I never said they were lies. I said they weren’t supernatural and that there were better and simpler explanation, which there were. That’s not an insult.
People have demonstrated points where you were wrong. Your response is typically changing the subject or saying the atheists are being mean, or both. I’ll ask again: what statements do you want atheists to agree with you about? The reasonable points you think everybody can agree on?
Yes, you explained it as perhaps earthquakes even though earthquakes don’t cause objects to fly horizontally. Then you said some other natural occurance without offering any scientific explanation how an object can fly horizontally. That’s a bit of a copout. It’s the same result as when you laughed off the story of the angel lifting the tractor, or Doyle Dyke’s White Rose for Heidi. You simply continue to refuse to accept evidence.
How about admitting that there are archaeological finds that support some of the events in the Bible? That’s a verifiable fact. Then you would have to at least admit that I’m not completely wrong in every single post.
Of course they can, quakes can throw things all over.
So? No one has claimed that everything in the Bible is false. The supernatural stuff is all false of course, as are many other claims like the Exodus and the period of slavery in Egypt, but not all of it.
Of course they do. Where do you even get these claims? Do you just make them up or is there some sort of website you’re cribbing from?
As for a story of an angle lifting a tractor, that’s no more proof of anything than people’s Bigfoot or Nessie sightings are.Of course, if that tractor was actually lifted by a divine herald while 100 people stood around and filmed on their smart phones, then we might at least have something to begin analyzing. Of course, as always, even if we had a glowy superstrong winged beasty, deciding that it was an angel and proof of your personal theology would still be premature. Any half-decent alien race should have pretty good cloaking technology, so you might’ve been rescued by Glort of Ixion VII. Maybe there is a ‘supernatural’ realm, but there are many competing residents. You weren’t rescued by an angel, you were rescued by a valkyrie, and Odin expects your axe to be swung for him come Ragnarok.
Nobody has claimed that everything in the bible is fake. Major, central events like the Exodus and the Flood are fake, but certainly there was a city named Jerusalem and there were religious festivals held there. In the same way, while there really is a San Fransisco, Starfleet Academy is not a real place.
Well, like what? That the city of Jericho existed in antiquity and was besieged? That Sodom and Gomorrah existed but were wiped out in some natural disaster? That an ancient king of Israel may have been called Solomon, or David? A sketchy correspondence with real-life events does nothing to support the bible’s mystical/spiritual authority.
I think that pretty much every other poster on the board would agree with me here, that some of the events in the Bible are supported by external evidence. For example, the Babylonians oppressed the ancient Israelites and kept their leaders in captivity, then they were sent back home when Cyrus the Great came through and kicked butt.
Later, Antiochus Epiphanes ruled over the area with an iron fist, and almost wiped out Judaism, but the Maccabees revolted and kicked him out.
Those things are referred to in the Bible, and we’re very sure that they really happened. On the other hand, several events in the Bible are not supported by external evidence, and flatly contradicted by the evidence we do have.
There were no Adam and Eve as the first humans. There was no flood that covered all the land and one man saved every animal on his boat. The Jews were never slaves in large numbers in Egypt, but instead were indigenous to the Canaan area.
So yes, we’ll admit that some of the events in the Bible are supported. Will you admit that some of them didn’t really happen?
I have spent years reading threads like these (lurker). Very interesting discourse. Posters like GEEPERS really make me miss Dio. This could have been over a while ago.
You are really reaching.
This was an ongoing event that eventually led to my friend’s moving out of the apartment.
This was in East Texas. Quakes don’t happen in this region.
You have no counter-evidence to prove that the supernatural events never occured. I offered the explanation that an Egyptian king would most likely order all records of the Israelites to be striked from existence or never recorded. Such a defeat would be a great shame, and they simply did not record their defeats.
In a nutshell, I bring something to the table, and atheists can only bring their baseless denials.
First, admit that I’m not completely wrong about everything, and we’ll start from there.
It’s not a copout. It’s the best response I can give to a vague and incomplete description of something I didn’t see and which nobody documented. My point is that something like an object “flying” off a shelf or a radio turning on and off does not have to be a supernatural event. I’ve seen radios go on and off and thought nothing of it. If there’s a simpler explanation - a short circuit from a radio instead of divine interference - the simpler explanation is going to be preferred, other things being equal. You were saying that supernatural events like these are the first step on the way to accepting God, and I’m saying God isn’t required to explain them. And as FinnAgain has been saying, you haven’t explained how we know that these things are caused by your version of God instead of a poltergeist or other things.
It’s not persuasive evidence to somebody who doesn’t already believe. I realize it’s persuasive to you, but that’s not the beginning and end of the story.
This is just plain frustrating. I said exactly that in the first post of this thread:
And that’s not the first place I said it, either.
Except, no. We have no evidence that the Egyptians did this and in any case hiding/changing official pronouncements is much, much more easier than erasing the archeological evidence for an entire slave population. So, your persecution claims aside, in a nutshell you bring unverified claims which have multiple interpretations even if true, and then demand that they be taken seriously as signs and sigils of your religion.
I’m going to write holy book, inspired by god as far as you know, that says Gary Coleman was the messiah, and he will return from the grave in the future (to battle the antichrist, Emmanuel Lewis).
Since this book will state the proven facts that Gary Coleman starred in a TV show called “Diff’rent Strokes” and lived in a city named Los Angeles, does that support in any way that Gary Coleman is the messiah?
How about if I include text that says those who do not believe that Gary Coleman is the messiah will ridicule me? When I get ridiculed, is that more support that Coleman died for our sins?
It seems almost as if you want to be granted a free pass on a number of as yet unspecified claims.
It’s fairly certain you’re not completely wrong about everything, because that would actually be a difficult state for anyone to attain, but not being wrong about everything doesn’t provide any kind of useful handle on whether any particular one of your claims is true or false.
Or to put it another way: suppose someone tells you that they think you’re right about half the time - that’s great. Now, let’s look at a specific claim… which half does it belong in? How do we decide? (flip a coin?) We decide by examining the claim in detail (and thus, the declaration of how right or wrong you are, overall, was pretty pointless).
I was only correcting your statements about earthquakes. In my opinion the most likely actual explanation is that either the events never happened at all or were very different from what you claim happened.
Nonsense; I have the collected knowledge of modern science, which rules out such supernatural happenings. And again; it’s not my job to prove a negative. It’s yours to provide evidence such supernatural events happened. You can’t even provide evidence that they could have happened, much less did.
Doesn’t matter even if they did (and I have no reason to believe your claim they did that), there would have been archaeological evidence if those stories are true, such as signs of habitation in the desert; there is no such evidence.
No, you bring nothing but baseless assertions and illogic.
Sigh, another flavor of the fairies/Santa Claus/Odin type arguments. There is no reason or evidence at all to suggest that Gary is the messiah. There are plenty of strong arguments for the existence of God.
Over 90% of the American population believe in God. Despite the brass chest thumping on this atheist forum, atheism remains a small minority. The onus is on YOU to demonstrate why the majority is wrong. Otherwise, you are claiming that most people in society are mentally insane - suffering from delusions.
You correctly identified this as an argumentum ad populum earlier, and I even dealt with this (in a way) in the OP. “More people agree with me!” does not make an argument stronger.
That’s two logical fallacies in one post - appeal to popularity and shifting the burden of proof.
The burden of proof, for any claim, no matter how popular, rests with the claimant.
(I am not an atheist, BTW, in case it matters)
The point I’m trying to make is that the use of real-life places in a written work is not believable evidence that the work is correct in other matters. Do you see this at least?
I offered several counters to this - one being a previous time when the Egyptians had tried to ‘erase’ something from their record (ie, we still have those statues). I also pointed out that the exodus itself would have left archaeological evidence. In other words, even if the Pharaoh had magically erased all evidence of not only the Israelites and of slavery, there would still be physical evidence.
You didn’t deal with this, instead, you simply ignored these counters as though your prior assertions were sufficient to deal with everything.
They weren’t then, they aren’t now.
You realize that the God these Americans believe in is not the same God, don’t you? In fact, according to you, something like 50% aren’t even Christians (even though they profess to be so), so your appeal to popularity is off base from the start.
BTW - you clearly do not understand the burden of proof. The onus is not on us and just because they believe in something that may be false does not mean that they are mentally insane.
Something like 50% of the population believes in Astrology, are they mentally insane? Is the onus on you to disprove them?