Brain-dead corpses do not come back to life and fly off into outer space. Once a brain cell is dead it stays dead. This is a scientific fact. The regeneration of dead human tissue is Christianity's core belief, therefore Christianity is false.
It's as simple as that.
There may be an intelligent Creator, but if he exists, he (she, they, or it) has decided that the universe will operate under certain inviolable "laws". One of those laws is that when human tissue dies it stays dead. Your Reanimation of a Dead First Century Jewish Preacher story is therefore false until overwhelming evidence indicates otherwise. Alleged eyewitness testimony of this science-defying claim is insufficient.
In this book Loftus provides some insightful criticisms of arguments by Christian thinkers, including those having to do with the problem of evil.Dr. Meister is a Professor of Philosophy at Bethel College and author of numerous apologetical works, including, Evil: A Guide for the Perplexed, where this recommendation can be found.
Theological. God decrees everything that happens, he can know the future of every human action, since humans don't have the freedom to do otherwise. "Such a theology creates atheists. It, more than anything else, is what motivates me to attempt to demolish the Christian faith." - Loftus
God is outside time. If God is outside of time he would have no problems predicting future human actions since human actions are not actually in the future. God would merely be seeing the present from his perspective. “We have on hand no acceptable concept of atemporal causation, i.e., of what it is for a timeless cause to produce a temporal effect.” - Davis. “If God is truly timeless,” Hasker says, “so that temporal determinations of ‘before’ and ‘after’ do not apply to him, then how can God act in time, as Scriptures say that he does? - Hasker
The Inferential View. On this view, God figures out from the range of options which choices we will make. "If the history of an empire or nation is already part of the divine plan, how can God hold the leaders, and indeed the peoples themselves, accountable for their actions?" then their thoughts and actions are so preordained as to render them devoid of free will. - Callahan. "How, for instance, can anyone living in the year 2000, God or otherwise, innately know what someone will do on January 1, 2050? So the bottom line for me is that if there is no known mechanism or reason given for how a God in time can foreknow future truly free human actions, then I have reasons to reject that God can foreknow such actions." - Loftus
The Innate View. On this view, God has innate comprehensive knowledge of the future. He just “sees it” because he is omniscient. But this isn't an explanation at all.
I think this is the number one reason why believers don't abandon their faith in light of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are made comfortable with their myths in a society of believers who reinforce each other, especially when there's a hell to pay if they get it wrong. So because of our evolved brains atheists face a monumental uphill two-steps-forward-one-step-backward struggle. Belief is easy. Doubt is hard. Belief is still socially acceptable. Doubt could separate us from our loved ones.Tom Gilson "overwhelming evidence to the contrary"? Sorry. No.
I have a friend named Mark who attended a lecture I did about six months ago for the FreeThought Fort Wayne group we're a part of where I handed him a copy of my book, "The Outsider Test for Faith." Sheila saw him yesterday. They talked. She asked him if he has read it. He said he's picked it up a few times but got a "weird" feeling about it, so he put it down. That was his brain dong the talking. The reason he won't even read the book is because he doesn't want to doubt. That's because doubt is hard. If he ever decides to read it he'll probably do as another good friend of mine did, named Brenda. I handed her a copy of my magnum opus and she said this prayer every time she opened it: "Dear Lord, don't let me be deceived by what I read today." This was her brain doing the talking. It was keeping her closed-minded while she read it.
So I put it to you. Given this fact about our brains how can we come to know the truth about which religion is true, if there is one? Remember, our brains have a vested interest in keeping us away from the truth, if the truth is something we were not raised to believe. Taken together with another fact, the fact of religious diversity, we know most people, billions of them, have been raised to believe something false. I've proposed we should treat what we were raised to believe with doubt as agnostic outsiders, who require sufficient objective evidence before we accept any religion, or none at all. What's wrong with my proposal? What is the alternative? I'm serious. Be honest
Since the freedom to practice your religion, at least to the extent that it does not impinge upon the freedom of others, is not now, nor has it ever been under threat, I think what you meant was, "Religious privilege will be protected for decades to come." Religious privilege to expressly impinge upon the freedom of others. Religious privilege to be intolerant and bigoted.
That may be. We shall see. However...
I can't help but feel that you are mixing up context and accommodationism.
Lawremce Krauss, Stephen Hawking, or Richard Dawkins, are experts in fields that are pretty well totally inaccessible to ordinary people. That they can actually find a level of understanding in quantum physics, or gravitational waves, or speciation, is an amazing testament to the levels to which humanity has risen. All of these scientists, however, make attempts to communicate their knowledge to ordinary folks, such as me, and although I don't pretend to understand anything like all of it I get the general idea, and can talk quantum fluctuations in any pub discussion.
The point is that scientists such as these communicate by identifying their audience, by writing in context. Were they to write their popular science books at a technical level nobody would buy them, and there'd be no point to them; and vice versa. No accommodationism, only context.
It's the same with philosophy, though it is a generally more accessible subject than traditional science. Great philosophers of the past resonate in the present, even those who perhaps have fallen from favour; Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell, Immanuel Kant, all names that are relevant today. How about Plato and Socrates? All have things to say that are relevant today, even though much of what they believed has been found to be wrong (and I'd guess that all were sufficiently wise to know this was likely). All must be taken in context, and where they are wrong we call it out as wrong.
Yet somehow you expect the bible to be regarded differently. If the bible says something that is plainly wrong then that's just because if God had presented the truth nobody would have understood it? Yet God knew that one day people would know he was lying? Basically this makes God a very bad communicator. After all, he didn't need to go into the details of quantum physics, he could just have said that what we see is made up of lots of tiny things we can't even see, or at least give us some helpful hints; and no, the Ten Commandments don't come close! How about 'always wash your hands after using the toilet' or 'store food in a cool place'?
Accomodationism is simply a way of sneaking in special pleading by the back door.
People do evil things in the name of God. Does God have a moral obligation to stop people from doing evil things in the name of God? None of the regular apologists here have tackled this question. -- Mattapult
I've been thinking a lot about god-of-the-gaps and method.
Science has a lot of tools as part if its method: modeling, hypothesis, falsifiability, null hypothesis, testing, peer review, and so on. We've learned over the centuries, that these are the best methods to prevent ourselves from fooling ourselves. The standard of proof in science is fairly high, and even then, we often call the findings "provisionally true".
A god-of-the-gaps argument starts with the assumption that the best methods have failed; that no matter how hard we've tried to reach the standard of proof required, it is impossible to reach the standard of proof.
So let's punt to Authority and Revelation.
The CEO of Google is probably a pretty good authority on the next product Google will produce. But if he claims to knows what dark matter is, then we should demand evidence as expected of any scientist.
By the same standard, if you have a hypothesis of "God", then by all means, follow the same standards of science to test and validate your claims. You don't get a free pass based on authority to get around the level of proof. Model your god, hypothesize, test, and peer review. Oh, and please have at least one Hindu, Muslim, Jew, and Christian on the peer review panel.
What of the "method" of revelation? Revelation is nothing more than intuition, guesses, dreams, or the output of any other creative process. The number of revelations throughout time are uncountable, people had revelations ranging from where th eir lost car keys are to when it's right to start a war. How many of those are truly a divine inspiration? Answer: model, hypothesis, test, and peer review. It's important to set your pass/fail criteria in advance--another lesson from science.
For the sake of example, let's say there is a divinely inspired revelation out there somewhere. How do you know which one it is? There is no method to find it or identify it. Perhaps ask an authority, but that just substitutes one failed method for another.
God-of-the-gaps will never be a valid argument because there is no method to fall back on when the best methods have failed.
No matter what denomination or creed, there is indeed massive ignorance about Christian origins and the Bible. You can ask 100 believers, “What is your opinion about the turmoil in Jesus studies during the last half-century?” and 99 will give you a blank stare: “What turmoil?” They have no idea. They are unaware—and just as happy to be in the dark. I can easily pick out at least 10 quotes attributed to Jesus (and 10 for Paul as well) that Christians would find incredibly stupid or horrifying: it is their ignorance of their own faith that is truly a scandal. John W. Loftus is not exaggerating when he speaks of the "epidemic of ignorant believers."
Silverman's manifesto is a needed approach given a world with an epidemic of ignorant believers--and they're all ignorant--who are infected with the God virus so much they feel certain their God wants them to be cruel, misogynistic, gay bashing, racist, warmongering theocratic bigots. This is not a God we can placate or accommodate. It's all out war--a war of ideas, arguments, litigation and persuasion--for truth, humanity and the planet. If you love all that's good you too must fight this fight. God must die if we are to live.John W. Loftus, Editor of Christianity is Not Great: How Faith Fails.
There are gap arguments because there is science. If there is no science, there are no gaps in our scientific understanding.
If God made the world, he made it completely consistent with naturalism. That's why science works, and that's why we are naturalists. And it's why all the evidence we ever see is consistent with naturalism - and we don't expect to ever see anything that is not consistent with naturalism. There has never been a single exception to this. EVER. (your mythical stories notwithstanding).
God could have made a world where naturalistic science does not work. Maybe we could actually witness things like rotting corpses rising from the dead, and we'd have no science to tell us that couldn't happen, because it does happen. It would then be reasonable to seek some other explanation for what we observe, which might be some supernatural entity (especially if we observe that such entities exist). That's not what I call God of the gaps. It's simply a matter of inferring the best explanation for observed evidence.
Look, when I raise this kind of question, I mean show us by providing evidence. Yes, God could sovereignly perform the act of causing Loftus to believe by going "Loftus, believe," and the next Sunday, Loftus will show up in church on his knees praying to God. But providing evidence is by definition not coercive. Of course God could shove belief in his existence down your throat if he wanted to. But could he give us a good reason to believe in his existence, such that no matter how disinclined we were to want to believe in a being greater than ourselves (so that we would have to admit we were not the supreme beings) whose commandments to us are our moral duties (however much we would like to avoid performing them). Wouldn't there be an escape clause available, no matter what we did?Reppert says he has reservations about coercive belief, that his god only wants non-coercive belief. For one thing I don't see anyone refusing to believe in Reppert's god because he's bigger than they are. What utter indoctrinated ignorance that is!! Would Reppert say he rejects the existence of Allah due to the fact Allah is bigger than he is? I do however, see a good reason to disbelieve in any god that has commanded and taught the kinds of morality ISIS does, which can also be found in this religion. Any god that allows or commands or regulates slavery, or allows or commands or regulates how that women are to be treated as chattel, is not one I could stomach, much less believe.
Here is my real point, which I think has gotten lost here.
There are two atheist talking points that don't mix. Here they are:
1) Look, guys, if God would just give us evidence of his existence, we'd believe in him. The only reason we don't believe is because he hasn't provided evidence of his existence.
2) God of the gaps arguments are always wrong. Any gap in our naturalistic understanding of the world should be dealt with by waiting for science to produce a naturalistic explanation, not by appealing to God.
But anything God might do to reveal his existence could be dismissed as a gap, thus leaving the atheist unaffected. The ban on god of the gaps arguments would allow the atheist to escape no matter what God did to convince us of his existence.
I am a Christian and I hope you'll discuss this topic with me. I want to discuss what is the origin of matter? Wouldn't it have to be either natural, nothingness/null/void, supernatural, or paranormal? One might argue "we don't know" which I can appreciate, but it would have to fall in one of those four categories, right? I enjoy researching this stuff and I thank you in advance for your response.
There is no such thing as "theism," in the same way as there's no parents with 2.4 children and you can't walk into a general store and purchase a nonspecific item. If you're trying to make a case for Jesus, you should do exactly that and nothing less than that, and not dither about. You're just wasting everyone's time pretending to argue for deism and agnosticism as though that would ever advance the case for Jesus. It can't.
OK you tell God (just in case he exists) what it would take for him to give you sufficient evidence of his existence, so that you would be on your knees at your local church this Sunday. The stipulation here is that he has to use evidence to get you there, so he can't just fix your brain and make you a believer. We know an omnipotent being can do that. But what you would be asking him to do would be to give you sufficient evidence of his existence.
It used to be C.S. Lewis. Then Josh McDowell. Then Lee Strobel. Now it’s Timothy Keller, whose The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (published in 2008) is the number one most read defense of Christianity. So here’s why it’s bunk. LINK.
That Jesus Studies is rife with flawed scholarship, special pleading, fideism, rank speculation, manufactured relevance, careerism, homo‑phobia and the misogyny that homophobia implies, sectarian allegiances, personal agendas, fraud and simple incompetence should come as no surprise to anyone conversant with the field. Indeed,whether Jesus Studies is even an academic discipline as usually understood is debatable, and that Jesus Studies has precious little to do with history is certain. Mainstream scholars have understood for quite some time that the gospels are not history by any modern definition. It is widely con‑ceded that the gospel authors were writing decades after the events they purport to relate, that the writers were pseudonymous, that they were not eyewitnesses, that both the provenance and intended audience of each gospel is a matter of conjecture, and that the primary sources on which the gospels are ultimately based are unknown and unknowable. It is universally conceded that no original exists for any gospel and that the gospels that have survived are copies of copies that preserve variant wording. LINK.
An essay that examines "soft" versus "hard" mythicism, the theory that Jesus was not a historical character and that the gospels are complete fabrications.LINK
Hume’s argument continues to perplex both philosophers and scientists. There’s still no consensus about whether Hume is right. Some believe that we have no choice but to embrace Hume’s sceptical conclusion about the unobserved. Others believe that the conclusion is clearly absurd. But then the onus is on these defenders of “common sense” to show precisely what is wrong with Hume’s argument. No one has yet succeeded in doing this (or at least no one has succeeded in convincing a majority of philosophers that they have done so). LINK (see his conclusion).
Law concludes that no one has succeeded so far, which includes Vincent Torley's god hypothesis. Law refuses to pretend to know things he doesn't know, which I find admirable. However, we shouldn't forget that Hume lived in an era where philosophers were looking for certainty, following in the footsteps of Descartes. Hume brought the quest for certainty to an end though, showing that if we seek after certainty we cannot observe cause and effect, or that we have a self either (as opposed to a bundle of sensations). This is the difference that makes all the difference. The quest for a certain foundation for knowledge is, or should be, dead. But because of the lack of certainty Torley erroneously inserts his unevidenced mysterious miracle god-hypothesis into the equation.After 40 years as an insider, what I saw was:In a 2009 study done by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago we now know it's all in the mind of the believer. "God" (the English name of the Christian god) doesn't talk to people. Believers simply create their own religion, their own Gospel, and their own God in their own image. This has been shown TO BE A FACT. The study, as reported by Discovery magazine, needs to be shared more widely than it has BEEN so far. It proves that it's all in the mind of the believer. God doesn't talk to people. Why? Because its been shown he agrees with every single believer on a host of different unrelated issues. Given that God cannot agree with everyone then God doesn't talk to anyone. To continue maintaining God talks to any given believer, or any select group of believers, is utter madness, a delusion, given the number of people God agrees with in the world.
1) a legion of believers fervently praying to "know the will of God" only to end up making their own decision that they "sensed" God was "leading them" to make. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.
2) Ditto to everything above but from another angle. Since God was not saying anything to them, they sought the counsel of the "aged saints" to instruct them on what to do. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.
3) A common complaint that I heard over four decades was "God seems so far away." To which the "great saints" would retort "This is a normal occurrence in the life of a believer. This is why its faith." The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.
4) No two believers agreed on all matters ethically and doctrinally. There are roughly 1000 commands in the Bible. No two believers observe and ignore the same ones. The reality: It's all in their mind. God doesn't talk to people.
5) believers would hold dearly to the invented tenant that the Bible is "how God talks to us now." Why? Because of reality. It's all in their minds. God doesn't talk to people.
Without exaggeration, I have spent hundreds of hours in prayer during my lifetime. It truly was one directional. Any feedback internally was nothing more than imagined and conditioned amygdalan responses.
I'll never forget the awakening moment I had walking as a pastor in a forest preserve in the burbs of Chicago. It was at that time that I realized there was no one of the other side of my prayers. It was all in my mind. God doesn't talk to people.
