That’s interesting. I accepted Christian doctrine for years and I still have a great reverence for what I think Jesus was teaching. After being away from it for a while and then approaching it from a more independent study position rather than as a Christian among Christians, I gradually came to the conclusion that much of it is man made tradition with enough meaningful stuff mixed in to keep it moving.
I’ve read a lot of Christian apologetics during my studies, including Christian scholars. I usually find the logic a bit flawed in that when they say they factor A plus factor B means C, C is really just one possibility and often not the most likely one. The method usually consists of finding some justification to keep Christian theology as one possibility but present if as if it’s very likely.
There are plenty of *coherent *arguments arguments against Christian doctrine. I’m pretty sure you’re aware it’s not a matter of absolute proof. It’s a matter of having consistent logic with reasonable positions that are more than a very remote possibility.
If you’re saying non believers can’t prove Christian doctrine is false that’s a very different statement and please, for the sake of accuracy and honest discourse, make that clear.
There are a bunch of questions for which we don’t have answers of absolute certainty. That results in some people coming down on one side of an argument and some on the other. If you believe the Christian apologists and reject the arguments of non believers that’s because it’s your personal preference not because the apologists have great logical arguments and the opposition doesn’t.
That’s fine. You’re free to choose which side of the argument appeals to you more, but let’s be clear that that’s what it is.
A lot of Christian doctrine requires we accept certain things on faith that in most other cases we would reject. I’m not sure how you translate that into sound arguments for Christianity and incoherent ones for non believers unless that’s an article of faith I haven’t heard about.
There can be no more evidence against religion than science, government, or any other human endeavor. A person is religious by choice as is a scientist, a scientist by choice. This thread is biased against religion and therefor moot in my opinion.
If you don’t believe in religion or God, just pass them by, no need to find fault. Each of us can find plenty of fault in our own beliefs and actions, and these we can actually change.
This is trivially explained by the effects of culture and society. As has been demonstrated to the point of being painfully obvious in numerous other threads on this subject, religion is not a requirement for possessing empathy or having a system of ethics.
While religion is not a requirement for ethics, some sort of belief in a higher intelligence and afterlife, I believe, is required.
Let’s say there were suddenly no religion or spirituality. People believed in material things only and when you died you died forever. Under this belief system please explain what incentive one would have for developing ethics. Do you think the police department could really inforce all the laws equally. I am just curious as to just how that would work.
Now in countries that tried to destroy religion like Russia they controlled the public with a dictator and police state. How could one have freedom of thought without any control whatsoever from inside of theirselves. Just curious.
Your belief has no bearing on the matter. Neither religion nor superstitious belief is required for ethics.
Cooperation and society causes ethics. It is something humans evolved. If the only thing keeping someone from going nuts and breaking laws whenever they feel like is an invisible being in the sky watching over them, then be afraid of them.
Why don’t you just go to a country where the majority of the population is non-religious? According to you, they should be anarchic catastrophes. They are not, and so you are wrong.
Are you saying your god controls your thoughts from inside you? Um, not real sure what you’re getting at here.
All actions have consequence here on earth. It doesn’t benefit me at all to be a jerk to people because then people I know will think less of me and I won’t be happy. I don’t hurt people because it doesn’t benefit me, people will think less of me, and I won’t be happy. Also, jail.
I don’t cheat on my wife because I love her and want her to reciprocate that love. I honor and respect my family and elders because I want them to like me, because people liking me makes me happy.
Most people can’t just buck society and be happy… you fall into line so that people will like you and you can get about your business with a smile on your face. Eternal salvation plays no part in this.
The only thing you can claim religion does is set the standards for what society expects of its members, but I think that’s hogwash… religion just codifies the basic societal rules that evolve naturally. It’s not like we wouldn’t figure out that murder sucks for society if it hadn’t been for “Thou shalt not kill.”
At the lowest common denominator, the incentive is enlightened self-interest. If I choose to live in a world where it’s OK for me to cheat, rob, and kill to get what I want, then I have to accept that someone else can do the same to me. Most poeple don’t want to be killed, robbed, and cheated, so we get together in a group and make rules that say this is not OK. No god or spiritual being needed… just communication and negotiation.
I don’t understand this comment… are you under the impression that currently (A) the police enforce all laws equally thanks to (B) the holy books they carry around in their holsters? I think we both know that neither of these are true.
Well, what I’ve experienced as far as the contrast between Chrsitain apologetics and atheist arguments is just about the opposite. Let me try to explain in more detail.
Here are some of the apologetic writers that might reasonably be agreed to be great: G. K. Chesterton, Peter Kreeft, N. T. White, William Lane Craig. If we included those with a more popular tilt, we might also put C. S. Lewis on the list. If we went back to previous centuries we might add Pascal or Aquinas to the list.
How do all of these authors argue? Well, they argue by starting from nothing and building a case. They begin by assuming nothing. Each time that they ask the reader to accept a statement, they offer a logical argument for that statement.
Now you may feel that their logical arguments are not convincing, and in some cases you could probably get me to agree. The point is that the logical arguments are there. There’s a reason for everything.
Atheist arguments, by way of contrast, always begin by making massive assumptions, and simply refusing to debate those assumptions. In this thread, for example, there’s an assumption that it’s reasonable that children would follow a religion only because their parents did, and for no other reason.
Well, that’s an assumption that I’d love to debate, because I don’t find it reasonable at all. To the people who push that assumption there doesn’t seem to see anything to debate–it’s just automatically true.
That’s what I meant to say about the strength of various arguments. I see Christian apologetics who will defend every logical step they take. I don’t see the same thing from the other side.
Set up these so-called “logical steps.” I’ll show you exactly what kind of bullshit they really are.
If their logic is fallacious (and I assure you, it is. If you don’t believe me, then put the steps out here where we can see them and I’ll prove it to you), then they aren’t really using logic at all, just assertion.
You say you don’t see logical steps “on the other side,” I don’t know what you mean by “the other side,” or what you think you need to see steps for, but in an arguement about whether skygods exist, the “other side” has no burden of proof. Non-existence is the default assumption, especially for stuff that’s impossible like “miracles,” and sky gods. The burden is all on the one who is claiming that X exists.
Um, actually, a lot of the religious writers I’ve read start with the assumption that god exists, and everything follows from there. All of the arguments I’ve seen that attempt to establish god’s existence first can easily be shown to be false, or have some other assumption in them.
:rolleyes: I’m not sure if this simple project or willful ignorance. Atheism starts with nothing, it’s practically the definition of the word, and expects evidence before it will accept something. That something being the existence of god, of course.
Ah, that would explain it. For some inexplicable reason you completely missed or skipped all of the bits where the much higher than normal occurrence of children keeping the religion they were brought up with was discussed. Maybe you should go back and try to find them before you continue making groundless accusations.
Why would I argue something for which there is explicit empirical evidence? People follow what their parents do 99% of the time, regardless of what that is, be it Christianity, Buddhism, or atheism. If you can find an explanation for that that makes sense according to Christianity, I’ll certainly listen to it. I’ve not said anything to support or advance the data beyond presenting it as it is and what it seems most likely to mean.
My problem isn’t so much the content of these books. It’s the requirement that one much know and believe what’s written in these books to gain salvation.
God is supposed to be a spiritual being, right? Seems to me a spiritual being would recognize the limitations of communicating through physical media. After all, anything written by human hand and copied and translated many times by different people over the course of hundred of years is going to be subject to distortion and error, not to mention misinterpretation when read. In order to believe that none of this occured, you have to a make a leap of faith. So right out the gate, someone predisposed to skepticism is going to have a hard time getting God’s message, because he put it in a form that inherently opens itself up to doubt.
If no one was taught that the Bible (or the Koran) was the holy book (rather than a collection of interesting tales), would anyone be able to figure out that one must accept some guy named Jesus as their Lord and Savior in order to keep themselves out of hell? No, of course not. It takes some initial indoctrination from another person for someone to reach this revelation. Which means that salvation–at least Christian salvation–relies on at least two middle-men: a book and an indoctrinator. Sucks to be you if you’re born into a society that lacks these two things.
If God created the Bible (or any other holy book) so that humans can understand him, the universe, the purpose of life, morals and ethics, and the necessary path to salvation, it makes me wonder if he’s as wise or benevolent as he’s cracked up to be. It would be like leaving a note to your kid telling them to take out the trash and clean up the kitchen or else be whipped for an hour, but writing the thing in Sankrit and leaving it at the bottom of the laundry hamper. Such an act might be comedy if we were talking about a treasure hunt in The Amazing Race or something, but we’re talking about the afterlife here. Fire and brimstone. Not the kind of stuff that calls for coyness.
I want to keep this thread focused on this thread’s topics. If there’s interest in reviving the religious book discussions from last year, I’d be happy to start a new round, but in different threads.
