Justhink wrote:
I’m not sure. How can we tell the difference? 
Thanks for the interest, but I just registered on this board to reply to the assertion that there was no evidence God existed. I hoped to assure the believers and the curious that there is some rational basis for belief.
If you start a thread, let me know and perhaps I’ll participate, but I don’t think message boards in general a good venue for changing people’s minds. Once we’ve said something in semi-permanent text, it’s a little hard to change that opinion – we’ve got pride invested in it at that point.
As I quoted you in my first post, you claimed there was no evidence. Now we are debating the evidence.
You can quote scholars that disagree with my scholars, but you can no longer say with any shred of intellectual honesty that there is no evidence.
Actually quite a substantial chunk of the old testament is devoted to prophesy about the messiah. The prophets did everything but give his proper name and birthweight. And it all fits Jesus’ life.
To bring this back to the realm of intellectual questions, how dumb were the apostles of Jesus?
They followed this guy around, left everything they had for him and despite all the warnings, they were still surpised that he actually died on the cross. They were scattered, according to their own accounts, and at least one denied ever knowing Jesus. That was the smart thing to do, afterall the jewish leaders had the man killed for challenging their authority.
So why did they reassemble and proclaim him the Messiah? What possible motivation did they have to risk death and to continue doing so after several of them were killed? There is no rational reason other than something happened to restore their faith in Jesus.
Further, they didn’t make up lies and distort facts. You have to remember, they were talking about current events in the area in which they took place. If they lied, they would have been called on it.
You haven’t provided evidence, you’ve provided assertions which I rebutted. Even if we were to allow that some of the cities referred to in the Hebrew Bible actually existed, however, this no more proves the truth of Christianity or Judaism than Schliemann’s discovery of Troy proves the truth of Greek mythology. Agnostics and atheists (mostly) do not dispute that the Bible has some historical kernels of truth in it, but maintain that it is essentially a work of mythology. Much of the Bible can be flatly contradicted by empirical evidence (starting with Genesis). Does this prove that the whole Bible is false?
Factually incorrect. The passages that Christians claim refer to the Messiah have a completely different meaning in their original context.
The disciples did not leave any accounts. None of the gospels were written by disciples. None of them are first hand accounts. They were written between about 65 CE (Mark) and 120 CE (John) far too late to have been first hand accounts. The attribution of apostolic authorship to Matthew and John are second century traditions. These books, themselves, do not name the authors. John, as I said, could not have been written by any apostle. Matthew refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, meaning that it could not have been composed before 70 CE. There simply are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus known to us.
Why does any religious movement happen? Martyrdom is not unique to Christianity. Anyway, the deification of Jesus and t had more to do with Paul than with anyone who actually knew the historical Jesus. The Christ mythos was primarily a phenomenon of the gentiles and the term “Messiah” (Christos) acquired a much different connotation in its new pagan context than it ever had for the original Jewish followers of Jesus. (“Messiah” did not mean “God” to the apostles.)
They were talking about events which had occurred a generation or more before, which they did not witness, and which they knew very little about. The authors of the gospels pored through the Hebrew Bible looking for anything which they thought might be a reference to the Messiah in order to fill in gaps in their knowledge. They were also writing in a time when hyperbole and allegory were acceptable literary forms for writing about historical figures. They were not attempting to write factual biographies.
First of all, thank you for a thoughtful post.
Have you considered, Justhink the idea that this apparent contradiction in their behavior is only a contradiction to you? Have you considered the possibility that they are also completely rational and intelligent human beings who just think differently than you do?
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I don’t understand this “pool of human joy” concept. Who says that human joy is a finite thing? Surely, since human joy is a different thing to every person, how could it be measured?
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Can I submit the point that a lot of people in this world believe in the existence of a divine being and consider suicide to be at times an honorable act? Your concept of God may completely cover up the topic of suicide, but a lot of people don’t believe that.
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I’m with you on this point. I don’t understand why people think this way. It does not therefore follow, however that there is no such thing as God.
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That has been my view of the situation as well.
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Between you and me and the SDMB, I would have to raise an eyebrow to someone who came in and introduced me to their imaginary friend Jesus. Most people who profess faith in Christ believe he cohabits the room in a more metaphorical sense. I feel confident in my ability to tell the difference between the two.
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It wasn’t Justhink. It was to the author of this thread. Sigh. Everytime I post angrily I regret it. One day I’ll learn.
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I did say ‘jackass’, I don’t remember saying anything about ‘cleanliness’.
I’m open to the possibility of a divine power. I can’t say this divine power has ever said anything to me, or taken the least amount of interest in my life. On this idea, I go from my gut. I definitely buy the idea that we’ve got only so many brain cells, and that there’s an entire universe out there there we’ll never be able to wrap our minds around. A pure rationalist may say that this is an unevolved way to think, but to me, it makes perfect sense.
Justhink, thanks for taking the time to reply to the questions I asked. I notice that I didn’t specify that they were intended for the OP. I’m sorry to say that I find it very difficult to follow your answers as presented.
I have a pretty hihg opinion of both my intellect and my intellectual maturity, but the sheer hubris required to assert that all people who disagree with me on an unprovable metaphysical issue are somehow degenerate in intellect, maturity, courage, etc. is something that I find simply disgusting.
My own view of reality is very different from that of Lib, poly, et al. I find no intellectual or emotional argument for the existence of divinity to be satisfactory, and I do not share their personal moments of revelation. I think they are wrong.
That is a far cry from declaring them to by childish, cowardly, or deluisonal.
One of the problems with accepting identifying labels is that one loses control of the groups one can be associated with casually. I am one atheist who finds nothing in the OP which I wish to stand beside.
They can only see more or less of a picture than I am. I do not accept, on behalf of the most basic purpose to exist rather than not exist, that people fundamentally veiw reality in a different means, Intelligence to me is something that always acts with a very specified purpose. The way an individual behaves speaks more about the pathways that intelligence is fit into than a fundamentally different type of intelligence. I tend to veiw intelligence in general as a spacial quality - it acts the same, but is simply veiwing different pictures. I am one of 6 billion people on this earth spacially located to veiw ‘the site of rationality’; my picture is not the software, it is the hardware - the hardware always changes - so what is it about the process that always remains the same? It is that quality which to me is intelligence.
In spite of my writing to make my points clearer, I don’t actually believe in something like ‘more intelligent’, ‘less intelligent’. Intelligence is the same quality to me; my experience is that judgements about variations in intelligence are due to a lack of exposure towards experiening and observing the variety of pressures and environments which intelligence is exposed to.
I have not seen a human being smile without making another human being frown. I actually observe the existential energy being thefted through layers of non-transparency, with the theif declaring the praise of performing a magic trick upon those who cannot observe this process. To be appreciated by others, I have noticed that behaving as if something came from nothing is the easiest means to simulate evidence of progressive being. Since the exchange of energy is so obvious to myself, I grow bored by human beings in general - they all strike me as hypocrites to this degree; sincere in their plaisibale deniability of ignorance, but hyporites of existence/behavior none-the-less. This energy does not come from nowhere… often times it is being leeched from someone directly in the room.
You are correct. This is a bit disingenuous though… I was referring to the Biblical God in this instance. To the degree that humans were committing suicide for rain, I believe that we can equally ascribe this process to delusion, and action against consent. Had they been aware that masses of suicides even above and beyond their own still resulted in drought, I’m sure they would have reconsidered their stance in light of more evidence. They gave their life for the perverse pleasure of those who enjoy the sight of human bloodshed and offered no other value to the process. Many of these ‘suicides’ were equally coerced, and often times performed as sacrifices which amounted to murder.
I was addressing the Biblical God - omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal… I don’t have a problem with a God that is simply human like us… when these qualities are added to any sentient being, severe problems arise to that beings ability to be moral or existent. The issue of God is one of purposefulness, functionality, accessability, demonstrability - understanding of even the most basic principles of sentient thought. I believe that any being which can be produced as worthy of worship can be demonstrated to be meaningless to worship; that worship and/or belief in such a being actually contradicts the potential of benefiting from that power and/or wisdom.
Do they believe that Jesus was ever a being which was aware of being? How many or how few properties does Jesus recieve? If you can’t discern jesus from anything and or everything, then what’s the point of having this delusional synonym of one of our most basic concepts?
This is true. I inserted a reference frame and addressed the topic with regards to how to hold a belief with a decidedly mature approach; which IMO is calculating consent accross the board, rather than only adopting the ones that suit the individual.
Accessing the perimeter works just as well as wrapping ones mind around everything (becoming the perimeter). Acess has the added advantage of maintaining sentience in the process. shrug
-Justhink
Spiritus, it has been my observation that human beings are evidenced to traverse cognitive stages. The travering of these stages gives to a set which determines cognitive age.
There is a point in a human being where they haven’t yet mapped the concept of permanence as a cognitive stage. This is the part of awareness which comprehends that when someone leaves the room, behind a wall, that they are still there and have not vanished from existence. This lack of mapping can be tested. The addition of the mapping can be tested. This is definately a cognitive stage which human beings move through, regardess of culture. One point they don’t have it, years later they aquire it.
This is the only thing I mean when I use the term: immature.
I personally find it an insult to human observation to declare that immaturity is not a property of existence.
It may also suprise you that these cognitive stages don’t just stop after 10 years or 20 years or even 80 years.
Given the averages, most human beings don’t move past the first few stages, and even at this they fail to map these stages very thouroughly. Other human beings are observed to move through them in rapid succession with astounding mapping for each stage.
I am reminded, with regards to cognitive age, of William James Sidis being handed a Bible at 1 year of age… he read through it and tossed it across the room stating something equivilent to “I don’t believe this garbage!”. That to me is the epitome of what occurs as a reaction between raw intelligence from nature and the Bible. He is arguably the most intelligent human being ever to be recorded, with an estimated IQ of 350. He was the first to publish on the existence of black holes, though much of his work is not particularly useful. It is known that his treatsies on physics and mathematics were both confiscated at the age of 5… the where-abouts of these books are still not a record of public knowledge. He spent the latter part of his short life collecting bus scheduals and memorizing all of the times and routes of the world. It is very obvious that he spent his entire life being teased, and is believed to have died a virgin. He was fluent in over 200 hundred languages (learning at a rate of 1 per day at the age of 7)- having absorbed amost every book ever written (that was possible to get) in it’s native language by the time he died. My impression of this human being is that he was cognitively older than almost any human being ever becomes by the time he was 2 years old. I think it is often difficult for people to comprehend how rapid processing speed truly seperates humans at a fundamental level. You can have being still processing a trillion bits of info per second by the age of their death in mid life; while others are only a few billion bits old by the time they die of old age.
To seriously suggest that there are no differences in cognitive age or maturity is very dismissive of human experience IMO.
A person like William James Sidis actually has the processing speed to simulate the effects of time upon an experience, without needing to live through it. These individuals can discard lessons in minutes that you will spend your life trying to comprehend – it may the the one great truth of your existence, your purpose of figuring out this lesson; that very thing which makes you feel important and special… lived, understood and eventually discarded by someone like Sidis in a manner of minutes while learning to speak, read and write Chinese and solving a crossword puzzle on the side. I seriously believe that people need to take a moment to listen to nature when it gives us intelligence.
-Justhink
Your exposition of Sidis’ life is about as hyperbolic as I can imagine, for a subject that hardly requires such exageration.
Your defense of what I see as offensive generalization is that human beings do show developmental stages in cognition and perception, thus you are justified in calling those who disagree with you childish, cowardly, or delusional.
I disagree with you.
Another note on Sidis… he was quoted as saying that he cannot learn anything by talking to others, only by being in his own mind.
He was given much critisism at his time for not offering much; although one could argue that his treatsies on physics and mathematics were brilliant peices of work confiscated by military or financial interests which threatened his life if he talked. It’s not totally clear that he didn’t make a phenomenal contribution (at the age of 5 no less). I believe he died in his 30’s-40’s somewhere abouts.
-Justhink
Cowardly is not relevant.
Childish conceptually maps with immature, though it is not always the case - delusional maps with corrupt logical mapping, which maps with childish and immature… again, not always the case.
To seperate this from myself for a moment (and also Sidis, as clearly he’s not here to speak for himself):
Do you conceed that such a thing as cognitive age exists?
Do you agree that it is appropriate to use the word ‘immature’ to describe this phenomenon (given that it is directly correlated to both mental and physical maturity)?
I don’t recall actually using the term childish… I’d be a bit suprized if I did, but I may have shrug It doesn’t sound like me.
I do use immature as shorthand for long expositions regarding cognitive age and the mapping of permanence amongst other stages. I do use delisional to describe the state of corrupt logical mapping. Whether this stae benefits or harms a human being who is delusional is of no consequence to my frowning upon it as an acceptable tool for human to engage with.
-Justhink
undoubtedly some of them are. i had 3 jehovahs witnesses try to run their game on me in a mcdonalds. they claim to know the bible which was written 1800 and more years ago. i asked them if they knew about chernobyl meaning wormwood in relation to revelations. they didn’t know what chernobyl was!
to dumb to know some history of the last 20 years and presume to talk about god and the afterlife.
he who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him.
everybody has to judge people. how do you decide who to associate with and not? may not judge if they go to heaven but whether they are worth your time.
Dal Timgar
http://www.quantonics.com/index.html#Book_Reviews
I believe this webmaster is the current owner of the Sidis library, his site and he personally should quickly apply falsification to what I wrote.
-Justhink
Actually, Sidis didn’t read the Bible, nor did he throw one across a room. Rather, a portion of it was read to him. He said simply that he didn’t believe it. (His father was an atheist.) And he was six years old, not one year old.
He made a “C” in philosophy.
Perhaps you could simply post such pertinent details as how, and by whom, his IQ has been measured at 350 and exactly which 200 languages he was fluent in at age 7.
After that, we can discuss his theories of the 100,000 year historiy of Amerinds as recorded in Wampum belts, the completely reversible nature of time in physics, or even the evidence for a military confiscation of his notebooks ate age 5 along with concommitant threats to his life if he talked.
Some other time we can discuss whether intellectual capacity should be the sole measure of maturity in a human being.
Well, now the L has descended into a flame war, let me sum up by quoting his reply to my statement that his handle “Libertarian” was dripping in irony. Apparently he inferred correctly that I was saying he was not free because he was bound by the chains of his supersitition.
Well, that pretty much sums it up, kids.
He makes that statement as though jesus were real. And the thing that this imaginary being said makes his argument valid.
In other words, we can boil down his arguments to the lyrics of a certain old song: it’s so “because the bible tells me so.”
A CHILDREN’S song.
Children’s logic.
When a child asks why he should do what a parent orders, the reply is: “because I say so.”
Libertarian, as a childish mentality, needs the bible to tell him so.
Before that, he needed satan. Then he was an anti-god atheist. To be an atheist is also not logical (atheist being defined as someone who believes there is no god, as opposed to someone who doesn’t believe in god.)
The only logical correct position is agnostic. There is no proof for or against. However, since it is up to those who say something exists to prove it, then for all practical purposes, gods may be safely ruled out and ignored untill evidence is brought forth.
(No! THERE IS NO EVIDENCE YOU BIBLE-QUOTING MORONS. Empirical evidence is what I speak of. If you quote the bible in your arguments, you’ve already lost.)
To sum up:
Adults can think for themselves.
Children (and the intellectually/emotionally immature) need the bible “to tell them so.”
Therefore, if you quote the bible to prove your argument. You’ve lost.
Thanks for proving my theory. I was beginnning to think I might be wrong till Libertarian so eloquently proved me right.
I rest my case.
p.s. I’m not a atheist, I am an agnostic. It is the only logical position until there is evidence. Thus far there is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE of any supernatural beings whatsoever. In fact, all religious texts can easily be refuted anytime they state facts like “the world was created in 6 days”, etc.
Of course, believers descend into apologia and say “that’s merely allegorical…” Uh, yeah, right. Pick your poison.
Oh, and when I die I find out there is a god or gods I will be mighty pissed at the shitty job they’ve done on this planet.
So if a god is listening: fuck you, god!
I find it logical to not believe in something for which I have no evidence.
I find it laughable for mrfoi to be making pronouncements on logic immediately after stating . I was beginnning to think I might be wrong till Libertarian so eloquently proved me right.
Apparently, in mrfoi’s logic potential weaknesses in his arguments can be redeemed by the nature of his opponent’s arguments. Or perhaps he thinks that Libertarian is a gestalt entitiy who directly represents the intellectual reality of all theists.
I am happy, however, to learn that I needn’t be concerned about even the most superficial philosophical association with the OP. My condolences to thoughtful agnostics everywhere.