So a new researching thing has shown that Atheist know more about the religious' religion than they do. Funny! I think I might have taken part in that, not sure. I know I answered a bunch of questions for a study awhile ago... If so I may have skewed it towards the stupid;)
And then there is this, a challenge to all those sanctimonious religious fellows who keep bragging about the proof they have.... Well this guy's calling you out. So answer him these questions... one. She him the proof! You talk big but we have yet to see any actual evidence. So here's your chance theists, put us in our reasonable places! Have at you!
Just a side note about posting your evidence here. Unless it's real evidence, I don't want to hear about. I don't care what your cousin said or hear. I don't care about the voices in your head (PLEASE have that checked out!) I want some physical proof. You know, weird Jesus blood from the shroud, freak DNA that can't be explained by any actual scientists, you know the boring stuff that can be measured and tested and that doesn't interest you, but might actually make a case for your crazy thinkin';)
Sooooooo...... GO!
I took the quiz, scored 15 for 15, but it was a pretty silly set of questions. I don't think scoring poorly or well really was an indication of much more than how you would do at a Trivial Pursuit religion edition.
ReplyDeleteI posted my response to the linked proof/evidence site at the original blog.
Basically these demands of proof are always a scam. Atheists always say something like "Show me proof" but they leave off the small print "but my standards are unobtainable and I am the only judge. Plus I ask you to ignore all the areas where I personally operate on faith, and I will hypocritically act like I am impartial. Now, please, play my little game."
Steve
I agree that atheists standards tend to be high. Thats because they are interested in actual proof. Low standards will allow anything to pass as proof. "I felt his presence" is not proof, its a feeling.
ReplyDeleteI am not an atheist and I am not a beleiver. I "feel" there is something more for us. However, unlike the religious I am willing to admit it is only a "feeling" and is probably based more on my fear of non-existance than anything else. I desperately want real proof of an afterlife, but as of this post I have seen none.
I also strongly beleive that if there is a God he would want all of us to seriously question his existance rather than blindly follow a religion that is full of holes.
The religeous also like to throw the word "faith" around as if its a good thing. Looking around at all the varied religeons out there more people will not get into Heaven because of their "faith" than will. You can have faith that your child will grow into a sucessful adult. That is faith based on experience and knowledge of your child. That faith bears weight. Faith in the unseen and unproven tends to lead to wearing tin foil on your head.
I'm sure you have decided that I'm one of those people with unobtainable standards. Here is my answer to that. If God exists he knows exactly what each of us "needs" in order to beleive. Heres where you say "He gives it to all of us but you are just denying it or refusing it." God would know that too and make the evidence clear to each individual. Since he hasn't done that for me I draw three conclusions. First, he doesn't exist. Second, he doesn't care. Third, He can't.
Sorry for the lengthy response. I have been reading these for a while and was moved to respond so that you might understand that not beleiving isn't a choice but a response to the evidence or lack there of.
I will continue to search.....
I'll have to check that out Steve, but I think you'll find them far smarter than I.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if its the same study, mine was 100 questions and there wasn't a score. I'll have to go see what you wrote.
Beautiful response Tom:) Jump in whenever you want!
Best,
Brett
Steve,
ReplyDeleteWhich name are posting under so I can read it!
Best,
Brett
I have to say, quizzes like that just remind me of why I hate Facebook. People think those are the real answers. Much as Tom said, feeling are different than proof, it would be quite the world if they were the same.
ReplyDeleteI'm rather vague on where I stand with the whole religion thing usually so let me toss it out there. I'm not a believer. I don't want to say there is nothing out there but like Tom I think its on the fear of going into nothingness. The three conclusions you drew were very interesting. I have always drawn the first two but not the third. Truthfully I had not thought of that yet, so thank you for giving me a new insight to things Tom, I look forward to thinking about it at work.
I think if we really want to break down the "evidence" of things lets take the words from that big old book and see what matches up. There is no pattern I have found to religious people being spared from anything that non-religious people are. They just yell a lot about how God saved them, when the guy who didn't get saved might have been going to church just as much.
If there is a God, and he is all powerful and such, why is he wasting his time watching us dance in circles to try and get an answer from him? Seems rather egotistical to me. Just my thoughts though.
You are right Jade. It seems silly that God knows whats going to happen and he sits back and watches it. Sounds like man has no choice, and if man has no choice all fault lies with God.
ReplyDeleteAs for my third choice. It came from ackwoledging that none of us "knows" God. Most beleivers idolize him and that usually leads to creating a false truth around someone. It is possible that his greatest acheivement was creation and now we are on our own. As children we think of our parents as bigger than life. Perfect, strong, smart, flawless. Then we grow up and love them anyway.
One of my other beliefs is that if God exists he is up in heaven looking down, pulling out his hair and asking why we are settling for religions that portray him as a gay hater, or a jew hater, etc. Every religeon condems everyone outside that belief. I would image God to not be so vile as to create in someone a strong desire for vanilla ice cream and then condemn them to hell for it. We cannot fake our desires therefore they come from our creator if he exists. Therefore God created homosexuals and jews. He also created athiests. Or we just are what we are and I would imagine with all the trouble he went through to create our world and see to it that it is vastly diverse, thats the way God wanted it. What does it matter to him what we believe?
Jade got me going again. One final staement. You can either seek the truth or conform to the beliefs of others, what would God have you do?
Tom and Jade, I hope you are sincere in your pursuit of knowing God. As you say, He knows what it would take for you to believe in him. Christians believe one day everyone will absolutely believe in Jesus, just some do it willingly and choose to enter into a loving relationship with Him on this side of eternity, others will wait until they meet Him face to face after death and have their free will choice to ignore Him honored by allowing them to spend eternity without Him. For what ever reason God wishes us to choose pursuing Him rather than forcing his will on us. I guess you could argue Paul in the Bible was forced into a confrontation with Jesus when he was knocked blind, but it also seems perhaps he wrestled with God for those three days and eventually came to belief.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know why God pursued me. I was giving Him the middle finger and running fast in the other direction when He broke into my life.
As far as I can figure it faith is an aspect of love. Faith and love allow for a deeper, more powerful, relationship than just knowing. Faith allows for genuine emotion, where as knowledge is rewarded only with sterile confirmation. For example I may have faith my wife is on a plane coming back to see me. I wait expectantly in the airport for her to disembark the plane. I am filled with joy when my faith is confirmed and she rushes to meet me out of the crowd. Contrast that with having a camera floating over my wife’s head beaming me a picture of her every move. I would not need to exercise faith in awaiting her return. My emotional desire toward her would be irrelevant, if I loved her or despised her return I would wait with the same certainty of her arrival.
A bit cruder example would be the difference between me wooing my wife to marry me and basing our relationship on a mutual love contrasted against me purchasing a sex slave from the Philippines and forcing her against her will into a marriage relationship with me. By removing her free will a slave has no choice but to enter into a relationship, it is doubtful she will ever truly love me because I never gave her the opportunity not to marry me.
Faith allows for acceptance or rejection of God, it also allows for genuine love. If you want further proof of the superiority of faith over knowledge read the Old Testament stories of Israel. Many times they had God blowing their enemies up or appearing to them in supernatural forms, they absolutely knew God existed, but they had little honest love for Him.
Steve
Ps: Brett, there is another “Steve” on the board you linked to, so I signed my name as
“Steve (not him, the other Steve)”
Okay Brett this is my post. I'll save you the time of sorting through the 527 other comments. I don't think I will continue the debate over there. There is a ton of ignorant blow hard posturing that would have to be weeded through before actual beneficial conversation could be established.
ReplyDeleteThat sight is a textbook example of an invitation for proof, but really no actual interest in rationally discussing it.
Anonymous said...
Dan L stated:
"Again, for a skeptic, this is not a problem because we're not committing to any particular metaphysics or ontology -- we're building it up piecemeal through tentative scientific results. When, for example, Eric asks me for an explanation of the universe that doesn't involve a person-like god, I'm inclined to say, "A so-far undiscovered scientific theory," and for me that's fine. I'd say something similar if someone asked me to explain abiogenesis -- we have some interesting ideas, some interesting empirical results, but nothing definitive.
But the important part is, I don't need to be able to come up with an example. I'm not arguing that "There is no God." I'm simply arguing AGAINST the proposition "There is a God." Theists and atheists are not making equivalent claims. I don't need to assent to any particular explanation for the universe to reject god as an explanation."
-Dan L.
This is really helpful in understanding the nature of this debate. Dan has hit the nail on the head, from a philosophical standpoint the atheist can always exercise faith that even though currently they can not muster a counter argument against the proof for God, they can take hope in the fact future minds building off of current understanding will be able to fabricate just such an argument. There is no abiogenesis argument which stands up to empirical testing. There is no rational “first cause” explanation, even Stephen Hawkin’s so called “poof theory” is actually a non cause, sort of a scientific equivalent to Alexander’s Gordian Knot solution. The atheist’s position is always to cast doubt rather than offer proof; this position is always viable because the atheist chooses to always self impose the standard for proof as being equal to the distance of a stick separating the donkey of current known understanding and the carrot of future knowledge.
Steve (not him, the other Steve)
To specifically address your concern of God creating a strong desire for Vanilla ice cream and then hating them for pursuing that desire I would suggest you look into what the current studies of the brain are revealing. Brain mapping is showing that we really program our brains into ruts, for instance you could say we are born with a strong desire for ice cream (or sex) but we end up programming how we fulfill that desire. By repeatedly performing certain actions we actually create new neuro pathway connections. It is exciting stuff. It shows why addictions are so hard to break, you aren’t just making a yes or no decision, if you have said yes a thousand times in the past when you do choose to “change your mind” and say no, you aren’t merely making one decision you are trying to counteract a thousand “yes’s.” So you can "blame" God for giving us sexual desires, but the current science is showing we choose how to fulfill those desires not that they are preprogrammed at birth.
ReplyDeleteIt is also important to remember some of the bad press Christians receive they deserve, after all our message isn’t we are the super righteous holier than thou crowd. We are the lucky as heck that God is gracious and loves us even when we are being idiots crowd. But a lot of the time skeptics paint all Christians as hateful bigots.
If either Tom or Jade are serious about seeing real Christianity in action hit me up with your home towns and I’ll find a nearby church for you to check out, I’ll do the legwork to make sure you are seeing the real deal and not just religious hypocrites going through the motions.
steve
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your offer. I do attend two different churches here locally. Not regularly but when I want to make either my mother or my wife happy. I don't gain much from attending service because it is designed to deliver information without response or challenge. If I can't ask a question my only choice becomes to beleive or not beleive the information directed at me. Kind of hard to clarify information without an open exchange.
Also I appreciate your analogy of waiting for your wife at the airport on faith she will be arriving. However I think a more accurate analogy would be if you had never met your wife or even knew whether she existed or not and where still waiting at the airport. It kinda crosses the line from sane to silly. It makes sense to wait if you have information that tells you she would be arriving. First, you are actually married and have met the woman. Second, she had been recently traveling and was expected back. Third, she took a plane from that airport. etc. Without background information it is not sane or resaonable to expect her to show up. It's just wishful thinking.
I am not challenging you or your beleifs. I respect them, I just don't understand how to get there without having to ignore a whole lot of inconsistant and abstract information.
I have had one on one sit down meeting with preists and pastors. I am usually told that it is my fault I "won't" beleive. I find that offensive as I put much more thought and effort into finding the truth than do any of the "religeous" people I have met. I won't stop looking but I do require proof. Despite how you feel proof can be more moving and beautiful that faith. Using the wife example you can beleive a woman loves you, but when she proves it that will change your life.
Thanks again for reaching out. I do respect and appreciate your effort.
Damn Tom, you're still the nicest guy I ever met! Nice to see those police skills applied to religion;)I did write a response to you're other comment but Blogger ate it. I'll be sure to tell you when things are shipping (Untold Tales of Blackest Night should be out NEXT week. It's a special so no number.)
ReplyDeleteSteve,
I did see your post, but you failed to show any evidence (and again there is LOTS of evidence for abiogenesis and the Big Bang, you just choose to ignore it.)
Also, there is no atheist method of testing things, there is the scientific method, it has proven itself, reliable, repeatable and is the basis for ALL modern science. From rockets to vaccines, you believe in those right? The same rigorous testing is used for ALL science, you need actual evidence for this to work and since you guys have yet to show any... you'll have to understand why people like Tom are skeptical and people like me think, well, that religion is full of S#!%.
I mean SOMETHING to test would be nice. If it shows something interesting and leads to some sort of proof, hey, I'm all for learning new things!
Best,
Brett
Thanks Tom, keep searching, if I can assist in any way I would be happy to point you to the books which have helped me or online resources to consider.
ReplyDeleteBrett you need to come to grips with the scientific method is not the standard for truth. It is a tool for scientific inquiry and research, it is not the litmus test for reality. None of my beliefs or what I've stated as fact contradict the scientific method. They may be in contradiction to your extrapolation of science to color how you see the world, but this is not science, this is your faith and your philosophy. I trust it for what it was designed for-studying the natural world. I do not use it as an all purpose tool for testing all of reality. Credible scientists don't either. Problems arise when philosophical theories are either attacked or advanced using naturalistic science tools.
Also remember the Big Bang is not under scrutiny-I believe it points to a definite beginning to reality, this is the Christian view. Your current line of reasoning is the universe is eternal and uncaused, so you have to step beyond the natural sciences, and go against the visible data to try to convince me of an eternal unvierse or appeal to sci-fi theories like parallel universes and the application of a string theory-again with no evidence, but plenty of naturalistic faith. I am still waiting for one credible abiogensis scenario which has not been shot down like free forming RNA or proteins riding crystals. Anyone can come up with a story, a possible scenario, we are looking for one with some observable facts attached. There are none. Zilch. Life can not spring from non-life. It has never been produced in a lab. Never. This is a fact. This is undeniable.
Steve
To clarify, I could water a seed in a lab, or have sex :)in a lab and produce life. No spontaneous life from non-life by naturalistic means outside of known biological principles of reproduction.
ReplyDeleteYou are so wrong about the truth it's not funny. The scientific method proves facts and disproves fallacies. There is no faith in it because if there was I would cling to my 'faith' when given conflicting facts. I do not. But you do. Science IS a tool for testing reality. The fact that you can't understand this means you don't understand science. And if you can't understand these simple facts than how can I accept your over the top ideas?
ReplyDeleteThen I guess you should tell that to the extinct life forms of mars (they actually found some more and they appear to be going through mitosis.) And all the pre-life in asteroids. There are pre-cursers to life and they are found not only on this planet but in space. But then I guess you can say God zapped them into existence as well.
Ugh, once again you simply are assuming my view. There was stuff before the big bang. That doesn't mean the universe or more to the point matter is eternal. Just means there was stuff there and then the big bang happened. It also doesn't mean a magic hand zapped it into existence, which you seem to think is a more realistic idea than that the the pre universe atoms were of different sizes and thus had different gravity fields, you only need ONE smaller or larger to start a chain reaction that will cause the big bang. ONE tiny particle that looses and electron to start the process. Wow sounds totally impossible doesn't it. You don't need a magic hand just basic physics.
So even thought we've come very close to producing new life in the lab in like 50 years by simply attempting to mimic the early earth means it can't happen? And so by DEFAULT you win? How is that reasonable? How is that understanding? You still have NO evidence for anything you say, and so we're supposed to just trust you and open our 'hearts' to this magic beast that lets us suffer and kills us because a few idiots ate and apple? THAT'S the truth? And you wonder why we mock you.
Best,
Brett
Brett,
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong. Point me to where you are getting your definition of the scientific method as being the test for reality.
Explain to me how it proves historical matters rather than only natural phenomenon. Don't dodge the questions. Using Science is the historical figure of George Washington provable?
Can you put love in a test tube?
Science has limits, it can determine, value, morals, and most importantly it can neither confirm or deny the supernatural.
Steve
*edit:it can't determine, value, morals, and
ReplyDelete-S
Steve,
ReplyDeleteThis Sunday's Blasphemy has answers to most of the first question. Science is the tool we use for testing the natural world, that is reality is it not... or have you changed the definition?
Archeology is a science, that is history. Geology is also a science the study of the earth's history. Paleontology and Anthropology, earths past animals and humans... THAT is history. Yes, using science we can prove Washington existed.
I'm not the one dodging questions here. WHERE IS YOU EVIDENCE FOR YOUR RELIGION. You still have NEVER answered that one.
Love is a chemical reaction, so yes we can put it in a bottle and recreate it.
Again this Sunday will have answers to your Moral crap, and yes we can use it for that. Humans decide the morals, always have always will. Science can TOTALLY disprove the god of the Bible, Koran and Torah, Greek, Roman ect. Now this amorphous new age 'God" well that's a bit harder as it has no hard and fast rules, since you keep making stuff up;)
Best,
Brett