Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Religion and Spirituality > Christianity
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 09-24-2014, 12:10 AM
2K5Gx2km
 
n/a posts

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
Of course believing in science alone is a religion as well as atheism. Faith in science and in "there is no God" takes just as much faith as believing in God. Science can't explain everything but many just believe because science says that makes the most sense, as far as they can explain things. Believing everything came from nothing also takes faith, much more faith than things came from something---an intelligent being which is God.

The quote you posted makes no sense.
The only one not making any sense is you. You don't understand science nor atheism.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-24-2014, 12:16 AM
 
23,653 posts, read 17,426,140 times
Reputation: 7467
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiloh1 View Post
The only one not making any sense is you. You don't understand science nor atheism.
You don't understand, they both take faith.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 12:50 AM
 
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,875,624 times
Reputation: 4559
Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
Of course believing in science alone is a religion as well as atheism. Faith in science and in "there is no God" takes just as much faith as believing in God. Science can't explain everything but many just believe because science says that makes the most sense, as far as they can explain things. Believing everything came from nothing also takes faith, much more faith than things came from something---an intelligent being which is God.

The quote you posted makes no sense.
Your right.

Science can not explain everything. But that does not mean "goddunnit" as the answer. Faith is the superstitious believe in the unprovable. Science is the understanding of its method and what that means. No faith involved. That is a fundy canard promulgated by pastors who have no better answer.

And you appear to be confusing evolution with the Big Bang. It just goes to show, you don't understand either.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 01:44 AM
 
7,801 posts, read 6,344,365 times
Reputation: 2988
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40 View Post
Wow dude, your exact words were:

"You have said this before and then, like now, you have not substantiated it in any way. You just assert it and run."

You are not using public discourse. You are addressing me specifically. You use the term "YOU" and then make the condescending remark that I'm running away as if my faith is so weak.

Are you going to deny your own words now? Again, stop making it about me personally and just address the point.
Wow dude, And you keep writing to me all the while complaining you do not want to write to me.

Again I address specific posts but I am doing so as part of a greater public discussion. You do not have to reply. And I am not just addressing you, I am addressing all people who use similar lines of reasoning and interpretation as you.

Again, stop making it about me personally and just address the point. The point here is the contention that if the Jesus myth has assimilated myths from older now dead religions and myths, should it therefore too automatically die out? And if so should we expect it to have happened by now.

Does anyone want to address this on topic point, relevant to the OPs question, or are we to be mired in this pointless paranoia and personal vendetta against me?

I myself see no reason to expect that a myth that has incorporated older myths should in turn be expected to die. Rather I see it more like Natural Selection applied to Memeology. In that as newer myths and belief systems arise they are inclined to incorporate the successful elements of previous ones, while dismissing the less successful elements.

As such I would expect that each new myth or belief system that arises will be longer lived and more adapted for survival than the ones that came before.... not less so as Jeff has suggested.

Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
cupper--

Your religion is atheism and science. You will never believe in any other religions or Jesus.
I am afraid your terms need revision. Atheism is not a religion but a lack of one. YOU have a theism. However an atheist has "A-" (without) Theism. That is to say: No theism.

Saying atheism is a religion is like saying bald is a hair color.

Similarly science is not a religion but a tool. For all the sense you seem to be making, you might as well call a hammer a religion. Or the rules of football a religion. They are not religions, they are tools and methodologies. If you can not get your basic definitions correct then discourse between you and atheists is merely going to descend quickly into farce.

As for the line "You will never believe in.....": This is mere assumption on your part based on your own frustrations and biases. The fact is you have NO IDEA what other people will or will not believe in the future. Rest assured however, if you continue to fail to substantiate your ideas in any way, then your assumption that _I_ will never believe them is certainly valid.

But I do not assume no one will even substantiate it for me in the future. All I can say with certainty is that people like yourself have failed to do so THUS FAR.

More than that I will not say or assume.

Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
Science can't explain everything
More correctly is that Science HAS NOT explained everything. There is no basis right now on declaring what it can, or can not, help us explain in the future. Maybe it will explain everything some day. Maybe it will not. We simply do not know.

All we can say with certainty is what the methodology of science has been used to explain SO FAR. More than that we can not say or assume.

Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
but many just believe because science says that makes the most sense
I am afraid you are merely demonstrating here that you require a science 101 course. Because what you describe here is simply not how science works. Science does not "say" anything. Science is merely a methodology which we use to help us interpret data. Nothing more.

Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
Believing everything came from nothing also takes faith, much more faith than things came from something---an intelligent being which is God.
It is not about belief here either. Again that is not how science works. The fact is that the idea everything came from nothing has substantiation and a basis. There are reasons to lend this idea credence.

The idea there is a god however is thus far not just slightly, but ENTIRELY unsubstantiated in any way.

It is not that I "beleive" or "disbelieve" either proposition in other words. I just simply recognize that at this time one idea has at least some substantiation, while the other idea does not.

Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
You don't understand, they both take faith.
That is right. We do NOT understand that they both take faith. Because they do not take faith. So why would we understand that they do, when they do not?

I also do not understand that there is a santa claus. Why would I when there is no reason to think there is one?

The real failure of understanding however that is actually being displayed on the thread is your understanding of atheism and science. Neither take faith, and you appear to think they do.

There is no faith required in the sentence "I see no reason to think what you are telling me is true".

And when you claim there is a god "I see no reason to think what you are telling me is true".

If you think the sentence in the quotes requires faith, then by all means adumbrate your reasoning for us.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 09:23 AM
 
1,292 posts, read 3,457,867 times
Reputation: 1430
Quote:
Originally Posted by janelle144 View Post
You don't understand, they both take faith.
Clearly, they do.

Faith is not a way of knowing; it is the end result of the examination of evidence.

This is something that is not clearly understood, or is denied, by some (not all) atheists, who choose to use a definition of faith that is at odds with the common understanding - and as promulgated by Peter Boghossian, who has had his clock cleaned on this claim when he has tried to debate it.

"Faith" is an extension of trust based on the evidence that is available.

I have faith that my wife and children love me.

I have faith that my driveway will support my car's weight.

I have faith that the unprovable postulates of Euclidean geometry will continue to produce consistent results.

I have faith that the moral postulates of Christianity will continue to provide the best way to live.

I have faith that God exists based on multiple lines of evidence - logical, historical, and empirical.

I could be wrong in some or all of those, but all are based on lines of evidence.

Christian believers all use evidence as the basis for their faith, which can range from comparatively simple evidence, such as Plantinga's argument that belief in God is a properly basic belief; or belief from authority and consensus, such as that mother and father are trustworthy and taught that Christianity is correct, or the knowledge that the majority of the most intelligent people through history have been believers and so it is not inherently unreasonable to believe, or that the majority of all peoples have had a belief in God, or the witnessed presence of Christians performing acts of charity around the world and in one's community.

The individual believer may extend faith based on more complex evidence, such as the historical records reflecting the existence of Jesus, His teachings, and the actions of his followers, which may resonate with the believer's innermost feelings of what is truthful; to more complex evidence based on logic, such as St. Thomas Aquinas's 5 proofs, St. Anselm's Ontological argument, Plantinga's argument from evolution, or the Kalaam argument, or the argument from morality, or the argument from the presence of evil.

Some believers may base their belief in whole or part on empirical personal evidence, such as the way prayer makes them feel, or the feelings of awe and majesty they feel when they look into the nighttime sky, or answered prayers, or witnessed miracles, or the felt presence of the Holy Spirit.

All of these are items of evidence. Many will be held in combination. Some may have lesser or greater force to a particular individual, and atheists may argue on whether each, or any of them is good or sufficient evidence; but each is felt to be sufficient to the individual believer, and so she or he extends faith towards a proposition - that God exists and should be worshipped.

Science is another attempt to gain knowledge by examining evidence to come to some conclusions about the natural world. It requires belief in unprovable axioms, such as Euclidean geometry; in the regularity and reproducibility of experiments; in the honesty of researchers; that logic works; as well as other lines of evidence.

As in the field of religious belief, these lines of evidence, and others specific to each field, will have greater or lesser force for particular individuals involved in the sciences, and so some will come to different conclusions - hence, we have controversies over global warming, over the health of bio-engineered foods, over the extent of application of evolutionary biology as a predictor in human behavior, and so forth.

Clearly, science requires faith to work.

This should not be a surprise, as the scientific method originated within the Church, was supported by the Church, many of the greatest scientists have been members of the Church, and the system of higher education that resulted in the greatest advancements within science was created by the Church, ad majorem Dei gloriam.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 12:33 PM
 
217 posts, read 145,535 times
Reputation: 228
"Faith is not a way of knowing; it is the end result of the examination of evidence."

Cite your source for this definition, please. Oh wait, you can't, because no one defines faith that way. You can't win arguments by making up your own definitions to already defined words.

https://www.google.com/search?q=defi...m=122&ie=UTF-8
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Vernon, British Columbia
3,026 posts, read 3,623,807 times
Reputation: 2191
Quote:
Originally Posted by comm08 View Post
"Faith is not a way of knowing; it is the end result of the examination of evidence."

Cite your source for this definition, please. Oh wait, you can't, because no one defines faith that way. You can't win arguments by making up your own definitions to already defined words.

https://www.google.com/search?q=defi...m=122&ie=UTF-8
There is no contradiction as far as I can see. Faith is belief that cannot be proven, which is what he said. Everyone has faith because everyone believes many things that cannot be proven. All of us believe them to be true for many reasons including those mentioned in the post above.

The disagreements over faith breaks down to who you trust. Skeptics on here trust Truther sources such as the Zeitgeist movies, Christians trust the Bible, environmentalists trust David Suzuki, libertarians trust Ayn Rand, etc. The reason someone has faith in the Bible and another in David Suzuki is because they have seen evidence (real or perceived) that these are trustworthy sources of information.

Last edited by Glacierx; 09-24-2014 at 01:00 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 06:57 PM
 
1,292 posts, read 3,457,867 times
Reputation: 1430
Quote:
Originally Posted by comm08 View Post
"Faith is not a way of knowing; it is the end result of the examination of evidence."

Cite your source for this definition, please. Oh wait, you can't, because no one defines faith that way. You can't win arguments by making up your own definitions to already defined words.

https://www.google.com/search?q=defi...m=122&ie=UTF-8
Oh wait, yes I can. Around these parts, we use a new-fangled piece of technology called a "dictionary," which gives us common definitions for those soundey things that we call "words."

What do we find when we look at an online dictionary?

faith
fāTH
noun

1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
"this restores one's faith in politicians"
synonyms: trust, belief, confidence, conviction; More
antonyms: mistrust

2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
synonyms: religion, church, sect, denomination, (religious) persuasion, (religious) belief, ideology, creed, teaching, doctrine
"she gave her life for her faith"
a system of religious belief.
plural noun: faiths
"the Christian faith"
a strongly held belief or theory.
"the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe"

This, especially definition #1, is a good definition - it is an extension of trust, which is the definition I gave you: ""Faith" is an extension of trust based on the evidence that is available."

We do not trust things without some reason to trust them, yes? We need evidence. We don't believe things if they seem obviously untrue or unlikely - I don't believe that purple lemurs are residing in my left nostril, or that Peter Boghossian is hiding in the trunk of my car, or in the artistic merits of Miley Cyrus.

You obviously believe in things because you have some evidence that make them seem true or at least likely to you, Comm08. Do you believe all other people than those in your tiny atheistic subculture all operate off of some other frame of reference, and believe things at random, without some reason (i.e., "evidence")?

Clearly, an atheist and a Christian will differ on what weight to give a particular item of evidence, but an atheist cannot reasonably argue that Christians believe, or extend trust to a proposition, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

Many atheists seem to be confused about the semantic difference between "evidence" and "proof," and so feel that if the beliefs of Christians are not what the atheist believes meets his or her personal biases for what constitutes "proof," then they lack all "evidence" and are operating on "faith" alone.

One may hold to such a belief if they choose to use an exclusively atheist conception of "faith," but one risks being mistaken for a "jackass" if one chooses to do so. One will also be doing violence to the concepts of "reason" and "logic."
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 07:00 PM
 
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,875,624 times
Reputation: 4559
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arizona Mike View Post
Oh wait, yes I can. Around these parts, we use a new-fangled piece of technology called a "dictionary," which gives us common definitions for those soundey things that we call "words."

What do we find when we look at an online dictionary?

faith
fāTH
noun

1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
"this restores one's faith in politicians"
synonyms: trust, belief, confidence, conviction; More
antonyms: mistrust

2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
synonyms: religion, church, sect, denomination, (religious) persuasion, (religious) belief, ideology, creed, teaching, doctrine
"she gave her life for her faith"
a system of religious belief.
plural noun: faiths
"the Christian faith"
a strongly held belief or theory.
"the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe"

This, especially definition #1, is a good definition - it is an extension of trust, which is the definition I gave you: ""Faith" is an extension of trust based on the evidence that is available."

We do not trust things without some reason to trust them, yes? We need evidence. We don't believe things if they seem obviously untrue or unlikely - I don't believe that purple lemurs are residing in my left nostril, or that Peter Boghossian is hiding in the trunk of my car, or in the artistic merits of Miley Cyrus.

You obviously believe in things because you have some evidence that make them seem true or at least likely to you, Comm08. Do you believe all other people than those in your tiny atheistic subculture all operate off of some other frame of reference, and believe things at random, without some reason (i.e., "evidence")?

Clearly, an atheist and a Christian will differ on what weight to give a particular item of evidence, but an atheist cannot reasonably argue that Christians believe, or extend trust to a proposition, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

Many atheists seem to be confused about the semantic difference between "evidence" and "proof," and so feel that if the beliefs of Christians are not what the atheist believes meets his or her personal biases for what constitutes "proof," then they lack all "evidence" and are operating on "faith" alone.

One may hold to such a belief if they choose to use an exclusively atheist conception of "faith," but one risks being mistaken for a "jackass" if one chooses to do so. One will also be doing violence to the concepts of "reason" and "logic."

Well, in that vein, where is the EVIDENCE, outside of the bible, that graves opened up and zombies wandered around in Jerusalem, "seen by many"?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-24-2014, 07:14 PM
 
1,292 posts, read 3,457,867 times
Reputation: 1430
Quote:
Originally Posted by cupper3 View Post
Well, in that vein, where is the EVIDENCE, outside of the bible, that graves opened up and zombies wandered around in Jerusalem, "seen by many"?
English - do you speak it, cupper3?

I gave you 5 pieces of evidence in the form of historical attestation outside the Bible. Are you even trying to read these threads anymore? You have also been unable to lucidly explain why the Biblical texts should not be accepted as historical evidence, nor have you been able to explain how the use of a text for the evidence contained within somehow constitutes "circular reasoning."

I don't think that phrase means what you think it means.

I ask you, yet again, for the evidence to support your atheist claim. Just answer, it should be simple:

Athronges, the Prophet of Gerizim, Theudas, and the unnamed Jewish Egyptian "prophet." Should be easy to prove if your claim that there is ample Roman attestation of that period and era is correct, Cupper3. Still waiting for your response.

I'll make it easier for you. You don't have to produce 4 sources for each, only one outside Josephus. No one has denied the existence of those 4, and there have been no claims that Josephus falsified them (why would he?)

You also have not addressed the scholarship that I quoted in depth to show why Josephus's two references to Jesus are not "widely considered to be a forgery," although there is evidence that text was added to later copies. That still leaves the remaining references to Jesus that the majority of scholars accept.

Nor do you explain why Roman texts, if they even existed, would include references to miracles performed by a Jewish rabbi, who had little direct dealings with Romans before his arrest and execution, except for a centurion who came to him with a request for a miracle - an individual who would be VERY unlikely to document such a request in an official Roman document.

Nor have you addressed the reasons I provided why we would be unlikely to find strictly contemporaneous Roman references to Jesus, outside of Josephus, and the Roman textual evidence we would expect to see happens at a time when we would expect to find Roman references.

If I could cite Roman references to anomalous events surrounding the crucifixion that appeared at a later date, would you accept that it is good evidence in support of the Biblical accounts? You still haven't answered that question, either.

Again, please respond with some evidence to support your earlier claim, as I have done for you, by giving you five non-Biblical sources for the post-Resurrection appearances. There are more, but let's wait and see if you can answer the simple question I posed based on your belief in the superiority of Roman record-keeping. Your turn: Athronges, the Prophet of Gerizim, Theudas, and the unnamed Jewish Egyptian "prophet." We're all waiting.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Religion and Spirituality > Christianity
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top