Re: Re: Re: Why atheism?
Originally posted by Alliance
If you think thats true, then I say to you, "why not just die, since all you live for is in your afterlife?
Because you must do things in this life in order to achieve the desired afterlife (ie: Heaven).
And comitting suicide is a one-way ticket to Hell.
Originally posted by GregoryActually God does not regularly make his presence known in the Bible. There is a large period of time between Adam and Noah where there is no evidence of God making himself known. There are also large periods of time throughout where God does not make himself known.
If we're talking about Christianity, I disagree. Let's use the Bible as our "preexistant knowledge." In probably every single one of the narrative books of the Bible (excluding the letters, in other words), God makes his presence known in unmistakable, miraculous ways. And yet, in reality, he never makes himself known at all, never mind raising the dead or raining fire down on cities.In other words:
If Christianity is correct, we expect God to act like God acts in the Bible.
In the Bible, God constantly makes himself known.
In reality, God never makes himself known (at least not obviously).
Therefore, the absense of evidence of God is evidence that Christianity is not correct (not absolute evidence, of course, because there's no reason God couldn't interfere directly with the world for thousands of years, and then get up one day and say, "Well, that's enough of that." But still evidence.)
It's true that absense of evidence is only evidence if you'd expect positive evidence. So, for example, the absense of evidence of divine intervention in the world is not evidence against Deism, since Deism doesn't posit divine intervention.
~1056 years between Adam and Noah
~300 years between the Tower of Babel and Abraham
~400 years between Joseph and Moses
300-400 years between the OT and the NT
Absence of God making himself known is a common occurrence throughout the Bible.
Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
I was one of the persons who thought you were an atheist.
oh.
No, I wouldn't say they haven't got a clue. I think they give up too easily sometimes, which is understandable considering the choices for religions. Saying it absolutely isn't one way because it's absolutely another isn't very open minded.
Originally posted by Regret
Actually God does not regularly make his presence known in the Bible. There is a large period of time between Adam and Noah where there is no evidence of God making himself known. There are also large periods of time throughout where God does not make himself known.~1056 years between Adam and Noah
~300 years between the Tower of Babel and Abraham
~400 years between Joseph and Moses
300-400 years between the OT and the NTAbsence of God making himself known is a common occurrence throughout the Bible.
So ... we can say that there were no miracles or divine manifestations during those periods because there's an absense of Biblical evidence for them?😉
Originally posted by Capt_Fantastic
oh.No, I wouldn't say they haven't got a clue. I think they give up too easily sometimes, which is understandable considering the choices for religions. Saying it absolutely isn't one way because it's absolutely another isn't very open minded.
Totally agree Capt...
Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
Totally agree Capt...
Cheers. I can understand why you think I'm an atheist. But it isn't really religion I argue against, it's the followers. Religion can be a good thing. It's just like a gun. In the hands of the wrong person it can be dangerous. But in the hands of the right person it can save lives.
Originally posted by GregoryI would state that there were no miracles or divine manifestations during those periods because the Bible is the record of such events, at least for the Biblical Abrahamic God. Absence of record is one of two things, evidence of the events or evidence of poor recording, the first is more probable.
So ... we can say that there were no miracles or divine manifestations during those periods because there's an absense of Biblical evidence for them?😉
Absence of record is one of two things, evidence of the events or evidence of poor recording, the first is more probable.
I don't understand this; can you rephrase?
The idea that the Bible is intended as the complete record of divine events is--and I mean absolutely no offense by this--silly. There's a huge amount of Jewish tradition and beliefs that never made it into the Bible. Lilith would be a famous example.
Originally posted by Gregory
I don't understand this; can you rephrase?The idea that the Bible is intended as the complete record of divine events is--and I mean absolutely no offense by this--silly. There's a huge amount of Jewish tradition and beliefs that never made it into the Bible. Lilith would be a famous example.
Sorry for the typo:
"Absence of record is one of two things, evidence of the absence of events or evidence of poor recording, the first is more probable."
Tradition and beliefs are not necessarily God interacting with man. Also, these periods are nearly empty even with the inclusion of Jewish events not included. I don't believe such a belief to be silly, but you could be right, and if you are, it is also silly to believe that currently events similar have not occurred recently.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense. We're getting pretty far off topic, but I'm not sure I agree with your dichotomy. There are really three options: that nothing happened, that miracles happened and nobody bothered to record them (admittedly unlikely), or that miracles happened, they were recorded, and those records when the way that most records from that time period went. When every thing has to be copied by hand, it's real easy for things to get lost (if it wasn't for the Nag Hammody (sp?) library, for example, we'd have practically no Gnostic Christian documents).
Still, I'm willing to cede a point when it seems undefensible--there is indeed no way of saying what God should be doing if he exists, since even Christian holy works say he often just hangs around. In this case, absense of evidence can't be evidence of absense.
(I'm not willing to say that absense of evidence can't be evidence of absense, though)
Originally posted by GregoryI agree, I do not believe proof as to the existence/nonexistence of God is possible. I disagree that there is any evidence to either side of the argument. And on the existence side, such evidence is not often replicable and is often subjective, and therefore not necessarily evidence to those not present at the time.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense. We're getting pretty far off topic, but I'm not sure I agree with your dichotomy. There are really three options: that nothing happened, that miracles happened and nobody bothered to record them (admittedly unlikely), or that miracles happened, they were recorded, and those records when the way that most records from that time period went. When every thing has to be copied by hand, it's real easy for things to get lost (if it wasn't for the Nag Hammody (sp?) library, for example, we'd have practically no Gnostic Christian documents).Still, I'm willing to cede a point when it seems undefensible--there is indeed no way of saying what God should be doing if he exists, since even Christian holy works say he often just hangs around. In this case, absense of evidence can't be evidence of absense.
(I'm not willing to say that absense of evidence can't be evidence of absense, though)