Hero

I often heard ppl saying that God doesn¡¦t exist just because that they do not see the hand of the God lying far above the sky or there is no any scientific evidence for proving such a claim. Though I am an atheist, I would consider the scientific approach to rule out Christianity is not possible. Consider that so called scientific approach is based on observation, hypothesis, experiment, conclusion, actually every step of scientific approach requires us to believe in them. For example, for past few centuries, people believe that mass of an object and time frame is always constant and would not change anyway, so then Newton developed Newtons¡¦ mechanics which virtually explain all the motion and dynamics within the universe. But this was eventually being proved wrong by Albert Einstein who claim that mass of an object and also the relative time would change once it is moving, though to a very small extent and this phenomenon would be only prominent once the object reaches the speed of light. In this way, we would know that our experience is not entirely reliable and sometimes may mislead us into the wrong conclusion. For observation part, we depends on our experience to set some premises to construct our scientific theory, this part involves u to believe in ur experience and u can never prove ur premises, eg in the above case, we observe the mass would always maintain constant within in enclosed system. So we propose that the conservation of mass premise, which is actually wrong as our experience is not accurate enough. So to prove an scientific theory, we require both deduction and belief. Anything that proved by science is not necessarily true.
What I want to say is that even if something like God is proved to exist, it doesn¡¦t mean that it is necessarily to exist in reality. Also, as our experience and science are so limited, no evidence of God existence doesn¡¦t mean necessarily that God doesn¡¦t exist. [just a joke, u would claim that alien doesn¡¦t exist just because u have not seen an alien for ur entire life. Is it a good reason? U just have limited experience on the Earth only, u have not explored the entire universe and find out that alien doesn¡¦t exist]
So if we try to use science to prove the non-existence of God, we can never get our desired result. Christian would claim that they believe in the premise that God exists just like how u believe in the premises in the scientific theory. They would call it faith in God¡K¡K.
For me, I think the best weapon to rule out Christianity is based on their bible. To point our that their bible is full of contradictory statement. So the incoherent nature of the bible indicates that the existence of God described in bible is not possible. If their God is so perfect, how come the bible is full of faults? Here are some lists of contradictory belief in bible:

ON THE SABBATH DAY
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." -- Exodus 20:8

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." -- Romans 14:5


ON THE PERMANENCY OF THE EARTH
"... the earth abideth for ever." -- Ecclesiastes 1:4

"... the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." -- 2Peter 3:10


ON SEEING GOD
"... I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." -- Genesis 32:30

"No man hath seen God at any time..."-- John 1:18


ON HUMAN SACRIFICE
"... Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God..." -- Leviticus 18:21

[In Judges, though, the tale of Jephthah, who led the Israelites against the Ammonoites, is being told. Being fearful of defeat, this good religious man sought to guarantee victory by getting god firmly on his side. So he prayed to god] "... If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering" (Judges 11:30-31).

[The terms were acceptable to god -- remember, he is supposed to be omniscient and know the future -- so he gave victory to Jephthah, and the first whatsoever that greeted him upon his glorious return was his daughter, as god surely knew would happen, if god is god. True to his vow, the general made a human sacrifice of his only child to god!] -- Judges 11:29-34


ON THE POWER OF GOD
"... with God all things are possible." -- Matthew 19:26

"...The LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." -- Judges 1:19


ON DEALING WITH PERSONAL INJURY
"...thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. " -- Exodus 21:23-25

"...ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." -- Matthew 5:39


ON CIRCUMCISION
"This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised." -- Genesis 17:10

"...if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." -- Galatians 5:2


ON INCEST
"Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of this mother..." -- Deuteronomy 27:22

"And if a man shall take his sister, his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter...it is a wicked thing...." -- Leviticus 20:17

[But what was god's reaction to Abraham, who married his sister -- his father's daughter?] See Genesis 20:11-12

"And God said unto Abraham, As for Sara thy wife...I bless her, and give thee a son also of her..." -- Genesis 17:15-16


ON TRUSTING GOD
"A good man obtaineth favour of the LORD..." -- Proverbs 12:2

Now consider the case of Job. After commissioning Satan to ruin Job financially and to slaughter his shepherds and children to win a petty bet with Satan. God asked Satan: "Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause." -- Job 2:3


ON THE HOLY LIFE-STYLE
"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart..." -- Ecclesiastes 9:7

"...they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not..." -- 1 Corinthians 7:30


ON PUNISHING CRIME
"The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father..." -- Ezekiel 18:20

"I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation..." -- Exodus 20:5


ON TEMPTATION
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." -- James 1:13

"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham..." -- Genesis 22:1


ON FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
"Honor thy father and thy mother..."-- Exodus 20:12

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. " -- Luke 14:26


ON RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
"...he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. " -- Job 7:9

"...the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth...." -- John 5:28-29

Hope everyone would consider twice before they trust on Christianity, it is full of nonsense and fault.

Philosoft

It looks like you're philosophically biting off more than you can chew. Evidence that the the Bible is internally contradictory is only evidence that the Bible is internally contradictory. Any arguments about the factual existence of a creator-being are necessarily separate from human-centric, alleged accounts of God's actions.

And welcome to IIDB, Hero. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Secular Lounge if you wish.

Keith Russell

Good evening.

Science doesn't 'prove'. It offers hypotheses, and then continually checks (and re-checks) those hypotheses, 'believing' them only as long as they withstand the checks, and adjusting them, when a check reveals that they are not as accurate as they could be.

Science is a method, not a conclusion. The method can be seen as sound (objective), precisely because it does not dogmatically hold to its hypotheses, but continually tests them, discarding them when such is warranted by new evidence.

K

DarkBronzePlant

I wouldn't be too quick to turn down this approach. While I agree that some of the specifics mentioned by Hero might be a bit superficial to denounce the entire bible, we should consider the universe of evidence as to the existence of god. That universe consists of:

1. The Bible

That's about it. The only real evidence for god's existence is that the bible says so. Logically, then, we should point out all of the other things that the bible says and that we now know are untrue. Of course, I'd stop with the language discrepencies, and focus on such things like:

- the earth is not affixed to pillars
- there is no "highest point" (i.e. tree, mountain) on earth atop which one can see all of creation.
- stars cannot plunk to the ground like figs

etc. The more unreliable the bible is demonstrated to be, the more unreliable Christianity's only piece of evidence becomes.

Felstorm

You can't use scientific methodology to prove a universal negative.

In fact is is very difficult to prove a universal negative at all.

The best arguments against Christanity are ones based upon Christianities inconsistencies. It has lots of holes all you have to do is find one, drive a "wedge" into it and pry it apart.

A good argument is this. As it happens right at the beginning of the bible and undermines the whole basis for Judaism, Islam, and Christianity's monotheistic religion.

If god has at least the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience. Which is often claimed. (Establish this ahead of time in your argument that way you are not comitting any fallacies.) Also establish that before the Universe was created there was nothing in most absolutist sense, with the exception of God. And then God used powers X and Y, to create the universe. Then logically God would have assume responsibilty for creating this universe, and ultimately anything that it had done in the universe. Now God would also have created the Freewill concept, as it would have been the first independant decision made in regards to this Universe right along with the Universe, so God also assumes ultimate responsibility for what Freewill is used for, because after all, he caused it to come into being right along with the conception of the Universe.

God then creates the Earth, ala creationism, and then places man on the planet and gives Him freewill. Often it is noted that God takes a breather and proclaims all to be good. He's proud of his effortless achievements. (Of note, God is all-powerful but has to "rest" on the seventh day. Irony/contradiction) Now Man uses Freewill to make a choice that angers God. God then punishes Mankind for his choice. Who is ultimately responsible for God's ire? Man or the Creator?

Philosoft

You're right, of course. I was actually trying to respond to the apparent conflation of "God" and "Christianity" in the OP. A religion that holds doctrinally or dogmatically that musings in a book are necessarily true is subject to falsification upon proof of the falsity of those tenets. But the mere existence of a creator-being is not contingent upon the truth of any particular religion.

thomaq

if we are atheists, why would we want to show a theist that they are wrong. obviously we have evolved to be the way we are, some have evolved the need for a higher being in order to deal with the despair they feel from an atheistic worldview. why change that?

Philosoft

I don't have a problem with many "higher being" concepts. Most of my friends and family believe in some kind of creator. It's the bone-headed religions, and dogmatic practices thereof, that develop around certain god-concepts that garner most of my ire. These bloated pseudo-moral life-controllers are most likely not the product of biological evolution, and are thus worthy of attack.

As for this forum, well, I just find the philosophical side of EoG terribly fascinating.

Keith Russell

if we are atheists, why would we want to show a theist that they are wrong. obviously we have evolved to be the way we are, some have evolved the need for a higher being in order to deal with the despair they feel from an atheistic worldview. why change that?

Because I would benefit greatly (personally, individually, and selfishly) by living in a world populated by rational people.

K

thomaq

how would you benefit? it seems more rational to want irrational people, because then the "strong/rational" could pimp the "weak/irrational". its like playing poker. a good poker player wants to play with the bad poker players because they will win all the money.