Draygomb

Not Hamlet

I do the same sort of thing. I say Assuming God Exists, tell me everything you know to be true about god and how you know it. It inevitably leads to the conclusion that all they can know about god is the assumption that he exists.

Not Prince Hamlet

Draygomb,

That's an interesting approach. I like it. It's sort of like starting at the top of the skyscraper and working your way down the stories until you get to the foundation ... only you find that there isn't a foundation and that the entire skyscraper is floating on air, but crashes immediately to the ground the moment you notice it, Wile-E-Coyote style!

Jeff

Draygomb

Not Hamlet

I came up with that approach after reading about a study that listed the main reason that Theology Majors drop out or change majors twice as fast as any other major is conversion to atheism. ie the best way to convert someone is to get them to examine their religion.

Blu

I am very surprised that anyone can discuss something so non-sensical.... I was really trying to warm up to respond but I honestly don't know what to respond to...

You guys are funny.

liquid

Draygomb, could you pleeeeaaaasssseeee try to dig up that study, or a reference? That would be very useful..

GunnerJ

Interesting, this reminds me of <a href="http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.mv" target="_blank">Kissing Hank's Ass</a>.

You've raised an important point about supernaturalism, though. I remember seeing an argument like this on another thread, about miracles. Someone said that miracles have no credibility when put in a "religious context," and backed it up thusly: Xians say that jesus' ressurection is a miracle, and the foundation of their whole faith and dogma; they put it in the religious context of Judaic messianism and monotheism as well as the bedrock for their soterology. The (well, a) problem is this: the ressurection could just have easily been Loki pretending to die and rise again so that no Xians would stand against him at Ragnarok. Religious context: Asatru. Loki is a trickster, and this is the type of thing he'd do. In addition, Asatru's eschatology tell us that the gods are always trying to avoid defeat at the battle at the end of the world, or Ragnarok.

Thus, this counter, and your scenario, outlines a problem with supernaturalism and its relationship with religion: how can you be sure your religion's miracles are really yours? If there are all these supernatural agents all about, then your miracles could just have easily been a ploy by the gods of other religions.

TheBewilderedHerd

dray, excellent point. i am a senior in high school taking a religion and philosophy class, yet i think the other students are beggining to question, doubt, and use logic and apply it to their religion more because they are learning about it's ignorance, xenophobia, denial, idiocracies, and fairy tale composition. in class, we study many religions, starting from the big three monotheistic ones, moving on to seemingly crazier ones, exploring the world of religion, then seeing that they all hold the same structure. this is a shock to most thiests at first, those that still hold their religion to be the special one, yet after contemplation and time, they realize what junk religion really is --- they take the red pill and awaken from the unreality in which they had been living their entire lives.
thanks for pointing that out dray. it makes sense that they will be repelled from religion more from just learning about it and comparing it to other religions, than from hearing the criticism of atheists.

Draygomb

I read about it about 4 yrs ago.

Not Prince Hamlet

Rimstalker,

Precisely! Any suggestive evidence for one religion is in fact suggestive evidence for an infinite number of religions. It doesn't disprove a diety per se, but it does show that even if there were a diety, nothing a theist can say can prove that the diety is the one he says it is, and not some other diety.

In that capacity, George becomes a quasi reductio ad absurdem: I assume the negation of what I'm trying to show (in other words, assume that the theists' arguments are true) and use that to derive an absurd conclusion. "If A then B" is logically equivalent to B v ~A. Either George exists, or one or more of the theists' assertions are false.

Jeff

Draygomb

A Miracle is only proof that Miracles exist, they do nothing to prove the existence of any god(s).