brighid

As atheists do not believe in God(s) we therefore cannot place science above something we do not believe in. A more accurate represenation would be that atheists have confidence in science, but have no faith in supernatural interventions (or something along those lines.)

You and I are hardly different, I simply disbelieve in one more God then you do.

I would say that you place a great deal of faith (or confidence) in science. In fact, you rely upon it every day and like most people, likely take it for granted. You are relying upon science right now.

Do you visit your church when your car breaks down, or do you visit a mechanic? Does prayer fix your broken car, or does a man(or woman) with skilled hands and appropriate scientific knowledge repair your car?

Who heals you when you are sick? Do you go to a doctor, taken scientifically developed medications or do you rely on prayer alone? If you see the doctor and take medications I would say you have less faith in the power of prayer to heal you then you have confidence that your doctor and some medicine will help rid you of your illness.

Hands that help are better then lips that pray.

Furthermore, the results of prayer are no different for you than they are for the Muslim, the Jew, the Buddhist, the Hindu, the Wiccan, or for any worshiper that has lived through out the history of man. Prayer or meditation produces physiological effects, but no supernatural intervention. Prayer and worship are like drugs, scientifically verifiable, real world effects that differ not according to the God, Gods, or lack of Gods one prays to or meditates upon. Therefore, the subjective interpretation that a prayer worked and is evidence of a God(s) is not credible. If it were all Gods and Goddesses would be "true."

As to self-improvement: I think that is rather obvious, as the answer is "self." *I* improve myself through conscious choices and applicable decisions, and this generally requires a great deal of self-reflection and some degree of empathy for others and ones influence on the lives of others.

As an atheist I am confident this is the only life I have to lead. I find no credible evidence of a Heaven, Hell, Paradise, Pergatory, 5th dimension, etc. I am positive of what is NOW, and therefore I do my best to live in the present, while being cogniscent of my past (to avoid mistakes) as well as the future (in order to create the future I desire through present action/inaction.)

I am on a constant journey of self-improvement. I do my best to tread lightly on the environment so that future generations may enjoy the beauty of the Earth and all her creatures. I volunteer my time with a group that helps single mothers, fathers and young families (as I was once a single mother.) I have pledged my sponsorship (although have not been assigned a woman) of a woman in a war-torn country to help her rise above poverty, violence, etc. to make a difference in her life and those around her through an organization called Women for Women (http://www.womenforwomen.org) I donate food and clothing to local shelters, and do my best to support environmentally and socially conscious, local businesses. I am the type of person who returns lost money (I just did yesterday when another parent dropped some cash in the daycare parking lot.) .... I read voraciously ... and so much more.

I don't believe in an end reward and therefore it is my strong feeling that I must make most of what I have and postively impact the world while I am a part of it. Hopefully I will leave a legacy of goodness so others will know the beauty of compassion, kindness, love and support. I think that is one of the greatest gifts mankind can give to humanity. We are the Creators of all that is around us, and we have the power to change the world. The Hindu Gods did not bring Independence to India, but Ghandi and the actions he took had a ripple effect amongst millions of people. Man made the change. The Christian God did not remove slavery from the American landscape, or improve the rights of Black. Men and women did this, through action (even if some found motivation and comfort in their idea of God.) The Greek and Roman Gods did not provide us with philosophy, democracy, or medicine. It was man ... and so on and so forth.

We are not Gods. There are no Gods as thus far defined by men. Perhaps there is something ELSE out there that can be defined as a God/Creator. Perhaps it is a cosmic web of energy we feel that runs through all life in the Universe. Perhaps it is the Deistic version of God, who once created the Universe but has since left and does not intervene. Perhaps the American Indians were correct with the Great Spirit, Father Sky and Mother Earth. We simply do not KNOW, and knowing with the greatest degree of certainy one can achieve (even if 100% certainty may never be achieved) IS the best man can do.

Atheists desire to KNOW. Theists desire to believe, and because we may never know the ultimate answer to, "Does something that can be defined as God exist" we go on what evidence we do have. It is our conclusion that the Gods that man has thus far defined exist only in the minds of their Creators, for the purposes of telling some moral truth, but not as Divine Beings living outside of this world, or in the "supernatural."

Just as you disbelieve in Zeus, Kali Ma, Shakti, or Brighid, I disbelieve in your Christ. If you examine the reasons you disbelieve in those Gods, and apply the exact same standards to your own you will come to understand why we simply add one more God to our pantheon of disbelief.

IMHO, this is the best place for you to start in your journey into discovering why we disbelieve.

Brighid

braces_for_impact

Better advice you will not find.

4God, thus far you seem to be arguing against what you believe atheists are, and what you have been led to believe atheists are. I tell you now, if you never break out of your preconceptions, your 'intellectual debates' will fall flat. Why? Because the bulk of your arguments will be against straw men. Also, I sense some condescension in your tone, I hope I am mistaken about that.

Let me show you what I mean:

So are you testing us now? Did we pass the test? What exactly is a "typical atheist site"?

Ok, it isn't true. Why do I accept the scientific method as valid? Because it has repeatedly demonstrated it's own predictive power and pragmatic value.

Rational BAC

Great post Brighid--

I will just make one little nit-pick here since I was a mechanic for 20 years and you did refer to mechanics.

Now I will grant you that well over 90% of the time fixing things in a mechanical sense was completely logical and rational.---- 2 plus 2 equals 4 type of thing.

But there were those "other times" (and ask any mechanic who has worked a long time in his trade if this is true if you want to) ----------that you think to yourself "that made absolutely no sense at all". There are times when as a very rational mechanically oriented person you think-----"Damned thing must have gremlins in it"

brighid

Oh, I hear ya. I work with and fix computers, and sometimes I can't find any reason for what happened, although I am pretty sure if one had sufficient knowledge a reasonable explanation could be found. However, I have deferred to the "gremlin" explanation myself, meaning I don't have the foggiest idea why that happened, all I know how to do is fix the darn thing.

Brighid

Rational BAC

And for Braces-------

We are all guilty of condescension. Atheists tend to be very thin skinned on that subject. I don't know why because you all are just as guilty of that as we are.

So many times you all do not realize, just as 4God does not realize, that you seem to come across as being condescending sometimes--at least to the recipient. For you, it is not condescension --just stating what you consider an obvious "truth". Same with 4God.

I think we should give this "condescension" crap a rest.

"You talked down to me" "No you talked down to me"---------Waste of bandwidth.

4God

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after reading brighid's comments.....again....please read this commentary. A note to all atheists. You make it rather easy for any theist to continue to, as you put it, believe in their god. Why? Your frame-of-reference is that there is no God. Instead, as I have tried to do, I didn't really care if there was a god or not...i wanted to know what the truth was.

also...

...the responses have not proved that atheist do not place a faith in science. Instead, it seen as fact. Again, I grant that if your world exists sans God it is fact. My claim here is that there is higher. Therefore, by making said claim your "fact" to me is "faith". Just like my "faith" to you is "self-delusion". I hope that point is clear.
=======================

2. What "tests" did I perform to prove God? What prayers have been answered?

Can I just say this? I find it horribly perplexing that many(if not most) find it completely implausible that people like themselves have come to different conclusions than they have. Many of you worte that in order to believe in God, you must cast off all reason and logic. To that I say...that's pretty lame. If, in order to refute an opponent's argument, you simply state that your opponent has not taken the the time to prepare his perspective...then you are not commenting on the merits of his position. Instead, vis a vis your own presupposition(s) you display the debating skills of a toad.

That said, please spare me and this thread remarks that all Christians cast aside reason to believe what they(we) believe. I make no such claims(about atheists) and believe that most of you here are relatively honest and moral(no reason to believe that but i have "faith" *wink wink*) and have drawn your conclusions much the same way i have: by testing the data. So let's take these issues up a notch and critically review what I'm saying. Most of you have done that, but some of you have not.

Onto the tests. Here's my logic. If God exists then there must be natural laws(which He created and are easily observable) and supernatural laws(which He also created, but rarely play a part in the natural world). If God does not exist then, at no point in time will there be a "law" in which science cannot explain. An atheist, whom i cannot name because i do not have the quote in front of me made the same claim stating step by step science is advancing upon the discovery of all of life's question. Once science has indeed made all of these so-called discoveries(sp?) then religion will be completely debunked as maknind's longest running farce.

So I took a look at many of the assertions and claims held within the Bible and began to "test" them out. I started from the belief that God was correct and that it would have to be proven otherwise. In that sense, I see areas of bias on my own part and had I began the study without knowledge of either creationism or evolution it certainly would be more valid. Nevertheless, I couldn't turn back time and erase what I had learned of both and so set forth on my journey.

The first item I took up was the validity of the Bible's Jesus. Was this a person that actually existed, were the people portrayed during that time actually there. If numerous documents supported that there wasn't a Herod, Pilate, or even caesar...then quite easily this religion is false. Seems simple enough, eh? Well, I discovered as I'm sure many of you have that there was a literal Jesus and that the people mentioned during the time period were actually those same people.
Tacitus wrote:
"To dispel the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and treated with the most extreme punishments, some people, popularly known as Christians, whose disgraceful activities were notorious. The originator of that name, Christus, had been executed when Tiberius was Emperor, by order of the procurator Pontius Pilatus. But the deadly cult, though checked for a time, was now breaking out again not only in Judea, the birthplace of this evil, but even throughout Rome, where all the nasty and disgusting ideas from all over the world pour in and find a ready following."
Annals 15 : 44.

Annals was written circa 115 AD...which would place him nearly 100 years after the death of Christ and from his words he definitely had no-love for christian folks. Undoubtedly, this is a text that any Christian scholar(or atheist for that matter) would look at in Proving God 101.

A point worth noting-at this point during my research I was not as interested in the Old Testament as my thirst was for knowing who this Jesus person was. Others such as Pliny the Younger, Josephus(a Jewish bias could be claimed), Thallus, and others point to the fact that, yes Jesus was alive and crucified by one Pontius Pilate or substantiate other portions of the historical accuracy of the New Testament.

However, so what that Jesus existed? Billions of people have lived and died, that doesn't prove there is a God. No it doesn't, but I had to test that first to even consider going further. Next, I looked at what Jesus claimed He could do. He said that He had all authority(which I took to mean natural laws were subject to his supernatural authority). If this is true then I needed to see if I could concretely substantiate any of the miracles He performed. If I could substantiate those, then that would pass test #2, though not completely make the case for Him(but I'll get back to that later).
Unfortunately for many-the Bible is lumped as one book written by one person. This most definitely is not the case and should be seen as an anthology of the human condition on earth. So in my case, I took the varying accounts of Jesus(the Gospels) as distinct sources. Searching through these it became clear...there was a man named Jesus, He did perform miracles, and He did rise after three days within a tomb.
And then I was intrigued by something that all accounts seemed to say. His body was discovered by women. That may not seem that odd to you, but at this point in history women were not permitted to testify in court-meaning that their testimony was worth little to nothing. The writers of these gospels lived during those same time yet each one noted that women discovered the empty tomb. It's seems highly unlikely that if this was a "legend" that it would not have been dressed up a bit to suit the cultural prejudices of the day.
To summarize, I took the accounts of Jesus as separate entities of their own and looked at the cultural context for each account bouncing against what many historians have determined were the customs of the day. I have illustrated only one example here, but more may come if so requested. I'm not a one trick pony. Yee-hah!
So then, if the accounts are proving themselves accurate then Jesus must have been resurrected. You say, "4God, that's a big leap man!"
I say, no...it's the next logical leap. If Jesus existed and the accounts are true to the customs of the day, build on one another, and other text substantiate what they claim...then a reasonable human being can draw the conclusion that Jesus is Lord.

However, I didn't stop there. Let's just say that inspite of the evidence i just layed out that there was a bias among the writers of these accounts. They were writing to an audience and let's suppose that one man(i'll call him Bob) was telling each the same story. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each put their own little spin to the story, but basically it was truly "told" by one person. In such a case, despite the fact that they are all differing accounts, they are reduce to being one account, and one account does not amount to much of anything. That's when I looked to the Romans(or those under Roman authority at the time)...sidebar: if anyone has never studied Roman history-it's one of the most fascinating things i've ever encountered.
Roman commentators of the time, as far as we know(read:all things being equal), did not have a particular bent towards Christianity. Therefore we can also look to them to be helpful in proving or disproving Jesus. As stated they indicated he existed and collaborated many of the events of His life...so the final test for me(at the time final, but as with anything more questions always arise)...was if Jesus existed and He many accounts supported His time in history and what He did...then I need something substantial to believe that the resurrection actually occured.

To place one's faith into this God is a hard thing for a logical-minded person like myself and in spite of what I had seen I needed something more.

The Treatise On Resurrection, by uncertain author of the late second century, to Rheginos:
"Do not think the resurrection is an illusion. It is no illusion, but it is truth. Indeed, it is more fitting to say that the world is an illusion, rather than the resurrection which has come into being through our Lord the Savior, Jesus Christ."

I'm using this quote for two reasons. First, among this and other sources(if you want me to list them exhaustively, I will) speaks about the resurrected Christ. Surely only Christian authors would have a need to write such things in order to convince their following that such a thing did happen. For me(up to that time) that was enough to prove that Christ had lived and had risen again. Second, the author here speaks of what I am trying to say-the world in which God resides is more real than this world. Hmm...by real, i mean the laws of the supernatural world supercede those of the natural world.

In closing with respect to tests, if you go to any religious studies department you'll find volumes trying to sway the reader one way or another towards his Christian or atheist bent. What that illustrates to me is that there has not been proof provided either way to conclusively prove one way or the other, in human terms of proving. If this were so, there would either be no atheist websites, or Christianity(Judaism for that matter) would have died with the Greek Gods. One could contest that to the victor go the spoils and that the Judeo-Christian peoples have conquered the world(gross exaggeration, I know) so naturally their God would be the one still holding to life, as it were. I don't think so! I think God is God. And I believe that I have drawn a reasonable conclusion based upon the evidence that is there. Do I assume to know everything? No. Again, have I asked every question you may have had? No, again. But, for once, I would like an atheist to state - "Hmm. I really disagree with this guy, but I disagree with how he's evaluating the evidence and not that he's just a self-deceiver."

As far as prayers being answered....i'll come back to that-which to me, were further-somewhat non-scientific tests that needed to be done.

Steven Carr

You have no faith in science? If you were ill, you would not take medicine?

I think we have a troll here, pretending to be a Christian. All real Christians would write 6 days here, not seven......

All you have to do is produce evidence for his performing such a feat. Please do......

One you produce real , genuine evidence, you will find all the opposition to you will melt away.

4God

Condescension? Hmm....i was trying to convey sarcasm. I apologize if I offended anyone in this forum, it was and is not my intent. I'm hoping we can have a dialogue in which we all gain a nugget-more information than we previously had.

Steven:
Why do you suppose having faith in God, means that I cannot use science?

Before my comp crashed last night I put it like this. If I build a car from the ground up and then give it to you. It works fine. But let's say it's working for years and years and you forget about me. Your faith is then in what I built even though, it was something created.

I chose to put my faith in the creator, and not the thing created(read:gravity, medicine). Does that mean I do not use these created things? Obviously not. I simply recognize that these are not the highest level of authority.

As for seven days...I meant seven. Six days everything was made..the seventh was for resting. IMHO, the last day was the completion, the reflection, of the project and so included. I'm going to let the troll reference go...

Steven Carr

Really? Why MUST there be natural laws if there is a God? Is God forced to create them? Why MUST God do something - namely create natural laws , in your example?

Gosh, what a low hurdle 4 God erects for his religion to jump over.

Was there a Muhammad? Was there a Mecca? Was there a Medinah? Does that make Islam any more true?

4God throws himself a slow ball, knocks it 100 yards, and thinks he has proved he can hit any pitcher in the world for a home run.

Already we see the fact that 4God has NOT researched this himself, and is merely parroting Christian nonsense. Thallus never mentions any Jesus, any Pilate, any crucifixion, yet 4God claims he has researched it all himself.

But , sadly for 4God, most people on this forum are far better educated about the Bible that his strawmen, and indeed he himself.

See http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/mirc1.htm for a demolition of Jesus's 'miracles'.


Once again, 4God proves the Bible is false. He demolishes it himself!

John 4:39 'Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony....'

So the Gospel writers were working in the belief that women's testimony was quite credible. yet 4God assures us that this was not the case.

Therefore the Bible is wrong.

Of course, as Mark has the disciples run away in his story, he has to have the tomb discovered by somebody.

And it is just not true that he relies on women's testimony to tell the tale. In Mark the women tell nobody. The reader in Mark is not told by the women (no women wrote anything). The reader in Mark is told by the omniscient narrator, not by any women.

It is Mark's Gospel which is the testimony of the tomb for the reader, not any women featured in the story. 4God is producing strawmen.

Wow. an unknown author, 150 years later is produced as evidence. True desperation! As though Mormon converts in China today were produced as evidence for the Golden Plates

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/res.html is this Treatise on the Resurrection from the Nag Hammadi library.

Is this 4God's evidence? Late Gnostic Christian texts? Confabulations from 150 years after the facts?

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlalpha.html has many more from the same collection as 4God's chosen 'proof'. Perhaps we can start with The Apocalypse of Peter. Is that historical?

Rational BAC

Steven--------

I thought we were not supposed to go into the "troll" thing-------

And I am a Christian and I always thought it was 7 days too. (What the hell-----give or take a day. I am not a literalist anyway)

But I guess I must be a troll.