I think a lot of people in this thread need the phrase “You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into” taped to the top of their monitor. Or possibly tattooed on the back of their eyelids.
Are all of these 90% ‘true’ Christians, in your estimation?
You are the one saying that. Many of my family members are Catholic. I don’t think they’re insane (well, some of them, sure, but for other reasons), just wrong. People are wrong about all kinds of things.
At any rate, it’s just another double standard. Do you think atheists are insane?
Nope, Richard Dawkins said it. Even called his book, “The God Delusion”. In order to be an atheist, you have to believe that when we Christians are praying, we are talking to an imaginary being. Isn’t that a characteristic of mental delusion?
And yes, atheists are delusional. They suffer from the delusion that atheists are always right and Christians are always wrong.
Are you now actually insisting that atheists insult you?
Again:
*No, atheists don’t think theists are always wrong.
*Atheists have no specific focus on Christianty.
*Atheists aren’t delusional.
Hey, remember this?
I’m starting to think that many of your problems with atheists come from the fact that you simply are not paying attention to what they say. What else is anybody supposed to think when you “demand” someone do something they’d already done, and then ignore their response?
I certainly didn’t think I’d argue him out of theism, but I though I could at least show GEEPERS that some of the arguments he made were invalid. Of course, that was pointless as well. I doubt I will bother to return to this thread, nothing new to see here.
It’s some type of delusion, sure, but that doesn’t mean straight-up insanity. It’s clear that the human brain is in some sense wired to extract profound meaning from certain observations and stimuli.
If a person today writes a letter to the King of France, that person thinks he is communicating with a being that, as it turns out, does not currently exist, and that person is deluded, but that doesn’t mean he’s insane. A magical being is several magnitudes less plausible than a European monarch, true. But on the other hand, the vast majority of believers are raised in environments where practically everyone around them reassures them, with absolute certainty, of them existence of such a being. Even atheists are, in large measure, expected to defer to believers to avoid hurting their feelings in most contexts.
About the existence of a magical being, sure. About everything else? No. That is something you invented.
Richard Dawkins is wrong, IMO. In any event, my daughter occasionally talks to an imaginary being, she’s not insane.
This seems like a personal problem you have. As I’ve stated (and you’ve ignored), I’m often wrong and many Christians are correct. I would wager that you have been correct, at times, although it seems difficult to find examples in this thread of such.
And the sightings of Bigfoot and Lessie suggest the possibility that they exist. So what’s your point? The angel story can be a starting point on which you can build countless stories of divine healing (including one that I posted yesterday, and don’t think you’re off the hook on that one) and miracles.
But if there’s anything to take away from your rantings, it’s the reality that there is no kind of evidence that would ever satisfy you. That doesn’t disprove anything. It just means you won’t accept it.
That’s the only credit you are giving the Bible? The name of Jerusalem? Obviously, you don’t know much about bible archaelogy.
If you have “proof” of the paranormal and faith healing, why not go make a bunch of money?
Give me the post #, or specific example of your counter. This website explains pretty clearly the problem of Exodus along with a specific example of Pharoh erasing records:
Archaeologist Edwin Yamauchi points out the limits of this science when he explains:
(1) little of what was made or written in antiquity survives to this day;
(2) few of the ancient sites have been surveyed and a number have not even been found;
(3) probably fewer than 2 percent of the known sites have been meaningfully excavated;
(4) few of these have been more than scratched; and
(5) only a fraction of the fraction that have been excavated have been published and data made available to the scholarly world (1972: chapter 4).
Considering not only the limits but also the positive side of archaeology, it is remarkable how many Biblical accounts have been illuminated and confirmed by the relatively small number of sites excavated and finds uncovered to date. Even though, regrettably, some professionals go out of their way to present a distorted picture of what archaeology does reveal, it does provide some of the strongest evidence for the reliability of the Bible as credible and accurate history.
Evidence Destroyed
A major challenge in reconstructing an accurate view of history is that, through the ages, most negative or embarrassing evidence was never written down or was intentionally destroyed by later rulers. In fact, the Bible stands in marked contrast to most ancient literature in that it objectively records the facts about Biblical personalities, whether good or bad.
When new kings ascended the throne, they naturally wanted to be seen in the best light. So in many nations they covered up or destroyed monuments and records of previous monarchs. This pattern of expunging earlier historical evidence can be repeatedly seen in Egyptian monuments and historical records. For example, after the Hyksos rulers were expelled from Egypt, the Egyptians erased the records of that humiliating period so thoroughly that some of the names and the order of the Hyksos kings remain uncertain.
Some time later Pharaoh Thutmosis III destroyed virtually all records relating to Queen Hatshepsut, the previous ruler, whom he despised. Visitors to her famous temple can still see where Thutmosis’s workmen carefully chiseled away her image from the walls of the structure. A few decades afterwards, the ruling priests eliminated virtually all possible traces of the teachings of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who had introduced what they considered to be heretical Egyptian religious reforms.
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/08/09/The-Exodus-Controversy.aspx#Article
So tell me again why it is not plausible that Pharoh would have erased or never recorded the encounters with the Israelities?
Wrong. The utter lack of physical evidence coupled with facts which gainsay their claims means that they do not get placed in the “possible” category except in as much as they appear to be ontologically possible. Your nonsense about how an “angel story” can be a jumping off point “on which you can build countless stories of divine healing” is an utter absurdity. As has been put to you probably a dozen times and you will continue to ignore, even if we accepted that there is a type of magical being that looks like an angel, there’s no way to tell if it’s your religion’s angel or a tulpa, or Glorp the Ixian slave trader, or what.
Further, of course, you offered no actual evidence for “divine healing”, let alone “countless stories”. Yet again, your unsupported, unverified claims aren’t evidence, they’re allegations.
Read again.
This time for comprehension.
Atheists often use these fallacies as a quick escape route. Fallacy Fallacy, haha I don’t have to prove anything!
It’s easy to make a bold statement here. Not so easy to back it up with supporting evidence. The stiff refusal to support atheist assertions just shows how weak atheist’s beliefs really are.
He explained it to you in post #317 and #330 of the ‘present evidence for your deity’ thread. What you’re doing here is arguing from ignorance. There is no evidence supporting the Exodus story. It’s all tradition and Biblical interpretation - that Pharaoh is Rameses II, for example, or that the Hebrews built some of the pyramids even though the evidence says the pyramids weren’t build by slaves. The problem is that we are not just talking about Egyptian-made documents that can be destroyed; we are talking about a complete lack of evidence of a large group of Hebrews in Egypt and then wandering around Sinai for 40 years. That’s a lot of missing evidence.
Indeed. For example you’ve said there’s a god… This whole thing is kind of ironic given that you keep refusing to make your case.
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What is your definition of evidence?
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What are your acceptable requirements of evidence? Specifically in the realm of the existence of the supernatural and divine healing.
If you can’t at least answer those two statements, I have nothing more to say to you.
Are you ever going to acknowledge the point he’s making? I think you’ve been asked this dozens of times in several threads now: how do you decide that “supernatural evidence” like healings and stuff flying off shelves is evidence for one god and not another? How do you know it’s Jesus and not Buddha or a poltergeist or Mithra? This is a serious problem for your argument.
It’s telling that someone points out you’ve made an error in logic (i.e. a fallacy) and your response it to claim that it’s some kind of “escape”. Yeah… you’re unable to argue your own case, what an escape. :smack: Of course, are you again shifting the burden of proof. Yes, you do need to prove everything. No, someone arguing against you only has to show how you have not proved your case. Despite your obvious reliance on fallacy and error, you will not convince people here that your untestable, unfalsifiable, logically incoherent deity is the null hypothesis which we must refute.
The so-called “atheist assertions” that you’re objecting to are that logic and facts both matter. Your refusal to accept reason since it is an “atheist assertion”, while inherently self-defeating and absurd, is also amusing.
You’ve had nothing to say to anybody here yet. You’ve had plenty to say at them. And none of it has been particularly cogent.
The requirements for evidence are the same as in any particularly rigorous experiment. “I’m sure that I saw an FTL neutrino!” is not evidence of any sort, for example.
Are you really that blind, or you just purposely ignore my posts? You never back up anything you say, instead just boldly claim over and over how wrong I am.
Again, lack of evidence is not conclusive proof that such events never occured. It’s just lack of evidence.
I went to the effort yesterday of finding a documented story of a man who was raised from the dead. Detailed records. It was dismissed immediately without a single statement demonstrating why the story is not credible.
Fester all you want in your denial. It is a piece of evidence and I presented so stop saying that I never offer anything to support my arguments.
It’s true that using fallacies in your argument doesn’t automatically make you wrong, but it does mean you’re constructing a weak argument.
Why don’t you take the wind out of their sails by constructing a fallacy-free argument?
There you have it, folks. Read below the bloated brass talk, and you’ll see this man’s clear dishonesty. He could not even answer two simple questions.
The real answer is he doesn’t even know himself.
Answer the questions or be ignored.