Are you not aware that there is exactly zero evidence for God? You do know that’s the case, right?
No, you’ve decided that you don’t need evidence.
That’s more likely you self-deluding than an actual supernatural experience. You do know that people can delude themselves. right?
I don’t think you’re schizophrenic, I think that you’re deluding yourself with a comfortable lie. You want the easy road where you don’t have to sweat the hard questions. And if that lets you have some joy in the short time we’re given, cool. But as I said earlier, it’s not something laudable.
Are you aware that the disciples didn’t write the new testament? Are you aware that they’re self-contradictory and aren’t first hand accounts?
Of course, because wanting a father-figure who will make everything all right is inherently childish.
Because they had deluded themselves. Just like the 911 attackers. Just like suicide bombers. Just like Joan d’Arc… although she might have actually been nuts.
Being willing to die for a stupid belief isn’t at all rare. Branch Davidians were. Jim Jones’ followers were. Heaven’s Gate were.
There is no evidence aside from your self-serving wishful thinking.
So, what did God tell you? Anything exceptional, or just that you are a worthy person, the kind of thing that can be found in any self-help book and that atheists have no trouble believing without chats with imaginary beings. When God tells you the cure for AIDS, or if P = NP, (he’ll know what I’m talking about) then I might accept your evidence a bit more readily.
Cite that most of the world thinks God chats with them? Different from the write-only conversations that constitute prayer. Most of the world also believes in very different gods - why is that?
Yawn - lord liar and lunatic again. Those people who killed themselves to meet their maker hiding in the Hale-Bopp comet - they must be right. The leader, the guy who made it up, killed himself also. Perhaps the disciples didn’t know they were going to get caught? In any case, the hisrtoricity of a lot of that is very fuzzy. But I ask you this - my ancestors were living right where Jesus supposedly returned from the dead and treated the whole thing with a big shrug. In fact, Christianity prospered directly proportional to the distance from the events. Sounds like the people most likely to know the truth of the events didn’t see anything worth noting.
Horton could produce a microscope to see the Whos. Where is yours. You’ve had 2000 years to provide evidence, and so far nothing but good feelings. If the rest of humanity worked that way we’d still be in caves.
It’s this sort of arrogance that lies at the heart of religion. You put entirely too much stock in your personal experience. We are all flawed creatures, with fallible senses and brains ill-suited to rational thought. Teasing out the truth about the world around us begins with a robust skepticism about our own mental capabilities, and a humble acknowledgment of our vast capacity for error.
My mom has you beat. She was telling me last night how one time she really really needed a tape player with a counter on it for a birthday party, but couldn’t find one in any store she looked at. So, naturally enough, she prayed - and the word “Sears” popped into her mind. She went directly there, and found a tape player with the counter she needed.
Pretty compelling-sounding, isn’t it? Of course, it’s not like she hadn’t heard of Sears before that moment. And she certainly tucked a way in her brain a list of stores she’d already checked. So methinks maybe my mom has trained her subconscious to kick into gear for her when she meditates.
That, or she has a real speaking connection to God and you don’t. I suppose that’s possible too - I mean, she’s Mormon, and they’re not wrong about anything, right?
In any case, if Hold Fast is comfortable in his beliefs, fine. I figure he has as much right to ridicule us for our logic as we have for ridiculing him for his delusions.
I look forward to seeing the influence of people like him diminish in my lifetime.
Ah, yes, several old standards. The argument from popularity, which ignores the fact that the majority has been wrong about a great many things that most believed. Reality isn’t a matter that’s up for vote. The claim that atheists are monsters. And pretending that evidence and logic aren’t on the side of atheism.
No, it shouldn’t. There’s no evidence for it, and the claims of religion are logically contradictory (both compared to other religions, and internally) and contradict known physical laws. There’s no reason that the claims of religion should be taken even as seriously as claims that Darth Vader or Sauron are real people.
It’s been “proven wrong” as well as anything outside of pure mathematics ever is. Even where not logically contradictory - and thus literally impossible - the claims of religion violate physical law and the different claims of different religion contradict each other. The evidence against religion is such that very few people would hesitate to call it impossible and ridiculous if it was most anything else; religion simply gets a special pass. Suddenly when it comes to religion we aren’t supposed to call it “proven wrong” no matter how illogical and glaringly contradictory to reality it is; we are supposed to come up with some mathematical proof that all religion no matter how vaguely defined is impossible. And if we can’t, we are supposed to pretend it is just as rational and respectable as any other belief.
Terror and despair, in both cases. In the case of believers because they are so dependent on their fantasy, and because that’s how they really do usually seem to respond when they do start to figure out it’s all fantasy. In the case of atheists, because it means they and the universe are forever under the dominion of an omnipotent monster, an invincible megalomaniacal torturer and mass murderer. One who can read your mind, so you can’t even fake approving of him.
And yes, I know that comment presumes that we are talking about the Abrahamic God; but let’s face it, that’s what this argument really is all about. Not some generic undefined God who only turns up in debates like this, and not some god that few or no people in America worship. This is about the god of Christians/Muslims/Jews, especially Christians. That after all is where the very idea of a “God”, singular and nameless comes from.
You may actually mean this, or you may be weaselling. I don’t know. Weaselling is all you do. Bosstone already explained why I interpreted your statement the way you made it to apply to all atheists - and be honest, that’s how you meant it, right? Or do you really only despise some atheists?
Besides that, the idea that atheists have some sort of special dedication to making straw man fallacies is just silly.
Yeah, me and Der Trihs are practically the same poster.
I have no idea who you think I am, but I don’t agree with him on those issues and I never have. I’m unwilling to commit to those sorts of generalizations and I’ve actually criticized him pretty heavily when he has done it.
But even so, even if his views are extremely, how does that make him untrustworthy? He presents his case in a forthright manner and he’s consistent. In terms of debate, he’s generally crazier yet much more honest and forthright than you are, you’re constantly weaseling.
Call Der Trihs what you will - extreme, living in a black and white world, whatever, but I don’t know why untrustworthy is the key characteristic you’ve decided to focus on with him. He’s one of the most honest and consistent (if crazy) posters on the board.
Are you trying to make the universe collapse in on itself? You say you distrust me (collectively) with no evidence of untrustworthiness to back it up, and I respond by saying that you have no reason to generalize us like that and hence you are a poor judge of character. And your response is that because I called you a poor judge of character after you’d already rushed to judgement - that’s what created the original judgement that preceeded it?
