Should we try to justify our faith through rationality, like with philosophical arguments, or attempting to prove the historicity of the empty tomb and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus?
Or should the justification for faith be personal experience of God through prayer and worship?
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ALLAHU AKBAR
PRAISE KEK
Let me guess: William Lane Craig?
Many atheists accept the historical existence of jesus. I would be very interested to see proofs of the "empty tomb," his miracles, or other examples of his divinity. The problem with the historical record of jesus is that much of it is dependent on hearsay.
Ones personal relationship with God is inherently subjective and can never be adequately communicated to another (I imagine)
Go ahead, brainwash me with your jesus. I honestly welcome it.
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Your faith is based on a fucking lie.Deal with it.
There are no invisible sky wizards.or Zombies. It's all a big scam to get money.
Unfortunately, a miracle is the least likely event to occur as an explanation for something that someone claims is a historical fact.
We don't have any historical evidence for anything about Jesus outside of the NT. However, if historians tried to piece together some idea of the historical Jesus, miracles would never be the most likely explanation for the things that had to be explained.
OP was referring to arguments made by Dr. William Lane Craig, who attempts to provide historical evidence for just that, the resurrection.
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No Christian should try to brainwash anyone, so there's a debate which adequately provides both sides of the argument.
I don't agree that one's personal relationship to God cannot be adequately communicated to another. For the most part this is true, but with the exception of those who have a common faith. Christians seem to be able to understand the personal connection with God in other Christians just fine, or even with Muslims to a lesser extent. What you say really only applies to communication between theists and atheists.
No theist characterizes their beliefs in this way. Your strawman is embarrassing. Furthermore, it's stated positively, leaving it up to you to disprove sky wizards and zombies, and with the addition of a claim accusing all religions of being money schemes, despite the tremendous evidence to the contrary.
For example: when Christianity was formed at the start of the common era, it's teachings and effects on its believers were in direct opposition to the power structures at the time, which is precisely why Jesus was persecuted. He taught that we should abandon material wealth and the authority of the pharisees and place love for one another at the peak of our priorities. How does this help anyone to get rich?
>Should we try to justify our faith through rationality,
All belief is irrational.
Trying but failing explain an irrational belief in rational terms is a logical fallacy called "rationalization".
Beliebers desperately want their beliefs to appear rational but they never will.
>Many atheists accept the historical existence of jesus.
The bible is an anthology of stories. Some may be based in historical fact, but most are borrowed from other cultures and religions. Return of the prodigal son was originally a story told by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) who is equally non-historic.
>He taught that we should abandon material wealth and the authority of the pharisees
Wasn't Jesus from a very wealthy family?
>All belief is irrational.
Just look at that grammar. Too be fair you have a point, and this is a larger point in general -- when does faith become faith?
I came to religiosity through ID and one of the things that bothered me is you have "agnostic" people fronting for Christianity.
If you want to see what this looks like by the very man heading the entire ID movement (err rather was) here he is David Berlinski. The man is an absolute powerhouse with the English language. It's hard to believe Hitchens had a contemporary like him.
>That moment when you make a baseless assertion while insulting people of faith.
Haawwwkkkward.
Even more reason for him to teach what he did. As if to say "rich or poor, follow me". Jesus certainly didn't live in luxury after he went out to spread the word of God. According to the Bible, he walked in the desert for 40 days with no food or water while being tempted by Satan. Whether allegory or not, Jesus is not represented as having lived a lavish life, at least not as an adult. So he had wealth and he abandoned it. So should we, the best way to do so is by using it to help others. It certainly seems Jesus did gave everything he ever had to everyone else.
It actually originates much earlier, in Sumeria. Christianity can be seen as the refinement of these principals and allegories, many would argue to such an extent that in Christianity these myths achieved physical (or literal) form as well.
>That moment when you make a baseless assertion while insulting people of faith.
Isn't all religion a baseless assertion that must accepted in its entirety?
>All belief is irrational.
scientists believe that past present and future events have, do, and will unfold the same across all reaches of space.
scientists believe the inductive principle is sound
There are good reasons to believe these things, but do not kid yourself into thinking these things are axiomatic or fact. Neither that, you need not believe these things blindly. It is based upon reason or "rationalization".
Unbelievers want their beliefs to be rational, all the while asserting they hold no beliefs... even those things that are as of yet unproven, they do not believe.... they "know". The peak of irrationality, and still they have the audacity to speak down to the theologian as any sort of superior, all the while trusting in the experiments and observations of modern clerics, complete with white robes.
I don't have any issue saying I "believe" scientists when they report their observations. You do. Ergo I must inquire just what is your problem with science? Clearly you don't believe scientists.
Does irony allude you?
It isn't a baseless assertion to believe in god, but to follow a single faith could be described as that. That's being as honest as possible.
Watch the video I posted, that guy is an agnostic. See if his assertions are baseless. I guarantee you haven't such a strong argument for the basis of a god.
No, Christianity is an assertion based on historical evidence and several eyewitness testimonies, along with the profound success of its spread throughout western civilization.
Christ brought light to this world.
> responding to fedoras
> thinking this isn't a waste of your time
For crying out loud. pray, or do something more useful than debating these kissless nerds
>Whether allegory or not, Jesus is not represented as having lived a lavish life, at least not as an adult. So he had wealth and he abandoned it.
If you accept the statements in the book of Matthew, it appears the same Kings Solomon (of the diamond mines fame) and David (million talents of gold, 10 million talents of silver, etc.) were extraordinarily wealthy even by today's standards.
Roman taxation was applied to all assets (land, houses, slaves, livestock) according to Ab Urbe Condita (book 39) and then divided by number of members of the family.
A poor family wouldn't need to travel a long way to be counted because the tax would be low anyways. But a wealthy family would probably want every living body it could get to reduce the tax bill as much as possible, even if it meant forcing a pregnant woman to travel by mule hundreds of miles.
All ideologies have a "bottoming out" where they can offer no further justification: You either accept it or you don't. In other words, axioms.
Religion is no different. In fact, most religious people are more honest about this than atheists. That's because religious people understand and accept their faith, while atheists treat it as a dirty word.
>Unbelievers want their beliefs to be rational,
>unbelievers with no beliefs
What beliefs would those be?
I've died and visited hell. Everything Jesus taught us on earth was the truth. Hell exists, I was crying and gnashing my teeth in a dark pit with negative demons tearing at me. Sounds crazy, 100 percent true, even my family doesn't believe it.
>rationality
>philosophical arguments
>necessarily mutually exclusive to god
>I "believe" scientists when they report their observations.
We accept that scientists are not lying to us when they present their data and findings.
The people who believe in miracles, superstitions, ghosts and supernatural whatnot have fallen for lies. Their capacity to think rationally is damaged.
>Watch the video I posted
Youtube is where you get your education?
There's nothing illogical about belief in God in the first place.
As for justification, you don't need to justify your reasoning for anything to anyone other than God - other people and their worthless opinions are pretty damn irrelevant.
>historical evidence
No historical evidence of Jesus
>and several eyewitness testimonies,
"Testimonies" written by 3rd parties 70 years later are not considered even remotely trustworthy, much less original source. Even in philosophy we have the "Socratic dilemma", but at least Plato actually says he spent time with Socrates.
>The people who believe in miracles, superstitions, ghosts and supernatural whatnot have fallen for lies. Their capacity to think rationally is damaged.
Care too add aliens to that list? Then would you like to have a discussion how many modern giants in academia have an extreme fascination with something with absolutely no proof.
I don't think you realize just how two-sided all of this is.
Richard Dawkins best idea for life = We are descended from aliens. Proof = none. nada. zip. zilch. And furthermore completely ignores the reality of a "creator".
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>I've died and visited hell.
I've been to Alabama too.
Forgot the video.
>religious people are more honest about this than atheists.
From the very start, religious people can't seem to accept that their beliefs are irrational. Non-belief is a rational starting point.
All babies are born atheists.
>There's nothing illogical about belief in God in the first place.
One of the symptoms of having severely damaged cognitive ability is that you're the last to know it.
>Care too add aliens to that list?
Aliens are real. Republicans say there are 11 million undocumented aliens living in America.
You tell me what about belief in God defies a principle of first order logic, then get back to me my homoesexual friend.
lol. Well-played.
>the reality of a "creator".
The belief of a what?
>Richard Dawkins best idea for life = We are descended from aliens.
It's far more likely that you're incapable of understanding what a biologist like Dawkins would have said and you're grotesquely mischaracterizing his argument.
>fedorawithallthetrimmings.png
I don't own a hat. See? You couldn't even get that right
>attempting to prove the historicity of the empty tomb
Do you actually believe that is proof?
honestly just look at it this way; religion (for the most part) promotes healthy living, a sense of community (or tribalism), a way to view death in a positive light, a way to explain the meaninglessness of life, and give you a sense of purpose and belonging that atheism honestly does not provide you with.
Forget the magical bullshit. Just stick to the morals.
>The belief of a what?
In the least it's inescapable to accept that DNA was the creation of any sort of "random" process'. In the case of dawkins he claims we're possibly the product/bi of an alien race. So in other words he can accept we didn't sprout from granite, but cannot accept that entity was a "creator" in the sense that they are our gods for better or worse.
>It's far more likely that you're incapable of understanding what a biologist like Dawkins would have said and you're grotesquely mischaracterizing his argument.
I'm a biology/EE major. You don't really need an education of that sort to understand these things. Evenmore ironic than using baseless assertions to come to a proof is a proof that's directly contradicting to your worldview while masquerading as an argument for it.
The video I posted earlier shows how easily one can argue against these points.
Even with modern biology as advanced as it is we cannot create life from scratch.
Doesn't that bother you at least a little? What's your theory on the origin of life?
I do see religion this way and I'd love to participate in it. but I'd feel like a fraud worshipping and associating with people who actually believe, when in my case the more I think about it and read about it the more patently retarded it seems
>You tell me what about belief in God defies a principle of first order logic
Sure. Gods are non-logic objects. When you establish your first quantifiable variable, you have to state which god. Because there are thousands of gods and thousands of creation stories and thousands of miracles
If you go with the invisible sky-wizard who (1) creates the universe, then (2) commands that a man be killed for picking up sticks on the holy day, that is going to be a spectacular logic fail.
>my homoesexual friend.
While I don't doubt all your "friends" are homosexual, I'm afraid you can't count me as one of them.
>Even with modern biology as advanced as it is we cannot create life from scratch.
Is that because it's physically (chemically) impossible or because we are trying to replicate an event that took place over a time scale of hundreds of millions of years in a reaction vessel the size of literally every body of water on the planet, in the span of a few years in a few labs?
No it's impossible because it's like reverse engineering a computer of which we have no basis for understanding. Don't be fooled humans are just as much of machines are as computers. Except DNA itself is written in 4D. IF you're wondering where the 4th dimension comes from it comes from hormones.
So as of now we can edit, and use existing life forms as a base for change but we cannot from the ground up create anything other than perhaps a motor function or a pump. A single cell is like a metropolis, and currently we can change the bumper on one of the cars in that city.
>Gods are non-logic objects
There is no such thing as a "non-logic object". Logic doesn't deal with objects. They deal with propositions. Tell me what about God is logically contradictory.
>If you go with the invisible sky-wizard who (1) creates the universe, then (2) commands that a man be killed for picking up sticks on the holy day, that is going to be a spectacular logic fail
This has nothing whatsoever to do with logic.
If there were, in fact a sky wizard, and he did in fact command a man be killed for picking ups sticks on a holy day, there would be absolutely nothing logically contradictory about that. That is a descriptively conceivable state of affairs - it violates no principle of logic whatsoever.
You're really dumb~
>No it's impossible because it's like reverse engineering a computer of which we have no basis for understanding.
So it is chemically possible to form a monomer to from from component elements?
>So it is chemically possible to form a monomer to from from component elements?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this, and if you're really trying to tell me something by asking feel free to be more forward.
I will also say my knowledge of chemistry is weak.
Also I didn't mean impossible, but that is what I typed. What I meant was currently impossible.
>In the least it's inescapable to accept that DNA was the creation of any sort of "random" process'.
Yet that is by far the most likely sequence of events because random is a mathematical probability, not a belief.
Since nearly all life on earth came from the same original source, it is highly probably that all life as we know it has DNA.
>I'm a biology/EE major.
You should demand a refund of your tuition.
>a proof that's directly contradicting to your worldview
It's a "proof" you seem to be struggling to explain, much less demonstrate. "Here watch this heavily edited video" is what people say when they don't understand something well enough to explain it.
>Even with modern biology as advanced as it is we cannot create life from scratch.
We don't need to. We have plenty of evidence that the necessary proteins for life form under even primitive conditions. Life seems to take root everywhere in our natural environment.
If you believe in something and you have no reasonable basis for your belief, then you are a moron.
What you define as a "reasonable basis" is arbitrary~
>Tell me what about God is logically contradictory
Can he make a rock so big he can't lift it?
>There is no such thing as a "non-logic object"
>God is a non-logic object
>Ergo, there is no such thing as God
Well played.
I asked if we haven't created life from inorganic chemicals yet because it was either impossible physically, or because we just haven't devoted enough effort to the project.
Your reply was some inane statement about engineering a computer and how hard it is.
A monomer is the most basic of organics, they combine to create more complex organics. If you can get a monomer to generate from inorganics then we can artificially create life and have a standing proof that it's physically possible to create life from non life.
Why can't a monomer from from inorganic compounds and why is the creation of a monomer as you claim is something that "which we have no basis for understanding"?
Also DNA is skipping a lot of steps so I'm not even sure why you brought that up.
>along with the profound success of its spread throughout western civilization
I guess you'll all be saying that about Islam soon
My belief is we would be much better off if we reject all Middle East religions as nonsense.
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kek
Wait so are you religous?