Honest question: Did you read through this thread before responding? If so, are you unsure as to what is meant by “evidence” as it pertains to this thread, or do you not care?
as far as evidence, science is the study of what already is, and as far as the creation of God , so atheists beleive if god is real something had to create God? so then atheists beleive all things were created by nothing? We are incapable of comprehending the idea that God always was and that we will never know , but by faith alone, what that means. It is said in scripture that Jesus said in order to get into the kingdom of heaven we must become like little children. Children trust without understanding . One does not have to be educated or many other things in order to know God. In fact all the books in the world, all the education can do nothing for anyone who does not choose to trust without physical evidence.
So you actually have no evidence. Thank you.
and he doesn’t care.
Actually I suspect that we considered ourselves chosen before the concept of one God arose. And not surprising - I suspect many tribes had legends had legends about being chose by their local gods. Then, about the time the Bible was written, the priests came up with monotheism, which turned out to have high survival value. It makes it more likely that you marry within the tribe which makes survival of the tribe as a unique entity more likely. Where are the Hittites? Of course Christianity which added recruiting from outside had even better marketing clout.
Missing line from Glengarry Glen Ross:
It is said in scripture that Jesus said in order to get into the kingdom of heaven we must become like little children. Children trust without understanding .
Sign here.
The con man is quick to disparage evidence and reason.
The question was why does your god exist rather than others. All god myths are associated with creation stories. If yours had gotten it right, it might help. But actually he is wrong, wrong, wrong, and ignoring that doesn’t help.
Errm.. you’re not suggesting there are no Hittites because they married outside the tribe, are you?
You are still misunderstanding the point. If there were no bible, if you had never heard a single xian/buddhist word or thought you would have no reason at all to frame your experience as god. You only frame it that way because over the course of your life you have been hearing about various religions and have been brought up in a religious tradition. Remove that upbringing and your built in presupposition in the supernatural and you have no foundation for your belief.
I said they have a “smidge” of evidence for their existence because they are based on things in the real world to some extent. i.e. a unicorn is a horse with a horn (and some magical properties) trolls, Santa, Smurfs, Fairies are all people with a twist. Dragons are essentially big assed lizards. (again with magical properties) God on the other hand is totally outside the real world in every sense imaginable. You can’t see him, taste him, smell him, touch him, or hear him because that would defeat the purpose of the charlatans who continue to benefit from the beliefs of others around the world.
Religion doesn’t have “mysteries”; it’s just wrong. Worthless garbage, an intellectual junkheap. That’s why believers have such an utter failure of providing a single scrap of evidence for their claims, and have to constantly whine about faith. As if “faith” was a good reason to believe anything, or anything more than stomping your foot and saying “because I say so, that’s why!”.
Atheists do not believe God is real. Atheists generally believe that God is a mythical creation, a fictional character. Nero Wolfe is not real; Indiana Jones is not real; almighty God is not real.
Perhaps all things were created from some pre-existing something. We don’t know. Science indicates that the cosmos originated in the Big Bang. Before that, we don’t know. We just think it was not some great big sky guy performing an act of conscious creation. It’s more like a volcano (natural) than a ziggurat (created by a conscious act) or the Bifrost Bridge (created by a supernatural miraculous act.)
Unfortunately, this makes it a lot easier to lie to them.
Marriage is just one way group cohesion is expressed. When the former Hittites got conquered they eventually became Persians with Persian customs, and so lost their group identity. For a more modern example, compare Irish immigrants with Cajuns. Cajuns kept their group identity through isolation and a different language, but it is the same thing.
Inter-marriage prohibitions are more useful when your tribe gets uprooted and plunked down in the middle of a bigger world, which didn’t happen to Hittites.
what Im reading here is suspicion and pride, a fear that christians for instance only beleive what they do about christ because they heard it growing up. Who told the ones that began the stories of god or gods ? a fear to beleive in what cant be disected under a microscope. Do you even realize how little we see with the best microscopes? do you think we are put here to see with our eyes every piece of living matter? No free flying for you doubters ! You want to have your seat belts on tight, your airbags functioning, you wont come out the door until you have proof theres something made of cement to step on. It doesnt work like that. It just doesnt work like that. The idea that anything is a sure thing in this physical world is a delusion. No one can be counted on all the time except for God, the creator of all things, seen and unseen.
Probably someone who realized that people could be used as puppets if he made up a god and told everyone he worked for it.
“A cult has a person on top who knows it’s all a scam. In a religion, that person is dead.”
On the contrary; there is no god of any kind, and relying on gods is foolish at best. Legions of people have suffered and died because they made the mistake of trusting in a god, instead of trusting someone or something that actually exists.
What I’m reading here is “Evidence? Sorry-I’ve got absolutely nothing.”
bolding mine
you should watch this, NSFW Storm Pay careful attention starting at 1:20. Do you really think you can’t know anything about the physical world? then what are you doing in this thread? obviously typing on your net connected computer in order to post on a message board is something you know about the physical world right? or are you just typing away at what you think is a keyboard on a message board but in reality is just god? Did you leave your house by the door or did you walk through a wall because hell it might just work like that?
As to the question of who told the first tellers? The same people who told the guy who came up with the idea of lightsabers and wookies, or sandworms and spice. The answer you are running from is that somebody made it all up.
Dove77, welcome to the Straight Dope!
Oh, I’ve never claimed that my experience or my beliefs would be logical to anyone but me or one with a similar experience. If I am illogical about science, please feel easy in pointing it out. You really think that people make shit up all the time? It would be very silly to “make shit up” and then believe it.
I have nowhere tossed out the Bible. I don’t believe most of the Pentateuch and some of the words of the other writers. And I know nothing about the Talmud. The rest has been explained in detail. “Jaweh” is not my favorite name for “her.” I like “I Am” most of all. It best fits with my beliefs and experiences.
Long ago I taught debate. “Illogical” is appropriate to many of the things that you and Der Trihs have said. I’ve pointed them out sometimes. Are you offended by being called illogical? Are you familiar with syllogisms? (That’s a good place to start.)
Atheism has been brought up multiple times also. So? String theory refers to multiple demensions (eleven of them). And the theory of “parallel universes” has arisen largely after the seeming contradictions of quantum physics were observed. (If I am mistaken in that fact, I would like to know.)
I don’t know if God resides out of space/time. If “she” did, how would you know?
No, my most profound experience did not relate to the religious traditions I knew growing up. Yes, I have also read and experienced various religions and beliefs. My experience was certainly far different from anything “traditional.” As I’ve said before, I did not even relate it to “God” at the time. I don’t believe in the “supernatural,” as I’ve also said before. “The Great Cosmic Glue” is not a name, but it is closer to how I perceive “God.” That is not very traditional, now, is it? The experience that I have mentioned is perhaps the foundation for my beliefs.
“In every sense imaginable” is a big clue to your misunderstanding. God is not perceived by the five senses you’ve named – at least to me. But how many senses make up reality? Are we limited to those? Do people have a sense of time or a sense of direction? Some do and some don’t. I think there’s more.
Is that how you see my posts? Have I tried to offer evidence? No. Then I haven’t failed. Have I whined about faith? No. Have I taken an attitude of “because I say so, that’s why!” Not at all. And, incidentally, I don’t think that people can choose to have faith or not have faith. Either you believe or you don’t. I can respect that in anyone. What I don’t like are opinions that are stated as fact and illogical reasoning when one’s claims are supposedly based on logic.
This is where I differ from Der Trihs, although I respect him highly. To me, someone else’s faith is not really a threat to me. It isn’t any of my business. I treat it like differences in tastes and preferences. A guy believes in God; another guy doesn’t. Really, so what?
The problem only arises when they start passing laws that affect people of different beliefs. Blue laws, or Kosher laws, or whatnot. If we can keep the law strictly neutral, addressing secular issues only, and let the churches teach whatever they want, but only to people who want it, I’m completely cool.
Strangely enough, I think, in a kind of extreme way, people can choose whether or not to believe, but it requires a lot of work. It entails a kind of self-hypnosis. You start by suspending disbelief, until that becomes a reflex, and move forward from there. If someone pointed a gun at my sister and said, “Believe in Santa Claus or she dies” – and he actually had a way of knowing whether or not I believed – I couldn’t do it right away, but if he gave me a month, I think I could wrench my mind around and become a believing Santa-ist.
In general terms, of course, and in the more common usages of the concept, I agree with you: we really don’t go around choosing whether or not to believe.
You believe in god and don’t believe in the supernatural? Do you believe in some kind of powerful awareness that created the universe? That takes part in it? What is this non supernatural god you keep insisting you believe in, that no one else on the planet is aware of but you have evidence for so long as that evidence is only applied to the space between your ears?
God is not perceived by the 5 senses? (I will concede we have more than 5 senses, balance being one of them, however) What senses do we have that allow us to sense this god creature? I am really curious what extra sense you posses that allows this?
You claim to believe in god. You claim to have evidence that only applies to you. You offer this evidence over and over without explanation. You claim to have extra senses to allow you to perceive this evidence. You continually fail to understand the basic argument that without your preconceived notions of god you would have no belief in god (unless of course your evidence for god is that he came down and had a conversation directly with you telling you he is god) because there would be no possible reason to think about god in world where you had never come across the idea in the first place, and in a single post you claim that you believe in both god and extra senses while stating your dislike for illogical reasoning when one’s claims are supposedly based on logic. Does this sum things up or did I miss something? (Other than the bit about you either believe or you don’t but you have no say in the matter. That you can thank your parents for their loving years of child abuse while you were growing up for. If you cannot even imagine not believing in the default human position that you were born with I truly feel sorry for you.)
People make fire. Big powerful people make big powerful fire like the Sun. If we were still worshiping fertility goddesses and volcano gods how we came to worship them would be a lot more relevant. As for worshiping Jesus, if people came directly to Christianity you guys wouldn’t need missionaries, would you? How come he came only once? The parking meter run out or something?
Do you realize that we can see atoms under the right type of microscope. You should understand our accomplishments more before you make this kind of statement.
If I were living in a treehouse I damn well would watch my step. We’ve got tons of evidence for the physical world. Sure it isn’t certain, only 99.99999999999% probable. (Skipping a few 9s there.) And your evidence is?
Most people are not creative enough to make shit up all the time. That’s why I believe Jesus was a historical figure. But people do misinterpret things, and they do get confused. I personally heard a very famous woman be convinced that Dallas was an accurate picture of the oil business. Very disturbing, especially because there was a VP of Mobil in her house with us. (I used to hang out with people a lot smarter and richer than I am. )
If God stayed out of our space time, nothing you say about her would be any more than a guess, right? So, like in Flatland, even if you can not comprehend everything about God, you can talk about her projection into our space time. And we don’t even have that.