I’m not sure why you’re asking this question again when I’ve already answered it.
I cannot, just as I cannot prove that Plato or Shakespeare or Barack Obama ever acted on anyone. What’s your point?
Like I said, if you have evidence to back up that claim I’ll be happy to look at it. Merely repeating the claim does not make it more convincing.
Let me guess, you mean “Communists” when you say “atheists”, right ? Believers love to try to tar atheists with the Communist brush. And you ignore the fact that they are believers - in Communism. Of course, when you recognize Communism as something separate from atheism you don’t have much left to bash us with, do you ?
And you are also trying to compare a single branch ( the Spanish ) of a single suborganization ( the Inquisition ) of a single religion with an entire belief system ( Communism, because we all know you don’t mean atheism ).
How about comparing how many people who have been killed by all religions, with how many people who have been killed by non-Communist atheists ?
As has happened so often in this thread, you’re simply ignoring what I said. Christianity does not teach that God popped into existence. I’ve already made that clear. What do you hope to demonstrate by willfully refusing to tackle what I said, and instead shooting down arguments that you yourself made up? Is that really the best you can do?
As for the other eight things on your list, they’re mostly just you continuing to deliberately mischaracterize what Christians believe, which is a pretty sorry tactic. If you want to go on doing that, it’s your business, but you can hardly expect to convince me by doing so. Do you not understand this point?
Because the universe isn’t made of shit.
One could probably comeoup with some solid objective evidence of these three, not so with God. I think that was the point.
Would you consider making this your signature line?
Perhaps the Communist example shows that any dogma that seeks to surpress creative free thought and alternative ideas is the problam, rather than religion per say, or atheism.
I dunno about him, but I’m ignoring the “God has existed for forever without beginning” business because I consider it gibbering nonsense.
Firstly, let’s note that infinity is not a number, and an infinite process never ends, particulary once we put aside those serieses with diminishing terms which certainly don’t apply to the current situation.
As best as I can tell, the very concept of “an infinite amount of time has passed before the current moment” is itself an epic fail - you cannot get to the end of an infinite amount of time. (Attempts to reverse the argument fail based on the fact that an infinite amount of future time has not passed, and never will have passed, either, so reversing it doesn’t give you what you want anyway.) If God was forced to exist over an infinite span of time prior to now, he’d never get to ‘now’. He’d be trapped in the past forever - which may explain why he never does anything in the present…
Even putting that aside, the problems continue to emerge. Because “infinity” is not a number, no event has happened an infinite number of times in the past.
So: since god has not had an infinite number of thoughts, and since every thought he had occured at a specific point in time, there was a time prior to which he had no thoughts. Similarly, there was a time prior to which he did no actions. Which means, if you claim that God has existed for ever, that for the vast, vast majority of that time he was an intert lump. Which might explain his habit of complete inactivity…
Sorry, no - it’s clear that there was a time after which things started happening - science tells us this was at a literal beginning to time. At this point, “stuff happened”. The only question is, which seems more likely to have popped into existence with the onset of time: a big spurt of disorganized random matter, or an ephemeral bearded sky-god with powers like unto a fictional character?
Okay, he existed forever, or whatever you feel like characterizing the miracle of his existance as. It doesn’t make any difference in regards to steps of complexity which was the point.
Which? You’ve complained that I’ve mischaracterized things before, but I’ve complained before that you simply state that I’m doing so without ever bothering to correct me. So again, which Christian beliefs did I mischaracterize?
Which of the following does Christianity/do you not believe in?
Oh that’s an easy one. Christians only give God credit when it’s a good thing that happens. Never bad.
A talented musician giving credit to God – touching religious story.
A serial killer saying God told him to do it – the guy has mental issues and is hearing things!
Actually, begbert2, I think you missed one problem with the whole “God has been around forever” idea; it actually makes God even less necessary as an explanation. Once you postulate an infinite amount of time, you have all you need to explain the universe, no God required. Time after all is a thing, not some abstract quality, just as real as rocks; and it is subject to quantum fluctuations. With infinite time, the chance of the universe spontaneously appearing via quantum fluctuation is 100%; there’s a very small chance of such a thing happening, and with infinite time the odds of it happening by chance ( and doing so infinite times ) is 100%.
With infinite time, not only is God not necessary to explain the creation of the universe; he’d have to actively stop it from happening if he only wanted one.
Thing is, that is still a condemnation of religion, since religion by nature “seeks suppress creative free thought and alternative ideas”. Those things aren’t compatible with faith.
your first miracle seems be be missing a few steps as the universe didn’t pop into existence as we know it, not as simple as you make it out to be.
the something from something argument i offered earlier still seems valid, something is needed to begin something, it can’t come from nothing
and i propose God already existed, God is something, from which the next something–the universe–came from
is time the something that came from nothing?
Then that also includes an intelligence that can do all and know all.
Oops, sorry, that can’t be, remember? You just said it can’t!: “something is needed to begin something”
Why does adding more steps simplify thngs?
And I could just as easily have said “The universe always existed.” “Popped into existence” is more amusing to say, though.
It’s an observation about a certain aspect of human nature that rears it’s ugly head in lots of areas of which religion is one. Religion can and does exist without such rigid dogma which indicates to me blaming religion in general is the wrong approach. The problem seems to be the closed mind as it exists in religion, politics, or anything else.
i’m sure you realize there are many kinds of somethings, some simple, others not so, and in the range of somethings can you prove one (God) doesn’t exist who is capable of creating all the others?
i didn’t add steps, i noted you left some out; a few things are known to have happend from the big bang until now
and you’re right “popped into existence” is amusing!
How is that relevant to any of your claims? Are you claiming it’s more logical for a complex, intelligent being always existing or popping into existence then it does simpler “stuff”?
Yes, I can prove it with your own logic.: “something is needed to begin something”
What does what happened after the Big Bang have to do with anything? How does that rebut anything Sage Rat said?
Religion is BY NATURE close minded and irrational; since it’s wrong, it can’t be open minded and rational and survive.
It’s the job of the person claiming something exists to provide evidence it does, not for other people to prove it doesn’t. And in this case, to prove that God CAN exist.
One of the differences between postulating that something like quantum fluctuations in spacetime gave birth to the universe and claiming that God did, is that we know that spacetime and quantum fluctuations are possible. God ? We have no reason to think a God is possible, much less real. We don’t even have theories in which he’s possible.
But right, so I’d like to see the answers to the following items, from our local Christians:
Hypothesize the lead up to the practice of leaving food items at shrines to various animistic spirits (like the local volcano.) How did people all around the world come to start such practices? Why is this a more likely scenario than that they anthropomorphized nature?
Explain the change of Yaweh’s status as one of a set of elemental gods to one sub-god in a pantheon of deities to being the lead of a pantheon with a female mate, to being the one sole creator of everything.
Read through some of the earlier portions of the Shinto texts, the Kojiki and Nihongi. Now explain why, in the Old Testament, God has a particular fondness–one might say nationalistic outlook–for the Jewish people. Explain why the Japanese people are particularly special according to Shinto. Why not believe that Japanese-centric animistic set of deities is not more correct than the Jewish-centric single deity?
Why did God lose his fascination with the Jewish people?
As the ones most in a position to witness Jesus’ miracles and messages first hand, why was it overwhelmingly not Jewish people who converted to Christianity? Why do you think your answer is more likely than the idea that “Because the Jewish people did not convert, the early church changed God’s opinion about the gentiles.”
Which miracles do you believe God has performed? I.e. the resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth, parting the Red Sea, teaching the ten commandments directly to Moses, etc.
Why can God cause these direct miracles and yet he needed to revise his book? Why can’t he directly speak to us in a way that leaves no controversy over his message?
After witnessing these miracles, why would those who saw them occur not write down God’s message exactly as intended and follow it perfectly?
How do we determine which parts of the Old and New Testaments are God’s message?
Why does God need or want to run us through the big game of life? What is God’s goal?
Why do other religions and even non-religions (like the Chairman Mao group) profess to have had miracles? How do we prove that the Christian miracles are proof of Christianity and not just proof of some otherworldly power that may be entirely disconnected from Christian thought?
Why have miracles disappeared?
Why didn’t God’s version of morality make the world a better place (i.e. people behaving more morally)? If the reason is humans disregarding his word, then again, for what purpose did he create us?
Why are more intelligent people less likely to be religious?