Biff the unclean

It is reasonable to believe there is a God -

1. Since you cannot know all evidence, it is possible that evidence exists that proves or at least supports God's existence
A dishonest conclusion. Since you CAN KNOW that no such evidence has ever been presented you DO know that there is no reason to abandon what you do know in favor of a primitive superstition.

2. Therefore, it is possible that God exists
But with a degree of improbability so vast that to even consider it is foolishness

3. If it is possible, then faith has its place
Which would be on top of the pile of silly things people once believed but are embarrassed to admit.

It is reasonable to posit that the earth was created -

1. Everything that exists was brought into existence by something else
Which negates the possibility of an uncaused God.

2. The universe was necessary to exist for the earth to exist
You don't know that

3. Something was necessary to exist for the universe to exist; we call that something 'God'
You cannot do that because the word God already has a definition as a being with a personality. You have shown nothing that the universe was created by any such thing.

It is reasonable to believe that there is a 'heaven' -

1. Human nature is to play, to laugh, to explore, to dream
All the Great Apes share this same evolved nature

2. This world does not constitute a sufficient explanation for human nature
Rubbish.

3. Therefore, heaven is a reasonable belief, as humans are believed to have been created in the image of heaven
Pick up your bible a show us where it says that

It is reasonable to posit God as the creator of heaven -

1. If it is reasonable to believe that God created the earth, then it is reasonable to believe He created heaven also
By comparing the heaven and Earth that are described in the bible with the real heaven and Earth you find that they do not bear even the slightest resemblance to one another-showing the bibles claim of creation to be an out and out lie.

If you cannot produce a God it is morally wrong for you to claim that one exists

keyser_soze

I think that this covers.....pretty much every fallaciuos argument at the disposal of the human mind. Some of the sentences contain 2 or more fallacious arguments. To be honest, I am awed by your abilities. If you could only harness that power for good instead of stupi---...I mean evil.

Jinto

First, "men," by definition, does not include women. The term you are looking for is "humans."

Second, you admit that people are NOT born equal, so you've just refuted yourself.

Third, one does not get the idea that all persons are equal from a creator who created one man, then created another being to serve said man, and who repeatedly gave people divine right to rule and in whose holy writ apears the line "there is no authority except that which God has instituted." In fact, one gets the opposite. In order to believe that all people are entitled to equal rights, it is neccesary to posit the absence of the Christian God, or to posit that the Christian God has nothing to do with rights.

Universe: the set of everything that exists. How does this require an outside definition?

Oh by the way, love your God analogy. Let's see: The Tree has no problem with it's own definition, as we understand its nature to be non-uniquely made up of relationship; therefore the Trunk can be meaningfully defined by the Branch, the Branch by the Leaf, and the Leaf by the Trunk and the Branch.

So, now that we've gotten the distractions out of the way, how do you intend to support that:

A: God exists.
B: God created the universe
C: Heaven exists
D: God created Heaven?

Here's something for all you trinity believers: is Jesus God or the son of God? I've never been able to figure out how there can be three different Gods, namely Jehovah, Jesus, and Casper, and yet still have people saying "No, they're one God damnit, one God.

By the way, Marx gave many unique teachings, such as the abolition of private property. His teachings were also unsuitable for the time in which he lived. Further, much like Jesus, when governments were created based on his teachings, they turned out to be authoritarian and repressive, in spite of supposedly being for the benefit of the lower class. Using your logic, I can now conclude that Carl Marx is God (or the son of God, I still can't figure that trinity thing out).

Pardon me but, not having your sexual orientation, I have to say that if God presented himself as a man, that wouldn't be conducive to us knowing Him.

I would think that if God or any other infinite being really wanted us to understand them (and didn't think to program us beforehand with whatever they wanted us to know), then they would provide us with an unambiguous method of understanding the nature of infinities. Thus, we would expect any revalation from God to include a knowledge of calculus. But calculus was invented by Newton, not Jesus! Therefore, Jesus was not God.

Pardon me, but I don't break laws constantly. Neither do most other people. Think about it: how does one break laws constantly? Unless you are reading this reply through a hacked ISP account, chances are that you are NOT breaking the law right now. This quite easily refutes your premise.

A more serious flaw in your argument however, is that there is no principle of justice that requires the courts to prosecute every single thing that violates the letter of the law. If there was, then the very idea of forgiveness would be by definition incompatable with justice (which would make any kind of redemption through Jesus impossible). The only thing that justice requires is that the courts be fair. This certainly does not preclude the courts from not prosecuting crimes when such an action would be completely unproductive. After all, the entire reason laws exist for the protection of society, if enforcing them does not help to do that, then it would in fact be unfair of the courts to prosecute, and therefore unjust. To quote Jean-Luc Picard: "There can be no justice so long as the law is absolute."

But enough about that, when are you going to support your assertion that all men are fallen? Fallen from what?

There are other thoeries too. For instance, the starship Enterprise could have beamed up Jesus's body after it was buried. Or fairies could have taken him to neverland. Or perhaps we have a case of spontaneous human combustion (which is known to burn completely and not to burn anything around the body, in some cases). Or the parsimonous explanation: It's just a stupid myth. This one seems especially likely, as WHY would roman soldiers A: take someone off a cross after only two days, B: place someone as unimportant as jesus in his own tomb, or C: use an excuse as bad as "someone stole him away while we slept," when the penalty for sleeping on the job was death? No - the whole thing seems about as likely as the things you find on Snopes.

By the way: I notice you say "It's consistent with the major tenets of Christianity." In other words, if we assume 999 impossible things, then the thousandth one seems the only likely explanation. Of course, since you have failed to establish any evidence whatsoever for God, Jesus, revelation, the entombment, truthfulness of biblical testimony, origin of biblical testimony, etc., the question of "given this testimony, can you find another explanation" becomes ridiculous. This is like me saying "Well of course Rei had an AT field. It is perfectly consistent with the other major tenets of Evangelion," when of course I have not established the major tenets of Evangelion.

No, actually it marked the reconciliation of blood sacrifice and lawlessness. Recall Acts 13:39 - "And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." In other words, as long as you believe in this patent absurdity, you are justified in doing literally anything, and morality becomes irrelevant.

What? Now humans don't have the "right" to forgive? That's absurd. Provide support for this assertion, since I have absolutely no idea how you came up with this idiocy.

And next, please provide evidence that Jesus is the "savior." Note: it would be useful to first provide evidence that this "Jesus" actually existed, and that God is so horribly unjust that he think blood sacrifice is a reasonable means for forgiving people, and that Jesus is such a prick that he wouldn't extend that to people who didn't know or believe that he existed.

You expect God to be a hot, leather-clad chick packing an uzi?

Wait a minute, I thought you said God is Trinity. So does this mean that God loves himself? That would explain his ego...

This just gets dumber and dumber. It's also not impossible to imagine that the universe hatched from the egg of a Cosmic Chicken, but that doesn't make it any less absurd. Like you said, life is a process. If the elements undergoing that process break down, then logicaly the process can't continue. Belief in life after death is also absurd: it's like saying that manufacturing can take place when the factory has rusted into scrap metal.

I don't get it.

Cipher Girl

Good for you Danielius, you finally got on track. This should have been your second or third post.

1. Since you cannot know all evidence, it is possible that evidence exists that proves or at least supports God's existence

Since you cannot know all evidence, it is possible that evidence exists that proves or at least supports god's/Santa's/Tooth Fairy's/Giant Purple Rhino circling Uranus/etc's existence. So exactly how many imaginary things do you believe exist?

2. Therefore, it is possible that God exists

Therefore it is possible that god/Santa/Tooth Fairy exists. See where I'm going with this?

3. If it is possible, then faith has its place

If what is possible? I have faith in Santa, don't you?

It is reasonable to posit that the earth was created -

Well a thunderstorm may create a tornado, but we still understand how it's formed, no god needed, just like the earth. The earth was formed by dust and gases accumulating by gravitational attraction as they orbited the just forming sun. No god needed to explain this, just basic planetary science.

1. Everything that exists was brought into existence by something else

Okay, what brought god into existence?

2. The universe was necessary to exist for the earth to exist

So for anything else that exists in this universe, so what does this have to do with god?

3. Something was necessary to exist for the universe to exist; we call that something 'God'

Isn't #1 a problem with this? Either 1 or 3 is false since they directly contradict each other.

It is reasonable to believe that there is a 'heaven' -

Why? Just because you want something to be true does not mean that it is.

1. Human nature is to play, to laugh, to explore, to dream

What does this have to do with anything?

2. This world does not constitute a sufficient explanation for human nature

Why not? Science seems to provide explainations of more and more things as time goes by.

3. Therefore, heaven is a reasonable belief, as humans are believed to have been created in the image of heaven

I thought humans were supposed to be created in the image of god not heaven. You have not shown that the place heaven exists outside of your extremely wishful thinking.

It is reasonable to posit God as the creator of heaven -

Sorry you must show the place heaven exists, beyond wishful thinking, before you can say god created heaven. And before that, you must show that god exists ouside of your wishful thinking. Also who created god, since you stated previously stated that all things must be created by something?

1. If it is reasonable to believe that God created the earth, then it is reasonable to believe He created heaven also

Danielius, you really should take a class in formal logic. Then you will realize that you have basically commited quite a few logical fallacies. Just asserting things are true does not make them true. You need to demonstrate evidence.

I'm looking forward to reading your responses to my questions. I hope that you don't ignore them like you did my earlier questions, which BTW are still unanswered. After all debate is a two way communication.

wade-w

You will have to do much better than this. Have you ever studied logic? I suggest you look into it.

Your first argument can just as easily be used for ufo's, or fairies, or the invisible pink unicorn (pbuh). Do you think belief in any of those entities is reasonable? If not, why do you think this makes belief in god more reasonable

Your second argument is even worse. It immediately breaks down into infinte regression. What created god? What created whatever created god? and so on ad infinitum.

In your last argument, well, the intermediate step simply does not follow from the 2 premises. Not only that, but there are so many fallacies there that I hardly know where to begin.

emotional

Why not? Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer are three persons of the One Universal God. It's exactly like the Father, Son and Holy Ghost - three in one, a triune God.



That requires research. But even if it's true, then there is the fact that the Egyptians had a trinity long before Christ.



That simply doesn't follow. More reasonably, if God were already a trinity from the beginning, he would already have fellowship and so would never have created the universe and all its creatures in the first place.



I don't have the answers to these questions. Daniel, this is a faith thing, not a reason thing. All talk about God, whether unitarian or triune, is in the realm of faith. If you think there can be a reasoned belief in God then you're only deluding yourself.



These questions already assume the verity of Christianity: attributes of justice and forgiveness, God's self-revelation to man. I believe neither in justice and forgiveness nor God's self-revelation in this life. In this life, in the Lower Kingdom called the Natural Universe, everything operates by blind natural law, without regard for justice or mercy, and the existence of God is totally hidden. Only in the afterlife does the divine become manifest.

Again I say: belief in God and in the afterlife is not rational, and has no hard evidence to support it. I believe in them just because, and without any supporting evidence. I hope you too will recognise that your faith has no supporting evidence. Actually that's what faith is all about: believing without evidence. If you have evidence for Christianity then you do not have faith in Christianity.

danielius

I've not refuted myself in the least. Humans are not born equal, they are created equal. Theists can point to the fundamental equality of humanity; atheists can only attempt to deny it, as to accept human equality is to accept the possibility of a Creator.

By 'all people' I assume you mean 'all adults', else you will be arguing that as men and women work, so should children work, else it is unequal and unfair.

You are confusing legal rights with the fundamental principle that all humans are equal in their humanity. Or do you really think that criminals (who obviously have fewer legal rights than yourself) are less human than yourself?

The universe is the set of all dependent things that we can observe. This is entirely distinct from arguing that the universe is 'everything that exists'. We have no evidence for this, and at any rate, a dependent universe needs a cause - a cause would be outside the universe to be independent, and would therefore contradict the claim that the universe is 'everything that exists'.

Bad analogy. A leaf is not a tree, a trunk is not a tree, a branch is not a tree.

Jesus is the Son of God.

Is past, present and future three different times or One Time?

Please name one government which practised turning the other cheek, loving thy enemies and the sanctity of marriage and family? Just one. Any one.

I find this comment insulting and demeaning. Please retract it.

Oh I see, so if God only listened to you all long, shucks, that's where he went wrong

You keep talking about the 'letter of the law' (?) I thought you were plain spoken: 'I am I'. Well then, the law is the law.

If a young man is driving dangerously fast down a road and a policeman sees him and pulls him over and gives him a warning or a ticket, justice is done. I think we will both agree. But then, assume another young man an hour later is driving just as fast and just as dangerously down the same road, yet the policeman believes subjectively that he would be 'tampering' with the traffic too much to intervene, is that just? Doesn't the first driver have a right to say to the policeman: 'Hey, you give me a ticket, but you don't give the other guy a ticket? Come on, that's not fair!'

Justice may well not have a written rule to the effect that every breach must be prosecuted. But that's effectively an argument from silence. What about the principle of non-contradiction? Yet policemen regularly look the other way. Justice, as a meaningful absolute, does not exist in this world. So why bother with it at all?

Historians speak of the 'rise of Man'. Well, the very concept of a 'rise' has implicit in it a fall to rise from.

A: Jesus was on the cross for a maximum of six hours, not 2 days

B: The Roman soldiers did not place Jesus in the tomb, one of his disciples did with the permission of Pilate

C: Please provide the reference for this quote

Faith has to be real, it can't just be spoken. To be justified is to believe enough to truthfully attempt to follow Christ's teachings. Therefore, you cannot do 'literally anything'.

Of course, you can forgive a man if he breaks your window. But what right have you to forgive him if he breaks my window? This is what makes Jesus's claim such a remarkable one.

The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, the Holy Spirit is their love personified. No, He isn't egotistical - that criticism might yet apply however to the unitarian concept of God (Allah etc).

Of course earthly life, as life is so defined, cannot continue beyond the earth. All I am suggesting is that Life might be bigger, more mysterious than we realise. That's an entirely reasonable proposition, when people use words daily to describe 'the miracle of birth' etc. Life is not the rule in this universe, it is the exception. But it asks the question: is there a rule somewhere? Christians say 'yes', atheists suggest 'no'.

Danielius

Stephen T-B

“ Life is not the rule in this universe, it is the exception.”

Well, you may know that, but I don’t.
And the degree to which you “know” it is the same as the degree to which you “know” a god created the Earth.

It will, I suggest, be many many years before we can be certain as to the extent of life in the universe, but Prof Fred Hoyle and some others have argued that it suffuses the universe and, indeed, seeded the Earth. As humankind’s knowledge of its surroundings increases, so it will find out if this was the case, but for you to state: “Life is not the rule in this universe, it is the exception,” is extraordinarily presumptuous.

Perhaps you will consider this: can the supernatural produce natural phenomena?
People who believe in gods, ghosts, demons, angels and fairies (and I assure you, some people do – I know one) assert that it can, but a supernatural cause excludes the possibility of there being a natural one. It must do, by definition.
To declare a phenomenon as being supernaturally caused therefore means that EVERY possible natural explanation has been ruled out; just one teeny little one will disqualify it, but our knowledge of the natural possibilities within the universe is so far from being complete that at this stage we do not know nearly enough to rule out a natural explanation for all the phenomena we observe or detect in our universe. Including, of course, the Earth itself.
For you to declare that it is the creation of a supernatural being is as presumptious as your declaration that “Life is not the rule in this universe, it is the exception.”
I’m sure you won’t agree, but that’s because your need to believe is greater than your willingness to think rationally.

You also wrote: “...is there a rule somewhere? Christians say 'yes', atheists suggest 'no'.”

I am an atheist and I certainly don’t deny there’s a “rule.” Many eminent scientists have been slogging away for decades in an effort to find it, and I am certainly not prepared to say they’ll fail.

danielius

Of course, such an argument in itself is inadequate, as you have illustrated. It does however speak to the question of intellectual humility and not jumping to conclusions. James Randi, perhaps the world's best known skeptic, has always said that he is perfectly happy to accept the reality of a 'tooth fairy' or what not given enough evidence. He makes a distinction between 'impossible' and 'improbable'. I agree. So we are not debating here the impossibility or otherwise of God, but whether such an entity is at all probable, and probable in contrast to the theory of His non-existence.

1. The universe is caused by a cause which is itself caused which is itself caused which is itself caused which is itself caused...

2. The universe is caused by an uncaused Cause

3. The universe is not caused

I hold that no.1 is the least probable of the above statements. If the universe was caused by an infinite regression of causes, who caused the infinite regression?

I hold that no.3 is more probable than no.1, but less probable than no.2. The universe is something, and something cannot arise from nothing. Therefore the universe has a cause.

Thus, I hold no.2 - that the universe was caused by an uncaused Cause, as the most probable statement of explanation for the universe, and it constitutes a strong argument for the existence of an eternal, uncreated God.

As to the question about heaven, why is man so different to every other animal? There are similarities, but these only go to emphasise how different man is to other animals. If man is not made in the image of this world, then he must be made in the image of another.

Answering 'emotional -

No, the Egyptians held their Gods Osiris, Isis and Horus to be three Gods, not three persons in One nature.

It does follow. If God is isolated, then He does not require fellowship, hence no creation. If God is in fellowship by His very nature, it is readily conceivable that He would want to extend His fellowship.

It is a reason thing. Christians believe that we are all made in the image of God, and we hold that as God is reasonable, we too can reason. We also hold that God is knowable through reason. If everything you believe is by faith alone, it is blind faith only.

That's what blind faith is all about; the very fact that we speak of faith in sub-categories tells us that there is more than one form of faith. Christianity is a historical religion, it has eye-witness statements and has spawned centuries of brilliant intellectual debate. There is no question that Christianity is a reasonable world-view.

I can have evidence for something, but still need faith - I have evidence that my partner loves me, but ultimately unless I could get inside of his brain (a practical impossibility), I have to have some sort of faith that he does indeed, truly, love me.

Faith isn't a huge leap, often it's the smallest of steps.

Danielius

Dr Rick

I've been very interested in your posts, Danielius; they're quite good.

I wish to address these comments about faith and belief:

Not really; just because a term is improperly used doesn't mean it is correct.

Faith is belief in the absence of or in contradiction to evidence, blind or otherwise.

That's hardly a standard to judge the reasonableness of a faith; essentially, you're saying its a reasonable faith because some people purportedly said they saw something, lots of other people believe it, and its an old belief. I have to question that kind of standard; is there anything else you can think of that you would consider reasonable to believe if I came to you and said believe it for these reasons?

You have a belief based on evidence; evidentiary belief is not faith. If you had no evidence that he loved you, or there was evidence that he hated you, then your belief in his love would be faith.