Let Theists agree before they have the nerve to criticize atheists!

Great Debates
241

[QUOTE=mswas]
Again, more atheist cliches. Logic is not peculiarly atheistic, applying it out of context isn’t either, but it’s certainly a common behavior. We aren’t talking about whether or not God is real, we are talking about whether or not there is a lot of agreement about certain properties of God.

[/quote]

Of course we’re talking about if god (some god) is real. If god was not real then the reason for agreement between belief systems would be basic human experience. If god was real, then the reason would be direct access to god. If we can show that all areas of agreement can be explained by natural causes, then that is one more piece of evidence against the existence of god. Agreement not so explainable, and too close to be coincidental, is an argument for god.

The point of the OP, which I agree with 100%, is that religions try to ignore areas of disagreement. Religion A says god has property X, religion B says god has property ~X, but they both say “we believe in the same basic god.” :rolleyes:

Well, that at least is a similarity. Now, all cultures notice that there is life, and pretty much all, from analogy to being born, can reason that at one time there was no life. Since we as humans like to find causes for things, what is more natural than big supernatural daddy being the “father” of life? We can see this in first cause arguments even today. I certainly wouldn’t expect ancient cultures to figure out the real way life began.
So it is not suprising that some god or other started life. What would be surprising would be if the stories matched. What would be even more surprising would be if they were true. Maybe you think all religions had contact with a big liar in the sky.

What’s encouraging is that it used to be more like 100% of the populace. The same argument I give above holds for this one also.

We’ll see what happens when we get that power. Since Christianity and Islam both evolved from Judaism, I hardly think it is surprising to find areas of similarity. If there were a deity, wouldn’t it be nice if he told the original that the offshoot was correct? Or not correct? Or showed up in any fashion? Are you saying that Jews and Christians both have Genesis is evidence for anything?

Okay - show me an area of wide agreement that is surprising. That some deity created the world or created life is not. If there is wide agreement on the details, that would be surprising.

Now, that religions evolve is something I totally agree with. That is yet more evidence that Man made God in his own image.

242

[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
This is interesting. Why do you say Mohammed was more astute? How is it that he did better at the prophet game?
[/QUOTE]

He survived more than a week in the big time does it for me. Even if you think Jesus had to be crucified, maybe he could have been king and then been crucified?

243

Hentor His arguments ignored most of mine and just reiterated most of what I said as though I hadn’t said it previously. Why should I respond to his fallacies point by point? I never said I was an authority, in fact I stated specifically that I was not in the posts that he was responding directly to. The fact that it makes it easier to paint your interlocutor that way when attempting to develop a highly crafted ad hominem, has nothing to do with me, and I do not see why you take him seriously or why I should.

Mr Dibble Zoroaster - Wikipedia

I guess you could argue that Abraham and Moses are mythical -shrug-. In that case you can argue that Zoroaster influenced the Jews, though I am inclined to believe that if part of their myth included being in captivity in Egypt that it was probably true. In that case I find Akhenaten as a more likely influence, if you assume Moses and Aaron were real people. Zoroaster might have had some influence over the Jews later, I don’t buy into Jewish exceptionalism.

244

[QUOTE=Voyager]
Of course we’re talking about if god (some god) is real. If god was not real then the reason for agreement between belief systems would be basic human experience. If god was real, then the reason would be direct access to god. If we can show that all areas of agreement can be explained by natural causes, then that is one more piece of evidence against the existence of god. Agreement not so explainable, and too close to be coincidental, is an argument for god.
[/quote]

I disagree with everything you have said here. If we reduce every discussion of God into a debate about whether or not God is real then we have no chance for understanding one another’s point as we both start from a non-negotiable position. For instance, I do not agree that natural evidence invalidates God. Our experience of God isn’t constant and direct, it’s mediated through our experience of Creation, ie Nature. On occasion the veil is lifted and we see God more fully so that we are reminded of the engine behind it all.

This is factually incorrect. Religions do not try to ignore areas of disagreement. In fact they try to kill each other over them quite often. The argument is not about whether God exists, and there is agreement on a lot of particular properties between many traditions as I have said. What is at argument is how we should relate to God, what God wants us to do, and how God wants us to act. Most of the arguments behind Abrahamic faiths have more to do with the Law God wants us to follow as opposed to whether or not they are viewing the same God.

I think you don’t recognize how Abstract the notion of ‘the creator’ is for many of the people you argue with.

:rolleyes:

Do you mean when ‘we’ have power do you mean Atheists? Atheists will never have power because they lack a faculty for creating social cohesion. Of course you’ll probably throw back the argument that this isn’t true, until of course I blame atheists for having social cohesion at which point everyone will deny it, telling me there’s no such thing as a common atheist.

I am saying that Jews and Christians both have Genesis is evidence of common agreement among theists. Particularly since the OP referenced a panel of Abrahamists. Constantly changing the scope of an argument to suit and agenda makes the discussion rather tedious.

That’s missing the point. Nature is about the details. God is about the whole. If I were to play your game you would just accuse me of equivocating.

It’s a relationship.

245

[QUOTE=mswas]

Mr Dibble Zoroaster - Wikipedia
Abraham - Wikipedia
I guess you could argue that Abraham and Moses are mythical -shrug-. In that case you can argue that Zoroaster influenced the Jews, though I am inclined to believe that if part of their myth included being in captivity in Egypt that it was probably true. In that case I find Akhenaten as a more likely influence, if you assume Moses and Aaron were real people. Zoroaster might have had some influence over the Jews later, I don’t buy into Jewish exceptionalism.

[/QUOTE]

Oh, come on, is an obvious strawman all you can bring?

I **never **said anything about Zoroastrianism leading to the founding of Judaism, so the relative timing of first prophets is completely irrelevant. I said, in colourful terms, that Zoroastrianism (encountered in Babylon) is likely a big influence on Judaism being exclusively monotheistic rather than the (wait for it) henotheistic religion it seems it was before the Babylonian Exile. And that was when? the 500s BCE. Since Akhenaten lived in the 1300s, I’d like your explanation for the 800 year gap before the Jews suddenly got all dedicated about their monotheism. 800 years when there are plenty of references to worship of Baal, El etc. in Israel. And inscriptions to Yaweh and His Asherah.

And for the record, I consider everything in the Bible before David & Solomon to be as mythical as Hercules and Jason. After that, I could go either way until after the Return from Babylon.

246

Are you asking what led to their monotheism or what prevented their monotheism prior to that period?

mswas, I think you have done very well in this thread. Good posts!

247

[QUOTE=Zoe]
Are you asking what led to their monotheism or what prevented their monotheism prior to that period?
[/quote]

I would like the answer to that too.

Thanks. :slight_smile:

248

Mr Dibble However, for the sake of this argument, whatever generated the agreement is irrelevant. What we are trying to establish is whether or not there is agreement. Whether that agreement is justified or true is not within the scope of what we are discussing here.

249

[QUOTE=Valteron]
“And finally, since you three “experts on God” obviously cannot agree on some pretty basic facts about your deity, how do you expect an atheist like me to be converted to believing in his existence?”
[/QUOTE]

Isn’t the OP a bit like saying “let all American political parties agree, before they dare to criticize communism”? Or “let all baseball fans agree, before they criticize soccer”?

Why must there be a quid pro quo? It seems like the OP has set up a false dichotomy. Why must there be universal agreement on the nature of God before there can be a debate on his existence?

250

[QUOTE=mswas]
It takes more than being arrogant and pompous to make a point.
[/QUOTE]
Y’know, if one’s opponent incurs a Warning for hurling insults, it is probably a BAD IDEA to later respond with insults of one’s own.

This, too, is a Warning. Name calling is not permitted in this Forum.

[ /Moderating ]

251

[QUOTE=Zoe]
Are you asking what led to their monotheism or what prevented their monotheism prior to that period?

[/QUOTE]

Both and neither. I’m asking why there’s an 800 year gap between Atenism and Judaic monotheism.

My explanation - Atenism, a single brief 20-year episode in Egyptian history, wasn’t an actual influence on the Jewish swing to monotheism. A combination of Persian religious influence and a response to the Exile in general were big factors.

[QUOTE=mswas]
Mr Dibble However, for the sake of this argument, whatever generated the agreement is irrelevant. What we are trying to establish is whether or not there is agreement. Whether that agreement is justified or true is not within the scope of what we are discussing here.
[/QUOTE]

What agreement? That there exists a commonality between a bunch of religions? I’ll grant it true for a particular, related subset of them, but there are the exceptions I’ve already repeatedly pointed out. So ultimately, no, there isn’t complete agreement.

252

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
What agreement? That there exists a commonality between a bunch of religions? I’ll grant it true for a particular, related subset of them, but there are the exceptions I’ve already repeatedly pointed out. So ultimately, no, there isn’t complete agreement.
[/QUOTE]

Well, I wasn’t arguing for complete agreement. So you and I have come to agreement.

253

[QUOTE=mswas]
Well, I wasn’t arguing for complete agreement.
[/QUOTE]

That wasn’t what you said at the start

[QUOTE=mswas]
So you and I have come to agreement.
[/QUOTE]

What agreement? That you’re a dishonest debater? That you don’t have an adequate foundation in the issues you try to debate? That a few religions with common ancestry happen to share some doctrinal points? Help me out here…

A common Genesis story hardly points to **all **theists having common precepts, like you’ve claimed. All theists have in common is that they are theists. But their deities have different properties, and that’s the bone of contention.

Lucky for us atheists, all non-existent Gods are alike. Atheists FTW!

254

[QUOTE=Voyager]
He survived more than a week in the big time does it for me. Even if you think Jesus had to be crucified, maybe he could have been king and then been crucified?
[/QUOTE]

Hmmmmm So long term survival makes you a more successful prophet?

I’m not sure that’s a valid measurement but YMMV.

255

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
No, I’m not. I’m discussing anything that isn’t just in your own mind. “White-Haired Old Man”, seven headed dragon, the Force, Cosmic Oneness; anything that isn’t purely internal to the mind, purely subjective.
[/QUOTE]
So you think all abstract concepts are only internal? What is ‘knowledge’? ‘Understanding’? Even ‘thought’? Do you claim that you only understand them in relation to yourself? Surely not!
[/QUOTE]
All purely abstract concepts are internal, of course. They would exist just fine even if there was no real universe outside your mind; they just wouldn’t necessarily be useful.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
I’m afraid it is. All the evidence we have is that thought is a physical process withoin our brains, and nothing more.
[/QUOTE]
There is no evidence which proves that. And you still can’t take a photo of a thought, nor can you put it in a test tube. The scan is not showing you thought. You can insist it is until you’re purple, but saying it doesn’t make it so.
[/QUOTE]
And insisting it’s not so won’t make it true either. We can scan the brain as it functions, and various experiments have been able to see the brain perform certain thoughts, even if vaguely. We can’t put a thought in a test tube because that would require identifying it in the brain, flash freezing that area of the brain before it does something else, cutting it out of the brain and sticking it in a test tube. That’s beyond our present ability, and if it wasn’t would be unethical, illegal, and pointless ( why a test tube, and not a microscope ? ).

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
If I’m just casually thinking about it, as either a timeline or a calender. If I’m thinking more about time itself rather than scheduling, I tend to think of a diagram showing worldlines.
[/QUOTE]
That’s very interesting. I’m wondering if people like yourself who conceive of abstract concepts as something concrete, with a visual image, would have a harder time with conceptualizing in the abstract.
[/QUOTE]
Time is no more abstract than a rock. It’s the visual image that is abstract.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
For instance, do you ‘see’ an image of ‘thought’? I really appreciate your answering because I’m very curious about this.
[/quote]
A lump of brain tissue with little sparks flowing over it is about it. And yes, I know brains don’t spark; it’s just an image.

[QUOTE=Zoe]
Bogus argument. Not all Christians claim to “know.” Faith and belief are different from “knowing.”
[/quote]
Not according to most of the Christian’s I’ve met or listend to or read. They “know”.

[QUOTE=Zoe]

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Most but not all knowledge has been discovered by science, if that’s what you mean.
[/QUOTE]
When you are an old man, remember that you said this in 2007.
– “Everything’s up-to-date in Kansas City; we’ve gone about as far as we can go…” – from The Music Man
[/QUOTE]
< sigh > I meant that most of what we know now, we got from science, not that we know most things. I rather hope not.

[QUOTE=mswas]
Do you mean when ‘we’ have power do you mean Atheists? Atheists will never have power because they lack a faculty for creating social cohesion.
[/QUOTE]
So atheists can’t form political parties or corporations, or even non-theistic religions ? People are perfectly capable of “social cohesion” without religion.

Atheists won’t have power because there are so few of us, that’s all.

256

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
That wasn’t what you said at the start

What agreement? That you’re a dishonest debater? That you don’t have an adequate foundation in the issues you try to debate? That a few religions with common ancestry happen to share some doctrinal points? Help me out here…
[/quote]

Staying within context by ignoring ad hominems is dishonest? My point was that there is a lot of agreement about the nature of God

If I made a statement about ‘all’ people then I apologize. I almost always apply a strict regimen of qualifying my broad generalizations with a word like ‘most’ or ‘a lot’ in order to account for a margin of error.

My argument was always about a particular property being a fairly common property of God amongst many different religions.

Don’t hurt your elbow.

257

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
That wasn’t what you said at the start

What agreement? That you’re a dishonest debater? That you don’t have an adequate foundation in the issues you try to debate? That a few religions with common ancestry happen to share some doctrinal points? Help me out here…
[/quote]

Staying within context by ignoring ad hominems is dishonest? My point was that there is a lot of agreement about the nature of God among the theistic groups mentioned in the OP. Is abuse of context kosher in your land of honesty?

If I made a statement about ‘all’ people then I apologize. I almost always apply a strict regimen of qualifying my broad generalizations with a word like ‘most’ or ‘a lot’ in order to account for a margin of error.

My argument was always about a particular property being a fairly common property of God amongst many different religions.

Don’t hurt your elbow.

258

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]

So atheists can’t form political parties or corporations, or even non-theistic religions ? People are perfectly capable of “social cohesion” without religion.

Atheists won’t have power because there are so few of us, that’s all.
[/QUOTE]

You can have non-theistic religions. A particular atheist political religion spawned the greatest violence ever committed by anyone in a single ideology in the last century. Communism in one century in sheer terms of death toll trumped Judaism, Christianity and Islam through all of history.

Cheap shot, I know. ;p I believe it is possible that atheists can form a political religion that isn’t necessarily murderous.

259

[QUOTE=mswas]
You can have non-theistic religions. A particular atheist political religion spawned the greatest violence ever committed by anyone in a single ideology in the last century. Communism in one century in sheer terms of death toll trumped Judaism, Christianity and Islam through all of history.

Cheap shot, I know. ;p I believe it is possible that atheists can form a political religion that isn’t necessarily murderous.
[/QUOTE]

Damn cheap shot, but you made it anyway.
How Christian of you.

260

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Damn cheap shot, but you made it anyway.
How Christian of you.
[/QUOTE]

I told you before, I’m not a Christian. ;p Besides that was only for Der Trihs and atheists who think that religion is ALL EVIIIILLLLL!!!