Proof: impossible I think...maybe

[anEvilAtheist]

Okay, here’s another one…

1 Some time after these events, God put Abraham to the test. He called to him, “Abraham!” “Ready!” he replied.
2 Then God said: "Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you."

“Moriah” is one of the hills of Jerusalem, where Christ was crucified.

** 3 Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him his son Isaac, and two of his servants as well, and with the wood that he had cut for the holocaust, set out for the place of which God had told him.
4 On the third day Abraham got sight of the place from afar.
5 Then he said to his servants: “Both of you stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over yonder. We will worship and then come back to you.” **

Christ rode on a donkey/mule/a** to Jerusalem at the time of His messianic entry, just before His crucifixion.

** 6 Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on his son Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife.
7 As the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. “Father!” he said. “Yes, son,” he replied. Isaac continued, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?” **

Christ carried the wood of His Own sacrifice in Jerusalem, at the time of His crucifixion.

** 8 “Son,” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” Then the two continued going forward. **

God Himself provided the victim on the cross – His Own Son.

** 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.
10 Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.
11 But the LORD’S messenger called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered.
12 “Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the messenger. “Do not do the least thing to him. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” **

Christ laid on the wood of His Own cross, to be nailed to it.

** 13 As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So he went and took the ram and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.
14 Abraham named the site Yahweh-yireh; hence people now say, “On the mountain the LORD will see.” Genesis 22:1-14. **

The ram substituting-in for Isaac has its head in a thicket. So, just as Christ had a crown of thorns, the ram also has a “crown of bush.”

This is another picture of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Skeptics frequently complain, “But it’s VAGUE!!! Why isn’t it EXACT???!!!” Maybe because then the people NOT wanting Christ to appear to be the Messiah make sure that His death doesn’t fit the prophecy?

The main problem I have is not the vagueness, although it is a little vague. My problem is that you are using the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. If I believed that the resurrection accounts reflected actual historical events, I would be a Christian. If I believed that Jesus performed miracles, I would be a Christian. But I think there is no reason to assume that the Bible is fact. After Jesus’ death, stories about his life were passed on by word of mouth for decades until they were written down. It makes sense that people would make things seem more supernatural in order to keep the audience interested and increase their chance of getting converts. They might also try to strengthen their case by adding in events which would fulfill prophecy (as could explain why the Gospels differ on which animal or animals Jesus rode). So after countless tellings and retellings, the story would probably be more convincing than it was originally. We have no idea how much it changed during that period, but it could have changed a lot. In order to believe something as remarkable as the resurrection, I’d want a bit more than hearsay. Otherwise the non-supernatural explanation seems far more likely.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

The main problem I have is not the vagueness, although it is a little vague. My problem is that you are using the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. If I believed that the resurrection accounts reflected actual historical events, I would be a Christian. If I believed that Jesus performed miracles, I would be a Christian. But I think there is no reason to assume that the Bible is fact. After Jesus’ death, stories about his life were passed on by word of mouth for decades until they were written down. It makes sense that people would make things seem more supernatural in order to keep the audience interested and increase their chance of getting converts. They might also try to strengthen their case by adding in events which would fulfill prophecy (as could explain why the Gospels differ on which animal or animals Jesus rode). So after countless tellings and retellings, the story would probably be more convincing than it was originally. We have no idea how much it changed during that period, but it could have changed a lot. In order to believe something as remarkable as the resurrection, I’d want a bit more than hearsay. Otherwise the non-supernatural explanation seems far more likely.

Hi.

No. I am looking at a 2500 year old book discussing a 2000 year old event. Even if you don’t believe that Christ is real, you have to ask questions like, “Well, how did these stories know things like the fact that the Romans crucified???”

I have dozens of stories like these, again and again and again foreshadowing the crucifixion at Skull Place and other aspects of the passion, centuries before they took place.

In effect, you have JEWISH books successfully predicting the CHRISTIAN thing, before the Christian thing happened!

Some respond, “But you are quoting from a Catholic translation!”

Okay, then I will use the Hebrew Bible. It reads essentially the same.

Then they object, “But you are INTERPRETING!!!”

Only a little bit. You can see what I am pointing out.

Believe me, you really are looking at something impossible, unless God exists. This is real.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi.

No. I am looking at a 2500 year old book discussing a 2000 year old event. Even if you don’t believe that Christ is real, you have to ask questions like, “Well, how did these stories know things like the fact that the Romans crucified???”

I think you misunderstood my objection. I dispute that these things were 2000 year old events. I think that the New Testament is not a reliable historical account of what took place. I differ with many atheists in that I accept that Christ most likely existed. I do not think that there is very good evidence of his existence. However, most legendary figures are based on real people (though there are exceptions), so I think it is a bit more likely that there was some person named Jesus upon whom the legend was built than that it was created out of thin air.

I do not think that they necessarily knew how the Romans crucified. Plato34 made a valid point that Genesis 3:15 is incredibly vague. If you make a prophecy vague enough, it’s easy to argue that it was fulfilled. If you make a large number of vague prophecies (as there are in the Old Testament), some are bound to be “fulfilled”. But if the Old Testament was really divinely inspired, you would not just expect some of the prophecies to be fulfilled, you would expect all of the prophecies to be fulfilled. Yet there are prophecies such as those in Ezekiel 29 that have clearly failed.

I have dozens of stories like these, again and again and again foreshadowing the crucifixion at Skull Place and other aspects of the passion, centuries before they took place.

In effect, you have JEWISH books successfully predicting the CHRISTIAN thing, before the Christian thing happened!

Some respond, “But you are quoting from a Catholic translation!”

Okay, then I will use the Hebrew Bible. It reads essentially the same.

Then they object, “But you are INTERPRETING!!!”

Only a little bit. You can see what I am pointing out.

Believe me, you really are looking at something impossible, unless God exists. This is real.

I do not think you are justified in concluding that these prophecies are evidence that God probably exists. I suggest rereading Plato34’s objections. But you are also making a huge leap by saying that it is actually completely impossible for this to take place if God did not exist. I don’t mean to offend, but I think your argument just does not work on a lot of levels.

 

[Plato34]

anEvilAtheist is right. It’s like defining a word by using the word itself in the definition.

it’s like a mean high school girl getting mad at some other girl and saying that she is a huge slut who has sex all the time with many boys and the mean girl sees this girl making out and tells everyone that she was getting a train run on her and eventually her friends start to claim that she got pregnant and had an abortion and no one knows about it and that’s why she was out of school for a couple of days a couple of weeks later, even though she really just had mono from making out. and since she was doing something sexual the story ran and a good deal of the people believed it.

Besides it’s not like irony is that rare, especially if it has several thousand years to manifest itself.

I always thought that the whole thing about the prophecies was kind of a protestant thing (no offense to protestants), it’s kind of disappointing to hear that on this site.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

By the way, sorry for making my last response a little short and not clarifying all the terms I used, but real life intervened. Hopefully this clears things up. Also, I am a little curious about what positions you take on these issues.

Well equal in the sense that neither of us can prove that our position is true. One possible difference is that I adhere to a Spartan Meritocracy worldview (start with very few assumptions and revise them whenever evidence contradicts them). I’m not sure which worldview you adhere to, but I think most believers do not have a Spartan Meritocracy worldview. For various reasons, I think this is the better worldview, but for those who have a Baroque Monarchy or Spartan Monarchy worldview any reasons I could give would be disregarded. Sorry for being so technical, but you’re the one who got into epistemology.

We could simply be skeptical of everything and not believe anything other than that we exist in some form. However, there are some types of knowledge that are important to know. For example, it is good to know that jumping off a 100 story building will lead to serious injury, and will not lead to you winning the lottery. Although all of the times we have heard that people jumping off buildings get hurt could theoretically have been illusions and they could actually have ended up winning the lottery, it’s probably not a good idea to believe this. So even if true knowledge is unattainable, we need to develop some set of working knowledge. There are four main approaches for how to do this: Baroque meritocracy, Baroque monarchy, Spartan meritocracy, and Spartan monarchy (discussed in An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism).

In the Baroque meritocracy approach, you make a large number of assumptions and then revise them when you learn things that seem to contradict what you assumed. In the Baroque monarchy approach, you make a large number of assumptions and then hold firm to them regardless of how much evidence there is that they are wrong. In the Spartan meritocracy approach, you make as few assumptions as possible and then revise them when you learn things that seem to contradict what you assumed. In the Spartan monarchy approach, you make as few assumptions and then hold firm to them regardless of how much evidence there is that they are wrong. Baroque meritocracies aren’t actually all that different from Spartan meritocracies because once you learn a decent bit, most of your false assumptions will be contradicted and you will have about the same set of beliefs as one who started from a Spartan meritocracy.

Since we start from a position of knowing nothing, we have to just guess which initial assumptions to adopt. It seems quite likely that whatever we guess will be wrong, so it makes sense to be willing to revise these assumptions if we get evidence that they are wrong.

Certainly which of these you adopt is not perfectly correlated with your religious beliefs, but Young Earth Creationists and others who operate on blind faith are certainly not working from a Spartan monarchy worldview. For Catholics, there a large number of things that the church “infallibly” teaches. While some Catholics may be willing to revise their beliefs (if, for example, they thought the evidence pointed to the resurrection of Jesus being false), I think that quite a lot cling to the most fundamental church teachings regardless of how true they seem to be.

Personally, I go with Spartan monarchy. One of the very few things I assume is that if my senses are accurate more often than not. So far the evidence is consistent with this assumption so I have kept it (though I certainly don’t “know” that it isn’t all an illusion). Certainly, my senses sometimes mislead me, but I can also use my senses (using vision to read) to correct for situations in which my senses are prone to error.

I think, very obviously, that we have an epistemological problem here, and without getting all philosophical and pedantic (I’m certainly not a philosopher, although sadly, I may be a pedant) we’d need to establish what ‘proof’ is (or God is, for that matter) before we can go any further. And we not only need to define our terms, but also need to make a statement as to our own epistemological position before a valid discussion can take place. Arguing with a positivist is quite different to arguing with a moderate realist, for instance.

I am also not a philosopher, and I wish I knew philosophy a little better than I do. I have mostly looked at the arguments for and against the existence of God and haven’t yet branched out into general philosophy. Since I believe “proof” is an unrealistically high bar, and I certainly want to believe in the Christian God if he exists, all I ask for is a reason to think that Christianity is probably true.

As far as my epistemological position, I would say that I am basically a moderate realist. I don’t think there is some realm with things like redness and beauty which are then instantiated in our world.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

it’s like a mean high school girl getting mad at some other girl and saying that she is a huge slut who has sex all the time with many boys and the mean girl sees this girl making out and tells everyone that she was getting a train run on her and eventually her friends start to claim that she got pregnant and had an abortion and no one knows about it and that’s why she was out of school for a couple of days a couple of weeks later, even though she really just had mono from making out. and since she was doing something sexual the story ran and a good deal of the people believed it.

This made my brain hurt for a few minutes before I finally figured it out. You’re making me feel old (and I’m not that old).

Besides it’s not like irony is that rare, especially if it has several thousand years to manifest itself.

Sorry to play irony police, but I think you’re misusing the word irony. Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us.

 

[Jon_Paul]

Is it possible for a single “Truth,” whether Catholic tradition, atheism, or another religion be actually proven. I just want to hear examples. Also, if you can prove that proof is possible that would be equally appreciated and probably more respected.

(I am going to try to disprove all of these proofs, not because I think they are wrong, but because I think it helps me understand the issue better, and I think it is good sport, brain teasers you know).

Have some fun with St Thomas on the existance of God !

newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article1

newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article2

newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

 

[CentralFLJames]

There are four main approaches for how to do this: Baroque meritocracy, Baroque monarchy, Spartan meritocracy, and Spartan monarchy (discussed in An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism).

Fancy that - an atheistic code of dogma. Who is current pope and does he claim infallability?

James

 

[Peter_Dawson]

I think you misunderstood my objection. I dispute that these things were 2000 year old events. I think that the New Testament is not a reliable historical account of what took place. I differ with many atheists in that I accept that Christ most likely existed. I do not think that there is very good evidence of his existence. However, most legendary figures are based on real people (though there are exceptions), so I think it is a bit more likely that there was some person named Jesus upon whom the legend was built than that it was created out of thin air.

I do not think that they necessarily knew how the Romans crucified. Plato34 made a valid point that Genesis 3:15 is incredibly vague. If you make a prophecy vague enough, it’s easy to argue that it was fulfilled. If you make a large number of vague prophecies (as there are in the Old Testament), some are bound to be “fulfilled”. But if the Old Testament was really divinely inspired, you would not just expect some of the prophecies to be fulfilled, you would expect all of the prophecies to be fulfilled. Yet there are prophecies such as those in Ezekiel 29 that have clearly failed.

I do not think you are justified in concluding that these prophecies are evidence that God probably exists. I suggest rereading Plato34’s objections. But you are also making a huge leap by saying that it is actually completely impossible for this to take place if God did not exist. I don’t mean to offend, but I think your argument just does not work on a lot of levels.

Hi, EvilAtheist.

Even if one maintains that the crudifixion did not take place, an honest skeptic still has to answer to himself (not to me or anyone else here) why the Jewish books of the OT foreshadow a crucifixion-like event again and again and again and again and again, even if you have doubts about Roman history. (And don’t. They have unearthed crucifixion victims from graves in Jerusalem dating to the Roman period.)

Here is another one. I am going to skip over to one of the more obvious crucifixion foreshagowings…

8 At Rephidim, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
9 Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, “Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”
10 So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
11 As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.
12 Moses’ hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
13 And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Exodus 17:8-13.

Okay, it is clear from the text that Moses is on top of a hill, between two men, while Moses hold a stick up high over his head with two hands, not one. One of the things not obvious in the English translation is that the hill is called a roshe, one of the Hebrew terms for the head of an animal or human.

So, you have a man standing on a “head place,” so to speak, hands over his head on wood, between two men, and from this the power of God issues to defeat a kind of “evil”…
wcg.org/lit/bible/law/art/etwog35.jpg

…instead of Christ on Skull Place hands over his head on wood, between two thieves, and from this the power of God issues to defeat evil…
possessthevision.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/crucifixion.jpg

 

[cranster]

I certainly want to believe in the Christian God if he exists, all I ask for is a reason to think that Christianity is probably true.

.

I think that while it’s important to search out truth with intellectual ascent, intellectual ascent isn’t everything. There is an experiential component that happen s for allot of Catholics who are serious about their faith. I experience Jesus in the peace I have in my life that I can’t find anywhere else. I have encountered and experienced the love of Christ in my own life especially when I receive the Eucharist. I experience a tremendous amount of peace when I sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and because of that I have genuine hope that life won’t cease at death.

I usually follow these “Existence of God threads” somewhat detached because of my experience. When I was 17 Jesus stood at the edge of my bed and asked me if I would “Let Him love me”. I said yes, and was immediately overcome by a euphoric sense of love, happiness, joy, completeness, and peace that the only way I could respond was through weeping.
I always look back at that as my proof that He does indeed exist. Am I crazy?, perhaps, or perhaps it was real. I haven’t personally encountered any other gods before or since then. I’ve only encountered Jesus that way.

There are several reasons to think Christianity is probably true.
There was an empty tomb, and to this day no one has been able to produce a body, The Jews that had Jesus killed could have stopped the emergence of that budding Jewish heretical sect by simply showing everyone where the body lay. They couldn’t produce it nor could they stop the emergence of this movement by killing Him. Then take a look at 11 of the apostles, excluding John since He lived to old age. They underwent torture and death rather than renounce their belief that Jesus rose from the dead. What rational person would forfeit their instinctual self preservation for a lie? Steven believed in the resurrection enough to be stoned to death. Then look at the age of the martyrs in the first few hundred years after Christ, many, many were willing to undergo horrendous torture and death based on their belief in the resurrection. These people had to have experienced something profound in their lives to be willing to die for that belief.

As far as reasons to believe I think that although these are by no means “Proofs” , they do have a tremendous amount of weight to them, and shouldn’t be casually dismissed.

Try moving your search for the truth down about 12 inches from your head to your heart, and wait for the answer. Ask Him if he’s real, and to manifest Himself to you.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Fancy that - an atheistic code of dogma. Who is current pope and does he claim infallability?

James

Why hello again my agnostic friend. This is not an atheist code of dogma; this is a listing of the various approaches everyone, not just atheists, use in order to obtain knowledge. I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your intentions were good, and you were just misinformed about atheism. Considering that you have completely ignored all the points I made, it’s beginning to look like you don’t care about having a real discussion of these issues, and just enjoy making fun of atheists. Let me know if you ever decide you want to have a real conversation.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi, EvilAtheist.

Even if one maintains that the crudifixion did not take place, an honest skeptic still has to answer to himself (not to me or anyone else here) why the Jewish books of the OT foreshadow a crucifixion-like event again and again and again and again and again, even if you have doubts about Roman history. (And don’t. They have unearthed crucifixion victims from graves in Jerusalem dating to the Roman period.)

No, the crucifixion is one of events in Jesus’ life that I think probably happened. I was saying that your other examples were bad because there was no reason to think they actually happened.

Here is another one. I am going to skip over to one of the more obvious crucifixion foreshagowings…

8 At Rephidim, Amalek came and waged war against Israel.
9 Moses, therefore, said to Joshua, “Pick out certain men, and tomorrow go out and engage Amalek in battle. I will be standing on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”
10 So Joshua did as Moses told him: he engaged Amalek in battle after Moses had climbed to the top of the hill with Aaron and Hur.
11 As long as Moses kept his hands raised up, Israel had the better of the fight, but when he let his hands rest, Amalek had the better of the fight.
12 Moses’ hands, however, grew tired; so they put a rock in place for him to sit on. Meanwhile Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other, so that his hands remained steady till sunset.
13 And Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword. Exodus 17:8-13.

Okay, it is clear from the text that Moses is on top of a hill, between two men, while Moses hold a stick up high over his head with two hands, not one. One of the things not obvious in the English translation is that the hill is called a roshe, one of the Hebrew terms for the head of an animal or human.

So, you have a man standing on a “head place,” so to speak, hands over his head on wood, between two men, and from this the power of God issues to defeat a kind of “evil”…
wcg.org/lit/bible/law/art/etwog35.jpg

…instead of Christ on Skull Place hands over his head on wood, between two thieves, and from this the power of God issues to defeat evil…
possessthevision.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/crucifixion.jpg

My problem with treating this as prophecy is that if you accept very vague prophecy it is possible to argue that pretty much anything was prophesized by the Old Testament, even things that didn’t happen. Consider this, if Jesus had not died by crucifixion, would you have said that this is a failed prophecy? Prophecy is only prophecy if it makes a prophetic prediction and not just something that can be twisted after the fact to make it seem prophetic. Another reason I think this is bad evidence is that if you accept this as your reason to believe in the Christian God, you would have no reason to reject other religions that have similar “prophecies”.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

No, the crucifixion is one of events in Jesus’ life that I think probably happened. I was saying that your other examples were bad because there was no reason to think they actually happened.

If you mean that you think that many of the events in the OT did not happen, we agree.

That leaves with OT writings, not events, foreshadowing the crucifixion.

I’m still impressed by that – even more so, in fact.

My problem with treating this as prophecy is that if you accept very vague prophecy it is possible to argue that pretty much anything was prophesized by the Old Testament, even things that didn’t happen. Consider this, if Jesus had not died by crucifixion, would you have said that this is a failed prophecy? Prophecy is only prophecy if it makes a prophetic prediction and not just something that can be twisted after the fact to make it seem prophetic. Another reason I think this is bad evidence is that if you accept this as your reason to believe in the Christian God, you would have no reason to reject other religions that have similar “prophecies”.

This is a worthwhile challenge. Good for you. It forced me to think about my own position.

Your challenge is also the challenge of an honest person.

My answer is this: I’ve been studying Bible typology for 30 years, and nothing fits the typological foreshadowings in the OT like Christ in the NT.

In other words, my suspicion is that Christ is the only event which will fit.

Here’s another one, friend…

9 Absalom unexpectedly came up against David’s servants. He was mounted on a mule, **
There’s Christ riding on the a into Jerusalem at the time of His messianic entry, just before His crucifixion.

and, as the mule passed under the branches of a large terebinth, his hair caught fast in the tree.
There’s the crown of thorns.

**He hung between heaven and earth while the mule he had been riding ran off. **
Here is Christ hanging on the cross.

**10 Someone saw this and reported to Joab that he had seen Absalom hanging from a terebinth.
11 Joab said to his informant: “If you saw him, why did you not strike him to the ground on the spot? Then it would have been my duty to give you fifty pieces of silver and a belt.”
12 But the man replied to Joab: “Even if I already held a thousand pieces of silver in my two hands, I would not harm the king’s son, for the king charged you and Abishai and Ittai in our hearing to protect the youth Absalom for his sake.
13 Had I been disloyal and killed him, the whole matter would have come to the attention of the king, and you would stand aloof.” **
There is Judas Iscariot betraying Christ, and after being offered silver, ultimately refusing it.,

**14 Joab replied, “I will not waste time with you in this way.” And taking three pikes in hand, he thrust for the heart of Absalom, still hanging from the tree alive. **
There’s the soldier stabbing crucified Christ in the side with a spear.

15 Next, ten of Joab’s young armor-bearers closed in on Absalom, and killed him with further blows.
16 Joab then sounded the horn, and the soldiers turned back from the pursuit of the Israelites, because Joab called on them to halt.
17 Absalom was taken up and cast into a deep pit in the forest, and a very large mound of stones was erected over him. And all the Israelites fled to their own tents. 2 Samuel 18:9-17.
And finally, just as Absalom was buried under a pile of stones, Christ was buried in a rock cave.

Not bad.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I think that while it’s important to search out truth with intellectual ascent, intellectual ascent isn’t everything. There is an experiential component that happen s for allot of Catholics who are serious about their faith. I experience Jesus in the peace I have in my life that I can’t find anywhere else. I have encountered and experienced the love of Christ in my own life especially when I receive the Eucharist. I experience a tremendous amount of peace when I sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament, and because of that I have genuine hope that life won’t cease at death.

The problem with believing something without a logical reason is that there is no way to distinguish between true beliefs and false beliefs. There are many different religions, as well as many cults, and many scams. I do not want to believe something false just because it sounds good. People of all different religions have similar experiences of their God or gods speaking to them directly. I see no reason to believe that their experiences are any more or less genuine than Catholic experiences. But not all religions can be true because they hold contradictory beliefs. And it’s very hard to believe that the Christian God would want to disceive so many people into believing a false God and ensuring that they would reject true God. So to me it makes the most sense to conclude that none of these experiences are the result of an interaction with an actual supernatural being.

I usually follow these “Existence of God threads” somewhat detached because of my experience. When I was 17 Jesus stood at the edge of my bed and asked me if I would “Let Him love me”. I said yes, and was immediately overcome by a euphoric sense of love, happiness, joy, completeness, and peace that the only way I could respond was through weeping.
I always look back at that as my proof that He does indeed exist. Am I crazy?, perhaps, or perhaps it was real. I haven’t personally encountered any other gods before or since then. I’ve only encountered Jesus that way.

Many people share experiences like yours and they sound wonderful. I know a lot of people who had experiences like this and fully devoted their lives to Christianity. But I also know a lot of people like this who later decided to look at the arguments for and against God in order to bring people to God, and eventually realized that there really is no reason to believe in God. As they began to question, many of them desperately clung to their belief in God because it had become such an important and valued part of their life. Nevertheless, they came to accept things as they are. After giving up belief in God, a lot of these people realized that they don’t need to believe in any god in order to value and cherish life.

I want to apologize for offending anyone, but it makes me think of Santa Claus. It’s a wonderful story, and we all liked believing in it, but when we got older and learned more, we realized that there was no reason to think he exists. I think it is easy to give up belief in Santa Claus because so few adults actually believe in him. However, it is much harder to give up belief in something as wonderful as an all powerful being that loves each and every one of us when there are so many other people that share your beliefs and devote their lives to showing that this nonexistent entity exists.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

There are several reasons to think Christianity is probably true.
There was an empty tomb, and to this day no one has been able to produce a body, The Jews that had Jesus killed could have stopped the emergence of that budding Jewish heretical sect by simply showing everyone where the body lay. They couldn’t produce it nor could they stop the emergence of this movement by killing Him.

You’re making a big assumption in saying that there was an empty tomb. Biblical scholars are very divided about whether or not there was an empty tomb. I do not think there is any real evidence that the tomb was empty. You make a valid point about showing people the body, but I see a few problems with this. One possible objection is that the Jews did not know where Jesus was buried and therefore could not have done this. Another is that you are making the assumption that as soon as Jesus died, the Jews would immediately try to show everyone his body. It seems far more realistic that they would have no reason to think it was even worth their time until months later when the apostles really began to spread stories of the resurrection and began to win larger groups of converts. Not to be morbid, but bodies decompose very quickly in the Middle East, and it seems very unlikely that the body of Jesus would be recognizable at that point. Furthermore, even if the body still looked a lot like Jesus, I doubt this would have shaken any early Christian’s faith. It would have been far easier to conclude that the body was of someone who looked a little like Jesus than to give up their faith. So I definitely don’t think there is any reason to assume that there was an empty tomb.

Then take a look at 11 of the apostles, excluding John since He lived to old age. They underwent torture and death rather than renounce their belief that Jesus rose from the dead. What rational person would forfeit their instinctual self preservation for a lie? Steven believed in the resurrection enough to be stoned to death. Then look at the age of the martyrs in the first few hundred years after Christ, many, many were willing to undergo horrendous torture and death based on their belief in the resurrection. These people had to have experienced something profound in their lives to be willing to die for that belief.

I discussed this a bit in a previous post:

I have read a little bit about this, but I found the real evidence to be pretty thin. From what I’ve seen, there are only independent accounts of the deaths of a few of the apostles, and no evidence that they could have avoided being killed by recanting. So if you have some independent accounts of their deaths, I honestly would be interested in reading them.

As far as reasons to believe I think that although these are by no means “Proofs” , they do have a tremendous amount of weight to them, and shouldn’t be casually dismissed.

Try moving your search for the truth down about 12 inches from your head to your heart, and wait for the answer. Ask Him if he’s real, and to manifest Himself to you.

Believe me; I am not just casually dismissing the arguments for Christianity. I have carefully studied the best arguments and concluded that none of them provide a good reason to believe. And yes, I have already tried asking God to manifest himself. I very sincerely asked him to give me a sign, not to confirm that he didn’t exist, but because I honestly wanted to know him if he did. But I am not going to believe something for no reason, because I think that is the surest path to false beliefs.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

If you mean that you think that many of the events in the OT did not happen, we agree.

That leaves with OT writings, not events, foreshadowing the crucifixion.

I’m still impressed by that – even more so, in fact.

No, I was saying that many of the events in the New Testament did not happen (though I certainly agree that many from the OT also did not happen).

This is a worthwhile challenge. Good for you. It forced me to think about my own position.

Your challenge is also the challenge of an honest person.

My answer is this: I’ve been studying Bible typology for 30 years, and nothing fits the typological foreshadowings in the OT like Christ in the NT.

In other words, my suspicion is that Christ is the only event which will fit.

Here’s another one, friend…

9 Absalom unexpectedly came up against David’s servants. He was mounted on a mule, **
There’s Christ riding on the a into Jerusalem at the time of His messianic entry, just before His crucifixion.

and, as the mule passed under the branches of a large terebinth, his hair caught fast in the tree.
There’s the crown of thorns.

**He hung between heaven and earth while the mule he had been riding ran off. **
Here is Christ hanging on the cross.

**10 Someone saw this and reported to Joab that he had seen Absalom hanging from a terebinth.
11 Joab said to his informant: “If you saw him, why did you not strike him to the ground on the spot? Then it would have been my duty to give you fifty pieces of silver and a belt.”
12 But the man replied to Joab: “Even if I already held a thousand pieces of silver in my two hands, I would not harm the king’s son, for the king charged you and Abishai and Ittai in our hearing to protect the youth Absalom for his sake.
13 Had I been disloyal and killed him, the whole matter would have come to the attention of the king, and you would stand aloof.” **
There is Judas Iscariot betraying Christ, and after being offered silver, ultimately refusing it.,

**14 Joab replied, “I will not waste time with you in this way.” And taking three pikes in hand, he thrust for the heart of Absalom, still hanging from the tree alive. **
There’s the soldier stabbing crucified Christ in the side with a spear.

15 Next, ten of Joab’s young armor-bearers closed in on Absalom, and killed him with further blows.
16 Joab then sounded the horn, and the soldiers turned back from the pursuit of the Israelites, because Joab called on them to halt.
17 Absalom was taken up and cast into a deep pit in the forest, and a very large mound of stones was erected over him. And all the Israelites fled to their own tents. 2 Samuel 18:9-17.
And finally, just as Absalom was buried under a pile of stones, Christ was buried in a rock cave.

Not bad.

These still do seem a little vague. Also, a lot of these seem to be taken out of context and do not seem like they were originally intended to prophesize a crucifixion. And while I believe that the crucifixion took place, I do not think the bible’s account of it is 100% accurate. Not only is there no reason to trust its accuracy, but there are many contradictory accounts within the bible itself. For example, did Judas throw the money into the temple as in Matthew, or did he buy a field as in Acts?

 

[Ocarm]

Simple-ish reply to a very complex series of points.

So even if true knowledge is unattainable, we need to develop some set of working knowledge. There are four main approaches for how to do this: Baroque meritocracy, Baroque monarchy, Spartan meritocracy, and Spartan monarchy (discussed in An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism).

According to this construct, which I think is a fairly good albeit unsuitable for explaining all acquisition of knowledge/beliefs (I don’t imagine any construct could succeed in that) then I am also a follower of Spartan meritocracy.

Since we start from a position of knowing nothing, we have to just guess which initial assumptions to adopt. It seems quite likely that whatever we guess will be wrong, so it makes sense to be willing to revise these assumptions if we get evidence that they are wrong.

And that has been my experience. You may or may not credit it (!) but my choosing an active Christianity in my life, and my later becoming a Catholic Christian, are examples of me revising my assumptions about my existence.

For Catholics, there a large number of things that the church “infallibly” teaches.

At the risk of being nitpicky, I would have to point out that there is a relatively small number of things that the Church teaches infallibly. There are considerably more that she teaches authoritatively, but that’s a very different claim: governments proclaim authoritatively, but not infallibly.

While some Catholics may be willing to revise their beliefs (if, for example, they thought the evidence pointed to the resurrection of Jesus being false), I think that quite a lot cling to the most fundamental church teachings regardless of how true they seem to be.

There are certainly no shortage of fundamentalists in most walks of life who are uncritical of their significant beliefs; there are also others who worry them to death and never find peace of mind, which seems unproductive to me (I’ve just participated in a thread which evidenced that tendency). However, there is an issue of logical primacy here. If one accepts a default worldview, experience will tautologically be shaped and understood through that prism. So it’s not surprising that it remains firm in the face of experience.

That isn’t reserved for Catholics. I think if Dawkins had a vision of the Blessed Virgin, he would dismiss it as another pesky meme passed on to him by some undesirable type.

Lots of people do leave their Catholicism behind, however; and many people who identify as believers and have problems with at least some of the precepts of their chosen faith, choose to accept the possibility that their own experience is flawed in relation to the broader experience of others, in terms of received wisdom. This can be lazy, or it can be courageous.

Continued

 

[Ocarm]

I understand your reservations expressed elsewhere as to how far scripture can prove the validity of a religion. By the same token, what ‘proof’ would be substantial enough to dissuade us Christians of the nature of an event occurring 2000 years ago? You aren’t convinced by the evidence that suggests the resurrection, so why would I be convinced by evidence that suggests otherwise? The historiographical restrictions that stop something being universally convincing would also stop it becoming universally disbelieved simply because some putative contrary evidence emerges.

‘Cling’ is a judgemental word, by the way. I’ve often heard it said that atheists ‘cling’ to their disbelief. Typically I assume good faith, as I’m sure do you.

One of the very few things I assume is that if my senses are accurate more often than not. So far the evidence is consistent with this assumption so I have kept it (though I certainly don’t “know” that it isn’t all an illusion). Certainly, my senses sometimes mislead me, but I can also use my senses (using vision to read) to correct for situations in which my senses are prone to error.

I would go along with that, but it brings us back to the epistemological problem that is at the root of all belief in a deity, namely that our experience of same is almost invariably externally subjective, whilst remaining internally objective to us. One can make a similar objection to the potential for consistency of all shared experience; but because we are inherently concerned with something experienced immaterially rather than materially, exporting this experience to others requires something more than a will to share in the kind of consensus reality which allows us to agree that an animal with 4 legs that meows is probably a cat.

Since I believe “proof” is an unrealistically high bar, and I certainly want to believe in the Christian God if he exists, all I ask for is a reason to think that Christianity is probably true.

I taked before about what is ‘reasonable’, which you rightly pointed out is a vague term. I would define it a sense of the inherent (rather than slight) possibility of its being true - not a certainty, but an idea with potential. The radical atheist position is to argue that belief in God is stupid and unscientific. Without rehearing the ‘first cause’ arguments of philosophy, I would say that the proposition that there is agency in the creation of, well, creation itself, is not an unreasonable possibility. And I find it much more reasonable than the unscientific claim of some scientists that everything there is came into being spontaneously without obvious cause.

This is not proof of God’s existence, which as you say, is setting the bar much too high. But it is, to me, a reasonable starting point. And I’ve yet to hear an equally reasonable alternative.

Filling in all those blanks about what this agent of creation might be like then becomes the province of theology, which in some ways is a troubled area of study because it takes something very non-specific - revelation - and tries to look at it specifically and systematically. But theology has certainly aided me in my understanding of God by helping me to ask the right questions.

As far as my epistemological position, I would say that I am basically a moderate realist.

Then we have another thing in common, because so am I. I find the other positions self-defeating, and in any event, it puts me in the company of great Christian philosophers like Duns Scotus.

Best wishes to you for a good week ahead.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

No, I was saying that many of the events in the New Testament did not happen (though I certainly agree that many from the OT also did not happen).

These still do seem a little vague. Also, a lot of these seem to be taken out of context and do not seem like they were originally intended to prophesize a crucifixion. And while I believe that the crucifixion took place, I do not think the bible’s account of it is 100% accurate. Not only is there no reason to trust its accuracy, but there are many contradictory accounts within the bible itself. For example, did Judas throw the money into the temple as in Matthew, or did he buy a field as in Acts?

It is apparent from a review of much of the Bible that for the ancients, “historical fiction” = “non-fiction.” It appears that they used to play fast and loose with details to teach.

Come on, friend: I saw your analysis up above. You are a good person with a brain. What I’m showing you here isn’t a lot of junk. You’re looking at a genuine miracle which the literalists here will never understand. Give God a chance. This is real.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Well I guess that depends on how you define good and bad. If you define good and bad only as that which pleases or displeases God, then I agree that without God there would be no good and bad.

Agree.

However, I think that when most people use the terms they mean that which makes things better or worse off, things that help and things that harm. I use reason in order to determine which actions are good and which are bad. You have to understand that atheism itself does not provide any moral guidance whatsoever (it consists only of a lack of belief in God). So atheists still have to try to determine which moral system is correct. …

You are proposing a heuristic mechanism to determine good and bad that lacks an ability to accurately forecast cause and effect within any reasonable accuracy even within one’s own lifetime. That can not “play well” with the longer lived universe’s order where humanity is only a late comer. Clearly, long before man arrived the universe was doing just well following its own natural law and could do no wrong/bad since material outcomes are of no consequence to life that does not yet exist; that is unless you want to elevate galaxies and star systems annihilating and recycling themselves to a cosmological equivalent of murder. What is clear is that natural law is built into every aspect of the universe and to break the natural law is decidedly “bad” since it goes against the natural order. Homosexuality would be one such disordered condition since it is not constructive nor unitive. How would an atheist apply a moral code to disordered expressions of human emotions ot would you all just let nature take care of the consequences (STDs HIV etc.)?

And yes, if evil only means that which displeases God, I think there is no such thing as evil. But there is certainly plenty of pain and suffering in the world, and in that sense there is plenty of evil.

This is a non-sequitur. You have not defined evil so can’t equate it with pain and suffering. Is the small pain associate with cutting new teeth as evil as the pain of child birth? Is all evil equivalent? Is making less than optimum decisions evil or need we only concern ourselves with our own lifetimes and personal consequences? To develop a taxonomy of evil I think you will find that you have to develop a philosophy that will step into religious belief or idealism that is not formally defined in the current natural order. Feel like playing the role of a secular Moses to be a law giver?

I also think it is very problematic to define good as that which is pleasing to God. Some people have been certain that God told them to kill their kids and felt certain that their actions were good.

Perhaps there have been a few rare cases of this in modern history. But I suspect that there are a lot more who have killed themselves for lacking any sense of purpose in a Godless society where there is not much reason to exist except to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Some may say that they must have had mental problems and that God would never command something like that. However, there is some evidence in the Old Testament (Numbers 31 and 1 Samuel 15) that God has in the past commanded people to commit mass murder. My point here is not to say that God is evil. My point is to say that if you believe that morality derives solely from God then you have no way to condemn someone’s actions as evil if they think they were commanded to do them by God because there is a chance that God could have commanded them to do the things they did and in that case their actions were good.

So you don’t want to believe in God because you are afraid that people will abuse that belief? Would you propose outlawing religious belief to put your fears to rest if we had it your way and we all became atheists?

Now as a Catholic, you do not have to adopt the problematic position that morality is whatever God says it is and can instead take the position that good and evil exist independently of God, but God approves of that which is good and disapproves of that which is evil. However, in this case, you are accepting that good and evil could exist independently of God. I do not claim to have infallible knowledge of what is good and what is evil, however I use my reason to determine what helps people and what causes them pain. Although my reason is fallible, it has so far proven to be accurate more often than not, and it is all I have.

Your logic pains me and that is “bad” to me. If God permits both good and evil it is a non-sequitur to assume from transparent cause and effect that these concepts can exist independent of God. Perhaps God simply does not want to be compelled to respond to sinners nor saints in the temporal terms that THEY would demand and expect. Children do that all the time with their parents - either brown nose or cut up to get attention. I doubt a sovereign God would want to subject himself to too much of that sort of yoyo game. So don’t confuse what is seemingly transparent cause and effect for equivalence with “no consequence” (good or bad) just because the effect is grounded outside your sensory bandwith of perception.

And yes, there is objective truth. For example, the law of non-contradiction is objectively true.

Ok good - we have a minimal basis for further dialog.

But how long do we wait around to see if anything contradicts our ideas or do we just put up a perimeter wall of assumptions on everything we do to protect ourselves from being legally culpable for our own incompetence? Hmm, I just broached a concept of “punishment”. Who gets to to judge and who gets to paddle the offenders and how hard?

James