ADN

That's not quite right. Saying "There is no God" is a faith statement just as much as saying "There is a God". And an atheist is not someone who denys all gods, but someone who denies that there is a God. If you say that you lack faith in a God, then is my dog an atheist also? He lacks faith on God

About your statement regarding miracles....first of all, what is your definition of a miracle? What would you consider "objectively documented" evidence of them?

trashtalkr wrote:That's not quite right. Saying "There is no God" is a faith statement just as much as saying "There is a God". And an atheist is not someone who denys all gods, but someone who denies that there is a God. If you say that you lack faith in a God, then is my dog an atheist also? He lacks faith on God

Your dog does not have any reasoned beliefs; he is not aware that anyone claims there is a god or gods.

An atheist does not "believe" that there is no God; he merely observes that there is no evidence of God, that the claims made by the various religions do not agree with themselves, let alone with each other. An atheist does not "believe in the absence of God". He simply observes that if you say "there's a ghost in this room" -- and we look around and see no sign of ghosts or anything else, then he says "um, where's the ghost?"

trashtalkr wrote: About your statement regarding miracles....first of all, what is your definition of a miracle? What would you consider "objectively documented" evidence of them?

There is no objectively documented evidence of any supernatural event, ever. "Objectively documented" means acceptable scientific evidence, obtained with appropriate controls. Of course, every religion claims miracles of one kind or another-- but these claims are never more than fables, and never accepted by anyone other than adherents to that particular religion. No Christian accepts any Muslim, Hindu, or Mormon claims of miracles, and vice versa. There's no evidence with which you can convince a Muslim of the Resurrection, nor could you convince him that Jesus turned water into wine.

Speaking of water into wine, here's an experiment that would easily demonstrate a "miracle" that Catholic doctrine claims happens every Sunday:

Catholics believe in actual miraculous transubstantiation of the Communion wafer and wine into the blood and body of Christ (though most Protestants don't believe this). In Catholic doctrine, its not a metaphor, its the real thing. OK, fine . . . after communion, find me genetically alien hemoglobin and human tissue -- or any other kind of tissue-- in the stomach of someone who's received communion.

That would be an "objectively documented supernatural event". Wine does not turn into blood, and wafers do not turn into flesh in the natural world, ever.

An atheist does not "believe" that there is no God; he merely observes that there is no evidence of God, that the claims made by the various religions do not agree with themselves, let alone with each other. An atheist does not "believe in the absence of God". He simply observes that if you say "there's a ghost in this room" -- and we look around and see no sign of ghosts or anything else, then he says "um, where's the ghost?"

Well do you believe your observations? You're just trying to play a semantics game with the words 'believe' and 'observe'. Also, you're right that the claims of various religions do not agree with each other and that's because each religion believes to exclusively have the truth. They cannot all be right or we would have contradictions. But, that has no bearing on the issue if there is a God. But, what would you consider an observation? If observation is only being able to physically see something, then there is a lot of other things you would have to deny besides a God. There are somethings that are unobservable by necessity.

There is no objectively documented evidence of any supernatural event, ever. "Objectively documented" means acceptable scientific evidence, obtained with appropriate controls. Of course, every religion claims miracles of one kind or another-- but these claims are never more than fables, and never accepted by anyone other than adherents to that particular religion. No Christian accepts any Muslim, Hindu, or Mormon claims of miracles, and vice versa. There's no evidence with which you can convince a Muslim of the Resurrection, nor could you convince him that Jesus turned water into wine.

I definitely see a contradiction here. Isn't a miracle, by definition, something that goes against scientific evidence within appropriate controls? If something happens constantly, then it is no longer a miracle. A miracle goes against all scientific reasoning by definition. Eye witness is always considered justifiable evidence, and there are plenty of those for miracles in the Bible and modern day. There were over 12,000 people present when Jesus fed the 5,000 (the Bible says 5,000 men so the 12,000 is a reasonable amount if you consider women and children). There are no such things as mass hallucinations, so how would you explain that? And what about modern miracles? How would you explain someone who has massive tumors in their brain one day and a week later they are completely gone? No doctor or scientist could explain it, yet by observable evidence the tumors are completely gone. How would you explain that?

An atheist does not "believe" that there is no God; he merely observes that there is no evidence of God, that the claims made by the various religions do not agree with themselves, let alone with each other. An atheist does not "believe in the absence of God". He simply observes that if you say "there's a ghost in this room" -- and we look around and see no sign of ghosts or anything else, then he says "um, where's the ghost?"

Well do you believe your observations? You're just trying to play a semantics game with the words 'believe' and 'observe'. Also, you're right that the claims of various religions do not agree with each other and that's because each religion believes to exclusively have the truth. They cannot all be right or we would have contradictions. But, that has no bearing on the issue if there is a God. But, what would you consider an observation? If observation is only being able to physically see something, then there is a lot of other things you would have to deny besides a God. There are somethings that are unobservable by necessity.

There is no objectively documented evidence of any supernatural event, ever. "Objectively documented" means acceptable scientific evidence, obtained with appropriate controls. Of course, every religion claims miracles of one kind or another-- but these claims are never more than fables, and never accepted by anyone other than adherents to that particular religion. No Christian accepts any Muslim, Hindu, or Mormon claims of miracles, and vice versa. There's no evidence with which you can convince a Muslim of the Resurrection, nor could you convince him that Jesus turned water into wine.

I definitely see a contradiction here. Isn't a miracle, by definition, something that goes against scientific evidence within appropriate controls? If something happens constantly, then it is no longer a miracle. A miracle goes against all scientific reasoning by definition. Eye witness is always considered justifiable evidence, and there are plenty of those for miracles in the Bible and modern day. There were over 12,000 people present when Jesus fed the 5,000 (the Bible says 5,000 men so the 12,000 is a reasonable amount if you consider women and children). There are no such things as mass hallucinations, so how would you explain that? And what about modern miracles? How would you explain someone who has massive tumors in their brain one day and a week later they are completely gone? No doctor or scientist could explain it, yet by observable evidence the tumors are completely gone. How would you explain that?

trashtalkr wrote:Eye witness is always considered justifiable evidence, and there are plenty of those for miracles in the Bible and modern day. There were over 12,000 people present when Jesus fed the 5,000 (the Bible says 5,000 men so the 12,000 is a reasonable amount if you consider women and children).

No. There are writings of believers who say that. How do we know that what the Bible says is true? Do you believe what the Koran says is true? How about the Bhagavad-Gita? The Book of Mormon? The Teachings of the Buddha? The Tibetan book of the Dead? All these sources also claim miracles and witnesses.

A claim from one document . . . which is about 1800 years old, and supported by no corroborating evidence at all is just a claim. Show up in court with a scrap of paper 1000 years old and try to convince someone that its "evidence". The Bible is "evidence" only to people who are already Christians.

Here's an "eyewitness account" of leprechauns, today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8

So-called "eyewitnesses" exist to verify flying carpets, ouijia boards, flying saucers, vampires, werewolves, the Loch Ness monster, apparitions of the Virgin Mary and various saints, zombies, and a host of other things-- and none of them can be verified. Jesus' "miracles" are no more credible than a National Enquirer story.

None of these stories are anything more than stories. There are thousands of these stories, in every culture, in every religion . . . sharing one thing in common-- no evidence that it happened.

trashtalkr wrote: There are no such things as mass hallucinations, so how would you explain that?

Same way I explain stories of miracles in every religion: there is no objective evidence of this. Its a story, like the story of leprechauns, witches, ghosts, Zeus, Odin, Ra, Neptune, Bigfoot, and goblins. People have sworn to all these stories at different times, at different places. That doesn't make them true-- it just makes them stories.

And there certainly are mass hysterias and delusions-- "witch crazes" are a particularly notorious example; people really believed and swore to the existence of witches and black magic and so on . . . all imaginary.

trashtalkr wrote: And what about modern miracles? How would you explain someone who has massive tumors in their brain one day and a week later they are completely gone? No doctor or scientist could explain it, yet by observable evidence the tumors are completely gone. How would you explain that?

There are no objectively documented "modern miracles". None. There are things which on occasion we can't explain. That doesn't mean "God caused it" -- it just means there's something we don't know. Until the 1920s, we had no scientific explanation for why the sun shines-- now we do. The rapid advance in genetics means we know more, all the time.

Cancers are variable. They are variable in believers, and they are variable in unbelievers; even the most deadly of cancers have some survival rate. How come? Ultimately, we'll discover that its variability in the genetics of the patient, and of the cancer. Here's a thought question for you: If religious belief cures cancer, why are America's highest cancer rates (and lowest life expectancies) in the Bible Belt, where church attendance is highest? And why do the Japanese -- who are at most %5 Christian-- have the longest lives? If gods perform "miracles" to give people longer lives, doesn't this "prove" that God must be Shinto or Buddhist?

deepsepia wrote:No. There are writings of believers who say that. How do we know that what the Bible says is true? Do you believe what the Koran says is true? How about the Bhagavad-Gita? The Book of Mormon? The Teachings of the Buddha? The Tibetan book of the Dead? All these sources also claim miracles and witnesses.

First of all, if you can't read these books yourself, how do you have any business arguing for or against them. The translator is a filter you can't escape. If you told most Essenes and Nazarenes alive that were disciplined to Jeshua what your English New Testament claims, they would slap yo mouth and kick you in the shins. "Jesus" never knew your "Paul", and your "Peter" never knew him. Furthermore most of the "Gospels" were written on retainer, and the rest were part of a recruiting effort. YOUR BOOKS ARE BADLY TRANSLATED AND HAVE LITTLE CULTURAL CONTEXT.

No one back then had some idea of "objective" reality. Certainly not the mystics.

What I find, is that the people who spend the most time arguing about religion have the least grasp of the language their "holy books" are written in.

It is quite simple; stop worrying about what other people could or did do, and start discovering what YOU can do. Cause in the end, that is what matters.

trashtalkr wrote: There are no such things as mass hallucinations, so how would you explain that?

Um, there are mass delusions. furthermore, when most mystics in the Essenes and Nazarenes practice sleep resistance, fasting and other means natural and chemical that result in temporary states of delusion. Even a simple "meme" that passes through a crowd in a passive state will influence a great deal of the people's memories in that crowd... some who don't even hear the meme... we still don't know how the mechanisms of group consciousness work.

raum wrote:

deepsepia wrote:No. There are writings of believers who say that. How do we know that what the Bible says is true? Do you believe what the Koran says is true? How about the Bhagavad-Gita? The Book of Mormon? The Teachings of the Buddha? The Tibetan book of the Dead? All these sources also claim miracles and witnesses.

First of all, if you can't read these books yourself, how do you have any business arguing for or against them.

I think its perfectly fair to observe that all these holy books claim miracles, and that there's no objective evidence for any of them. That's not a translation issue. . . and The Book of Mormon was actually written in English (albeit fake King James-style English), and it was written by people who are historically known . . . and the miracles the Mormons claim are no more convincing for it (less convincing, actually)

You're quite right that other aspects of these texts are historically specific, and we may never understand them well.

deepsepia wrote:I think its perfectly fair to observe that all these holy books claim miracles, and that there's no objective evidence for any of them. That's not a translation issue. . . and The Book of Mormon was actually written in English (albeit fake King James-style English), and it was written by people who are historically known . . . and the miracles the Mormons claim are no more convincing for it (less convincing, actually)

Actually, I don't recall the Baghavad Ghita even taking place in this world. The Koran really is light on the big claims, The Torah is literally at leat three books synthtically driven together, so obvious even the charactieristics of the Hebrew in the Text is dated from different periods, and the New Testament is hearsay, shoddy post-humous research, and heavily redacted as well.

You're quite right that other aspects of these texts are historically specific, and we may never understand them well.

The entire notion of "objective" truth or evidence is contrary to the process of writing used for most wisdom teachings. No culture had the burden of objective belief like the current scientifically driven community. Stories were never meant to be believed. Belief as a backbone is a Christian concept, so you can't actually hold any other religion to it. You can out and out say you have no faith or belief in God in Judiasm, and you are just doing it for your family, and THAT IS FINE. The act is important, not "the faith." And the importance of Faith is from misunderstanding of Pistia. Just look back to Heroditus to even see the first time someone attempted a secular narriative of actual events and places. No one in any culture held this kind of burden until the Christian reliance on dogma was made pinnacle by the increase in readers.

Most Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, couldn't even read. They never embraced or approached written "word of god" like most Christians do today. Hell, most of the original Bibles used to convert Britannia in archives are full of scribbles that bear no resemblence to letters!!! How then can you say these books and their "modern" claims are pinnacle to the establishment of most of these faiths? Religious education and teaching was a privelidge and luxury most simply couldn't afford.

A simple look at any Cosmological argument shows that in order for a godless world to exist either:

Something not only outside of science but outside of logic must have taken place to kick start things; far beyond "miraculous"

or:

We have so little understanding of how science works at this point that to proclaim oneself as atheistic rather than agnostic is simply hasty.

Aemeth wrote:A simple look at any Cosmological argument shows that in order for a godless world to exist either:

Something not only outside of science but outside of logic must have taken place to kick start things; far beyond "miraculous"

Not at all true. As I've said before, the fact that we don't understand something yet is no evidence at all that "God must have done it". We had no idea of what made the sun shine until the 1920s. Now we understand nuclear fusion, and have remarkably detailed and complete models not just of our sun, but of all stars.

Aemeth wrote: We have so little understanding of how science works at this point that to proclaim oneself as atheistic rather than agnostic is simply hasty.

Science has given us excellent explanations for many things which once were great mysteries. Consider the life sciences-- we now understand life, and human thought, down to the molecular level. Molecular biology is a science which didn't even exist until about 1960. Cosmology is not quite so advanced as molecular biology, but one should expect that over the next 100 years, we'll gather far more data and have a much more complete explanation of our universe.