Simple question?

Quote: rxwine

Not so much different than assigning demigods their own private universe to run.

I personally favor the hypotheses that Atun-Ra (or Aten-Ra? it's hard to get the spelling from a podcast) fellated himself in order to create himself, and then used the divine fluid to sneeze and/or cough the one true gods Shu and Tefnut.

That's a lot more interesting than "let there be light."

Quote: Nareed

Once you inject unproved and untestable hypotheses into the discussion, then it's fair to inject all possible unproved and untestable hypotheses into the argument as well. On the simple end, what proof do you have it was Jehovah who created the universe and not, say, Atum-Ra, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Chronos, or any number of other deities?

Do you see that your criticisms of different religions, real and imaginary, lose all credibility when you can't even see the supernatural as nothing more than unproved and untestable hypotheses. Make the logical, reasonable, evidence-based, and experience-based conclusion that there is things that science cannot and will never be able to prove or test and you might begin to contribute to the conversation and question. Use your wisdom to take the evidence from science, history, and the human experience to believe in the supernatural and then we can discuss YHWH, Jesus, or any number of other possible deities.

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Oh, please! It can be explained in one word: Constantine.

What happened before him and how did he receive such a vision? What happened afterwards?

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As per my principles, I don't offer sucker bets on purpose. But I do take them when a sucker offers it.

I need assurance that you won't continue to ignore the constant efforts on the part of God to reach you.

Quote: FrGamble

I need assurance that you won't continue to ignore the constant efforts on the part of God to reach you.

So you think you're god now? You're the
one here trying to reach people with your
beliefs, there's no god here.

That's quite a sentence. If god is trying to
reach atheists, he must be the poorest
communicator that ever existed. He's
god, he knows everything. He knows
exactly how to reach each and every
one of us any time he likes. Easy peasy
when you're omnipresent and omniscient.

You must not trust your god very much.
If it was me and I was a believer, I
would just leave everything in his hands.
God is infallible, right? Why do you keep
second guessing him. Just be happy he
selected you, that you're on the 'list',
relax and enjoy being a chosen one.
You've got it made.

Quote: FrGamble

Do you see that your criticisms of different religions, real and imaginary, lose all credibility when you can't even see the supernatural as nothing more than unproved and untestable hypotheses.

There is zero evidence for the existence of anything remotely like the "supernatural." IT's not even a hypothesis, but an empty claim. When applied to religion it's not more valid than it is when applied to numerology.

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Make the logical, reasonable, evidence-based, and experience-based conclusion that there is things that science cannot and will never be able to prove or test and you might begin to contribute to the conversation and question. Use your wisdom to take the evidence from science, history, and the human experience to believe in the supernatural and then we can discuss YHWH, Jesus, or any number of other possible deities.

Translation: do as I say, because you can't prove my cockamamie notions are not true.

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What happened before him and how did he receive such a vision? What happened afterwards?

Before? Well, he was well-raised in the arts of politics, war and power. He took the Christian god for his side, because there was no risk of Maxentius doing likewise; and because that was a time-tested way of both rallying his legions and instilling them with confidence. Claiming a vision helped a lot. Then he won a major victory because he was a better general. Naturally he kept up the Christian god, as by now he'd proven its power and that he held its favor. That's how he could sway Rome and the empire to this kind of worship; but also through the injection of oodles and oodles of gold into the church. Had Maxentius not been so stupid, you'd be bowing and scraping before Jupiter Optimus Maximus now.

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I need assurance that you won't continue to ignore the constant efforts on the part of God to reach you.

If an all-powerful god cannot possibly do something unmistakable and impossible to ignore, then what use is it?

If you want to use any coincidence, occurrence, or such as "proof" of "God," then all bets are off, as you pointed out above. There's no standard, no measure and no limits. Hell, maybe the guy who lounges by the 7-11 downstairs is Jesus; for all I know he may even be named "Jesús," as that's a very common name in these parts.

BTW, Julian had nearly as much success reconstituting paganism in Rome. He made three mistakes:

1) he tried to make polytheism into a philosophy

2) he invaded Parthia, which has never been a good idea and

3) he got himself killed doing so.

Had he survived his ill-conceived war, and been able to spin a victory off a quagmire (plenty of precedent for that), you'd be worshipping at the altar of Jupiter Capitolinus right now.

BTWW ][: the idea of mild monotheism had been gaining ground in the empire for some centuries. Notably many eastern legions favored a sun god over other deities. And I think the emperor Aurelian worshipped a sun god exclusively, whom he regarded as the only real god. There were also a group of Romans, with many nobles included, who incorporated Jewish philosophy and practices in their lives.

Plunk Constantine in the era when the Julio-Caludian dynasty collapsed, when political turmoil within the empire was similar to the collapse of the Tetrarchy, and have him try to push Christ as he actually did, and he'd likely have been laughed out of Italy.

Quote: Nareed

If an all-powerful god cannot possibly do something unmistakable and impossible to ignore, then what use is it?

That's what I said. There's an all knowing
all seeing god, who created the universe,
yet he can't find a direct way to let us know
he's real? All we get is second hand stories.
Pathetic.

Quote: FrGamble

Finally, what is very interesting to me is that in the case of choosing not to believe it is based solely on the heart. It takes a strong desire to not believe in God to convince yourself of atheism. You gotta really want it.

I found this statement extremely puzzling. Then I thought, "Suppose an astrologer made the same statement, but regarding unbelief in astrology." Ah, then it made sense.

What the esteemed father is doing here is projecting his assumptions about belief on everyone else.

To begin with he starts off with a conclusion, then looks for evidence to support it. When he fails to find any, he must do away with evidence, or must perforce misinterpret, twist and mangle the evidence beyond recognition. This is exactly how pseudoscience and related fields work. It's the only way they can work, because there is no evidence for any of them.

And of course he thinks because that's how he believes, it must also be how atheists reach their beliefs as well. Which not coincidentally is also a feature of pseudoscience, particularly of alternative "medicine."

I don't know how other atheists came to their beliefs. I know I didn't come to mine because I had a strong desire not to believe in Jehovah. To spare you a long story, it was a combination of the glaring contradictions found in the Bible, plus the complete, total and utter lack of evidence, plus never having felt any need for whatever the hell it is religion has to offer, plus the crushing boredom inherent in religious services, plus the complete and total lack of any rational content in 99% of prayers.

The lack of respect I've cultivated for religion since is just a bonus :)

Quote: Nareed

What the esteemed father is doing here is projecting his assumptions about belief on everyone else.
To begin with he starts off with a conclusion, then looks for evidence to support it. When he fails to find any, he must do away with evidence, or must perforce misinterpret, twist and mangle the evidence beyond recognition.

Very thoughtful post, Nareed, I read it
three times. Most Christians are at a
disadvantage because they were brain-
washed into the religion as small kids.
They have no choice but to believe. So
all their lives they take scads of non
evidence and convince themselves it's
the real thing. The trouble starts when
they talk to people outside the religion
who tell them it's not evidence at all.

This is why Christians usually keep to
members of their own cult. My wife's
family knows I'm not a Christian, yet
in all the years I've known them they
have never said a word to me about Jesus.
When I'm around, they never talk about it.
They know it's ridiculous and don't want
to embarrass themselves.

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And of course he thinks because that's how he believes, it must also be how atheists reach their beliefs as well.

You might be right. Because FrG, and most
Christians, just assume without argument that
god exists, they assume that atheists start with
the assumption that no god exists. And from
that point on, we out of hand reject all 'evidence'
Christians think they have. Most atheists I talk to
aren't like that at all. They started with no opinion
either way, and came to realize they were atheists
over a long period of time.

After thinking about it for awhile, I'm pretty sure it can be shown that FrGamble system for evidence can just as easily convict women of witchcraft.

You need certain conditions met. A history of people who believe in witchcraft and witches. I think that condition is met.

You need accounts of witnesses to testify someone is a witch. They can even be long dead witnesses who aren't very verifiable.

You don't need a witch to demonstrate power in a lab or on demand. We allow them the same courtesy as he gives his own supernatural beings. To be indifferent to demands for proof by demonstration.

And we can even allow that FrGamble has his own logic in requiring someone to prove a negative. No matter how many times a woman might deny being a witch she still has to prove she is not a witch to FrGambe because he works on assumptions of proving something cannot be as well as positive type proof.

So, basically, I suppose as in the Monty Python sketch, a woman proves she is not a witch by being drowned instead of floating.

Quote: rxwine

You need accounts of witnesses to testify someone is a witch. They can even be long dead witnesses who aren't very verifiable.

During witch trails, spectral "evidence" was routinely allowed.

What is it? Well, people could testify they had a vision of the accused performing witchcraft, or that she cursed them in a dream, or even a vision or dream featuring someone else fingering the accused.

Remove the context of accusation and trial, and it should all sound very familiar. Like "feeling "God" in your heart," or simply having a religious vision.

There are real visions. That is to say, people will sometimes see and/or experience things that aren't there. But we know why in most cases: the brain malfunctions from time to time, then settles down. Things like sleep paralysis, night terrors, sleepwalking (I forget the formal term for this), and plain garden variety hallucinations.

A few years ago a story ran around the office, about the night watchman having seen a ghost or apparition. The story goes that the elevator doors opened at the lobby, and a woman walked out and then through the glass door to the parking lot. The watchman ran after her, having to unlock and open the door hastily, and naturally found nothing.

We got to hear it first, because we were working late that night. The watchman called us up and asked if anyone had gone down to the parking lot. No one had.

Now, I know for a fact the elevator returns to the lobby after every use, no matter where it went. So if you called it up from the first floor to go up to the third, it would then return to the lobby and the doors would open. The "ghost" appeared around 3 am, when the watchman would have been rather tired and sleepy. So combine an actual stimulus, the elevator doors opening, with a tired, fatigued brain ripe for misfiring, and what are the odds that he "saw" his brain trying to make sense of an unexpected stimulus vs he saw a ghost?

I also know for a fact I had taken the elevator from the third floor to the second (I had some boxes to move) shortly before the watchman called.

Having worked late many times, and on occasion for days at a time, I've had my share of fatigued brain misfires. Most often I tend to hear voices or noises that aren't there. There's nothing mysterious or scary about them (though when it happens they can be startling and scary). It's just your brain urging itself to get some rest.