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It looks like you're an epistemological agnostic. You consider theism and atheism inherently impossible to prove.
We know why you consider atheism untenable, given that you've said above that negatives can't be proven. (That's wrong, and it can be shown mathematically why that's the case, but we can discuss that later). So why do you consider theism unknowable?
I was raised Methodist until I was 12, when we switched to the Baptist church because the Methodists had a picture of a black family in their Sunday School literature one month. True story. I read the Bible cover to cover four times. There is no proof of anything between those covers, outside the references to actual historic figures such as Herod.
Those who believe do so because of faith, not evidence. I have heard literally hundreds of people in my life offer "proof", which invariably circles back around to what they believe or want to beliieve. Theism may not be unknowable, but it is obviously unexplainable.
The god of Abraham is the god of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, none of who seem to be able to agree on much of anything. I would think that any deity worth his salt would have ben a bit more explicit when he dictated the scriptures to his scribes, and careful to avoid any confusion.
There are currently +/- 5,000 religions on the planet, with as many deities. Many of them are derivatives of previous belief systems. Even Jesus can be traced back to Horus in Egypt, and the similarities between them are uncanny, down to detaisl such as birth and death. Religion was created to explain the inexplicable, and gods were created to follow as a rallying point for adherents, much like flags or other iconography. As time passed, leading the worship became a cottage industry, and the preists invented all sorts of torments for nonbelievers to keep the faithful in line and the shekels flowing in. The church worked with the government to keep everyone in line. If there was an historic Jesus, he was killed because he got in the way of the profits from selling sacrifices and dispensations in the Temple.
In short, I have yet to see any sort of empirical data proving the existence of any deity. If there is a god, it is in a form that we with our reptilian brains cannot possibly comprehend. It would be more of a transfer of energy from and into the universe, like dipping a bucket of water from an ocean and pouring it back in to become a part of the whole again. The nonsense about heaven and hell are exactly that. There are no "streets of gold", and if there were, and gold was so common as to be used as a paving material, asphalt might be the next big thing.
If you have anything to add or subtract, I'm all ears.
I was raised Methodist until I was 12, when we switched to the Baptist church because the Methodists had a picture of a black family in their Sunday School literature one month. True story. I read the Bible cover to cover four times. There is no proof of anything between those covers, outside the references to actual historic figures such as Herod.
Those who believe do so because of faith, not evidence. I have heard literally hundreds of people in my life offer "proof", which invariably circles back around to what they believe or want to beliieve. Theism may not be unknowable, but it is obviously unexplainable.
The god of Abraham is the god of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, none of who seem to be able to agree on much of anything. I would think that any deity worth his salt would have ben a bit more explicit when he dictated the scriptures to his scribes, and careful to avoid any confusion.
There are currently +/- 5,000 religions on the planet, with as many deities. Many of them are derivatives of previous belief systems. Even Jesus can be traced back to Horus in Egypt, and the similarities between them are uncanny, down to detaisl such as birth and death.Religion was created to explain the inexplicable, and gods were created to follow as a rallying point for adherents, much like flags or other iconography. As time passed, leading the worship became a cottage industry, and the preists invented all sorts of torments for nonbelievers to keep the faithful in line and the shekels flowing in. The church worked with the government to keep everyone in line. If there was an historic Jesus, he was killed because he got in the way of the profits from selling sacrifices and dispensations in the Temple.
In short, I have yet to see any sort of empirical data proving the existence of any deity. If there is a god, it is in a form that we with our reptilian brains cannot possibly comprehend. It would be more of a transfer of energy from and into the universe, like dipping a bucket of water from an ocean and pouring it back in to become a part of the whole again. The nonsense about heaven and hell are exactly that. There are no "streets of gold", and if there were, and gold was so common as to be used as a paving material, asphalt might be the next big thing.
If you have anything to add or subtract, I'm all ears.
So you aren't really a hard agnostic in the technical sense. You just find the evidence for either world view unconvincing.
Your comment in bold is what is known as the argument from religious discordance (contrareity). This had some traction back in the early 20th century during the heyday of secular philosophy, but is now generally regarded as fallacious by knowledge theorists.
You can see for yourself why we don't find it tenable today.
1. Is classical logic wrong because dozens of different non-classical axiomatizations exist?
2. Is all of quantum mechanics false because there are multiple discordant interpretations?
3. Do we dismantle an academic field because there are alternative theories, disagreements (or even intractable controversies)?
The Christ myth theory is not taken seriously among academics.
Ideas like this belong to the continental scholarship of the late 19th century. Today, it's considered a Dawkinsism more apt to secular social media echo chambers, among people without the background (or patience) to do proper primary source checking.
The liberals try hard to scrub any shred of decency or history from society as it doesn't align with their ideology.
If they're offended, it has to be ended.
The fact is that this motto was added and there is no reason it can't be changed. It was added after the civil war in 1864 and that was only to coins. It was not added to our bills until 1964 when the cold war was raging.
Below is a listing by denomination of the first production and delivery dates for currency bearing IN GOD WE TRUST:
DENOMINATION PRODUCTION DELIVERY
$1 Federal Reserve Note February 12, 1964 March 11, 1964
$5 United States Note January 23, 1964 March 2, 1964
$5 Federal Reserve Note July 31, 1964 September 16, 1964
$10 Federal Reserve Note February 24, 1964 April 24, 1964
$20 Federal Reserve Note October 7, 1964 October 7, 1964
$50 Federal Reserve Note August 24, 1966 September 28, 1966
$100 Federal Reserve Note August 18, 1966 September 27, 1966
We all have the right to choose our own poison.
The ten commandments are fundamentals if practiced, keep people at peace with one another.
Interesting. Putting an invocation of the Supreme Being on one's currency seems a pretty fine example of taking the Lord's name in vain, at least to me. And to several Supreme Court judges, you may want to Google the term "ceremonial deism".
It doesn't need to be there, but I don't think it needs to be changed just for the sake of changing it. If we're redesigning money, then, of course, change it to something more meaningful to the United States. A good example will be if/when we release the new $20 bill design. Otherwise, let it be until the next design.
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