Christian

Rhea,

I started a different thread for my question.

By "arguments from silence" I was referring to drawing conclusions based on what evidence is missing, not Silence as in not hearing from God.

What does "KWIM?" mean?

Respectfully,

Christian

Rhea

KWIM = Know What I Mean?
(sorry)

Shake

I don't know, I've "endured" it all my life, even when I was a theist. It's not that hard.

Is it just because that many who claim to hear God are homeless, serial killers, kidnappers, etc. that we call them crazy? What if God really is talking to them? What if it is God's plan for these people to be killed, kidnapped, etc.? How can they truly be doubted. If an fairly successful upper-middle class junior executive at some business says God talks to him, he's not locked up. But if he's a scraggly bum on the street who claims to talk to the Almighty, we lock him up and get him sober, and say it can't be. As you theists are fond of saying, "God works in mysterious ways." How more mysterious could you get?

worldling

A guy called Mark Smith once aked William Lane Craig the following question:

"Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let's pretend that a time machine gets built. You and I hop in it, and travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, still nothing happens. There is no resurrection- Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb. "

Craig replied that he would still believe in the resurection, and still remain a Christian.

His absolute certainty - like that of Magus and Christian - stems from one thing: egotism.

Given the abundance of evidence showing how easily humans can become in thrall to false supernaturalistic ideas (eg alien abductees, members every other religion, and incompetent people who believe they are competent), it takes a massive ego to think that your particular brand of supernaturalistic delusion is in fact the real thing.

Christian, Magus: your confidence in your own judgement is totally unjustified.

Alludium Fozdex

Please present documentation for "the evidence" leading to an irrefutable supernatural explanation for any phenomenon.

christ-on-a-stick

Wow, that's pretty hardcore. Did he give any possible reason/defense for why/how? That certainly doesn't give him a lot of crediblity as a reasonable thinker.

worldling

Yes, he said his certainty was due to the "witness of the Holy Spirit within him", and that he would assume that some sort of trick was being played on him re the non-resurrection.

In other words, pure, unadulterated egotism.

christ-on-a-stick

Wow... that kind of overwhelmingly powerful self-delusion (for the sake of egotism, I would agree) is truly frightening.

I'm amazed that after admitting such he can be esteemed (by Xians) as a debater.

Gregg

No, actually, we don't. We only have the gospels' word for it, and the gospels are not reliable history...they are mythic stories in a semi-historical setting.

We know a bit about Pilate's personality, and what we know tells us that 1) He would never have been so fair-minded or just toward a man accused of plotting insurrection, and 2) If he had, by some "miracle" found Jesus innocent of the crimes he was accused of, he would never have bowed to Jewish demands to crucify him anyway.

Gregg

braces_for_impact

Of course it is egotism. How can it be anything else? The bible HAS been proven false. Evolution HAS been proven true. There IS NO basis for belief in a Jesus crucifixion, much less a ressurection. There IS NO SUCH THING as the supernatural. But people believe anyway.

I think most atheists would have to admit, that every time they involve themselves in a debate with a theist they are putting their world view on the line. In fact, it doesn't even have to be a debate with a theist, come to think of it. I've come into conversations with people here, and found out I was either wrong, or I was offered a persuasive argument and I changed my opinion.

Some people simply have a higher amount of intellectual honesty, and higher standards for what is to be construed as evidence. You provide real hard, testable, verifiable, falsifiable evidence, and we must change our view if we are to be intellectually honest. Emotion is NOT evidence. Faith is NOT evidence. Testimony is NOT evidence. It's not that we don't accept theistic evidence, the point is you have yet to provide one single shred of evidence that supports your case!

But what is most amazing is that even when provided with rock solid evidence against your premise, you refuse to concede. Then you attempt to pick apart our critique, and when that fails, you still refuse to concede. Most theists won't bother even checking into the facts with an unbiased source. They are soundly defeated, and then they do something incredible. After being shown inconclusively to be in error, they go somewhere else and try the argument again! When are people going to realize that facts are not facts because of concensus? Science is NOT a democratic process!

So what we have is one side who must change their world view if they are shown to be wrong. This takes courage, and debating a premise takes courage. Then we have another side that will NOT change their worldview regardless of the facts in the case. This does not take courage. It's easy. This may be the source of the 'holier than thou' attitude we have all come to know and love. It's easy to be arrogant when you know in you're own mind you cannot be wrong, regardless of outcome of the conversation.