The oldest debate Gets Older

[Dr. B]

I'm left with the impression that your feelings on probability lack naturalism. To appeal to your example, to some degree, yes H(10) could be better than H(9)+T(1) if you in fact have some sort of dependence on one permutation over an other. Though they are just as likely to occur as each other in a number of coin flips in which T(1) could occur at any time, analyzing the series of subsequent coin flips with relation to their occurrence in time means that the likelihood of having H(10) is far less than having any other outcome, with the exception of T(10). Knowing this and realizing we live in a world where the "coin flips" are not mutually exclusive, that is that some parameters arise as consequences of the outcomes of others, we come to understand that the specific existence at which we have arrived at this immediate point in time is more rare than one would previously believe.

The coin doesn't care whether it comes up heads or tails...nor does the universe care whether we evolved on this planet or not...whether we're betting on it or not.

That is not correct. Using 5 flips as a shorter example, H-H-H-H-H is just as likely as H-H-H-H-T or H-H-H-T-H. The last two are different results, not just 4H, 1T. It is correct that 4H, 1T in any order is more likely than 5H or 5T(5 times more likely, in fact, or 5/2 more likely than both put together). I don't agree with your point at the end. All life on Earth derives from L-Amino Acids (I believe its not D-Amino Acids..). If the cosmic coin flip had started us off from D-Amino Acids...would life have been different? Is there an advantage to using L-Amino Acids rather than D-Amino Acids that is unclear? There is a whole school of thought that there are more mechanisms to evolution besides natural selection and they would argue that perhaps everything is the way it is because it is the best design, all things considered. Also, they might argue, life will evolve in a multitude of places, not because of a miracle or strange concurrence of variables, but because life is a chemical inevitability if their is a satisfactory energy gradient.

I misunderstood your initial coin example, thank you for correcting me. Regardless of the probability aspect however, the sentiment is not a matter of comparison between the result-foregone and what we have now; it is an appreciation for what we have now in isolation, even if we could somehow determine it was not as "good" as another result.

But you're right, all that really means is that the foregone existences are just as rare - it's a relative return to scale. However, the point at which faith enters the picture is when you realize that we depend on a specific set of outcomes from a countless number of parameters (assuming everything is not a multivariate experiment) for our particular existence, an outcome at which we have peculiarly arrived. Though life itself may exist as the result of other probable tangents, intelligent life, ours specifically, resulted from a delicate balance of outcomes - which we witness cohabiting this earth with a plethora of less intelligent animals. To view your existence as merely the result-not-forgone would imply you would be just as happy living as a fish or not living at all.

That is supposition on your part. Religious dogma, in fact, the backing for the wallpaper of intelligent design. How can you make that assertion before being able to ascertain how common intelligent life is in the Universe? Perhaps only one planet in our Solar System having intelligent life is an oddity...maybe in almost all other star systems, intelligent life independently evolved on several planets over different spans of time or even simultaneously. You're making a generalization from one case...what science book did that come from?

Perhaps in retrospect it will be labeled supposition, but at this point in time I am relying on the extent of knowledge which we have publicly available about intelligent life to examine our scenario. Work with me and understand why I limited my example to the earth - it is, for the most part, all we know. I would prefer to make an observational claim based on what is apparent, not what is plausible.

...What puzzles me is that you simultaniously find the universe important yet seem to have no regard for the particular series of events which led to your being, which ought to be important. It is something that I am inferring, so if you would not mind elaborating on (or correcting) my observation I would appreciate the insight.

Ah, I see your question. Its written in the Christian Doctrine (paraphrasing) of the Lord's Prayer: Its not worth worrying about things you can't change...only the things you can change. Putting it in my tone, its unwise to waste energy dwelling on things which you have no power to influence. A reed caught in the current can question its final destination, but not what brought it to be at that destination. It is our choice to live well in our journey, but how we came to be on this road is irrelevant. We are here, that is all that's important. A peach margarita might be nice, though.

I respect your opinion in the matter. To each his own path to walk. I left this in here to comment that I liked the way you wrote this.

Personally, the fact that time and space somehow favored our particular probability series, and the arena in which is took place, is one of the many facets of G-d's work for which I am grateful.

That is not a fact at all. Again, the coin cares not whether you win or lose on the coin toss. This is the mindset of the religious that it is miraculous. If you see it as only one possibility of an infinite series, god is impossible.

I used the word fact incorrectly, or perhaps it was "favored" - try "arranged" instead. Regardless, I'm not going to dispute whether my existence is special to me or not. The coin may not care about the outcome, but I do. Miraculous or just plain nifty, it matters not. If you would not readily abandon your existence and everything you know and love, I feel you have something to appreciate about the way the coin fell.

P.S. I just noticed that when quoted, my name is awesome. Dr. Edited June 7, 2009 by Dr. B

[Sonthert]

I'm left with the impression that your feelings on probability lack naturalism. To appeal to your example, to some degree, yes H(10) could be better than H(9)+T(1) if you in fact have some sort of dependence on one permutation over an other. Though they are just as likely to occur as each other in a number of coin flips in which T(1) could occur at any time, analyzing the series of subsequent coin flips with relation to their occurrence in time means that the likelihood of having H(10) is far less than having any other outcome, with the exception of T(10). Knowing this and realizing we live in a world where the "coin flips" are not mutually exclusive, that is that some parameters arise as consequences of the outcomes of others, we come to understand that the specific existence at which we have arrived at this immediate point in time is more rare than one would previously believe.

The coin doesn't care whether it comes up heads or tails...nor does the universe care whether we evolved on this planet or not...whether we're betting on it or not.

That is not correct. Using 5 flips as a shorter example, H-H-H-H-H is just as likely as H-H-H-H-T or H-H-H-T-H. The last two are different results, not just 4H, 1T. It is correct that 4H, 1T in any order is more likely than 5H or 5T(5 times more likely, in fact, or 5/2 more likely than both put together). I don't agree with your point at the end. All life on Earth derives from L-Amino Acids (I believe its not D-Amino Acids..). If the cosmic coin flip had started us off from D-Amino Acids...would life have been different? Is there an advantage to using L-Amino Acids rather than D-Amino Acids that is unclear? There is a whole school of thought that there are more mechanisms to evolution besides natural selection and they would argue that perhaps everything is the way it is because it is the best design, all things considered. Also, they might argue, life will evolve in a multitude of places, not because of a miracle or strange concurrence of variables, but because life is a chemical inevitability if their is a satisfactory energy gradient.

I misunderstood your initial coin example, thank you for correcting me. Regardless of the probability aspect however, the sentiment is not a matter of comparison between the result-foregone and what we have now; it is an appreciation for what we have now in isolation, even if we could somehow determine it was not as "good" as another result.

The coin also neither knows nor cares if you view its result is good or bad. Everything is a matter of perspective. An asteroid that was approximately 10Km in diameter hit the Yucatan Peninsula about 65 Million years ago. If it was the primary factor for the extinction of the large reptiles, it was a disastrous coin flip for large reptiles, but quite a happy one for the erstwhile mammals. They would inherit the Earth, as it were. If that meteorite hadn't hit the Earth, we wouldn't be here...perhaps. Perhaps we would, but be dodging dinosaurs or alternately, we would have killed them all off the same way we have hunted sharks and the American Bison to the brink of extinction. Or not. Its a great mystery.

You view the coin flip as miraculous, so you interpret it as the work of god, is the gist of what you're saying. You view it as miraculous, but it isn't, its just the sum of trillions of variables. You say "What if one thing were different?" The dinosaurs might still reign and we might not have evolved, the Colorado river might have turned slightly and made a different shaped Canyon. The melted glaciers might have broken in a slightly different place and formed a floodway through Virginia, rather than the St. Lawrence River. Maybe, nothing's different. The assumption is that a set of variable create a distinct result. What if the dice are loaded? What if human-type life is inevitable and reptilian life is doomed eventually in the Universe...if it weren't the Yucatan, it would have been natural evolution that got rid of the dinosaurs.

You're using biased observations (that it is miraculous) to justify the belief in the creator of the miracle, The belief in that creator leads you to conclude that it is miraculous. If I follow what your're saying. Its circular reasoning...faulty logic.

[Sonthert]

But you're right, all that really means is that the foregone existences are just as rare - it's a relative return to scale. However, the point at which faith enters the picture is when you realize that we depend on a specific set of outcomes from a countless number of parameters (assuming everything is not a multivariate experiment) for our particular existence, an outcome at which we have peculiarly arrived. Though life itself may exist as the result of other probable tangents, intelligent life, ours specifically, resulted from a delicate balance of outcomes - which we witness cohabiting this earth with a plethora of less intelligent animals. To view your existence as merely the result-not-forgone would imply you would be just as happy living as a fish or not living at all.

That is supposition on your part. Religious dogma, in fact, the backing for the wallpaper of intelligent design. How can you make that assertion before being able to ascertain how common intelligent life is in the Universe? Perhaps only one planet in our Solar System having intelligent life is an oddity...maybe in almost all other star systems, intelligent life independently evolved on several planets over different spans of time or even simultaneously. You're making a generalization from one case...what science book did that come from?

Perhaps in retrospect it will be labeled supposition, but at this point in time I am relying on the extent of knowledge which we have publicly available about intelligent life to examine our scenario. Work with me and understand why I limited my example to the earth - it is, for the most part, all we know. I would prefer to make an observational claim based on what is apparent, not what is plausible.

Thats true, it is. It is, on the other hand, making a generalization from a single case. Its only apparent in your view, this is exactly what I was saying in another thread. Observations are only relevant if they can be shown to be representative...otherwise, they are just wasted mental exercise. If you had never met an African-American person before in your life and the first African-American person you met was and albino, by the logic you are using, you conclude that these people are whiter than Europeans, must come from an extremely cold climate, and have white hair and white eyes. This is the problem when you make generalizations from a single case. Its not observational, its a hasty generalization, and it has no place in reason or science. We cannot rationally/scientifically make predictions about life on other planets from the state of knowledge we're at. We might look at Carbon-Cycle Chemistry and conclude "Well, life must all be based on Carbon, its the only element that could make complex molecules." Thats still a leap of logic. It may be correct and it has scientific draw to it, but its still sloppy reasoning. We don't and can't know if its correct until we examine life from lets say 10 different planets. Just because a person wants something to be true, doesn't make it the case. If the observation didn't match what you believed...would you still make the observation? Most religious people might say yes, but in most cases its not true. Nuclear chemistry is pretty reliable on Earth at the speed the Earth travels. Carbon Date a relic or K-Ar date a rock and watch the fundamentalists climb the wall, how inaccurate the process is, how it can't be true. Do you, personally, have any observations about the Earth or the Universe that tend to discredit the idea of your deity? What are they? If you only believe what you want to be true, you can never accurately deduce the course of events and the nature of things, in my opinion.

...What puzzles me is that you simultaniously find the universe important yet seem to have no regard for the particular series of events which led to your being, which ought to be important. It is something that I am inferring, so if you would not mind elaborating on (or correcting) my observation I would appreciate the insight.

Ah, I see your question. Its written in the Christian Doctrine (paraphrasing) of the Lord's Prayer: Its not worth worrying about things you can't change...only the things you can change. Putting it in my tone, its unwise to waste energy dwelling on things which you have no power to influence. A reed caught in the current can question its final destination, but not what brought it to be at that destination. It is our choice to live well in our journey, but how we came to be on this road is irrelevant. We are here, that is all that's important. A peach margarita might be nice, though.

I respect your opinion in the matter. To each his own path to walk. I left this in here to comment that I liked the way you wrote this.

Personally, the fact that time and space somehow favored our particular probability series, and the arena in which is took place, is one of the many facets of G-d's work for which I am grateful.

That is not a fact at all. Again, the coin cares not whether you win or lose on the coin toss. This is the mindset of the religious that it is miraculous. If you see it as only one possibility of an infinite series, god is impossible.

I used the word fact incorrectly, or perhaps it was "favored" - try "arranged" instead. Regardless, I'm not going to dispute whether my existence is special to me or not. The coin may not care about the outcome, but I do. Miraculous or just plain nifty, it matters not. If you would not readily abandon your existence and everything you know and love, I feel you have something to appreciate about the way the coin fell.

P.S. I just noticed that when quoted, my name is awesome. Dr. B)

Yeah, I celebrate the chance that brought me to this exact point and time daily...but I don't dwell on it. The real question you should be asking, outside the construct of religion, is who's betting against me winning the coin toss? Or, is somebody wagering for more on the same coin toss than I am? You look at it as miraculous...but is the game rigged or is it truly random? If it is rigged, who rigged it? I don't think most religious people can begin to examine that question rationally...the answer will frequently come up "god.". If the game isn't rigged, there is no god, by definition. Would it not be reasonable to realize, however, if the game is rigged, and you're incorrect about the subjective qualitative assertion that god rigged the game...you might be standing to lose quite a lot by betting on that premise. If you can examine who else might be rigging the game, could it save you from losing from losing much by objectively assessing who was rigging the game? An even worse conundrum, if you are religious, is if we say that god is quantitatively rigging the game, that is in degree not affirmative or negative. If you absolutely believe in god...can you resolve his quantitative rigging of the game? This is where different denominations come in of course and they tell you how much god is rigging the game...what if the denomination you belong to is wrong? Could you be betting on a losing proposition because you incorrectly assume that your belief is correct?

[Dr. B]

I am willing to entertain this debate (Sonthert started the thread) but I feel a few things must be clarified before I begin.

The most important issue lies in how fragile most single faiths tend to be. I have my beliefs and faith as made apparent in the parent thread, but I will concede that most religions rely heavily on faith as Eric likes to point out. Knowing that my particular faith has institutionalized a school of skepticism as a means to cope with this disposition, I will evoke some answers concluded by scholars and teachers if they are appropriate. However, I understand that this debate is not about a particular faith, but rather faith in general, so I am prepared to work outside of my religion as a means to arrive at the true purpose of faith in G-d (or rather just a higher power) instead of quarreling about the specifics of one religion.

That being said, I propose that we debate with that in mind. I would like to use this thread as an opportunity to deduce the answers as to why we feel the need to have faith - to satisfy the most basic parameter of "yes" or "no" and not to decide what religious institution is most correct (obviously). I am prepared to venture into the abstract, to operate outside the boundaries of my discipline, but will not make ridiculous assertions that I cannot defend. Upon arriving at that parameter, we may not agree; but that is a situation I am comfortable with.

I suppose what I am seeking is your cooperation in this endeavor, Eric. Bear with the introduction of contentions that are not part of most dogmas, as I will not brush off any of your contentions, so that we may have a constructive conversation which explores human spirituality. I have confidence that this ought to go without saying, but I still felt the need to put it formally. If this is simply a means to assert the superiority of atheism, without regard to construction and understanding, I would prefer not to participate.

We have made some progress thus far, and in my next reply I will address directly the question at hand, but if we are going to debate this issue in its entirety I'll do my part to find a segue to pose a more refined question.

Here's to an interesting thread,
-Desmond

[Barnaby]

Course I still think we have this debate spread across a few threads. Guess we should try and condense it all to this one..

[Dr. B]

's why it got started in a separate thread, to save FSU's original thread. I'll put my reply up when I'm less busy, don't worry Edited June 10, 2009 by Dr. B

[judgeposer]

I will cross-post the more relevant posts of mine (which incorporate those of others) in the next few threads. Hopefully, we can continue the conversation here, instead.

At the end of the day, any question I had was answered in circular logic. The bible is the word of God. "how do we know this?" Because the bible says so. "But why believe the bible?" Because the Bible is infallible. "But how do you know its unfallible?" BECAUSE THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD!!! and so it goes.. But you must have faith I'm told... Ah.. Ok, let's have faith then. Like in Santa Claus.. oh.. yea.. oops..

This is a common criticism against the Bible, and a common concern of those who attempt to defend it. In another thread, I attempted to provide an answer to this criticism. The argument/response goes something like this. To have a circular argument, as you point out, the initial premise concludes the same thing as the final conclusion. Catholics argue spirally, not circularly. This, we can do because we believe in an infallible, God-founded (i.e. Christ-founded) institution. First, we can affirm the reliability of the Bible insofar as it is historical - this we can verify though other historically contemporaneous sources; in other words, other primary documents of the same time and place. From the Bible and from those sources we can claim that an infallible Church was founded (again, as Catholics see it, by Christ himself). Catholics then take the word of their infallible Church that the Bible is inspired (inspiration, however, means something different from necessarily inerrant or something that we should take literally). This argument avoids circularity, or what philosophers call begging-the-question, because the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired) is something different that the initial premises/claims (that the Bible is historically reliable). In other words, the initial premise (the Bible is historically reliable) is in no way based on the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired). The Catholic argument demonstrates that without the existence of the Church, we could never know whether the Bible is inspired.

This argument, for some, presents new difficulties to overcome, admitedly. But, in the least, it does substantiate the Bible in a way that the less-intellectual, and thus circular approach does.

I think one of the biggest turn offs for me was in high school, we got to tour the Priest's Rectory. Vow of poverty my ass. Sure, they don't technically own anything, but what they are provided is complete luxury. A full kitchen staff to cook them all their meals. A mahogany library, a closest full of booze, 10 Lazy boys, with satelite TV.. They were hooked UP! How am I supposed to look to these hypocrites for guidance, when they did not practice what they preach?

Keep in mind that Religious priests take vows of poverty. Diocesan priests, those priests belonging to a diocese, and assigned to staff diocesan churches, do not. You can find Religious priests staffing local churches, but that is atypical since their vocation is usually to live in a religious-priest community. When they do diocesan work, they typically do enjoy the comforts anyone else would have in a home - and perhaps a few more, considering their enormously taxing schedules, which results from a lack of priests. In the end, a vow of poverty means not owning anything, or making an income - if you do make an income, it goes to your religious community. An example of Religious priests are those priests belonging to a religious order, like the Jesuits, the Dominicans, or the Franciscans, to make the three traditional powerhouses.

In regards to seeing the priests' rectory and being turned off to religion, I would like to paraphrase something I heard, but can't remember from whom:
"A man is out wearing his unique and distinguishable coat. Quickly, a thief runs back and snatches his coat, and after that, sprints to a bank. He proceeds to rob the bank and flee. 100 yards away, a policeman sees a man fleeing the bank and recognizes the coat. Consider the 'coat' Christianity and the man a sinful follower of Christ. In the same way we shouldn't judge the original victim because someone was wearing his coat, we shouldn't discredit God for His followers' shortcomings."

I think you would not find a single true Christian who claim to NOT be sinful. Christ came for the sick, not the healthy. I would encourage you to judge God by God and not by people.

Thanks for being open and sharing.

I think that's about right.

[judgeposer]

If I am to judge God on his actions, I can only think of this quote by Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able, and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God.

You bring up the problem of evil, or as it is a philosophical sub-discipline, theodicy. If this interests you any, you should, if you haven't already, read Alvin Plantinga's writings on this topic. I recommend him above others because he is an accepted analytical philosopher, a particular brand of philosophy practiced widely in the English-speaking world. It seeks to answer philosophical questions in a particular way that emphasizes clarity, and an analytic approach to language, often using formal logic to do so. (Analytic vs. Continental, if you're familiar with the distinction) - I don't mean to sound pedantic either; you might well be already aware of the volumes addressing this topic.

[judgeposer]

I've interpolated my reply.

All I'm trying to say, having faith is not enough. You have to have evidence to back something up, or you cannot prove its existence. Has anyone read Stranger in a Strange Land. GREAT BOOK if you have not. One of the concepts in the book is the idea of having people being trained as what's called a Fair Witness. The idea is you have these people who are trained to observe events. They report with complete and accurate recollection of what they witnessed. So, think photographic memory here. But beyond that, it's how they observe things. In the book, the way this is demonstrated is if you were to ask a fair witness what color a house is, they would say the side facing me is xxxxx. Since they cannot see the other sides of the house, they cannot jump to the conclusion that the whole house is the same color. This allows them to give fair unbiased reports of what they witness.

I would offer that theists do have proof, that we do have "evidence" for our belief in God. For some theists, the various deductive proofs for God's existence convince them, for others, a constellation of observances, experiences and intuition assemble to build an inductive vindication for God's existence. Of course, that same evidence for others doesn't amount to anything - they are not similarly convinced. To a great extent, that's a natural playing out of the human experience: perception and acceptance.

In this regard, some theists, like St. Thomas Aquinas, and those who argue against belief in God's existence by means of an evidentialist objection (what you seem to be arguing - that belief in God is rationally acceptable only if there is evidence for it) agree. So, we have both certain atheists and certain theists agreeing that we do not have to prove God's non-existence in order to justify atheism, atheism is obligatory in the absence of any evidence for God's existence. Where the two sides disagree is on what counts as satisfactory evidence that proves God's existence. Furthermore, one strand of theists, of the sort that follows St. Thomas Aquinas's argument, says that we do have evidence, which is supplied to us by our rationality (i.e. that we can rationally deduce God's existence) and observation (i.e. that we can witness a certain complexity that has had to have been designed - their further assumption is that the designer is God).

"Faith" for this particular type of theist doesn't mean accepting God's existence without evidence, it means accepting the claims of God (e.g. religious claims made by, say, a church, in the form of, say, doctrine) - again, it's not faith in God's existence. This type of theists believes in God because they accept as evidence those certain things that point to, for them, God's existence. The concept of "faith" is something different. I hope you see the similarity and distinction I have attempted to point out. The debate then does not center on having faith in things unseen (and therefore believing in God), it centers on what counts as evidence for believing in God. In this way, this particular group of theists and this particular group of atheists (evidentialist objectors) have the same arguments - they both believe that evidence for God's existence is required for proper belief - but their disagreement centers on what that evidence is.

How can you honestly believe someone who says "GOD HAS SPOKEN TO ME! He told me a new testament of the bible to give to all!!!" If I came out and said this, and posted some story, would you believe it? Hell no.. You'd think I'd either be lying, or off my rocker. Why is it these stories in the bible are any different? Someone way long ago supposedly said they had divine inspiration, wrote this down, yet is is to be viewed as doctrine??

I think you're muddying the arguments here, if not even strawmaning them. In a previous post (#32), I offered a defense/explanation of how some Christians have arrived to rely on Scripture. The argument you have here, or the refutation you seek to employ doesn't address the Christian/Catholic understanding/argument for Scriptural reliance.

I understand the definition of faith, but I guess that's the problem. Trying to believe in something completely unbelievable, when a factual explanation exists for most of what religion attempts to explain.

Again, I think you're muddying your opposition's argument. In the end, perhaps the argument doesn't vindicate what they've concluded, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be contended with and refuted on its own merit. As a Catholic, I would find it dubious for a religion to make claims of science - it is even a matter of historical debate whether the Catholic Church has ever done this. Religion, generally speaking, doesn't seek to displace science - how could it? For a scientific conclusion, say that offered by the theory of evolution (and I do not mean theory in the way most Americans do, as some sort of yet to be established idea, rather, I use it as it is used scientifically, to mean the best explanation we have), science employs a methodology to test and vindicate findings. Religion, or really, theology, has its own. The two, however, have methodologies that suit the evidence they examine and the type of conclusion each seeks to make. It would be a categorical error for science to conclude something of religious significance just as much as it would for theology to conclude something of scientific significance. I mean to say that theology cannot offer properly scientific conclusions, and science cannot offer properly theological conclusions. Where the two tend to overlap is how should a religious person treat or otherwise amend their belief to take into account scientific truths, or how should science proceed taking into account the ethical limitations offered by religion - and ethical limitations are offered not only by religion, I do concede. This is an argument for me, as a Catholic, to say that I can happily, and quite easily believe in the doctrines of my Church, and live out the ethical life my Church encourages me to while simultaneously submitting myself to the findings of science, and the explanations science has offered of our physical world. In other words, I do not see the two as conflicted (although, some religious folk do, admittedly) in the sense that science offers material explanations to the same things religion seeks to explain - foremost because I don't see the two at all attempting to explain the same things, as your argument suggests they do.

At the end of the day, what is the purpose? To try and not be afraid of the unknown? To think you aren't really going to die completely, and you'll live on? To what end does it serve? Why do you need the stamp of approval of an unprovable deity to give your life structure, and joy? I can marvel just as well at a beautiful landscape, knowing how amazing nature is. Why do I have to think that its God's great work instead? Why do I have to be afraid of dying, and believe in an afterlife? If I didn't have and end to my life, I wouldn't feel the constraints of time closing in to achieve the things in my life I want to.

I don't find this line of argumentation at all beneficial because I think it simply misses the reality that the psychological dispositions of both believers and non-believers can be different. Where one finds security in believing in God, another finds no similar security. Where one can look out at the world and has to conclude that God created it, another can see it as some sort of geological evolution - neither of the people miss the beauty of what they're witnessing either.

[judgeposer]

So, with that for all to read, what is more believable of a tale? The story of Christianity, at face value? Or a fanciful story we made up to try and explain the workings of our universe...

I have to go with the simplest explanation, as it makes the most sense. We are a very creative, imaginative species. We have thought up many things. But there comes a time we need to grow out of our infancy, and stop believing in imaginary friends. We have to grow up as a species, and start taking care of the responsibility given to us.

Wow. . .avoidance much. Now that you've dispatched with the Christian God, that still leaves. . .wait, just plain God.

[judgeposer]

What am I avoiding? Without religion, how can there be a God? God is our concept for that which cannot be yet explained. Without religions to back up that concept, how can we even come to that conclusion that there MUST be a God? Why can't we just admit to not knowing anything. I'd go as far to say it's our own arrogance that helps come up with the idea of God, instead of just being able to say, I don't know.

Without religion, there cannot be God - which is a restatement of your question, Without religion, how can there be a God? - doesn't make any sense. Not all theists are religious, and not all religious folk are theists - the two are not necessarily linked. God is NOT "our concept for that which cannot be yet explained," as I have argued in post #57 - scientists have theorized much about quantum mechanics and string theory, but they have yet to provide testable, falsifiable data on the topic - according to your definition of "God," God = super string theory. In using the word "yet," do you mean to suggest, as the word does, that one day we will be able to explain God - that belief in God will one day be vindicated?

I don't suggest, nor has any theist or atheist raising the evidentialist argument against belief in God, that "we just admit to not knowing anything," again, something I responded to in post #57. It has nothing to do with arrogance, at least not philosophically. To that extent you have employed an ad hominem fallacy.

My comment about your avoidance referred to your lengthy post from that documentary (which, incidentally, I saw last with Eric, and thought it quite provoking and informative) and how it attempts to dispatch with the Christian God, but even if it does so successfully - and let us assume it has - the Christian conception of God is but one among many. In other words, even if the documentary offered accurate evidence (something we have so far simply assumed and not verified, at least I haven't, have you?), the evidence refutes the Christian religion, not God. It merely attempts to show that Christians have utilized narratives of other, previous cultures and religions, and to a great extent co-opted them for its own use. It has not argued that there is no God. It has said that, if anything, that Christianity is baseless, not that God does not exist.

[Sonthert]

Another ground rule. I don't care about Schopenhauer or Kant or Smith. None of these things are necessary for the deductive reasoning involved. Its name dropping and copying others work to replace individual intellectual effort. I say we dispense with quoting people.

Faith is a reasonable assumption if a person has direct evidence that something is true, based on a tangible set of assumptions or empirical observation. Believing in the 13th Century that there was an entire race of men that was hitherto unknown would not be a stretch. Nowadays, thats not true. Its not unreasonable in times gone by, because there were new groups of people being discovered periodically. That is, there were precedents to believe in unknown races. If I said the same thing about large deposits of oil, that might be true, too. We've found undiscovered ones...no problem. On the other hand, could you rationally believe in finding a field of oil if you'd never found one before? We have combed Mars from one end to the other, found some interesting (in Martian terms) stuff, but there is no life on the surface of Mars. There never has been, as far as we can tell (which is unreliable in the swirling dust storms on the surface). Could there be life under the surface of Mars? Well, if there is life under the surface of other planets, then maybe. There is life under the surface of Earth, so its possible. Thats one example providing hope for the existence of life under the surface of Mars. That, too is not unreasonable. Perhaps under the surface of Titan or Europa, too. We might find life, because we have found just one example, and although it is skimpy (and there may be no life under the surfaces of any other planets in the Universe), one example is sufficient to provide hope. On numerous examples, we might begin to feel a reasonable faith that there is life under the surface of another body in our own solar system. That is, if we find life under the surface of Mercury, Venus, Europa, Triton, Titan and a few others, we might begin to have faith that there was life under the surface of Mars. This is the bridge between hope and reasonable faith.

If I had heard tale told of these mythical Chinese People, like Marco Polo did, he went to seek them out. These Mythical Chinese people are reasonable to assume they may exist, they are a variation of humans. I need no urging to believe that they may exist, because the idea that people live in the Far East is reasonable. In terms, I could reach out and shake the hand of one of these men. If I was told of a magical land, called Atlantis, in the same sense, I might be more skeptical since there is nothing on the Earth anymore in terms of undiscovered areas of civilization. If it were the 13th Century, I would be less skeptical, since we had no understanding of how many places had people in them. The test for hope is one example that such a thing could be true. Reasonable faith is where numerous examples from different times and places indicate that there should be nothing different from one situation to the others where the affirmative evidence is found.

It is reasonable to have faith that we may find undiscovered oil fields, since we are still contemporaneously finding them. It would be also completely reasonable to have hope that we'd discover one or more in the future. It would be, on the other hand, be unreasonable to have faith that there were undiscovered races of men on the Earth, since none have been discovered in a long, long time. We might stretch a point and talk about some South Pacific tribe discovered in 1938, and have a glimmer of hope of finding a lost race. Is it reasonable to hope that we would find a hitherto undiscovered species on the Earth? Of course, we are discovering new ones daily. Would be reasonable faith to believe we'd find a new species? Absolutely. New ones are being discovered daily. It would be unreasonable to not have faith that a new one wouldn't be discovered again. Would it be reasonable to have faith that we would discover the lost continent of Atlantis? Not at all. We haven't found a new continent in hundreds of years. Antarctica was discovered in the early 1800s, but it was believed that it would be found for over a thousand years. Why? because new lands were being discovered all the time, and a symmetry was seen that included a southern continent. Not good logic, but Antarctica was discovered in spite of faulty logic. Still, Atlantis, suspected for the same amount of time hasn't been found. There is no space where a lost continent could fit, so it presumes that it is either submerged under the ocean, although there is no evidence of continents "sinking" to the bottom of oceans or what was called Atlantis in the past (Plato) is called something else today, like South America for example. It is doubtful there is a lost continent of Atlantis. There is no hope, having never found a sunken continent anywhere on the Earth, and faith that it will be is absurd, even though it has been written is old text, by Plato and others for millenia.

These points are made to distinguish between, doubt, hope and reasonable faith. Note that all of these points are based on inferred evidence or simple supposition. The smaller the item, or the larger the area to be covered, the more likely hope exists. If you were to discuss a lost tribe of mythical people, there is some tiny, slim hope of finding it still. To find an entire race, on the other hand, without splitting semantic hairs, there is no hope of, because races are much larger than tribes. Life on other planets seems to be reasonable from a scientific perspective, and although we've never found it, its a big universe to search through, so it makes the hope plausible. Reasonable faith on life on other planets? From science, it is likely, the conditions on Earth don't seem too unusual in galactic terms and with 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential stars in the universe to look around, it seems reasonable we'll find life on one of them.

To all this, have you ever met a diety? Has anyone? Is there any direct evidence that one really exists? Of course not. Is it reasonable to believe with reasonable faith that there is a god? No. Is it reasonable to have hope that there is a god? No. There is no precedent, the inferred evidence is weak at best, nobody has met, discovered or seen a god in a literal "I met a god the other day..." . All the evidence are stories of people that probably never existed meeting gods or having sex with Zeus or something. I say, therefore there is no god. It unreasonable to have faith in him, it is unreasonable to have hope in him.

Adolf Hitler said "The bigger the lie, the more likely people are to believe it." I hate to side with Adolf on any matter, but he really hit the nail on the head on this ONE point. The idea of god is so large, it would fall under the category of a lie so big, people believe in it.

That being said, there was no Jesus, either. He also was a fictitious character. Mohammad unquestionably existed. Caesar unquestionably existed. There are mounds and mounds of evidence to support their existence. Sandwiched in between them is Jesus, where there is, outside of the bible and a faked Josephus passage, no evidence Jesus ever existed. Mohammad never claimed to be the son of god, just a prophet. This is of course, a whole 'nother thread. I knew somebody was going to say "People met Jesus" which isn't true. There is no evidence outside the book which purports to be the word of god and talks about his son. Even if I were to give you Jesus, thats only one example of people meeting a "god" (and only the son of, really). It might warrant a sliver of hope...but not reasonable faith, similar to finding life under the surface of Mars.

[Dr. B]

The problem I think is defining what G-d actually is. As a very basic observation of the similarities between many faiths, I have come to understand that it is simply some sort of entity, or presence rather - potentially lacking physical form, which commands the outcome of certain situations in one form or another. Let us throw the stories and dogma of common religion away, and focus on the presence of G-d rather than his "historical" acts. With this definition in mind, all the documented (or professed) encounters with G-d have some legitimacy, for it is entirely possible to interact with the immaterial. For instance, before Newton theorized gravity or Einstein theorized relativity, humans were governed by the forces of both despite not knowing exactly how to describe them in absolute terms. I admit that is somewhat of a weak appeal, but I feel it gets the point across.

Assuming that a deity is not a being, but (for sake of my presumptions) an authority in some manner, I believe it is reasonable to have faith in G-d's existence as per your definition of faith. True, we are discovering more and more about the laws which govern the universe as we evolve as a species, but there is reason still to believe that we will never be able to predict the outcomes of scenarios with absolute certainty. Now, there to exists a faith in our eventual ability to do so, but unfortunately until we are able to test our assumptions and theories we will not know. With the extent of our knowledge in our natural lives we witness a degree of chance involved in the manner in which events unfold, so it is not far fetched to assume that despite our increasing understanding of the universe that that element of randomness will ever disappear. We may find ourselves at a point in which we can predict an entire series of events depending on a sole parameter, diminishing the general accountability we assign to an omnipotent force if our allegiance to a deity is for such reasons, but our examination will only further isolate the role of probability, not eradicate it. We will find ourselves saying, "Well, if A happens -> B; but if C happens -> D," never able to say with certainty whether A or B will occur - only able to determine the comparative likelihood. I can say that this dead end to scientific predictability exists with overwhelming confidence because it is not only apparent in our limited capability to understand our existence, but also because it is reasonable to expect - the same reasons for which you have confidence in less abstract examples.

This is not to say that we are subservient to merely the unknown, but rather to say that faith implies a belief in the tendency of probability, after the examination of all decipherable laws of the universe, to favor certain outcomes over others of equal mathematical likelihood. Going back to the coin flip dialogue and simplifying G-d to a natural, as opposed to a conservative or mathematical, facet of probability, we arrive at our faith because we, as we can witness, benefit directly from the particular unfolding of the universe. It is not unreasonable to assume that an outcome of similar mathematical likelihood would result in an inhabitable universe. Therefore, I am subservient to, I have faith in, the favoring of chance which coordinated my existence; if for no other reason than appreciation.

To rebuke Hitler, this favor of chance is not a lie. The stories, the people, the gift of the commandments (let's not get into moral relativism): perhaps. For the truly devout it is not dogma which compels them to have faith, it is witnessing the synchronicity of beneficial or meaningful "coin flips" in their own lives and juxtaposing them against the benign or injurious ones to conclude that in some way chance, and the implications of its outcomes, favors them. The establishment and institutionalization of religion is merely to provide a community for those who believe that there is more to the coin flip than heads or tails: more to the parameter than A or B, 0 or 1, yes or no. Edited June 11, 2009 by Dr. B

[Barnaby]

Just cause I felt it should be carried over from the other thread, I'm reposting this again:

Going into a more evidence based argument then, why is it that the story of Jesus is not unique? Almost all religions talk about a Messiah born on Dec. 25th from a virgin, was crucified, buried, and rose 3 days later. They all talk about the messiah having 12 disciples as well.

Why are there SO many similarities on these religious figures?

I present then for debate this transcript from the movie Zeitgeist:

Part One: The Greatest Story Ever Told

This is the sun. As far back as 10 thousand B.C.E., history is abundant with carvings [M] and writings reflecting people's respect and adoration for this object [S1]. And it is simple to understand why as every morning the sun would rise, bringing vision, warmth, and security, saving man from the cold, blind, predator-filled darkness of night. Without it, the cultures understood, the crops would not grow, and life on the planet would not survive. These realities made the sun the most adored object of all time.[M] Likewise, they were also very aware of the stars.[M] The tracking of the stars allowed them to recognize and anticipate events which occurred over long periods of time, such as eclipses and full moons.[M] They in turn catalogued celestial groups into what we know today as constellations.[S2]

This is the cross of the Zodiac, one of the oldest conceptual images in human history. [M] It reflects the sun as it figuratively passes through the 12 major constellations over the course of a year. It also reflects the 12 months of the year, the 4 seasons, and the solstices and equinoxes [S3] . The term Zodiac relates to the fact that constellations were anthropomorphized, or personified, as figures, or animals.[S4] [M]

In other words, the early civilizations did not just follow the sun and stars, they personified them with elaborate myths involving their movements and relationships. [S5] [M] The sun, with its life-giving and -saving qualities was personified as a representative of the unseen creator or god...[M]"God's Sun,"[M] the light of the world, the savior of human kind.[S6] Likewise, the 12 constellations represented places of travel for God's Sun and were identified by names, usually representing elements of nature that happened during that period of time. For example, Aquarius, the water bearer, who brings the Spring rains.[S7] [M] [D]

This is Horus.[M] He is the Sun God of Egypt of around 3000 BC [S8] [D]. He is the sun, anthropomorphized, and his life is a series of allegorical myths involving the sun's movement in the sky. [S9] [S10] [M] From the ancient hieroglyphics in Egypt, we know much about this solar messiah. For instance, Horus, being the sun, or the light, had an enemy known as Set and Set [D] was the personification of the darkness or night .[M] [S11] And, metaphorically speaking, every morning Horus would win the battle against Set - while in the evening, Set would conquer Horus and send him into the underworld. [S12] [S13] It is important to note that "dark vs. light" or "good vs. evil" is one of the most ubiquitous mythological dualities ever known and is still expressed on many levels to this day.

Broadly speaking, the story of Horus is as follows: Horus was born on December 25th [S14] [S15] of the virgin Isis-Meri.[S16] [S17] [S18] [D] [M] His birth was accompanied by a star in the east [S19], which in turn, three kings followed to locate and adorn the new-born savior [M] [S20] [S21] At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 [S22] [S23] he was baptized by a figure known as Anup [M] and thus began his ministry[S24] [M]. Horus had 12 disciples[S25] he traveled about with, performing miracles[S26] [S27]such as healing the sick[S28] and walking on water[S29]. Horus was known by many gestural names such as The Truth, The Light, God's Annointed Son, The Good Shepherd, The Lamb of God, and many others[S30] [S31]. After being betrayed by Typhon[S32], Horus was crucified[S33] [S34], buried for 3 days[S35], and thus, resurrected.[S36] [S37] [M].

These attributes of Horus, whether original or not, seem to permeate in many cultures of the world, for many other gods are found to have the same general mythological structure.

Attis, of Phyrigia, born of the virgin Nana on December 25th, crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days, was resurrected.
[S38] [S39] [S40] [S41] [S42] [S43] [M] [D]

Krishna, of India, born of the virgin Devaki with a star in the east signaling his coming, performed miracles with his disciples, and upon his death was resurrected.
[S44] [S45] [S46] [S47] [S48] [M] [M2] [D]

Dionysus of Greece, born of a virgin on December 25th, was a traveling teacher who performed miracles such as turning water into wine, he was referred to as the "King of Kings," "God's Only Begotten Son," "The Alpha and Omega," and many others, and upon his death, he was resurrected.
[S49] [S50] [S51] [S52] [S53] [M]

Mithra, of Persia, born of a virgin on December 25th, he had 12 disciples and performed miracles, and upon his death was buried for 3 days and thus resurrected, he was also referred to as "The Truth," "The Light," and many others. Interestingly, the sacred day of worship of Mithra was Sunday.
[S54] [S55] [S56] [S57] [S58] [M]

The fact of the matter is there are numerous saviors, from different periods, from all over the world, which subscribe to these general characteristics. The question remains: why these attributes, why the virgin birth on December 25th, why dead for three days and the inevitable resurrection, why 12 disciples or followers? [M] To find out, let's examine the most recent of the solar messiahs.

Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary on December 25th [D] in Bethlehem, his birth was announced by a star in the east, which three kings or magi followed to locate and adorn the new savior.[D] He was a child teacher at 12, at the age of 30 he was baptized by John the Baptist, and thus began his ministry. Jesus had 12 disciples which he traveled about with performing miracles such as healing the sick, walking on water, raising the dead, he was also known as the "King of Kings," the "Son of God," the "Light of the World," the "Alpha and Omega," the "Lamb of God," and many others. After being betrayed by his disciple Judas and sold for 30 pieces of silver, he was crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days was resurrected and ascended into Heaven.[S59]

First of all, the birth sequence is completely astrological. The star in the east is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, which, on December 24th, aligns with the 3 brightest stars in Orion's Belt. [S60] [M] These 3 bright stars are called today what they were called in ancient times: The Three Kings.[S61] [S62] The Three Kings and the brightest star, Sirius, all point to the place of the sunrise on December 25th.[S63] [M] This is why the Three Kings "follow" the star in the east, in order to locate the sunrise -- the birth of the sun.[S64] [M]

The Virgin Mary is the constellation Virgo, [S65] also known as Virgo the Virgin. Virgo in Latin means virgin. The ancient glyph for Virgo is the altered "m". This is why Mary along with other virgin mothers, such as Adonis's mother Myrrha [S66], or Buddha's mother Maya [S67] begin with an M.[S68] [M] Virgo is also referred to as the House of Bread [S69] [S70], and the representation of Virgo is a virgin holding a sheaf of wheat. This House of Bread and its symbol of wheat represents August and September, the time of harvest. [D] In turn, Bethlehem, in fact, literally translates to "house of bread". [M] [S71] Bethlehem is thus a reference to the constellation Virgo , a place in the sky, not on Earth.[M] [S72]

There is another very interesting phenomenon that occurs around December 25th, or the winter solstice. From the summer solstice to the winter solstice, the days become shorter and colder. From the perspective of the northern hemisphere, the sun appears to move south and get smaller and more scarce. The shortening of the days and the expiration of the crops when approaching the winter solstice symbolized the process of death to the ancients. It was the death of the Sun. [S73] By December 22nd, the Sun's demise was fully realized, for the Sun, having moved south continually for 6 months, makes it to it's lowest point in the sky. Here a curious thing occurs: the Sun stops moving south, at least perceivably, for 3 days.[S74] [M] During this 3 day pause, the Sun resides in the vicinity of the Southern Cross, or Crux, constellation.[S75] [S76] [M] And after this time on December 25th, the Sun moves 1 degree, this time north, foreshadowing longer days, warmth, and Spring.[S77] And thus it was said: the Sun died on the cross, [D] was dead for 3 days, only to be resurrected or born again.[S78] [S79]This is why Jesus and numerous other Sun Gods share the crucifixion, 3-day death, and resurrection concept. [S80] [M] It is the Sun's transition period before it shifts its direction back into the Northern Hemisphere, bringing Spring, and thus salvation.[S81] [S82] [M]

However, they did not celebrate the resurrection of the Sun until the spring equinox, or Easter. This is because at the spring equinox, the Sun officially overpowers the evil darkness, as daytime thereafter becomes longer in duration than night, and the revitalizing conditions of spring emerge.[M] [S83]

Now, probably the most obvious of all the astrological symbolism around Jesus regards the 12 disciples. They are simply the 12 constellations of the Zodiac, which Jesus, being the Sun, travels about with. [S84] [S85] [S86] [S87] [M]

In fact, the number 12 is replete throughout the Bible. [M] This text has more to do with astrology than anything else.

Coming back to the cross of the Zodiac, the figurative life of the Sun, this was not just an artistic expression or tool to track the Sun's movements. It was also a Pagan spiritual symbol, [S88] the shorthand of which looked like this. [S89] This is not a symbol of Christianity. [M] It is a Pagan adaptation of the cross of the Zodiac. [S90] [S91] This is why Jesus in early occult art is always shown with his head on the cross, for Jesus is the Sun, the Sun of God, the Light of the World, [S92] the Risen Savior, [S93] who will "come again,"[S94] as it does every morning, the Glory of God [S95] who defends against the works of darkness,[S96] as he is "born again" [S97] every morning, and can be seen "coming in the clouds,"[S98] "up in Heaven,"[S99]with his "Crown of Thorns,"[S100] or, sun rays.

Now, of the many astrological-astronomical metaphors in the Bible, one of the most important has to do with the ages. Throughout the scripture there are numerous references to the "Age." In order to understand this, we need to be familiar with the phenomenon known as the precession of the equinoxes. The ancient Egyptians along with cultures long before them recognized that approximately every 2150 [D] years the sunrise on the morning of the spring equinox would occur at a different sign of the Zodiac. [M] This has to do with a slow angular wobble that the Earth maintains as it rotates on it's axis.It is called a precession because the constellations go backwards, rather than through the normal yearly cycle. [S101] The amount of time that it takes for the precession to go through all 12 signs is roughly 25,765 years. [S102] This is also called the "Great Year," [S103] and ancient societies were very aware of this. They referred to each 2150 year period as an "age." From 4300 b.c. to 2150 b.c., it was the Age of Taurus, the Bull. From 2150 b.c. to 1 a.d., it was the Age of Aries, the Ram, and from 1 a.d. to 2150 a.d. it is the Age of Pisces, the age we are still in to this day, and in and around 2150, we will enter the new age: the Age of Aquarius. [S104] [S105]

Now, the Bible reflects, broadly speaking, a symbolic movement through 3 ages, while foreshadowing a 4th. In the Old Testament when Moses comes down Mount Sinai with the 10 Commandments, he is very upset to see his people worshiping a golden bull calf.[S106] In fact, he shattered the stone tablets and instructed his people to kill each other in order to purify themselves. [S107] Most Biblical scholars would attribute this anger to the fact that the Israelites were worshiping a false idol, [S108] or something to that effect. The reality is that the golden bull is Taurus the Bull, and Moses represents the new Age of Aries the Ram. [S109] [M] This is why Jews even today still blow the Ram's horn. [S110] [M] Moses represents the new Age of Aries, [S111] and upon the new age, everyone must shed the old age. Other deities mark these transitions as well, a pre-Christian god who kills the bull, in the same symbology. [S112] [S113] [M]

Now Jesus is the figure who ushers in the age following Aries, the Age of Pisces the Two Fish.[S114] [S115] [M] Fish symbolism is very abundant in the New Testament. Jesus feeds 5000 people with bread and "2 fish." [S116] When he begins his ministry walking along Galilei, he befriends 2 fisherman, who follow him. [S117] [M] And I think we've all seen the Jesus-fish on the backs of people's cars. Little do they know what it actually means. It is a Pagan astrological symbolism for the Sun's Kingdom during the Age of Pisces.[S118] [M] Also, Jesus' assumed birth date is essentially the start of this age.

At Luke 22:10 when Jesus is asked by his disciples where the next passover will be, Jesus replied: "Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a pitcher of water... follow him into the house where he entereth in." This scripture is by far one of the most revealing of all the astrological references. The man bearing a pitcher of water is Aquarius, the water-bearer, who is always pictured as a man pouring out a pitcher of water. [S119] He represents the age after Pisces, and when the Sun (God's Sun) leaves the Age of Pisces (Jesus), it will go into the House of Aquarius, as Aquarius follows Pisces in the precession of the equinoxes. Also Jesus is saying is that after the Age of Pisces will come the Age of Aquarius. [S120] [M]

Now, we have all heard about the end times and the end of the world. Apart from the cartoonish depictions in the Book of Revelation, the main source of this idea comes from Matthew 28:20, where Jesus says "I will be with you even to the end of the world." [S121] However, in King James Version, "world" is a mistranslation, among many mistranslations. The actual word being used is "aeon", which means "age." "I will be with you even to the end of the age." Which is true, as Jesus' Solar Piscean personification will end when the Sun enters the Age of Aquarius. [S122] The entire concept of end times and the end of the world is a misinterpreted astrological allegory.[S123] [S124] [S125] [S126] [S127] [M] Let's tell that to the approximately 100 million people in America who believe the end of the world is coming.

Furthermore, the character of Jesus, a literary and astrological hybrid, is most explicitly a plagiarization of the Egyptian Sun-god Horus.[S128] [S129] [S130] [S131]For example, inscribed about 3500 years, on the walls of the Temple of Luxor in Egypt are images of the enunciation, the immaculate conception, the birth, and the adoration of Horus. [S132] The images begin with Thaw announcing to the virgin Isis that she will conceive Horus, then Nef the holy ghost impregnating the virgin, and then the virgin birth and the adoration.[S133] [S134] [M] This is exactly the story of Jesus' miracle conception. In fact, the literary similarities between the Egyptian religion and the Christian religion are staggering. [M] [S135]

And the plagiarism is continuous. The story of Noah and Noah's Ark is taken directly from tradition. The concept of a Great Flood is ubiquitous throughout the ancient world, with over 200 different cited claims in different periods and times. [S136] [S137] [M] However, one need look no further for a pre-Christian source than the Epic of Gilgamesh,[S138] [S139] written in 2600 b.c. This story talks of a Great Flood commanded by God, an Ark with saved animals upon it, and even the release and return of a dove, all held in common with the biblical story, among many other similarities.[S140] [M]

And then there is the plagiarized story of Moses. Upon Moses' birth, it is said that he was placed in a reed basket and set adrift in a river in order to avoid infanticide. He was later rescued by a daughter of royalty and raised by her as a Prince.[S141] This baby in a basket story was lifted directly from the myth of Sargon of Akkad of around 2250 b.c. Sargon was born, placed in a reed basket in order to avoid infanticide, and set adrift in a river. He was in turn rescued and raised by Akki, a royal mid-wife.[S142] [S143] [M]

Furthermore, Moses is known as the Law Giver, the giver of the Ten Commandments,[S144] the Mosaic Law. However, the idea of a Law being passed from God to a prophet on a mountain is also a very old motif. Moses is just a law giver in a long line of law givers in mythological history. [S145] In India, Manou was the great law giver. [S146] In Crete, Minos ascended Mount Dicta, where Zeus gave him the sacred laws. [S147] While in Egypt there was Mises, [S148] who carried stone tablets and upon them the laws of god were written.

And as far as the Ten Commandments, they are taken outright from Spell 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. [S149] What the Book of the Dead phrased "I have not stolen" became "Thou shall not steal," "I have not killed" became "Thou shall not kill," "I have not told lies" became "Thou shall not bear false witness" and so forth. [S150] In fact, the Egyptian religion is likely the primary foundational basis for the Judeo-Christian theology. [M] Baptism, [S151] afterlife,[S152] final judgment, [S153] virgin birth [S154] and resurrection, [S155] crucifixion, [S156] the ark of the covenant, [S157]circumcision, [S158] [S159] saviors,[S160] holy communion, [S161] the great flood, [S162] Easter, [S163] Christmas [S164] [S165] , Passover, [S166] and many many more, are all attributes of Egyptian ideas, long predating Christianity and Judaism.

Justin Martyr, one of the first Christian historians and defenders, wrote: "When we say that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into Heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those who you esteem Sons of Jupiter." [S167] In a different writing, Justin Martyr said "He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you believe of Perseus." [S168] It's obvious that Justin and other early Christians knew how similar Christianity was to the Pagan religions. However, Justin had a solution. As far as he was concerned, the Devil did it. The Devil had the foresight to come before Christ, and create these characteristics in the Pagan world. [S169]

The Bible is nothing more than an astro-theological literary fold hybrid, just like nearly all religious myths before it. [S170] [S171] [S172] [S173] [S174]In fact, the aspect of transference, of one character's attributes to a new character, can be found within the book itself. In the Old Testament there's the story of Joseph. Joseph was a prototype for Jesus. Joseph was born of a miracle birth, [S175] Jesus was born of a miracle birth. [S176] Joseph was of 12 brothers, [S177] Jesus had 12 disciples. [S178] Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver, [S179]Jesus was sold for 30 pieces of silver. [S180] Brother "Judah" suggests the sale of Joseph, [S181] disciple "Judas" suggests the sale of Jesus. [S182] Joseph began his work at the age of 30, [S183]Jesus began his work at the age of 30. [S184] The parallels go on and on.

Furthermore, is there any non-Biblical historical evidence of any person, living with the name Jesus, the Son of Mary, who traveled about with 12 followers, healing people and the like? There are numerous historians who lived in and around the Mediterranean either during or soon after the assumed life of Jesus.[S185] How many of these historians document this figure? Not one. [S186] However, to be fair, that doesn't mean defenders of the Historical Jesus haven't claimed the contrary. Four historians are typically referenced to justify Jesus's existence. Pliny the younger, Suetonius, Tacitus and the first three. [M] [S187] Each one of their entries consists of only a few sentences at best and only refer to the Christus or the Christ, which in fact is not name but a title. It means the "Anointed one" [S188] The fourth source is Josephus and this source has been proven to be a forgery for hundreds of years.[S189] Sadly, it is still cited as truth.

You would think that a guy who rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven for all eyes to see and performed the wealth of miracles acclaimed to him would have made it into the historical record. It didn't because once the evidence is weighed, there are very high odds that the figure known as Jesus, did not even exist.[S190] [S191] [S192] [S193]

The reality is, Jesus was the Solar Deity of the Gnostic Christian sect, [S194] [S195] [S196] and like all other Pagan gods, he was a mythical figure. It was the political establishment that sought to historize the Jesus figure for social control. By 325 a.d. in Rome, emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea. [S197] It was during this meeting that the politically motivated Christian Doctrines were established and thus began a long history of Christian bloodshed and spiritual fraud. And for the next 1600 years, the Vatican maintained a political stranglehold on all of Europe, leading to such joyous periods as the Dark Ages, along with enlightening events such as the Crusades, and the Inquisition.

Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, is the fraud of the age. It serves to detach the species from the natural world, and likewise, each other. It supports blind submission to authority. It reduces human responsibility to the effect that "God" controls everything, and in turn awful crimes can be justified in the name of Divine Pursuit. And most importantly, it empowers those who know the truth but use the myth to manipulate and control societies. The religious myth is the most powerful device ever created, and serves as the psychological soil upon which other myths can flourish.

[Barnaby]

What am I avoiding? Without religion, how can there be a God? God is our concept for that which cannot be yet explained. Without religions to back up that concept, how can we even come to that conclusion that there MUST be a God? Why can't we just admit to not knowing anything. I'd go as far to say it's our own arrogance that helps come up with the idea of God, instead of just being able to say, I don't know.

Without religion, there cannot be God - which is a restatement of your question, Without religion, how can there be a God? - doesn't make any sense. Not all theists are religious, and not all religious folk are theists - the two are not necessarily linked. God is NOT "our concept for that which cannot be yet explained," as I have argued in post #57 - scientists have theorized much about quantum mechanics and string theory, but they have yet to provide testable, falsifiable data on the topic - according to your definition of "God," God = super string theory. In using the word "yet," do you mean to suggest, as the word does, that one day we will be able to explain God - that belief in God will one day be vindicated?

I don't suggest, nor has any theist or atheist raising the evidentialist argument against belief in God, that "we just admit to not knowing anything," again, something I responded to in post #57. It has nothing to do with arrogance, at least not philosophically. To that extent you have employed an ad hominem fallacy.

My comment about your avoidance referred to your lengthy post from that documentary (which, incidentally, I saw last with Eric, and thought it quite provoking and informative) and how it attempts to dispatch with the Christian God, but even if it does so successfully - and let us assume it has - the Christian conception of God is but one among many. In other words, even if the documentary offered accurate evidence (something we have so far simply assumed and not verified, at least I haven't, have you?), the evidence refutes the Christian religion, not God. It merely attempts to show that Christians have utilized narratives of other, previous cultures and religions, and to a great extent co-opted them for its own use. It has not argued that there is no God. It has said that, if anything, that Christianity is baseless, not that God does not exist.

What I'm trying to say, is that without religious teaching, how does one arrive at the concept of God? It's not something that is self evident in our surroundings. If you have never heard of God, or been told of religion at all. If that was all striped away from us, how would one arrive at thinking God exists? You don't just walk around town, and see God was here graffiti on the wall. It is not a logical idea that one comes to when you think about things deductively.

Now what stands to more reason as to why we as a species thinks that there is a supernatural being, is the belief in evolutionary psychology. The way we think, and the behaviors we have are a product of behaviors that helped our ancestors survive. There is a reason we have a built in fear of heights, snakes, the dark, etc. These are all throwbacks to the mental workings that survived natural selection in our ancestors. The concept of God is another one of these behaviors. They way our minds grow as children play a major part in the natural pull towards believing in the supernatural. When we are very young we pretty much percieve things at face value. People are not people yet, but are more objects to us. As we grow we start to understand the duality of the mind and body, that these things are separate. We understand that others think things just like we do, even though we cannot physically see these people. Researchers have tested young children, and in one of the tests, a puppet show was put on. It depicted an alligator eating a mouse. The children were then asked questions like is the mouse still hungry? Is it sad it was eaten? Is it lonely? Is it tired? etc.

The younger children had a better understanding that when you're dead, you are dead. But the older children, while they were able to answer that physically things were over, the mouse still had emotions. This is a natural product of our mental evolution, and the way we percieve the world. We automatically separate physical from mental, in order to interact with each other. This lets us be able to try and determine peoples responses to things, and to avoid dangerous situations. It also helps with us trying to procur a mate as well.

Think of it this way as well. If you were in the woods, and something happened.. Leaves rustling, some fruit fell from a tree, etc, what is the better mental response in this from an evolutionary standpoint? That it was just wind moving the leaves? That the fruit got ripe and fell of its own accord? Or that some personal, animate, intential force did this? That there is a predator moving throgh leaves, or something tried to throw the fruit at you? The 2nd will leave you in a defensive state, thus better being prepared not to get eaten unexpectadly. Our minds evolved with a very good flight or fight mechanism, in order to help us survive. Unfortunately though, this is also what gives us our natural inclination to believe in the supernatural.

To fit into society, you have to follow the rules, or you don't survive. What better way for our minds to make sure we follow the rules, then to have something watching us at all times. It all comes down to our minds survival instincts making it natural for us to believe in supernatural things. The concept of a God watching us, or we go to hell, keeps us a member of society, and thus preserving our ability to survive.


This is the only explanation that really gives the rise to our natural tendancy to believe in the supernatural. God is merely a by product of our minds ability to interact with our world, and keep us safe. There are TONS of studies out there that document this through coginitive pyschology. Here's a pretty good read: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/InstituteofCo...ad,90224,en.pdf

[Barnaby]

Damn edit timer..

This part of my post is incorrect:

The younger children had a better understanding that when you're dead, you are dead. But the older children, while they were able to answer that physically things were over, the mouse still had emotions. This is a natural product of our mental evolution, and the way we percieve the world. We automatically separate physical from mental, in order to interact with each other. This lets us be able to try and determine peoples responses to things, and to avoid dangerous situations. It also helps with us trying to procur a mate as well.

All the children felt that the mouse still had emotions, but since they were so young, cultural condition doesn't apply. 3 year olds do not have the understanding of heaven and the afterlife, yet they still think the mind of the mouse was active, when we know that is not true.

[Kapten Kanel]

I cannot say that there is no god (or similar "higher"/unknown existance/form etc), we will never (at least based on how things look now) be able too see things in another way/perspective than our own, what i am trying to say is kind of hard to explain. Im not talking about people having different views on things, im talking about the whole humankind, how our brains/"consciousness" work.

Our brain/"hardware" makes us percieve the "world"/everything around us in a way/we "assemble" the "world" around us in a way we/our brain can "understand". Human intellect may be "nothing", we are locked to our view of the world, damn this is some abstract shit, very hard to explain.

This is also kind of hard to explain but i believe there must be something "more" out there, what the hell is the universe? WTF is this shit, why am i sitting here? What am i? What is my consciousness? - And still we are locked to our "view" of things. There MUST be something we cannot see, something we do not understand. And all this is written by a human, with a human view of things...

Science points towards the non-existance of a god/higher form etc, thats the only thing we have to "stand" on.

I believe that people raised with religion think in a certain "closed" way, not sure how to explain this but my mind is "open" = i know i probably dont know shit, my opinions may change, my view on things may change, everything may change, what is everything? what? - I accept this

*I think this post will need to be read through a couple of times to really get what i mean, most of this shit is more like a "feeling" than anything else.

*I will probably want to edit this post, ive "jumped around" adding/removing/editing text, some weird shit is bound to happen. The edit timer really needs to be removed.

* Yes, i am probably crazy

You're not crazy! You're a thinker! I don't mean to patronize at all - but, you might take great interest in majoring in philosophy - assuming a bunch of things, like that you're a college student, etc.

I did - and I concluded on the side of belief, but I do know others too, most of my classmates even, who concluded differently. The major did what it was supposed to do - teach one how to unpack, distinguish, and evaluate arguments - and to some extent it teaches how to make them too.

Too late for that i believe, didnt go for college (or what "högskola" translates too), just finished our "highschool" (electrician/IT), when you compare i think our highschools last year is like the first year in your colleges, anyway i could have chosen some philosophy course there but didnt.

Not sure i would want that either, i dont believe thinking/philosophing has ever gotten me anywhere, quite the other way around almost, the issue is that as with everything it should be done in moderation. But then my achievements in this world mean nothing so... oh shiiit here i go again

[Sonthert]

I like Zeitgeist alright. There are a number of inconsistencies. The Southern Cross, for instance is a Southern Constellation, it couldn't have been observed by people in Europe. Also, in reference to your post, there are 13 constellations. Nobody knows why, Ophiuchus was omitted. Presumably, from my theory, is that when people started time keeping, they used a lunar calendar which would have 13 months (Since there are 13 full moons in a year). Similar to Asians and Muslims. Thats why there were 13 constellations.

Dr. B. You sidestepped my question. Physical history is everything. Buddha existed, Mohammad existed and they are religious figures. The point was rationally, can you rectify the existence of god and the absence of physical evidence? Certainly not. So faith in god is irrational faith...not rational. Rational faith involves direct physical observations, not indirect or inferred observations like you are making. You tried to skewer my definition, but I was defining rational faith and you said having faith was OK, but you are defining your faith as rational, rather than classifying it correctly as irrational faith, like finding the lost Continent of Atlantis or discovering the theoretical Nemesis (The Dark dwarf companion of the Sun) or Lilith (The Second moon of Earth). We've looked. A lot. There is no objective proof of Lilith or Nemesis...yet some people still believe in them. There is no objective proof, its irrational to believe they exist...although Nemesis has some room for doubt (Refer to the elliptical orbit of Sedna in terms of an external force stretching its orbit out)...there is no rational proof...so faith in finding them is irrational. As is faith in god. It is assumed that both Lilith and Nemesis are dark and are unseen...similar to god (Unseen). If you believe in unseen things that people should say exist. Now, if you believe in neutrinos, they are unseen because of their size and lack of magnetic charge. I personally don't believe in neutrinos, but intellectually, a good case has been made that they need to exist to balance the spin equation in the decay of a neutron, so I accept them. There is no math equation that god balances to make right. It has been also said that dark matter makes up 60 or 70% of the mass of the universe. I don;t personally believe this, because, like neutrinos, I can't objectively perceive it. I think there are intellectual cases that might make the need for dark matter irrelevant to balance the behavior of the universe, but its a popular scientific belief by men far more learned than I am, so I accept that too, but still skeptical. I don;t believe in global warming, because of the dearth of physical evidence and the weakness of science associated with it. I accept it could be an issue because certain aspects have a ring of truth to them and there are scattered observations I have made that might tend to validate elements of the global warming, so I leave a question mark, but with 95% certainty believe that global warming is a farce.

These are examples that I can leave mixed opinions of things when some plausible doubt exists to dent my certainty. I have no uncertainty in proclaiming there is no god. It is irrational to proclaim that there is. You state your case, Dr. B, in that god exists, because other unseen things exist, but these are scientifically inducted, not deduced generally, like the logic that neutrinos exist, is inductive. A theory is based on direct observation, like I believe there is force that causes things that fall to the ground because I see things falling to the ground. This is not a biased observation, things really do fall to Earth. The "theory" that there is a god is not a theory, there is only indirect proof and weak finger pointing logic, it falls into the realm of unfounded belief.

You are admitting that there is no physical, objective proof of god and admitting you point was weak. Deducing gravity is quite different than deducing god and you know it. Give some rational, direct logic to demonstrate god. You can't...because god doesn't exist. Even the huge majority of the scientific world who believes in dark matter has some direct observations that support the existence of something they can't see or measure...you can give a convoluted logic that involves pointing things at other things by way of example that god exists, but there is still no direct observation that would justify faith or a theory of god existing. Why do you figure that god is a probability? You have no direct observation of god's existence to justify that its likely, how can you make a rational assertion that there is a high probability that there is a god? It's just as rational to say that one Martian nation has nuclear weapons. There's no evidence that there are humanoids on Mars or that there are nations on Mars or that any of them have nuclear weapons. Your saying its likely theres a god, even though there is no evidence that there are gods, there is no evidence that they ever created anything (let alone the Universe and the Earth) and there is no evidence that they will have any influence on our lives, but you can assert that its reasonable to expect...How?

I saw this guy named David Copperfield when I was a kid. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Do I believe that the Statue of Liberty disappeared? Of course not. Its a trick of the eye. You believe that an agency can make something be true or cease to be true and the illusion has weight. Nonetheless, nobody has ever made something cease to exist, its a trick...similar to the whole god belief.

[Rani]

This is a debate that has gone on for several thousand years. And there's probably never going to be any answer that will suitably satisfy everyone. Just because you can't prove something exist rationally, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Okay, so at this point in time and scientific advancement we can't logically prove there is a divine intelligence, but perhaps at some point in the future we will be able to prove it's existance. We couldn't prove gravity existed for a very long time, yet it was there. Finally it was scientifically proven - scientifically within the context of it's time of course. The same could be true of God.

Being an artist I have a very vivid imagination. I have this vision of an atheist at the moment of death finiding himself face to face with God, who's laughing out loud and asking "Do you believe in me now?" (My version of God has a hella sense of humor.) I have a vision of a Christian getting to the other side and finding only peace and wondering why they'd wasted a lifetime in worship of something that didn't exist. Both these things are possible and a lot of permutations in between.

The bottom line is.....Does your faith make your life better? Do you find purpose, structure, contentment in your faith? Even if it's faith that God is a falsehood and you're on your own. I'm a huge believer in the divine and I have zero belief in organized religion because I think that organized religion has nothing to do with the spiritual but serves the community not much differently than one large extended family when it's working right. And sometimes that big extended family can be pretty dysfunctional. That doesn't make faith any less vaild or worthwhile. If it betters your life, if if fulfills sometihing inside you to give you peace and purpose and tranquility and groundedness in your life, then your faith is a positive thing. But honestly we all need to stop preaching at each other that this is right and that isn't right. Enough with the atheists claiming "you can't prove it therefore it doesn't exist". And enough with the faithful insisting the non-believer is going to hell. The worst thing organized religion ever created was the entire missionary thing where they just have to preach to everybody. No, we don't.

No more than the vegan needs to say more than "no thank you" to the plate of roast beef.

'Rani

[Sonthert]

I have heard god and other things made in analogy, god is like water, god is like gravity, god is like a wreath of pretty flowers that have no scent of their own. People make analogies...based on what? You can't prove the nature of god is any certain way, you only surmise that it is the case, mostly because you want it to be that way...no?

[Sonthert]

Well, Rani, with all respects we are debating it. If I believe in Martians and it makes my life better, its OK? If a person believes the KKK makes their life better is that OK? Just because something makes somebody's life better doesn't make it true. In any sense.

Many drug addicts believe that drugs make their lives better...but in fact its more reasonable to see that drugs makes a person's life more livable, from their perspective. As the drug ruins more and more of their non-drug life, they don't have the ability to distance themselves from the drug, just keep using it to make their real losses livable. Religion is similar to this. as the religious lose more and more of their non-religious life (rationality for one comes to mind), they can't see how to live their life without religion, they become completely dependent. Try to explain to a drug addict how drugs make their lives need more drugs which perpetuates the cycle and see what they say. You see this, because you aren't under the influence of drugs. The atheists see the damage that religion causes to religious people, but we can't find a way to explain it to you...because your in it and can't relate to life without religion. A drug addict will frequently stop temporarily but go back to drugs...even when they rid themselves of obvious inclinations towards them. Same for religion. I heard a person say 'They imagine their lives would be barren and empty without religion." People who use drugs regularly describe the prospect of not having the drug in their life in a similar way. I don't think all people have a dependency on religion in this way, obviously. Some people literally are "Recreational religion users". They enjoy it, they like what it does for them, and they may not suffer the effects that the deeply religious do, but just like recreational users of drugs, they can descend into full-blown addiction...or not. Drug addicts develop a real logic why drugs help them ,make them better, smarter, faster, etc. Same for religious people. I've listened to NHT-smokers talking, thinking they are brilliant because of the great ideas they have when they're stoned. The ideas and thoughts sound stupid, as a non-NHT-smoker, listening to them. Having dabbled in various NHT uses, I see where they're coming from, but they lack the intellectual development to really grasp abstract ideas. It becomes a substitute. The non-addicts (atheists and agnostics) are incredulous that the religious can do it to themselves. We wonder why people would play around with it recreationally...its dangerous.

So, I don't buy the "It makes people feel better" argument. The same thing could be said for drugs. One more thing to think about...whats the number one thing people give up drugs for? Religion. Whats the number one thing people give up religion for? Drugs. Not atheism. Drugs and religion seem to compete with each other. So much, to the point, Mormons forbid the use of addictive drugs...legal or otherwise. It could be said that the mormons want god to be the only addiction their people have.

In a retrospective sense, it might be rational to look for life on the surface of Mars...in 1960. It might be rational to continue to do so now. It would be more rational to look for life under the surface of Mars, however, because it is more reasonable that its true. In the same sense, believing in god is looking for life on the surface of Mars.

[judgeposer]

I have interpolated my reply.

What I'm trying to say, is that without religious teaching, how does one arrive at the concept of God? It's not something that is self evident in our surroundings. If you have never heard of God, or been told of religion at all. If that was all striped away from us, how would one arrive at thinking God exists? You don't just walk around town, and see God was here graffiti on the wall. It is not a logical idea that one comes to when you think about things deductively.

I think one can "arrive at a concept of God," or, to put it differently, one can come to believe in God, though various ways. Religious teaching offers one way. Deduction, induction, and abduction are three others. The argument you attempt to make, that without religious teaching, one cannot arrive at a belief in God does not seem at all plausible, at least not generally speaking. Those religious teachings came from someone, at some time. It is either the case that the self-evidence of God's existence formed someone's conclusion on the matter (and thus, he created some religion around that conclusion) or that someone made up, out of wholesale-cloth, some religious teaching. It cannot be the case that religious teaching must preexist for there to be belief in God - something cannot come of nothing, to put it most simply.

While you don't believe God's existence is something self-evident, or that you haven't inductively reasoned God's existence from a multitude of phenomena (a posteriori knowledge), or that you haven't deductively reasoned God's existence (from a priori knowledge), others do and have. You cannot dismiss a millennia of philosophical argument on the topic by simply saying: God's supposed existence cannot be deductively reasoned or some such thing.

Now what stands to more reason as to why we as a species thinks that there is a supernatural being, is the belief in evolutionary psychology. The way we think, and the behaviors we have are a product of behaviors that helped our ancestors survive. There is a reason we have a built in fear of heights, snakes, the dark, etc. These are all throwbacks to the mental workings that survived natural selection in our ancestors. The concept of God is another one of these behaviors. They way our minds grow as children play a major part in the natural pull towards believing in the supernatural. When we are very young we pretty much percieve things at face value. People are not people yet, but are more objects to us. As we grow we start to understand the duality of the mind and body, that these things are separate. We understand that others think things just like we do, even though we cannot physically see these people. Researchers have tested young children, and in one of the tests, a puppet show was put on. It depicted an alligator eating a mouse. The children were then asked questions like is the mouse still hungry? Is it sad it was eaten? Is it lonely? Is it tired? etc.

I think the operative word in this line of argument is "psychology," which stands distinct and unrelated to philosophical discourse. In other words, in the case of another, un-related example, let us suppose that someone (p1) argued that it is not morally wrong to steal. In response, another (p2) offers that p1 cannot possibly believe that, but simply wants not to feel guilty for doing something he wants to do. P2's response fails as a philosophical counter-argument to p1's argument. What the responder did there was to psycologize the discussion - to ascribe some hidden motivation to p1. P2 has made no gain in refuting p1's argument, even if p1's motivation for arguing that stealing is morally permissible is because he would feel guilty to admit his wrong. P2 does, however, offer a different perspective, one that might be true, but it still fails to contend with the merits of p1's argument. P1's argument remains unrefuted and unexamined.

In the same way, to argue that theists believe because that's the way we are built, that their cognitive structures have developed in such a way because they have proved useful from an evolutionary standpoint, does not dismiss the argument of God's existence. It merely attempts to explain religious belief, if even that; it does not, however, as you seek to suggest, refute God's existence.

If it is a valid contribution to inject psychology into this debate on one side, it would be reasonable for us to use psychology to explain the atheist's non-belief. A more cynical take would be that atheists don't want God to exist because, for them, for what they seek to do, they see God's existence as a barrier to their sense of personal fulfillment – furthermore, affirming God's existence would place on them obligations of behavior: Atheists don't want to believe in hell because it is too painful for them too. That, to me, patronizes atheists, but of foremost importance in that diagnosis is that I have not refuted the philosophical/metaphysical claim that God does not exist.

For their roles, psychology attempts to explain human behavior, philosophy attempts to explain what is the case.

Also, but not really related to this discussion, you mention the mind and body as two distinct things. This too poses serious philosophical problems. For that to be the case, that the mind and body are different things, we then have to explain how the two interact. Assumedly, if you take the body as some material thing, and the mind as some immaterial thing, then you have to then account for an interaction of the material and immaterial. That's another thread I'd suggest.

This is the only explanation that really gives the rise to our natural tendancy to believe in the supernatural. God is merely a by product of our minds ability to interact with our world, and keep us safe. There are TONS of studies out there that document this through coginitive pyschology. Here's a pretty good read: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/InstituteofCo...ad,90224,en.pdf

That's a bit of a cop-out, don't you think? Would you know that such studies and the work being done now in the area of the greater cognitive sciences (brining together neural science, psychology, and philosophy) have found the same results but have also found reasonable to conclude that since our minds function in this such way, not that it indicates God's existence, but that it is reasonable for us to think that God exists. Be careful with quoting from studies/statistics – the real "meat" is in their interpretation.

[Barnaby]

I really am failing to see how the idea of God is self evident, other than an explanation to the unexplainable. We as a species, are very curious creatures. We like to know the answers to things, and when we don't, we'll make something up. Such is the existence of a God concept. Just because we came up with a answer to a question, does NOT mean it is true. You keep saying there is so much evidence in the world that points to God's existence. Where is it? What exists in this world that points without a doubt to towards God? Through all these posts, you have yet to present an argument that really tries to prove the existence of a deity. You keep referencing a multitude of phenomena that would make people deductively believe God's existence. Outside of the bible, what is it?

I mean, we can go back forth, and you can try and tear apart the flaws in my arguments all day, but in the end, the proof is in the pudding, and I don't remember where you posted it. I supplied reasons to why we as a species come up with the idea of God. I have supplied an answer to where the origin of religious stories have come from.

Where is the hard evidence that you commonly refer to that points to the existence of a God. The bible doesn't cut it. There needs to be other emperical proof that he does.

I do not speak for atheists, but on the part were you say they are afraid of the existence of God, because it is a barrier to do what they want, isn't it more the other way around. Wouldn't you say that theists are far more afraid, as NOT believing and being wrong would damn them to hell, so its better to err on the side of caution? That's part of they psychological reason why we believe in God. We would rather be cautious to avoid failure, so it would make sense to beleive in God to avoid being damned.. Personally, I believe that if God did exist, hell would not. What Father would ever damn their children to a life of torture? If we are to turn the other cheek, and to forgive, as Jesus supposedly taught, wouldn't that hold true for God as well? What is it that atheists would be obligated to do morally in believing in God that they can't already? Just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you are an anarchist, and do whatever you want.

[judgeposer]

I really am failing to see how the idea of God is self evident, other than an explanation to the unexplainable. We as a species, are very curious creatures. We like to know the answers to things, and when we don't, we'll make something up. Such is the existence of a God concept. Just because we came up with a answer to a question, does NOT mean it is true. You keep saying there is so much evidence in the world that points to God's existence. Where is it? What exists in this world that points without a doubt to towards God? Through all these posts, you have yet to present an argument that really tries to prove the existence of a deity. You keep referencing a multitude of phenomena that would make people deductively believe God's existence. Outside of the bible, what is it?

I mean, we can go back forth, and you can try and tear apart the flaws in my arguments all day, but in the end, the proof is in the pudding, and I don't remember where you posted it. I supplied reasons to why we as a species come up with the idea of God. I have supplied an answer to where the origin of religious stories have come from.

Where is the hard evidence that you commonly refer to that points to the existence of a God. The bible doesn't cut it. There needs to be other emperical proof that he does.

I do not speak for atheists, but on the part were you say they are afraid of the existence of God, because it is a barrier to do what they want, isn't it more the other way around. Wouldn't you say that theists are far more afraid, as NOT believing and being wrong would damn them to hell, so its better to err on the side of caution? That's part of they psychological reason why we believe in God. We would rather be cautious to avoid failure, so it would make sense to beleive in God to avoid being damned.. Personally, I believe that if God did exist, hell would not. What Father would ever damn their children to a life of torture? If we are to turn the other cheek, and to forgive, as Jesus supposedly taught, wouldn't that hold true for God as well? What is it that atheists would be obligated to do morally in believing in God that they can't already? Just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you are an anarchist, and do whatever you want.

I haven't had a chance to offer any proof so far because, you're right, I have been pointing out your arguments' shortcomings - and to no avail, you continue, in the same vain, as if I haven't through my responses inferred the need from you for a better or readjusted argument. Did it ever occur that I might not have any interest in proving God's existence to you - or anyone - but, that my interest is only in evaluating the arguments of those who claim God's non-existence? In other words, I am not pretending that God's existence actually depends on our arguments for or against his possible existence - for indeed, if God does exist, he does so happily, regardless of arguments to the contrary - rather, I want to explore whether those who claim God's non existence or the irrationality of those who do believe in God's existence do so from a reasonable line of argumentation themselves. I perhaps would have an interest in evaluating the claims of those who believe in God, but there seems only one person - perhaps, aside from me - who believes in God.

For the record, I haven't referenced a multitude of phenomena - what I did suggest, however, is that what counts as evidence for a theist (hopefully before they became a theist) does not necessarily count as evidence for an atheist. You're right, I haven't further elaborated on what that evidence is - and for good reason. For one, it will not compel everyone to the same conclusion. For another, our receptiveness to certain phenomena as evidence for God's existence usually depends on preexisting biases we cannot control.

I have also, since moving to this new thread, as per Eric's request, refrained from name-dropping or quoting. Although I will keep to that request, I do feel that we will lose something in our discussion because some thinkers have already offered able deductive, inductive, or even abductive proofs of God's existence. Whether these can withstand sustained scrutiny is another question. I would rather not re-invent the wheel, nor can I offer a brand new argument - for my own part, I happen to accept some of those prior ones I speak of and see almost no need to create new ones.

For background about those arguments though, I will say they come in those three major forms: deductive, inductive, and abductive. Deductive ones do not rely on "evidence," in the way you seem to want - "hard" or "empirical" evidence. The nature of deductive reasoning relies on a priori knowledge, a type of knowledge and forms of assertions that are not based on evidence, per se, but about concepts. Inductive reasoning relies on evidence, and pieces together an argument similar to how science forms theories - by making inferences from repeated phenomena (this is the sort on which atheists and theists disagree about what counts as evidence). Abductive reasoning answers the question of God's existence by simply assuming it - taking God's existence as a "properly basic" belief, not necessarily derived from other held assumptions. I'm saying in all of this that only one form of argumentation requires and relies on "hard evidence," inductive reasoning. But, for those interested, there are already numerous arguments defending/concluding God's existence by means of these three types of argumentation.

The only hint of an argument I made tried to point out that to some extent atheists and theists agree on what is needed to prove God's existence (e.g. "evidence), but they do not agree on what that evidence is. Simple.

My response about the psychology of the matter seems lost on you. I meant by it not that it was not true, but that that way of looking at the debate about God's existence is a psychological one, NOT a philosophical one. To offer a psychological explanation for belief does not address the philosophical argument of God's existence, even if it does address the motivation of one side of the debate.

And, to the greatest extent, I do agree with your last bit: "Just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you are an anarchist, and do whatever you want." I know many a moral, upstanding atheist - Eric among them, of course. Religion is not a necessary condition to be moral.

[Rani]

Well, Rani, with all respects we are debating it. If I believe in Martians and it makes my life better, its OK? If a person believes the KKK makes their life better is that OK? Just because something makes somebody's life better doesn't make it true. In any sense.

Many drug addicts believe that drugs make their lives better...but in fact its more reasonable to see that drugs makes a person's life more livable, from their perspective. As the drug ruins more and more of their non-drug life, they don't have the ability to distance themselves from the drug, just keep using it to make their real losses livable. Religion is similar to this. as the religious lose more and more of their non-religious life (rationality for one comes to mind), they can't see how to live their life without religion, they become completely dependent. Try to explain to a drug addict how drugs make their lives need more drugs which perpetuates the cycle and see what they say. You see this, because you aren't under the influence of drugs. The atheists see the damage that religion causes to religious people, but we can't find a way to explain it to you...because your in it and can't relate to life without religion. A drug addict will frequently stop temporarily but go back to drugs...even when they rid themselves of obvious inclinations towards them. Same for religion. I heard a person say 'They imagine their lives would be barren and empty without religion." People who use drugs regularly describe the prospect of not having the drug in their life in a similar way. I don't think all people have a dependency on religion in this way, obviously. Some people literally are "Recreational religion users". They enjoy it, they like what it does for them, and they may not suffer the effects that the deeply religious do, but just like recreational users of drugs, they can descend into full-blown addiction...or not. Drug addicts develop a real logic why drugs help them ,make them better, smarter, faster, etc. Same for religious people. I've listened to NHT-smokers talking, thinking they are brilliant because of the great ideas they have when they're stoned. The ideas and thoughts sound stupid, as a non-NHT-smoker, listening to them. Having dabbled in various NHT uses, I see where they're coming from, but they lack the intellectual development to really grasp abstract ideas. It becomes a substitute. The non-addicts (atheists and agnostics) are incredulous that the religious can do it to themselves. We wonder why people would play around with it recreationally...its dangerous.

So, I don't buy the "It makes people feel better" argument. The same thing could be said for drugs. One more thing to think about...whats the number one thing people give up drugs for? Religion. Whats the number one thing people give up religion for? Drugs. Not atheism. Drugs and religion seem to compete with each other. So much, to the point, Mormons forbid the use of addictive drugs...legal or otherwise. It could be said that the mormons want god to be the only addiction their people have.

In a retrospective sense, it might be rational to look for life on the surface of Mars...in 1960. It might be rational to continue to do so now. It would be more rational to look for life under the surface of Mars, however, because it is more reasonable that its true. In the same sense, believing in god is looking for life on the surface of Mars.

Remeber this part of my post?

"This is a debate that has gone on for several thousand years. And there's probably never going to be any answer that will suitably satisfy everyone."

'Rani