakers.

It’s now known that first-century Jews (many of them, anyway) were heavily Hellenized and were bilingual.

 

[larkin31]

Actually, there is a debate and discussion on the dating of the census, but there is no question that a census did take place. Previous records show that census’ did require citizens to return to their place of birth.

I would love a link to this if you have one handy…

It’s now known that first-century Jews (many of them, anyway) were heavily Hellenized and were bilingual.

carpenters from Galilee? Whom would Jesus have learned Greek from?

 

[Windfish]

I would love a link to this if you have one handy…

No link, just a passage from R.T. France’s book (I quoted from it earlier).

carpenters from Galilee? Whom would Jesus have learned Greek from?

I have no idea. But that’s the history for you. He is all-knowing, though.

 

[larkin31]

No link, just a passage from R.T. France’s book (I quoted from it earlier).

I have no idea. But that’s the history for you. He is all-knowing, though.

haha

of course! :doh2:

I will look for your quote…

 

[larkin31]

No link, just a passage from R.T. France’s book (I quoted from it earlier).

I tried searches in this thread for “R.T.” and for “France” and got no matches. Can you show me where it is? Thanks.

 

[Windfish]

haha

of course! :doh2:

I will look for your quote…

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that I quoted from that particular passage, but from the book! I’m away from my bookcase right now, so I can’t get you the excerpt, but I will when I can.

 

[larkin31]

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that I quoted from that particular passage, but from the book! I’m away from my bookcase right now, so I can’t get you the excerpt, but I will when I can.

I figured that you mentioned the author when you typed up the quote…how about giving me a word or two from the passage? You have posted so many times on this thread that I don’t have the time to read all of your entries. But I understand if you are busy too…

 

[ddarko]

I agree that anything and everything can be regarded as evidence that God exists depending on what you mean by God.

But if you make some extraordinary claim about what your belief entails, questions come to mind.

You make such a dubious claim below–that the resurrection requires no more evidence than that some people said they saw it:

Hundreds of witnesses? As Sam Harris noted:
"First-hand reports of miracles are a dime a dozen, even in the 21st century. Many spiritual seekers in India testify to miracles performed by their gurus on a daily basis. These miracles are every bit as extraordinary as the miracles attributed to Jesus. I bet it would be easy to find 500 western educated men and women who are convinced that their favorite Eastern yogi has magic powers.

I remain open to evidence of such powers, but as far as I can tell, all of these stories are told by people who desperately want to believe them, all lack the kind of corroborating evidence one should require to actually believe that Nature’s laws have been broken in this way, and most people who report these events demonstrate an utter disinclination to look for non-miraculous explanations.

In any case, we don’t need to rely on a two-thousand year old book to find the sort of proof that you seem to find compelling. Stories about mystics (and charlatans) walking on water, raising the dead, flying without the aid of technology, materializing objects, reading minds, foretelling the future, etc., are being told now.

Indeed, all of these powers have been attributed to the South Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba by an uncountable number of eyewitnesses-and the man claims to have been born of a virgin to boot! Sai Baba is not the David Koresh of the East. His followers threw him a birthday party and a million people showed up. He has literally millions of followers, many of them educated westerners. You can watch some of his “miracles” on YouTube, performed before credulous throngs of spiritually hungry souls. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

I don’t find these stories being told today any more compelling than you do. And yet, you are suggesting that tales of similar events emerging from the pre-scientific religious milieu of the 1st century Roman Empire (decades after their supposed occurrence) are especially credible?"

So here are some real issues here that we have to deal with in regard to the resurrection:

(1) Are the ancient accounts trustworthy, given that we have no first-person accounts but only those written down by others decades after the events they describe?

(2) Are first-person accounts of miracles trustworthy even today, given that millions of people attest to having witnessed miracles performed by their spiritual leaders?

Do you believe the above referenced miracle stories about Sai Baba? If not, why not? What would convince you that they are true/false?

First of all, the claim that ‘‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’’ seems self defeating. How do you know that its true? Seems like a pretty extraordinary claim to me

Secondly, your metrics fail to understand that resurrection must have really happened in order for all these men to lay their lives down. Just think about it, if I was told that preaching about some dead guy was going to get me killed, why on earth would I want to preach about him if he never rose from the dead? They could have easily said he never died or something like Muslims do. In either case, I would have come up with something else to preach. Why pick something absurd as the resurrection? The fact that every apostle other than Judas preached about Jesus even in the midst of utmost persecution shows that the resurrection must have truly happened to convince them to preach. It seems the most plausible explanation.

Thirdly, if Sai Babaa was told that he will be put to death if he does one more ‘‘miracles’’ and preach his religion or that his followers would be put to death if they thought Sai baba was special, I doubt Sai Baba himself will continue Also, these people you refer to as having their leaders perform ‘‘miracles’’, see if they will be willing to die for their belief that the miracles is true… I highly doubt it

God Bless

 

[Windfish]

I figured that you mentioned the author when you typed up the quote…how about giving me a word or two from the passage? You have posted so many times on this thread that I don’t have the time to read all of your entries. But I understand if you are busy too…

Well, here’s the excerpt from the book:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=6857561&postcount=148

This excerpt was about the remarkable accuracy of the Bible, not about the census, though. For that, I will have to search through the book again.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Well, there are many events in the Bible, which are corroborated by external and independent historians. It is reasonable to flag those as probably accurate. However, that does not lend any credence to the other parts, which are not corroborated by independent historians. I hope we can agree on that principle. Now for all the alleged miracles, predictions, what have you, are in this second category. To accept those as historical records would be engaging in wishful thinking. Moreover, most of those events are flatly contradicted by science, making them even more imporobable. Based upon that one must discard those claims as legends, which developed over time.

That is no explanation. You are basing all of your assumptions from previous assumptions. It is pretty well-established you have no valid reason which is why you refer back to assumptions that make our claims seem false. Why do you not believe, R Daneel? Give a positive reason (such as “suffering exists”). Not a negative reason (such as “there is no evidence”) as most atheists tend to do. I can also see you did not do as I asked. It would help tremendously it you did. Trust me. Wishful thinking is exactly what you are doing. Escapism can be a deadly thing. You cannot find evidence so you run to assumptions that seems to abnegate our claims. There is nothing wrong with believing in something we cannot see. Modernism has put in our mind “seeing is believing.” There are many things we believe in that we cannot sense.

Claiming “there is no God” needs reason and evidence. There is none. Claiming “there is a God” also needs reason and evidence. There is plenty of that. Unfortunately, people will refuse to see it and will say that because science cannot explain it, it is not necessarily real. God should not be based on opinion. It should be based on fact. Reality is not subject to opinion or mere feelings and emotions. If you think that, good luck fallin off a cliff.

Evidence is not only empirical. If it was, that would be a logical contradiction. We would need a priori evidence to even verify that. That would make empiricism false. Just throwing that out there. Anyway, have a good day.

 

[R_Daneel]

Why do you not believe, R Daneel? Give a positive reason (such as “suffering exists”). Not a negative reason (such as “there is no evidence”) as most atheists tend to do.

There are several levels to my lack of belief - depending on the definition of “god”. When we speak of a very generic god (a deistic god) then all I can say that this assumption is not necessary, and - yes - there is no evidence for it. When you speak of the specific God of Christianity, the reason is more complex. The Christian God has several alleged attributes - the omnimax attributes (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent), and also perfectly merciful and perfectly just, as well as inscrutable, incomprehensible, and a few more. Most of these are simply meaningless, others are mutually exclusive, yet others are contradicted by the actual state of affairs of the world (omnibenevolence is in this category). We could go into details. To put it down in a simple form, I know (not just do not believe) that the Christian God does not exist, just like a married bachelor cannot exist. As for the generic deistic god, without any features, I do not know if such a being exists or not, but I do not believe it does.

 

[larkin31]

1. Not all ancient accounts are trustworthy, no, but given what we know about first-century Judaism and first-century Jews, the New Testament should be remarkably trustworthy. Indeed, setting aside the miraculous claims for a moment, the New Testament is *ridiculously/] accurate regarding such things as customs, rituals, procedures, dress, dates, names, places, etc. Luke, in particular, is breathtakingly accurate:

---

What we do know for certain is that the apostles believed they saw the Risen Lord many, many times. Now, what’s left is to explain the origin of that belief. Many explanations have been put forward, none satisfy except that they really did see the Risen Lord. This is a topic that has been written about in many, many books, and I am slowly working my way through them…*

Thanks for the quote, too, although I was particularly interested in the census information. If you come across any, let me know.

To comment on this: there is, of course, a difference between getting the historical context of a miracle correct and the actual validity of the description of the miracle itself. But we do not have to debate this here.

Have you read any John Dominic Crossan on the historical Jesus? I have read nearly everything he has written on him and the history of the time.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

There are several levels to my lack of belief - depending on the definition of “god”. When we speak of a very generic god (a deistic god) then all I can say that this assumption is not necessary, and - yes - there is no evidence for it. When you speak of the specific God of Christianity, the reason is more complex. The Christian God has several alleged attributes - the omnimax attributes (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent), and also perfectly merciful and perfectly just, as well as inscrutable, incomprehensible, and a few more. Most of these are simply meaningless, others are mutually exclusive, yet others are contradicted by the actual state of affairs of the world (omnibenevolence is in this category). We could go into details. To put it down in a simple form, I know (not just do not believe) that the Christian God does not exist, just like a married bachelor cannot exist. As for the generic deistic god, without any features, I do not know if such a being exists or not, but I do not believe it does.

Well, I KNOW (not just believe) that God does exist. Saying this does nothing for you. Saying you KNOW the “Christian God” does not exist does nothing for me either. Omnibenevolence (among others) contradicts what you see because you do not know what it is. The omni-deals are not meaningless, nor are they mutually exclusive; this shows your ignorance. They are quite simple attributes. No need to argue these points though because you will not believe our reason. Nor will I believe yours.

 

[jkiernan56]

Agnosticism, has to do with wether or not it is possible to gain knowlege about a God.

Athiesm, is a lack of belief/a belief there is No God.

You could be an agnostic athiest, or an agnostic believer, keeping in mind that athiesm is rejecting the concept of a “theistic” God as it is typically described.

Hope that makes sense
Cheers
Dame

You cannot be both a agnostic and an athiest at the same time. To be more precise about what it means to be Agnostic (than how you described it above).

An AGNOSTIC purports that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. (Notice I didn’t say a god).

An ATHIEST purports that God does NOT EXIST.

When you make the statement “you could be an agnostic athiest” - you are mixing apples and oranges / water and oil. They don’t go together. It would be like saying “I don’t believe God exists although the existence of God is unknowable”. Oil and water.
Remember - when a premise is false, any outcome from a false premise is also false.

 

[JohnDamian]

An AGNOSTIC purports that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. (Notice I didn’t say a god).

An ATHIEST purports that God does NOT EXIST.

You are correct.

However; I would like to point out many people misuse the term “Atheist” to denote a person who is without God. This would be untrue. Atheism is the proposition that the universe is without God. Likewise; Theism is the proposition that the universe has God.

You used the correct definition; I was merely pointing this out incase a confused person wanders in and starts playing pettifogger.

 

[Moonstruck888]

You are correct.

However; I would like to point out many people misuse the term “Atheist” to denote a person who is without God. This would be untrue. Atheism is the proposition that the universe is without God. Likewise; Theism is the proposition that the universe has God.

You used the correct definition; I was merely pointing this out incase a confused person wanders in and starts playing pettifogger.

From the Greek, αθεϊστής

A = without
Theos = God.

An atheist is simply a person who does not believe there is a God. The use of the word Atheism above carries implications that atheists are an organization of some kind. This is not the case.

 

[JohnDamian]

From the Greek, αθεϊστής

A = without
Theos = God.

An atheist is simply a person who does not believe there is a God. The use of the word Atheism above carries implications that atheists are an organization of some kind. This is not the case.

I apologise if I implied it is some organisation or somesuch.

Atheism per se is not an organisation; nor does it nessecarily stipulate any other belief or worldview. However; atheism - as defined as the belief of a universe without God can be defined as an “ism”. However; this does not imply anything beyond this end; in the same way as someone who is a “Theist” believes in God; to use the term Theist does not imply anything more than that belief. “Theism” is as diverse as pantheistic worldviews; monotheistic views; even beliefs that objects are God or God’s. Likewise; “Atheism” does not imply anything specifically, other than a lack of belief in God; or a belief in a universe without God. People who subscribe to Atheism can be equally (if not more) diverse than people who subscribe to Theism.

Saying “Theism” does not imply an organisation; nor does saying “Atheism”. These words merely stipulate one element of the worldview of the individual or individuals; and nothing more.