Religion is Silly Fairy Tales

I don't see the issue you have. I do speak for myself when I say that if God is real one need find only one marble among all marbles, or one thing among all things, to know that God lives. And you speak for yourself when you say that in of all your examining's you've yet to discover proof of God. Your empty hand proves its emptiness, but does not disprove reason, possibility or the potential that God lives.

 

Denying the existence of such evidence does not somehow make it go away. While you don't have to accept any particular conclusion drawn from such evidence, you can't in any way rationally deny the existence of such evidence. --- Your Church of No God fundamentalism is causing you to be irrational about this.

Faith is, logically speaking, the acceptance of a particular circular argument as True.

For instance, you have faith in the Church of No God.

Fair enough, I stand corrected, but proving negatives is also not in the slightest bit "an exercise in futility" (meaning pointless or useless) for the reasons that I have explained in my response.

 

Never said you did ??

 

There is no "Church of No God". And, that is NOT a definition of atheism.

You can't make up a religion and then claim someone else is an adherent.

And, atheism is an English word found in the dictionary. Pretending there is some OTHER definition of that word is just plain ridiculous.

Philosophy is a major field of study. There is no single guiding principle that atheists follow. But, if you are interested you can look up nontheistic religions, demonstrating that there are religions don't all accept the notion of there being a god, let alone those who are not adherents of any religion.

I agree that for someone to decide that there IS a god is a pivotal decision in that person's life.

But, your "church of no god" thing is just plain illogical. People who don't believe there is a god do NOT consult that belief in no god when they make decision of ANY kind, no matter how important or trivial.

Also, there are many people who do not demonstrate any of the characteristics or behaviors of religion. Claiming that all people demonstrate the characteristics that comprise the definition of "religion" is just plain false.

 

Even Christians know that god must be accepted on faith, NOT on evidence.

The idea that mankind could test to see if there is a god is just plain ridiculous.

If you don't agree, that state a methodology for mankind to use in testing god.

 

Exactly. Someone can not simultaneously reject and accept the proposition that there is a god.

And, that is explicit in Christianity - there is no sideline. IDK is denial.

 

Yes there is. Are you now telling me that there isn't a single person in the world who believes that gods do not exist?

Yes it is.

I didn't make it up. Many people across the world claim that gods do not exist. Such people are members of the Church of No God religion (as I have dubbed it, for sake of clarity, since "atheists" love to attempt weasel-wording their way out of what they actually believe). It doesn't work on me.

Yes, one of MANY such words. So?

Pretending that dictionaries are an authoritative source of any word definition is just plain ridiculous. People define words, not dictionaries. Just within various dictionaries themselves, you will find word definitions that are contradictory. Which dictionary is the "holy" dictionary? Do you now see why your position is utterly ridiculous on its face?

Yes there is. Every single "atheist" (as the term is being defined and used here) believes that gods do not exist. That belief is what all other atheistic claims are based on.

So you do acknowledge that religions don't have to be about gods, yet you still fail to understand the identical logical framework behind every religion in existence... interesting...

Agreed. Same with deciding that their ISN'T a god.

No it isn't.

Who speaks like this?? Seriously.........

Do you seriously repeat ad nauseum "I don't believe that the Earth is flat" rather than asserting "I believe that the Earth is round" (technically an oblate spheroid)?? --- That's what you're doing here... You are asserting what you DON'T believe in rather than asserting what you DO believe in. It is a cowardly evasion tactic that atheists love to use.

Maybe I should start asserting "I don't believe that God is make-believe" rather than asserting "I believe that God is real"??

Do you now see how ridiculous your position is?

Their views on numerous topics are based in their faith that God does not exist.

Mankind is inherently a religious animal. Everybody holds some sort of religious belief about one thing or another.

All people hold at least one religious belief (numerous religious beliefs, actually). It is an inherent part of mankind.

 

Now you are just spamming.

You have not answered even one point I made.

In fact, the primary thrust of your argument is to downgrade the definition of "religion" to mean no more than any belief on any topic.

That is an assault on religion itself.

 

God is accepted on faith AND on supporting evidence (since religion makes use of both). Ultimately, it is faith at the very core of the acceptance, as supporting evidence is a strengthener of faith.

Agreed. That's why religions relating to gods are NOT science (but rather religion). Any belief regarding the existence of gods is not falsifiable.

See above.

 

The Bible says it is faith alone. And, the religious notion of "evidence" just doesn't wash. To decide that complexity (or whatever) is evidence of god REQUIRED that you think there is a god in the first place. It's pure motivated reasoning.

True. There is no way to test for the existence of god. God is not a falsifiable hypothesis.

In fact, religion has no methodology for addressing ANYTHING about god. That is the reason for there being millions of variations of religious belief throughout the world and over time.

 

I directly responded to each and every point that you made, line by line, as I always do. --- Is your claim of "spamming" a code word for displaying the surrender flag?

Egregious dishonesty. Anyone can go back and see for themselves that I have directly answered all of your points.

Here, you are either completely misunderstanding my argumentation or you are intentionally being dishonest about it. If you would pay attention to what I type, you would have seen the unambiguous definition for the word 'religion' that I have provided to the forum.

You can't rationally make that assertion when you don't even know what the logical framework behind religion is.

 

No, you do NOT get to redefine English vocabulary to be whatever you want it to be.

"Religion" is a well defined word.

And, my point about spamming is that repeated insistence that you can redefine words to fit your personal beliefs is not an acceptable form of argument.

Until you accept the words as already defined, all you are doing is spamming.

 

The Bible says that we are SAVED through faith alone, not that we accept the existence of God through faith alone. Ultimately, that acceptance is indeed based on faith (but that faith can be (and is) strengthened by supporting evidence).

No such requirement.

True.

Specific religions each make claim to their own methodology. For example, Lutherans (a sect of Christianity) refer to the Holy Bible to learn about God.

 

I'm not redefining any word. I am "completing" the incomplete definitions that others commonly make use of. It is called philosophy.

Yes it is, as I have explained. The dictionary definitions that you appeal to are incomplete in their definitions of the word, thus I have "completed" it via philosophy.

I'm not redefining anything.

Is that what you told gay "marriage" advocates at the start of the movement? I can only assume that you didn't tell THEM to "accept the word as already defined"...

Nope, you instead told them that they can redefine the word 'marriage' in a manner apart from procreation, in a manner that renders the whole institution completely irrelevant and not needed (since under that new definition there is no longer any need to regulate the obligations and responsibilities attendant upon procreation, since that new definition now claims that marriage in principle can somehow be understood apart from procreation).

 

All variants that refer to the Bible do that.

So do adherents of Judaism and Islam.

And, their differences are not just "methodology".

There is no definition of what constitutes or does not constitute "evidence" in religion, nor are there any standards or methodologies related to how evidence may be used. Anyone can simply claim anything as evidence of whatever they want to believe. There is no verification methodology. There just isn't anything within religion that could possibly reject anything as evidence - it's all evidence as long as anyone wants it to be.

That's not a rational basis for decision making. It's pure motivated reasoning with no checks.

Claiming that is an enhancement to "faith" as you do above is preposterous. That kind of "use" of "evidence" is no more than self gratification.

Look, I'm not disputing your religion.

But, YOU have been making claims about ME. And, you don't have your own house in order.

 

Good lord. You even ADMIT you are changing definitions.

Sorry, that's not a legitimate component of any valid argument. You get to use English.

What caused you to surrender and move to making statements about marriage???

Marriage has ALWAYS been "apart from procreation" - from the very beginning.

And, no, there was no redefinition of the word "marriage". It still means exactly what it always did. ALL the laws related to marriage still apply. When WA moved to allow same sex marriage no changes to marriage law were necessary. The only change was to allow same sex couples to partake in the state institution of that name - which required rewording on a marriage license application form.

 

Evidence is defined the same way with regard to religion as it is to anything else. The definition of evidence doesn't change because "religion".

Pretty much.

Evidence is, simply, any statement that supports an argument. Essentially, evidence is a predicate. It can be in the form of an observation, a mathematical/logical proof, or even some philosophy that is accepted as fact.

Supporting evidences are thus predicates that build arguments to support another argument. That other argument very well could be "Jesus Christ exists and is who he says he is, namely the Son of God").

With regard to Christianity, given that one is a believer, there's the Holy Bible.

With regard to Christianity, given that one is a believer, there's the Holy Bible.

Given that one is a believer, the Holy Bible is a check.

It can be but it isn't necessarily.

Atheists and Agnostics can and do have experiences (which lead to the formation of supporting evidences) that lead them to believe that Christianity is true and that God really does exist. Vice versa also occurs.

Yes you are, but that's irrelevant to our discussion about what religion is and evidence is and etc.

Yes I do. It is YOU who doesn't know what various words mean (nor the philosophy and logic behind those definitions).

 

I'm not changing definitions. I am informing you that a more complete definition of the word exists and that it would make sense to make use of the more complete definition rather than an incomplete one that has become popular over the years.

I am using English. It seems that you are not.

I didn't surrender. I am exposing how you don't actually believe your own spoutings.

Nope. It never has been.

Yes there was. It was redefined in a way which claims that it can somehow be understood apart from procreation. Such a definition renders marriage to be irrelevant and not needed.

Correct. It is a union between a man and a woman that, from a social point of view, regulates the obligations and responsibilities attendant upon procreation.

WRONG. Many laws have changed over the years, especially once it became popular to accept a bastardized definition of marriage.

Maybe not in WA, but in many other States, SCOTUS unconstitutionally required those States to change their constitutions to allow for the bastardized definition of marriage [a violation of the 10th Amendment].

 

And repeatedly asserting illegitimate evidence does not make it legitimate.

I have no reason to accept illegitimate evidence as legitimate just because you claim it is.

This invented term has no meaning other than to the inventor, namely YOU. IMO you invented this term because it seems you can't handle the fact that some people don't follow any religion or believe in any mystical being. So you want to create some phony religion for these people you want to call the "Church of No God". I'm sorry but this is clearly bogus. I don't go to any church, I don't pray, I don't adhere to any rituals and I don't congregate with like minded people for the purpose of sharing these (non)beliefs.Yet, despite my indoctrination, my position is that there is no such thing as the mystical god unless and until proven otherwise. There's absolutely nothing "religion" about that. It isn't a position I'm obsessed with, it's just my personal mindset. More often than not, a religious person is obsessed with the mindset associated with his/her religion. Sometimes to the level of spending nearly every waking moment with everything associated with that religion.

Circular is the key word.

See above, utter nonsense. You might as well be saying I have faith in the Church of No Santa or No Tooth Fairy.

No it's an exercise in futility unless and until I personally want to pursue such an exercise, not for any of your reasons. For example, proving that the World Trade Center towers were not destroyed on 9/11 according to NIST's phony hypothesis is an exercise I have and would fully pursue.

 

Which seems to be the intellectually honest thing to do.

Another problem when approaching the question of whether God exists or not is the problem of defining what God is in the first place, and I think that problem is compounded by people's tendency on both sides of the aisle to anthropomorphize God:



But, what if God is Nature? What if we and everything that exists are God? If that's the case, when some atheists demand proof of God all I have to do is tell him/her to look in the damned mirror!

Not only is defining God a problem, there is the problem concerning human perception, which is extreeeemely limited to say the least. To conclude whether or not some things exist based purely on our simian perceptual faculties is ludicrous.

 

You stated:

Religion is NOT "some sort of" belief about "one thing or another".

You ARE attacking the very notion of religion.

Religion is a system of faith and worship. It is something that guides one in serious ways. It is something that requires active commitment. The principles of a religion permeate the life decisions of the adherent.

 

My argument is that there was an Exodus, but it did not go down the way the OT says. The OT embellishes with religion.

I think Moses was a midian, that the staff is pure fiction, and that on top of mt Sinai was a "coup" where Moses was murdered by Joshua and replaced with a Levite priest stunt double, a "mascot."

That is why the "Moses" who came down decided to attack and exterminate midian....not exactly a gesture of thanks for what the OT says midian did for Moses, save him and give him a life...

 

Yep, we have G/gods for every occasion, people dont have to accept a G/god, they can be assigned one!

Koalemos

The god of stupidity, mentioned once by Aristophanes, and being found also in Parallel Lives by Plutarch. Coalemus is the Latin spelling of the name. Sometimes it is referred to as a dæmon, more of a spirit and minor deity.

Koalemos - Wikipedia

 

My argument is we can't be sure there even was an Exodus, much less a Moses. The way the story goes is that Moses led the Hebrew slaves, hundreds of thousands of them, out of Egypt in about 1,400 BC. It seems implausible that if the Egyptians had hundreds of thousands of Hebrew slaves, somehow they were able to escape their well armed captors with nothing but sticks and rags and having experienced generations of slavery. And then they not only needed some lone hero leader but a whole bunch of miracles to make their escape possible. But that part is correct, it would have taken a whole bunch of miracles for that to happen.

Yeah fairy tales.

 

No...

For starters, go to YouTube and watch the 3 "Battles BC"

Moses
Ramses
Joshua

They do not go as far as I do.

Try to follow me.

Moses the midian is a slave at an ancient Egyptian construction site. The site is walled in, and outside are 80k Egyptian troops. Moses loses his cool, kills his taskmaster, and miraculously nobody Egyptian sees it. Moses changes clothes and sneaks out as a "taskmaster" who had a rough day, and goes HOME to MIdian. There he tells the following. He had met Joshua of the Levite tribe, and Joshua has a plan. Sneak back into the camp disguised as a prince of Egypt, and bring 50 swords... when the Egyptian army is off elsewhere fighting. That is battle of kadesh, the "window of opportunity" with Ramses off fighting the Hittites near turkey. Once inside, Moses finds Joshua, and it is on. Moses rises up and tells the slaves to rebel. Bricks kill the taskmasters. In charge the remaining 5k Egyptian troops not at kadesh. Joshua and a group of "special forces" sneak out and take the armory. Presto 3k Levites armed, Egyptian troops sandwiched. Exodus is ON!!!


Follow me again.

Moses went to midian.

When "Moses" comes down the mountain, it is necessary to kill 3500 people....

His people, the midianites who know the guy who came down is not Moses.

And then "Moses" attacks and exterminates midian....


Sorry, those are TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE


Much like

Col Tim osman and "Osama"