Belief verses fact.

[Colin norris]

There are volumes of believers post how they belief there is a god and basically have themselves convinced of it.

If God were to appear on the earth, do the obligatory world tour and perform miracles on his way, it is impossible for any one to deny him his existence. Not even me. But since that hasn't happened we are left with the status quo.
That leaves believers with no evidence of anything just like me.
I know there are some who say they have visions and interactions but that is false also. Delusions at beat.

So here we both are, me worshipping nothing because I have no evidence of any God, and we have believers worshipping the same nothing and still with no evidence.
Is my belief in nothing any less credible than a believer who also has nothing but faith, I.e. no evidence.

Yet they get insulted when challenged about it. I would suggest it would be 90% of the debates are started by believers.
That's fine but in other threads, when a statement is made, the poster is required to link it and right ty it so. Not so with believers. Its appears grossly improper to question anyone about religion.
They can condemn atheists, communists, democrats etc and never support it with evidence. They want to be excluded from scrutiny because of their religious beliefs as if they have proof of what they believe but never produced it.

Again. The subject of God is common. Try this. Has anyone ever imagined what a God would look like. Do you have a vision if what he could look like?
If he did return, a spirit whisking through the sky is not acceptable. It must be in human form, but not necessarily, or something which can be identified and touched.

Any thoughts.

 

[Blues Man]

Would you start worshiping a god if he did show up?

I wouldn't.

 

[Mac1958]

Many religious people (Christians, Muslims, whatever) cross the line from "faith" to "fact". Maybe that's where they get dangerous.

We've all seen both kinds. Some will admit it is "faith", and I sense a certain humility and modesty when they say that. I can respect that. But there are others who are aggressive with it and just "know" that they have "the answer". They're the people who can't be dealt with. Christian or Muslim.

And, of course, there are the phonies, those who only use religion as an excuse or a political tool or a bludgeon. No humility, no modesty, just aggression and arrogance. Plenty of those running around, and definitely plenty of those on this site.

 

[BULLDOG]

 

[Votto]

There are volumes of believers post how they belief there is a god and basically have themselves convinced of it.

If God were to appear on the earth, do the obligatory world tour and perform miracles on his way, it is impossible for any one to deny him his existence. Not even me. But since that hasn't happened we are left with the status quo.
That leaves believers with no evidence of anything just like me.
I know there are some who say they have visions and interactions but that is false also. Delusions at beat.

So here we both are, me worshipping nothing because I have no evidence of any God, and we have believers worshipping the same nothing and still with no evidence.
Is my belief in nothing any less credible than a believer who also has nothing but faith, I.e. no evidence.

Yet they get insulted when challenged about it. I would suggest it would be 90% of the debates are started by believers.
That's fine but in other threads, when a statement is made, the poster is required to link it and right ty it so. Not so with believers. Its appears grossly improper to question anyone about religion.
They can condemn atheists, communists, democrats etc and never support it with evidence. They want to be excluded from scrutiny because of their religious beliefs as if they have proof of what they believe but never produced it.

Again. The subject of God is common. Try this. Has anyone ever imagined what a God would look like. Do you have a vision if what he could look like?
If he did return, a spirit whisking through the sky is not acceptable. It must be in human form, but not necessarily, or something which can be identified and touched.

Any thoughts.

God requires faith. Without faith, the Bible says it is impossible to please him.

Why?

Well just read the Biblical text to understand. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God. They had the most intimate relationship with him because they were sinless. They had zero doubt he existed, but they rebelled and ate the fruit anyway.

The Children of Israel watched as God performed miracle after miracle bringing plagues to the Egyptians that forced them to let them leave Egypt, then watched God part the sea to free them and let the sea fall on the pursuing Egyptian army to drown them. Then God brought manna from heaven every morning to feed them. It was a short time later that they decided to build a golden calf to worship as a god instead.

Or look at Jesus himself, God in the flesh. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and then they nailed him to a tree as all his followers abandoned him.

So as we see, knowing God exists or having abundant evidence that he exists does not mean you place your faith in him. And if you don't place your faith in him, he is dead to you already as you will just ignore him.

 

[Penelope]

Or look at Jesus himself, God in the flesh. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and then they nailed him to a tree as all his followers abandoned him.

So did Vespasian. What does God in the flesh look like??

If you admit that Jesus performed miracles, then you have to admit that others such as Vespasian, Apollonius of Tyana, Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina ben Dosa, Alexander the Great, and Muhammad did miracles. However, these all cancel each other out.​ If you admit that Jesus performed miracles, then you have to admit that others such as Vespasian, Apollonius of Tyana, Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina ben Dosa, Alexander the Great, and Muhammad did miracles. However, these all cancel each other out. According to Sherwin-White, the writings of Herodotus enable us to determine the rate at which legend accumulates, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow... www.apologeticsinthechurch.com

 

[harmonica]

....there is no god--no one can prove it-end of story

 

[Meriweather]

Many religious people (Christians, Muslims, whatever) cross the line from "faith" to "fact". Maybe that's where they get dangerous.

Great observation! When people start with this and then insist every word in the Bible be taken literally, the result is more atheists, not more people of faith.

 

[Votto]

....there is no god--no one can prove it-end of story

Proving anything outside a math class is problematic.

We live by our belief system. We believe what we see and hear is real, for example. And to make sense of our world and assign it value and meaning, we incorporate our belief system to try and function in it.

What is interesting is how these belief systems are created or destroyed. Naturally, when you feel your belief system is threatened, whether a person of faith or not, your ability to make sense of the world is threatened, thus we tend to fight to the death to defend it whether it is right or wrong. At such a time of crisis, you are faced with scrapping the belief system you have worked so hard to build, and starting over, or keeping it.

 

[Colin norris]

God requires faith. Without faith, the Bible says it is impossible to please him.

Why?

Well just read the Biblical text to understand. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God. They had the most intimate relationship with him because they were sinless. They had zero doubt he existed, but they rebelled and ate the fruit anyway.

The Children of Israel watched as God performed miracle after miracle bringing plagues to the Egyptians that forced them to let them leave Egypt, then watched God part the sea to free them and let the sea fall on the pursuing Egyptian army to drown them. Then God brought manna from heaven every morning to feed them. It was a short time later that they decided to build a golden calf to worship as a god instead.

Or look at Jesus himself, God in the flesh. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and then they nailed him to a tree as all his followers abandoned him.

So as we see, knowing God exists or having abundant evidence that he exists does not mean you place your faith in him. And if you don't place your faith in him, he is dead to you already as you will just ignore him.

Your whole argument is based on the bible being factual. That's your first mistake. There's no such things as miracle nor were they witnessed by anyone, let alone of repute.
It's Pure myth.

To believe having faith does not give you unique access to knowing God exists. It simply doesn't. You might rely on that for justification for what you believe but there is no connection other than the delusion it creates.

It's impossible for you know with accuracy what Adam and eve knew or believed. That's a stretch if the truth. You don't have exclusive access to their thoughts and you know it.

Let's cut the dispute and fill the pages with facts and evidence instead of the same volumes of biblical fiction.

 

[ding]

Your whole argument is based on the bible being factual. That's your first mistake. There's no such things as miracle nor were they witnessed by anyone, let alone of repute.
It's Pure myth.

To believe having faith does not give you unique access to knowing God exists. It simply doesn't. You might rely on that for justification for what you believe but there is no connection other than the delusion it creates.

It's impossible for you know with accuracy what Adam and eve knew or believed. That's a stretch if the truth. You don't have exclusive access to their thoughts and you know it.

Let's cut the dispute and fill the pages with facts and evidence instead of the same volumes of biblical fiction.

Do you mean facts like the universe popped into existence being created from nothing and hardwired to produce life and intelligence? Facts like that?

 

[Clyde 154]

There are volumes of believers post how they belief there is a god and basically have themselves convinced of it.

If God were to appear on the earth, do the obligatory world tour and perform miracles on his way, it is impossible for any one to deny him his existence. Not even me. But since that hasn't happened we are left with the status quo.
That leaves believers with no evidence of anything just like me.
I know there are some who say they have visions and interactions but that is false also. Delusions at beat.

So here we both are, me worshipping nothing because I have no evidence of any God, and we have believers worshipping the same nothing and still with no evidence.
Is my belief in nothing any less credible than a believer who also has nothing but faith, I.e. no evidence.

Yet they get insulted when challenged about it. I would suggest it would be 90% of the debates are started by believers.
That's fine but in other threads, when a statement is made, the poster is required to link it and right ty it so. Not so with believers. Its appears grossly improper to question anyone about religion.
They can condemn atheists, communists, democrats etc and never support it with evidence. They want to be excluded from scrutiny because of their religious beliefs as if they have proof of what they believe but never produced it.

Again. The subject of God is common. Try this. Has anyone ever imagined what a God would look like. Do you have a vision if what he could look like?
If he did return, a spirit whisking through the sky is not acceptable. It must be in human form, but not necessarily, or something which can be identified and touched.

Any thoughts.

God already showed up on earth and its recorded in the New Testament......a canon of eyewitness testimonies of the Majesty of Jesus Christ, The Son of God. And He did preform miracles as a sign of confirming the Word of Truth being delivered from Heaven. If "once" is not enough.....would 2 or 3 incarnations of God be enough? When is enough, enough?

Is it not strange that we live in a world where so many demand "certification" ...........again? The age of miracles has ceased, it ended when the requirements ended to confirm the word......as the people in that time period did not have the New Testament record to learn the truth. The "perfect law of liberty" was delivered once for all time in the 1st century by the saints (Jude 3). This is all that is required to produce faith.


The faith has been certified through the prima facie evidence of eyewitness accounts. "For we (the disciples/apostles) have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty......................." -- 2 Peter 1:16-18

To that record John added, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life.........That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." -- 1 John 1:1-3

Every alleged fact of history rests upon 4 criteria:

1. That which was reported was reported in the past. 2. It was visible so that eyewitnesses could attest to it.
3. There is some record left to the future to remind people of the events in question. 4. That marker, record, or monument must have continued form the time of the first reporting until the present.....aka., such as the canon of books called the New Testament that have remained unbroken just as Jesus promised when He declared His Word would outlast the world.

 

[Oddball]

 

[Colin norris]

View attachment 537257

There is no more truth in that than a murderers plea of innocence.

Your Jesus wasn't even from a virgin, not from an immaculate conception. He most definately was not the son of any God. If faith is all you have, you have nothing.

Nearly all of your "eye witnesses" were illiterate. The bible was written approximately 60 years after the crucifixion. They would all be dead by then.
You know in your own heart miracles a complete myth. The same for resurrections and talking snakes. You cannot expect rational people to believe that.

The world has waited 2000 years for your God to make a physical appearance but still nothing. You can't go on forever telling us it will happen. Its not and you know it.

What can be asserted without evidence can dismissed without evidence.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
That's where religion makes a compete ass of itself.

 

[Votto]

There is no more truth in that than a murderers plea of innocence.

Your Jesus wasn't even from a virgin, not from an immaculate conception. He most definately was not the son of any God. If faith is all you have, you have nothing.

Nearly all of your "eye witnesses" were illiterate. The bible was written approximately 60 years after the crucifixion. They would all be dead by then.
You know in your own heart miracles a complete myth. The same for resurrections and talking snakes. You cannot expect rational people to believe that.

The world has waited 2000 years for your God to make a physical appearance but still nothing. You can't go on forever telling us it will happen. Its not and you know it.

What can be asserted without evidence can dismissed without evidence.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
That's where religion makes a compete ass of itself.

So let me get this straight, a son of a poor carpenter was not really born some 2000 years ago, but if he was, he was nothing, yet he has a building on every corner dedicated to him and drives the Left insane.

Understood.

 

[Clyde 154]

There is no more truth in that than a murderers plea of innocence.

Your Jesus wasn't even from a virgin, not from an immaculate conception. He most definately was not the son of any God. If faith is all you have, you have nothing.

Nearly all of your "eye witnesses" were illiterate. The bible was written approximately 60 years after the crucifixion. They would all be dead by then.
You know in your own heart miracles a complete myth. The same for resurrections and talking snakes. You cannot expect rational people to believe that.

The world has waited 2000 years for your God to make a physical appearance but still nothing. You can't go on forever telling us it will happen. Its not and you know it.

What can be asserted without evidence can dismissed without evidence.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
That's where religion makes a compete ass of itself.

Yeah..........no SUBJECTIVE AD HOMINEM RHETORIC HERE, time to moveon.org....... According to you......there is no such animal as PRIMA FACIE truth based upon eyewitness evidence. I just hope if I am ever charged with a crime you are the jury foreperson. In the Gospel accounts alone there is a record of eyewitness testimony of 38 events that were miraculous in nature (beyond the laws of nature to quantify/measure). Yet you know these testimonies are lies because you pulled out your Super (superior) Natural (to nature) -0- meter that you keep in your pocket?

And of course you know more than the people who actually lived in the 1st century.......as do all the atheists/agnostics that make up about 7% of the world population......its the other 93% of the world who believe the creation model that's crazy.

Yeah......there is a term for people such as you. Narcissist: someone in love with themselves.

Yet you defend the story about a "cosmic egg/big bang" creating everything from nothing without blinking an eye? But you know that there was nothing superior to nature that created this source of energy that created man from expanding GAS going at the speed of light.

 

[Colin norris]

Yeah..........no SUBJECTIVE AD HOMINEM RHETORIC HERE, time to moveon.org....... According to you......there is no such animal as PRIMA FACIE truth based upon eyewitness evidence. I just hope if I am ever charged with a crime you are the jury foreperson. In the Gospel accounts alone there is a record of eyewitness testimony of 38 events that were miraculous in nature (beyond the laws of nature to quantify/measure). Yet you know these testimonies are lies because you pulled out your Super (superior) Natural (to nature) -0- meter that you keep in your pocket?

And of course you know more than the people who actually lived in the 1st century.......as do all the atheists/agnostics that make up about 7% of the world population......its the other 93% of the world who believe the creation model that's crazy.

Yeah......there is a term for people such as you. Narcissist: someone in love with themselves.

Yet you defend the story about a "cosmic egg/big bang" creating everything from nothing without blinking an eye? But you know that there was nothing superior to nature that created this source of energy that created man from expanding GAS going at the speed of light.

I can see you're desperate for a rebuttal but narcissism is also irrelevant.
Great storytellers make bad witnesses.
The whole society then was basically illiterate and to recall an event 60 years prior if they were alive is absurd.

You believe in immaculate conception and virgin births, talking snakes, resurrections, dead men walking, parting if The seas, turning a woman into salt yet you expect me to believe you when you say every thing in the bible is factual????

There is little doubt now that the big bang is the most plausible cause if the universe. If you refuse to research mass and energy because you think heaven awaits, You're very mistaken. You've been conned.

Let's examine your beliefs.
How old is the universe according to your religion.
From what did God create it from.
Where exactly is heaven.
If the big bang didn't occur, why is the universe expanding at the speed of light.?
It's seems futile God would make it disappear into space after inventing it all.


You have a lot of explaining to do if you rely on a 2000 year old book to make references for today's knowledge of the universe.
You probably inherited your silly beliefs and never had the courage to research anything different. But religion relies on not questioning anything.
But the real sorrow is how that rubbish is taught to kids as if fact. Threaten them with sin and hell to deliberately shape their vulnerable minds is tantamount to child abuse.

So comrade, you'll have to have something more substantial if religion is to get any credibility from society.
The bible is no different to Moa's little red book.

 

[Colin norris]

So let me get this straight, a son of a poor carpenter was not really born some 2000 years ago, but if he was, he was nothing, yet he has a building on every corner dedicated to him and drives the Left insane.

Understood.

That is what is understood by the Godbotherers, you're correct. The truth is exactly the opposite.

You're factually wrong and contradict yourself by assuming Joseph was the father. Wasn't it that devious holy spirit who crept into the womb and sprinkled his magic sperm? If that is true, why is he not attributed as the father?

In fact, there is scant evidence he ever existed other than the believers who want it to be true. At the time there were thousand of prophets profiting from their conjuring and taking money from gullible followers. Your Jesus was without doubt on them, if he existed, and the government crucified them as fast as they appeared.

Religion of any persuasion is about money, preying on fools to part with it and expecting eternity as a reward.
Fear of death and superstition is what drives it. It always has.
The numbers of churches built is not proof that a God existed. It's a facility for gullible fools to congregate and all discuss one if the greatest con jobs ever inflicted on society.

 

[BULLDOG]

Yeah..........no SUBJECTIVE AD HOMINEM RHETORIC HERE, time to moveon.org....... According to you......there is no such animal as PRIMA FACIE truth based upon eyewitness evidence. I just hope if I am ever charged with a crime you are the jury foreperson. In the Gospel accounts alone there is a record of eyewitness testimony of 38 events that were miraculous in nature (beyond the laws of nature to quantify/measure). Yet you know these testimonies are lies because you pulled out your Super (superior) Natural (to nature) -0- meter that you keep in your pocket?

And of course you know more than the people who actually lived in the 1st century.......as do all the atheists/agnostics that make up about 7% of the world population......its the other 93% of the world who believe the creation model that's crazy.

Yeah......there is a term for people such as you. Narcissist: someone in love with themselves.

Yet you defend the story about a "cosmic egg/big bang" creating everything from nothing without blinking an eye? But you know that there was nothing superior to nature that created this source of energy that created man from expanding GAS going at the speed of light.

Everything from nothing? Where did god come from? Can you give a logical reason to believe god always existed, but what ever caused the Big Bang couldn't have always existed?

 

[foggedinn]

Yeah..........no SUBJECTIVE AD HOMINEM RHETORIC HERE, time to moveon.org....... According to you......there is no such animal as PRIMA FACIE truth based upon eyewitness evidence. I just hope if I am ever charged with a crime you are the jury foreperson. In the Gospel accounts alone there is a record of eyewitness testimony of 38 events that were miraculous in nature (beyond the laws of nature to quantify/measure). Yet you know these testimonies are lies because you pulled out your Super (superior) Natural (to nature) -0- meter that you keep in your pocket?

And of course you know more than the people who actually lived in the 1st century.......as do all the atheists/agnostics that make up about 7% of the world population......its the other 93% of the world who believe the creation model that's crazy.

Yeah......there is a term for people such as you. Narcissist: someone in love with themselves.

Yet you defend the story about a "cosmic egg/big bang" creating everything from nothing without blinking an eye? But you know that there was nothing superior to nature that created this source of energy that created man from expanding GAS going at the speed of light.

As a narcissist myself, you are correct in saying Colin is one also. It is like looking in a mirror at myself when I was 16 and knew everything there was to know about everything there is.
Boy, I wish I was still that smart.