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Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Oh yes what? I am not sure to what you are referring?
Logic and rationality are only possible if God exists.
That is an assertion that you have made without a single supporting statement or evidence, so unless you care to provide it, it can be dismissed entirely as the fiction of a fruitless mind.
In my worldview, Laws of Logic are justified because they are patterns of how God Himself thinks.
What about in your worldview? How are laws of logic justified?
"In my worldview, Laws of Logic are justified because they are patterns of how God Himself thinks."
No, that isn't justified yet, that is the assertion in contention. You need to provide the justification before claiming it is justified, you still have all your work before you. Let us proceed.
First, prove that your god exists. Do this without reverting to the very thing you are attempting to justify.
Second, show that this is how he thinks. Please do this without appealing to what you are already attempting to justify.
Third, show how and what your god thinks translates to physical reality. Try to do this without philosophical hand-waving and open-ended questions.
"What about in your worldview? How are laws of logic justified?"
As the natural ontological result of existence. We have been over this already.
This comes down to our ultimate standard, you want me to prove God, without using God. What should I use? Reason? Evidence? or perhaps my mind to interpret that evidence? What justifies reason, or my minds ability to interpret evidence? Is that my ultimate standard?
I say that the only way I can use reason or my mind, is if God first exists, and yes it is kinda circular, I admit that. Although I don't believe it is a vicious circle. But then again, any argument for an ultimate standard has to have some degree of circularity. If an ultimate standard appeals to something other than itself, then it isn't an ultimate standard then is it.
"This comes down to our ultimate standard"
No it doesn't, it comes down to whether we can provide evidence or reasoning concerning our assertions. I have, nearly a page of this thread is me doing precisely that, and you haven't(as yet) been able to ontologically or even reasonably provide anything resembling it for you own.
"you want me to prove God, without using God."
Generally, when the existence of something is in contention, it is best to avoid circular arguments that rely and presuppose the thing in contention.
"What should I use? Reason? Evidence? or perhaps my mind to interpret that evidence?"
Conclusive evidence, preferably, like the kind we would use to prove any other hypothesis. If not, at least a valid rational argument that doesn't rely on the thing in contention to prove the thing in contention, because that way lies gremlins and pixies.
"What justifies reason, or my minds ability to interpret evidence?"
Syllogism is the logical equivalent to the mathematical proof.
"Is that my ultimate standard?"
The idea that we need some external being beaming an ultimate standard into our heads with which to compare ice cream sandwiches to rotational momentum, is ridiculous in the first place.
"I say that the only way I can use reason or my mind, is if God first exists, and yes it is kinda circular, I admit that."
It isn't kind of circular, it is blatantly circular, and you have given us no good reason not to reject it as of yet. That which can be asserted without reasonable argument or evidence, can also be dismissed without either.
"Although I don't believe it is a vicious circle."
If it were any more terribly circular it would break two dimensionality and become a damn sphere.
"But then again, any argument for an ultimate standard has to have some degree of circularity."
No, it really doesn't.
"If an ultimate standard appeals to something other than itself, then it isn't an ultimate standard then is it."
If you ultimate standard can neither be accurately objectively demonstrated or validated, it is useless as an ultimate standard in the first place, because it would be sorely subjective and arbitrary by definition.
The Greeks used logic, which I contend is only possible if the Biblical God exists, therefore "borrowing" for the Biblical Christian worldview. Although they didn't know it.
Wow it is easy to double click post.
"but that they were borrowing things that are only possible in a Christian Worldview."
OK so how did that work?
How did the Ancient Greeks "borrow" things from a christian worldview (if there is such a thing)....the christian world view didn't appear until hundreds of years later.
Surely ,what you are talking about is christianity "borrowing" from the "worldview" of the ancient greeks , indeed from many ancient civilisations?
Banylonians ,Egyptians ,Chinese .
By borrowing, I mean they used things that are only possible if the Biblical God exists.
Idiotic to the point of imbecility.
Throwing words around doesn't prove anything. Do you have a reason?
"BTW for you humor the tractor accident involved a church, I blasted a hole right through it, or the wagon I was pulling did."
So that church just wasn't holy enough for you? Was it Unitarian?
Lol, it was made out of stone, and I was going a little to fast. If I was an atheist I would say, "I wasn't going to let a church stop me".
Yes, you are quite right. You are 18. Only.
I think the point lies in semantics.
Mr Witness1615, I think we can all agree that anything in writing supporting your position was indeed penned by the hand of.....man!!! Hey, imagine that? Keep the image of a man writing line after line of text highly colored of rich pros carried in installment after installment of enlightenment of the highest order of morality (a hetero-ruled state here, by golly). Now, what do you see? What is your image of this man? Where is he? What does he look like? How is he dressed? What company does he keep? What are his mannerisms? How does he speak? Finally, in what period of time is this man walking the Earth. How do you feel about him?
Now, in your imagination (still) can this man be a commoner? Could he be a fisherman? No, they could not write. Could he be a Farmer? No, for the same reason. A Sheep herder? No, again, common men got and gave their community news and notices of events by word of mouth only. So, this man in your imagination, who is he? How can he leave you so moved by his writings that his audience of men just like you grew to such a magnitude of such a long period of time. He was not a commoner, by evidence of his higher education, and the stories do not reveal to us that such a person was in company with the original biblical cadre of characters.
Remember, we're talking about one man, right? What if there were two men, no, three, wait...many men penning similar stories to eventually be collected into a single work of witnesses? I believe that's basically a good description of the Bible and pretty much on-course regarding it's origins in antiquity? Right? I mean, the story would seem to be front page news, a high profile story of the time and any scribe would certainly have been in close contact with the daily proceedings of such a troupe and its colorful leading man.
But, no, this was not the case. No matter what we find of period records we see that the time-line for a Christ character and his entourage were not chronicled by any of the known period scribes who were intimate with the region. Yes, we do find some records but the sketchy information of the Christ personage and company are readily evidenced as fraudulent, written into those records a couple centuries later (ink compositions and ages were different) by persons attempting to give evidence of the period existence of the Christ person and company. Science, god given or not, defeats the story out of hand. But, that's not the point here.
The point is this: Who wrote the Bible where all these morals and ethics might be gathered into a single work for all mankind to hold dear and follow? Who wrote it? Man did, for sure but which man, or men. It wasn't the period commoners the Bible story tells us of. They could not write. It wasn't the scribes of the time. Their records tell of no such story, it's events, personages or even hints of their period existence. Who did, then. And, the earliest known works of the Bible being in Latin, are we to suppose that the region now know as Italy is the Bible's origin? The language of the Jews was not Latin. Where did the Latin-speaking people get their information from to put together this Latin Bible?
We don't know any of the time-line details preceding the ultimate collection of works contained in what is called the Bible. What we do know is there was a Pope who, 182 years after the supposed existence of the Christ figure, penned the 1st known Bible of record.
There's a lot of weight the Christian world heaps onto the Bible. No doubt about that. There's also a lot of romancing it as the word of their God. No doubt about that either. What it does not do is admit that work was written down by mere mortals who, in that same thought, are known to embellish themselves at any turn and use such embellishment for their own ends.
The Bible is a testament to the good man inherently embodies towards his fellow man. That is the origin of the morality and ethos the Bible redirects as the work of a Holy See. The religions is spun off just got a bit out of hand, went into commercial competition with each other and it all eventually escalated to blood-letting and our current dilemma with Islam violently hawking their holier See.
Man wrote the rules. We atheists just don't need most of them anymore because we don't have to wear armor and carry weapons to protect a god.
Or, not. I don't care.
On your point, I am a dairy farmer, and as you can obviously read, I am not unable to write.
And there are at least four documents that chronicle the life of Christ in quite detail,
Mathew ~A tax collector
Mark ~ Unknown
Luke ~ Physician
John ~ Fisherman
And in fact 13 letters that make up part of the New Testament were written by Paul a Sadducee.
"For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." ~2 Peter 2:21
You should know, for future reference, that the gospels were not actually written by disciples, and that many of the Pauline texts are actually known to be revisions if not outright forgeries.
Do you have a reason to believe this? Or are you just stating something to be believed?
because:
Matthew was not written by Matthew
Mark was not written by Mark
Luke was not written by Luke
and you guessed it:
John was not written by John
Mark: c. 65–73,
Matthew: c. 70–100
Luke: c. 80–100
John: c. 90–110
These are origin dates given by some of the most conservative of scholars, and even they freely admit that they were written anonymously, you really need to do your research BEFORE you come here.
Are you stating when the books were written?
The earliest, most conservative estimates of when they were written, yes. Even most Christian scholars agree that they weren't actually written by the disciples, but by scribes later based on early Christian oral traditions. No one really knows who wrote them.
Correction Paul was a Pharisee.
My belief in the Batman is not arbitrary. Here are some reasons why. Only Batman can account for those things we take for granted. Without Batman you couldn't prove anything, because in order to prove something you need laws of logic which can only come from Batman. Without Batman you couldn't know anything, because in order to know something there has to be laws of logic, uniformity in nature, reliability of senses and memory, etc. these things are only possible in a Batman worldview.
So are you just renaming God as Batman? Or is there a difference between the Batman worldview and the Christian Worldview?
well 'Batmanians' don't believe that you will be tortured for eternity if you don't accept Batman into your heart, they just believe that he will punch you in the face a few times and the words "Bam" will appear...
I got a "pow".
We prefer the term "Batmaniacs". And there is also always the possibility of a "Wham!", a "Boom!", or if your really pious a "Kazowee!".
Is Batman good or evil?
well obviously batman decides who is good and evil
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