The Pandemic And Religious Beliefs

[atrib]

We pity you for thinking this is a sane answer.

I bet you say that to all theists.


(I don't want to jump past other previous posts. I'll get back to you)

Again, your post completely disregards the point Rhea was trying to make, which was that you seem to lack the ability, or are unwilling to respond to the questions that are actually being asked of you, and the arguments that are actually being made. Its as if you have lost the ability to read simple English, and communicate with responses that address what the other person is saying.

Atheist: Why does God allow humans to suffer?
Learner: The sky is blue.
Atheist: Can you please address the question?
Learner: Water is wet.

You are not alone in this behavior. Many/most theists act this way.

 

[Learner]

Quote Originally Posted by atrib View Post

When has your god ever shown up? When was this planet God's planet? When has this world ever been an ideal place free from disease, misery and death? When did God ever show up to teach his children to love one another and be good people? When? Show us the evidence.

God exists because the Bible says God exists. That's all you have. If your brain was working rationally, you would understand why this argument doesn't work. But you don't, and that is the tragedy.

When you asked for evidence, I was trying to point out to you that theists can't make God appear just instantly like stage magic. I am assuming you must know this, so therefore, you were expecting I wouldn't be able to answer the question this way.

And this is the profoundly ridiculous response of the theist.

Atheist asks, “when has your god EVER shown up,”
Theist responds to a completely different question that no one asked, “I can’t make him instantly show up!”
... thinking he has won a round or something.

What other answer did you expect, if I didn't say the bible describes the time when God interacted with humans and then after... the verses say it is satan's world?

But everyone notices that NO ONE asked you to make your god instantly show up, and you aren’t fooling anyone by pretending that was the question. Instead, we shake our heads with pity. Seriously? That’s your answer to the question of “when has your god EVER shown up?”

We pity you for thinking this is a sane answer.

Look back at the questions he asked. I answered in two ways.

One, that the answer can't be proven by showing ...praying for God's hand ito provide some miracle or sign for you to convince you. He would know that but still asks (if it were the case).

And two, the bible explains why. That's if the question was asking from the viewpoint of the biblical text.

Similar to the first option ... it MUST be all about "scientific" evidence then? Method of measure not known yet, e.g. scientists see patterns others disagree, in a manner of speaking. Inferences and deducing by all sorts of things in the natural world is the best anyone has. Forget theoretical physics beyond the physical world!

 

[Learner]

Interestingly, I don’t. I have some friends who are real bible-reading, Jesus-loving, “Godly” people. But when you ask them a question, they actually answer it. And when they ask you a question, it isn’t a caricature of a question. And so I never say that to them.

You accept Christians actually answer questions? I may have to bookmark this post for future reference.
Believe it or not, I had a little incline you'd sort of respond like that. What would NOW be interesting is:

Did you ask the same questions?

What or how did they actually answer your question(s)? (I'm happy to learn new things)

Did you agree or not agree with what they answered you with?

 

[Lion IRC]

When the presuppositional atheist asks for evidence that God has acted in the world (immanence) having already decided that there is NO such evidence - thats DISHONEST.

Not dishonest.

It is intellectually dishonest.
Note - I dont think of you as intellectually dishonest because you dont strike me as a presuppositional atheist.

Simply noting that this God thing never shows up when needed.

No. You dont get to note that. Firstly, you cant state that no other human in history has ever had God show up when needed. Secondly, you dont get to define what constitutes necessity. How would you know when it is needed for God to show up and do what you personally believe is necessary for human kind? Cheerful Charlie's will be done on earth as it is in heaven?

In the Bible, God shows himself numerous times to the Israelites. Leading them to Canaan as a pillar of fire by night, a pillar of fire by day. God appears to 73 elders of Israel, and twerks for Moses. His voices booms down from the heavens when John the Baptist baptizes Jesus. But now, no more of this calibre of appearances for modern man.

So if a 'modern man' heard God talking, you would believe God is real?

God never halted massive epidemics, like small pox, the plague, or covid-19.

Do we still have an ongoing epidemic of the bubonic plague? Somebody stopped it.

God, supposedly perfectly good demands massacres, murders.

President Obama ordered the murder of Usama Bin Laden. Is Obama a good man or an evil man?

When as an atheist, I look hard at claims about God, and not just the mythological claims, but the deeper theological claims, God simply fails as a viable proposition.

Contesting a deep theological proposition and arguing from incredulity as to historical claims is not an atheist slam dunk.
I can make exactly the same argument against your atheology.
...I find it impossible to believe the universe has always existed. I find non-theistic moral epistemology meaningless.

In the thread The God Zoo, I listed a few atheological arguments that demonstrated this God concept is not viable. Nobody demonstrated that I was wrong in any meaningful manner.

WOW. You won an argument on the internet? Here's your gold medal.

The Moral Nature Of Man Argument for example. If God creates all and is essentially omniscient, we lack free will and all moral evil that has existed, exists, and will exist is God's creation.

Sigh...you do NOT require God to be ignorant of the future in order to freely decide whether to have a coke or a pepsi.
You do not even need to be aware that God exists before making such a choice.

Look. Think about this argument for free will.
God is theoretically all powerful, yes? God could force you to do something if He wanted you to do it, yes?
Such a scenario - God exerting His coercive power over you would be the opposite of free will, right?
Therefore, when God is NOT forcing you do a certain thing, that is free will. And God can allow you such freedom without turning off His omniscient abilities.

We can observe the Universe, material, natural world, but not a sign of any supernatural world with thinking entities that are capable or being proven to exist.

..no sign of God apart from that great big universe which suddenly appeared 13.9 billion years ago?

A God out of time, or the old Simple God without parts has too many problems with the basic claims about God to give it any credence.

Competing descriptions of God are not a credence issue for me. Every single theist who claims God is an elephant trunk, or a tusk, or a flapping ear, or a tail - all unanimously agree that God IS a something real.

Revelation? Which revelation? So many revelations, that must be wrong we know mankind makes up supposed revelation by the boat load. So is it possible all revelations are nonsense?

Imagine if I said the scientific method should be rejected because not all scientists agree on 'stuff'.

Yes. What evidence is their for Christianity and not say, Islam?

Islam says Noah, Job, Adam, Abraham, Moses etc etc all said and did the same things as the Christian bible.
Islam corroborates Christianity in more ways that it competes with Christianity.
And ALL forms of theism corroborate the sensory experienced existence of a Higher Power(s).
What argumentum ad populam do you have in support of atheism.

The Bible has been demonstrated to be a pack of faux histories that archaeology has debunked...

Nope.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Nope? Yes, yes, yes. Near East archaeology has abandoned the claims of the OT. There was no Egyptian captivity. No 40 years in the wilderness. No exodus. No genocidal invasion of Canaan lead by Moses and Joshua. After 50 years of archaeology, that has been demonstrated to all be a fantasy. An invention. Early Israelites did not write down their history so that was lost and later lying priests made up a faux history instead.

Note this important detail, if there is indeed a God, that God did not command murders, massacres and genocides. Also it is a fact that many atheists are well aware of all of this. And of course, no Moses on the mount with God on the way to kill the Canaanites. The lies of some lying priest come down some 2,700 years to make lives of many hard and ugly. The misogynism, anti-homosexual "hammer verses" and so on. By waking up to the truth of the fact the Bible is a pack of lies, we can stop being lead around by the snout by some lying billy goat herder priest's lies presented as commands from God of 2,700 years ago.

The OT continually paints God as a savage and stupid God with an anger management problem, bad morals and utter lack of problem solving ability. The Bible gives us goofy nonsense such as Adam And Eve, talking snakes, magic fruit trees, and false myths like Noah's flood, Tower of Babel, talking donkeys and more.

Is all of this what we would expect from an all powerful perfectly morally good, super-intelligent God? Don't think so.

Genesis 3
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

A cute oriental tall tale teller's tall tale, but why would an intelligent God punish innocent snakes ever afterwards? Does this make any sort of sense at all? Note there is no sign or original sin in this ancient tall tale. Yet millions of Christians tell us they believe in original sin. Why would god tolerate original sin that causes everybody after Adam to be sinful and evil anyway? A truly omnipotent and intelligent God would not have.

Sorry, but God makes no sense at all.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Pretty much my take. Far too many primitive elements in the Bible for it to be what the faithful wish it to be. The NT also has its share of impossible or contradictory dates; mind-blowing public miracles such as legions of people coming out of their graves, that somehow didn't make it into non-Christian chronicles; competing Christologies. Not to mention that half of Christendom thinks Jesus' mom had miraculous powers, and has them to this day, and rose bodily through space, while the rest of Christendom doesn't require any veneration of her at all. So this is the religion that an all-powerful God made? One that leaves even the nominal believers in millenia-long squabbles? This God couldn't create a book that one and all could agree on -- this God couldn't even preserve the original texts? Yeah. Meet you at the Office of Obfuscation and Special Pleading for the definitive answer to all this.

 

[Rhea]

And this is the profoundly ridiculous response of the theist.

Atheist asks, “when has your god EVER shown up,”
Theist responds to a completely different question that no one asked, “I can’t make him instantly show up!”
... thinking he has won a round or something.

What other answer did you expect, if I didn't say the bible describes the time when God interacted with humans and then after... the verses say it is satan's world?

This is confusing. I don’t know what you’re trying to say here.

Are you trying to say, “what other answer did you expect besides, ‘the bible says so’? That’s all I got.”
Genuine question - I don’t know what this answer means.


What did I expect? I expected you to demonstrate whatever evidence you have that makes you believe that your god has ever shown himself, ever. Maybe “because the bible says so,” is all you needed. “Someone, I don’t know who, but someone wrote it down, without providing any evidence, and that’s all I needed to believe this incredibly unlikely tale! The Book is the evidence, there is absolutely no other evidence.”

I would not find that compelling. II don’t find that compelling. I didn’t find that believable at all when I was 10, and it never got any more believable with time.

But everyone notices that NO ONE asked you to make your god instantly show up, and you aren’t fooling anyone by pretending that was the question. Instead, we shake our heads with pity. Seriously? That’s your answer to the question of “when has your god EVER shown up?”

We pity you for thinking this is a sane answer.

Look back at the questions he asked. I answered in two ways.

One, that the answer can't be proven by showing ...praying for God's hand ito provide some miracle or sign for you to convince you. He would know that but still asks (if it were the case).

And two, the bible explains why. That's if the question was asking from the viewpoint of the biblical text.

Are you saying that the existence of your god can’y be demonstrated by your god showing up?
I beg to differ.


Moreover, unrelated, but interesting, you say the god can’t or won’t show up on demand.
HAve you ever asked yourself WHY an all powerful being who wants people to believe in him can’t demonstrate obviously and unequivocally that he exists by just showing up?


I do that to get my voter registration card. It’s not hard and I recognize that the Elections Board has a reason to need to be assured of my existence.
Why are you okay with a god who can’t?

Similar to the first option ... it MUST be all about "scientific" evidence then? Method of measure not known yet, e.g. scientists see patterns others disagree, in a manner of speaking. Inferences and deducing by all sorts of things in the natural world is the best anyone has. Forget theoretical physics beyond the physical world!

The scientific method is a very reliable way of determining what is real and what is not. More useful than a broomstick.

 

[Rhea]

Interestingly, I don’t. I have some friends who are real bible-reading, Jesus-loving, “Godly” people. But when you ask them a question, they actually answer it. And when they ask you a question, it isn’t a caricature of a question. And so I never say that to them.

You accept Christians actually answer questions? I may have to bookmark this post for future reference.
Believe it or not, I had a little incline you'd sort of respond like that. What would NOW be interesting is:

Did you ask the same questions?

What or how did they actually answer your question(s)? (I'm happy to learn new things)

Did you agree or not agree with what they answered you with?

We talk about all kinds of things. Including why can’t god keep his christians in line. They answer with their opinion. We usually don’t agree. But we learn how the other thinks and learns about thinking.

 

[Learner]

Interestingly, I don’t. I have some friends who are real bible-reading, Jesus-loving, “Godly” people. But when you ask them a question, they actually answer it. And when they ask you a question, it isn’t a caricature of a question. And so I never say that to them.

You accept Christians actually answer questions? I may have to bookmark this post for future reference.
Believe it or not, I had a little incline you'd sort of respond like that. What would NOW be interesting is:

Did you ask the same questions?

What or how did they actually answer your question(s)? (I'm happy to learn new things)

Did you agree or not agree with what they answered you with?

We talk about all kinds of things. Including why can’t god keep his christians in line. They answer with their opinion. We usually don’t agree. But we learn how the other thinks and learns about thinking.

So you didn't ask the same particular questions? If you did, what was their reply?

 

[Rhea]

So you didn't ask the same particular questions? If you did, what was their reply?

I don’t recall if I have asked that particular question. It’s not one of my usual curiosities. It was atrib who asked here.
I expect the answer would be, “I see god personally in everything, and I know you don’t, but I feel great when I think about seeing god and that is enough for me.” And that’s their story of how they are sure their god is real.

I got a parking spot - God!
I got a job I wanted. - God!
My dad survived his surgery - God! Yours didn’t. Um... reasons.
That kind of thing.

 

[Learner]

So you didn't ask the same particular questions? If you did, what was their reply?

I don’t recall if I have asked that particular question. It’s not one of my usual curiosities. It was atrib who asked here.
I expect the answer would be, “I see god personally in everything, and I know you don’t, but I feel great when I think about seeing god and that is enough for me.” And that’s their story of how they are sure their god is real.

I got a parking spot - God!
I got a job I wanted. - God!
My dad survived his surgery - God! Yours didn’t. Um... reasons.
That kind of thing.

Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? (not to me of course)

As you mentioned about my post: "the profoundly ridiculous response of the theist." (*bad joke deleted*)

If I may say about your friends. God bless them for having that faith!

 

[Learner]

Yes. What evidence is their for Christianity and not say, Islam?

Islam says Noah, Job, Adam, Abraham, Moses etc etc all said and did the same things as the Christian bible.
Islam corroborates Christianity in more ways that it competes with Christianity.
And ALL forms of theism corroborate the sensory experienced existence of a Higher Power(s).
What argumentum ad populam do you have in support of atheism.

This often comes up. Good point and answer! I'll remember that from now on.

 

[DBT]

God is inferred through a filter of faith and culture/worldview. A person raised in a culture that believes in a God or gods and accepts its teachings is likely to see the activity of their God or gods in their daily lives.

 

[abaddon]

Times seem to be a changing then. I used to hear expressions saying that "atheists know the bible better than many theists do", quite a few times from atheists themselves. This must perhaps mean the atheists have had an interpretation, contexts and the other details thrown in. But now contexts don't mean a thing. No wonder the confusion.

EDIT: Or perhaps there weren't any contexts with the atheist argument, so therefore, making somewhat useful "contradictions".

The point was not that context doesn't matter. The point was that the context never makes Bible-God seem good or any other thing the theists claim more context or interpretation will do. The further details just expand on the nuttiness of it all.

 

[Learner]

God is inferred through a filter of faith and culture/worldview. A person raised in a culture that believes in a God or gods and accepts its teachings is likely to see the activity of their God or gods in their daily lives.

No doubt this happens. Is this the case for everyone, like for example those who were not raised in that culture?

 

[Learner]

Times seem to be a changing then. I used to hear expressions saying that "atheists know the bible better than many theists do", quite a few times from atheists themselves. This must perhaps mean the atheists have had an interpretation, contexts and the other details thrown in. But now contexts don't mean a thing. No wonder the confusion.

EDIT: Or perhaps there weren't any contexts with the atheist argument, so therefore, making somewhat useful "contradictions".

The point was not that context doesn't matter. The point was that the context never makes Bible-God seem good or any other thing the theists claim more context or interpretation will do. The further details just expand on the nuttiness of it all.

"the theists claim more context or interpretation will do" well thats a bit out of erm "context"? Continous study and investigations of what's around us, just means better understanding or interpretations - progressively moving on, i.e. the old atheists arguments of yesteryear become redundant after time.

 

[DBT]

God is inferred through a filter of faith and culture/worldview. A person raised in a culture that believes in a God or gods and accepts its teachings is likely to see the activity of their God or gods in their daily lives.

No doubt this happens. Is this the case for everyone, like for example those who were not raised in that culture?

Each to their own version of 'reality.' Hindus have a different Set to Muslims, Jews or Christians. Some have none at all.

 

[Learner]

God is inferred through a filter of faith and culture/worldview. A person raised in a culture that believes in a God or gods and accepts its teachings is likely to see the activity of their God or gods in their daily lives.

No doubt this happens. Is this the case for everyone, like for example those who were not raised in that culture?

Each to their own version of 'reality.' Hindus have a different Set to Muslims, Jews or Christians. Some have none at all.

Were you one of those born and raised into the faith culture? And so you become atheist because the 'reality' you've discovered is because; religion didn't make sense and science was the alternative... or you became agnostic because you just don't know?

 

[DBT]

Each to their own version of 'reality.' Hindus have a different Set to Muslims, Jews or Christians. Some have none at all.

Were you one of those born and raised into the faith culture? And so you become atheist because the 'reality' you've discovered is because; religion didn't make sense and science was the alternative... or you became agnostic because you just don't know?

Depends on the availability of information and mental makeup of an individual. Obviously it's very difficult for someone born into a village culture with no access to alternate information to consider or question their own position....and of course having the willingness to question.

 

[Lion IRC]

God is inferred through a filter of faith and culture/worldview. A person raised in a culture that believes in a God or gods and accepts its teachings is likely to see the activity of their God or gods in their daily lives.

No doubt this happens. Is this the case for everyone, like for example those who were not raised in that culture?

God is inferred through a filter of faith and culture/worldview... WUT?

infer
/ɪnˈfəː/
verb
past tense: inferred; past participle: inferred
deduce or conclude (something) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements

DBT has the horse and cart back to front.

Even if we DID inherit our religion/faith [God] from the culture in which we live, it makes no sense then to see atheists living side-by-side with their predominantly religious neighbors. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens...etc. Born and raised in religious households/cultures.

I was born and grew up in a western, liberal, consumerist, hedonistic post-modern society. And yet my religion is attributed to Bronze Age goat herders.