My logic doesn't revolve around believing God exists because I can't prove he doesn't, that's just silly.
People who use that logic use it because it's a easy one liner.
However, if you're going to say that you *know* he doesn't exist as an atheist I think that argument is equally silly.
-One of the biggest convincing factors is that the Bible agrees with history.
The historical parts of it. (The poetry that's in the Bible is obviously that, poetry)
The cities mentioned in the Bible actually existed,
Archeology has uncovered many of them, as well as the pharaoh that drowned in the red sea.
(His body was covered in salt when he was embalmed, hieroglyphs told the story, ect)
The drowning was caused by God when he closed the sea over the Egyptians after the Israelites escaped.
-Then there are scientific statements (depending on how you look at it) that are completely accurate even though years earlier people thought differently.
There's a scripture that states that "the life is in the blood,"
yet after this was written some thought that it was possible to bleed a person to help cure them.
There is more but it would take up too much space.
Google them if you're interested.
On top of all this I've actually felt God, now one could argue that I was feeling something else and it's easy for someone on the internet to type this.
And to that argument there is nothing I could say to convince you otherwise except that you felt him yourself.
@UrbanMonk: The problem with a Bible scripture is that the things that can be proven from the bible, can also be proven to have been natural disasters that had no hand from God. This is one reason why I really do not like any sort of religious scripture that tries to explain the history of people and then rationalize parts of their lives they couldn't understand as being irrefutably the hand of God. In fact there was a whole show on the History Channel about Noahs Ark and why so many religious texts from that area mentioned a great flood. The area was prone to flash flooding.
So while I believe that faith in God/divinity is true and that people who do believe it need no proof because they can feel or see it around them, it's entirely a matter of perception. One mans perception of God is just an excuse for another man to call him a fool. So to call him a fool is not believing your perception of God, makes you, especially in his eyes, even more of a fool. A religious text is not necessary to believe in God or divinity because it's essentially the story/science book of their time. It's old, it's outdated, and if you like it that's fine, but it's a horrible reference to use in any sort of argument. You'd be better off telling a college professor you used Wikipedia.
The indians that lived in America have a similar flood story.
In fact I don't know of one ancient civilazation that doesnt have some sor of flood story.
The fact that it's so old and yet still agrees with modern science is what makes it even more believable.
And regarding someone thinking anyone's a fool for thinking in a certain way has been around for centuries and doesn't prove a thing. Especially since it could apply to anything and not just the beleif in God.
Originally Posted by UrbanMonk What area was prone to flash flooding?
The indians that lived in America have a similar flood story.
In fact I don't know of one ancient civilazation that doesnt have some sor of flood story.
The fact that it's so old and yet still agrees with modern science is what makes it even more believable.
And regarding someone thinking anyone's a fool for thinking in a certain way has been around for centuries and doesn't prove a thing. Especially since it could apply to anything and not just the beleif in God.
In small isolated communities, a big flood would practically be worldwide from what they could tell. Then some elder would find it to be a good story to instill respect of God.
What says the Genesis version of the story is more accurate than any of the other ones? (for example the Epic of Gilgamesh)
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
The Epic of Gilgamesh was written after the Torah.
And The Epic of Gilgamesh was a heavily edited set of ancient poems.
That's not to say that it wasn't inspired by the actual flood that took place though.
I know I mentioned this already but the Torah (which is the Hebrew law, or the first 5 books of the Bible)
was copied letter by letter by Jewish scribes who used a checksum system to make sure they didn't make a mistake when copying.
The Ancient Hebrew "letters" also represented numbers, so the scribes simply added all the letters up at the end and checked if the sum matched. If it didn't they threw the whole thing out and started over.
They also did some other rituals while copying the Torah that I won't get into here, but needless to say they considered their law to be very important. Wouldn't you agree?
On top of that they believed that the world would come to an end if they copied it wrong.
Taking all these facts into account it's not likely that the Torah (which contains the flood story) was changed much since it's original transcription.
And it's quite a feat that if this document has lasted (3500-4000 years) so long without being contested by neighboring communities who might not have experienced any flash flooding. (here's a hint, the neighboring communities drowned so they couldn't. )
Urban, the point I'm trying to make is not that the bible wasn't inspired by real events. It's that the bible is way too quick to judge that God was the soul purpose for every single last thing that they could not explain themselves. Instead of just saying "we don't know yet", they just wrote it in the bible as being "See? Told you God exists" and many people still do this today. And those people are quick to be dismissed as babbling idiots. Yet people like yourself, no offence, worship a book that was written in a time where virtually everyone, especially people of the church, were in a sense, comprised of nothing but what today would consider babbling idiots - not men of science or archiving.
Also, the point I was trying to make about one mans idea of God leading to another mans excuse to call him a fool... was not an attempt to dismiss God all together, as you seem to have taken it. What I meant was that no ones perception of God is going to be the same, nor is anyones perception of God going to be technically wrong since no one truly knows God, nor can anyone truly prove his existence or not. So to try to insist that your idea of God is right and wave around a book as evidence is foolish. Divinity is to each individual, what they decide to perceive it. It's a force that we cannot [yet] comprehend and until then, any and every single view of this force is merely an archetype that we use to emotionally attach ourselves to something that is otherwise too complex for us to understand. So in that sense, everyone's view of God is correct as long as it works for them, because it's helping them emotionally connect with the divine energy that we all perceive as a deity.
Now if you're going to sit there and deny that... I trust you can provide me more meaningful evidence than YOUR religions sacred holy text, the bible. Because like I said, you trying to explain to me (or anyone else whose not Christian) anything you read out of the bible as proof, as as meaningful to any of us, as trying to tell a college professor that you wrote an entire essay off of a Wikipedia page... that you might have adjusted a little bit in your favor.
PS: And this includes not going around saying "Look, this happened and the bible said this so the bible must be accurate," because anyone can take and perceive two things as being similar with the right attitude. That's just like saying "Look, this happened and Wikipedia said it happened too... so Wikipedia must be accurate, right?" No.
That depends on what you mean by "explain"
If you're talking about how things happen (science) or why the system for these things exists in the first place.
And please don't talk about the big bang or any other theory that tries the explain the beginning of everything, because in retrospect someone who proposes such things is just as much a "babbling idiot."
No human observer witnessed the beginning, and besides many of these theories contradict other scientific evidence, and laws.
(assuming any of the other evidence was accurate in the first place, we discover new things everyday)
So to ignore God's existence requires someone to ignore the deficiencies contain within man made scientific guesses, and try to embrace them as an explanation since it's the only alternative.
To me that requires just as much faith if not more than just believing in a God. (A being outside of time and space that existed before anything and created everything)
And if I were to chose a God to believe in I would go for the one whose holy book makes the most sense.
If there is at least one contradiction, or misquotes of known historical facts then I'll dismiss it.
I love logic, which is why I love programming, math, and physics.
I'm a very skeptical person and I question everything, even the Bible, whenever I read something that I think may not be correct I check surrounding scriptures, historical references, and the original Hebrew/Greek meaning. I'm a student of the Bible, I've taken Philosophy classes and Bible lit classes at my University, and I have yet to discover any contradictions (within the Bible itself, not other religious denominations of Christianity), inaccurate historical information, or known scientific information (Discovered through observation).
All that in the midst of other "holy" texts that have contradictions, scientific impossibilities, or historical inaccuracies.
I don't see God as something visible to the human eye or mind, I see God as a being that permeates everything. The reason that everything maintains it's balance. (The laws of physics, electrostatics, quantum physics, optics<-my favorite) God is a spirit, he exists on a different plane of existence than us. Yes I'm a monotheist. I only believe in one God like the Jews, and I believe that Jesus was flesh that was being controlled directly by God, and so in turn *was* God.
Anyway I guess I've laid too many cards on the table at this point, but it doesn't matter. It's rock solid.
I don't see how the Bible and factual correctness are at all relevant to each other. Seriously, it's okay if your book isn't backed up by historical or scientific records, isn't that the point of it?
It has history in it, and where it talks about History it's correct. The events actually happened and archeology backs it up.
I would think that if it were fictional that people wouldn't still be reading it after so many thousands of years. Wouldn't you say?
It still remains relevant, and was created by God to be so.
So with that in mind the Bible and factual correctness are altogether one and the same.
None of the bible is actually split into "what's actually real" and "what's poetry" so that leaves it entirely up to your perception. So while you supported your point well and I applaud you, it's still flawed.
Well first I don't know what you mean by using "real" and "poetry" like they are antonyms.
Secondly the Bible is literally split into history, poetry, letters (the epistles), and prophesy.
So basing your argument on that is entirely useless.
So no, it isn't a perception thing, it's pretty straight forward.
The Bible isn't a single book, it's a collection of books, and most of the time it literally tells you whats going to be in each book on the first sentence.
In Proverbs 1:1 "The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;"
It lets the reader know that this won't be history, but a list of proverbs that Solomon wrote.
Also if you just read the titles of the books it's pretty obvious.
The book of Psalms, or songs is just that, a book of songs.
If you expect to find a romance novel in the book of songs then I can't help you.
Originally Posted by UrbanMonk So no, it isn't a perception thing, it's pretty straight forward.
No, your entire religion, in fact, you're entire division of your religion, the entire bible, is one single perception of the real thing. Just because you think it's the only truth, does not mean that it is. It's only a very small fragment of a much bigger picture, the likes of which absolutely no one in the world can actually perceive. Which is why we use archetypes and stories/myths behind those archetypes. To help us to perceive something far greater than ourselves, not in a way that's accurate, but in a way that's comfortable.
The second you start declaring your religion as being the one true religion, you've immediately lost any and all credibility from me. No offense to you personally, it's more a broad statement that you just happen to, at the moment, be falling into.
Btw, I hope we're not killing the topic or anything with these back and forth debates. I personally think the topic, though brought back from the dead, is pretty healthy and I hope none of what we're saying is sending a red flag to the admins and making them consider locking it. Admins? How're we doing?
Also, Urban. I would like to point out once more, just to make sure we're on the same page here... that this discussion/debate is entirely based around the topic at hand, not personal. Nothing I'm saying is reflecting what I think of you personally, and I hope nothing I say will influence what you think of me personally. I just formally but strongly disagree with you on this particular topic.
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