The Elevation of Religious Ideas

[Eraddd]

As for God's existence, it can be proven. Much of the immaterial things we know can only be accounted for in the Christian World View. Only in a universe created by the Christian God (also the God of Judaism, though many Jews reject his gospel, and thus unfortunately worship in vein)

As a Christian, I lol'd so hard. You have got to be joking me. You CANNOT logically prove the existence of God, and the evidence at best is inconclusive (the evidence including the miracles on peoples' lives, the bible (a book that is KNOWN for its inaccuracies in parts due to the amount of translations and mistranslations that have gone into this book). The bible is a history book yes; however, to take everything by exactly its word is stupid and leads to all this extremist stuff that many Conservative Christians are quite famous for. The only way we know God is through faith; I believe you quoted the correct Hebrew verse, so you should be familiar with this concept. There is no logical or materialistic way of proving God.

You believe that science is compatible with Christianity. Then goddamn it, start putting in those beliefs, instead of spouting out archaic bullshit and nonsense that Christians with some bit of sense would be shaking their heads at.

[sonickid01]

He barks!

Big talk, sir. Eraddd beat me to it but you value faith so highly yet insist on giving nonsensical allusions to proof. I won't ask you to display your proof in this thread because it's already way off topic but if you're quite certain in your arguments then post a new thread and challenge the lot of us to disprove it, or at least PM someone who feels particularly contentious (I'm far too lazy for back-and-forth PMs).

It's always easy to argue with bold, groundbreaking assertions while excluding any kind of reference to evidence. Empty claims!

You appeal to immutable laws of logic. I can contradict this and you'd change positions; this is because you begin with your conclusions set already. This type of argumentation is unfalsifiable, because the beautiful things in nature prove your deity and the dirty things in nature prove your deity and no matter what the situation is you may attach your deity on the end and say "it's because of my personal god!" There is no way to distinguish between a world with a god and one without, no control so to speak, and no predictions to prove it since contrary evidence is waved off as "he just did it that way cause my god wants to."
To see if he paid attention to understand why I'm saying this:
No, I cannot possibly disprove your claims of a god, it is simply impossible in practice.

Edit: adding to the below post- "...as far as we know and can determine in a practical manner given the equipment and experiment we have and acknowledging that we cannot have 100% certainty, although perhaps very close."

[Morm]

Hence the adage: Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

[CaptKirby]

J-man, I hope god does not strike me dead, though cursed, before I finish this post while listening to metal that may or may not possibly be praising his dastardly foe (or zany inbred cousin???) Satan (who can understand that zany music!!!). Anyway, it is literally impossible for a god to be responsible for our world continuing to move, that would be gravity. A god could be responsible for our world ceasing to end, on the other hand. The only way that god could possibly be responsible is if CRAZY DEMONS were constantly trying to stop the Earth from turning, with god and/or noble angels constantly making it move or fending off the crazy demons! Also you have absolutely no proof that any rulers are being deposed by god, since they are in fact deposed by other people! Phew glad god kept beating my heart during this post, I thought I might make him angry enough to stop tickling my ticker.

[J-man]

Originally Posted by Fat Hipmonlee

Logical laws are nothing to do with the universe and are in fact solely concerned with language. They describe what sentences are functionally equivalent, as well as what sentences are meaningful and what are not.

So ultimately, the logical laws are indeed created by Mankind.

Have a nice day.

Originally Posted by Fat Carm

Argument: Logic is the result of the semantics of the language which we have chosen: a statement is a theorem of logic if and only if it is valid in all conceivable worlds. If the language is trivalent (true/indetermined/false), tertium non datur is invalid. Uniformity of the universe can be rationally expected in a non-theistic universe. If there is no one around with the transcendental power to change it, why should the behavior of the universe tomorrow differ from its behavior today?
Answer"Semantics of the language." Semantics deals with the study of the meaning of words, their development, changes in meaning, and the interpretation of words, etc. But semantics by nature deals with the changing meaning of words and the often subjective nature of language and its structures. To say the absolutes of logic are a result of the use of the subjective meanings of words is problematic. How do you derive logical absolutes from the non-absolute semantic structures of non-absolute languages?
Furthermore, simply asserting that logic is a result of the semantics of the language does not explain the transcendent nature of logic. Remember, the TAG argument asserts that Logical Absolutes are independent of human existence -- reasons given at the beginning of the paper. Since language, in this context, is a result of human existence, the argument would suggest that logic came into existence when language came into existence. But this would invalidate the nature of logical absolutes and their transcendent characteristics. Therefore, this objection is invalid.
If logic is the result of language, then logic came into existence with language. This cannot be for the reasons stated above.
If logic is the result of language, and since language rules change, then can we conclude that the laws of logic would also change? If so, then the laws of logic are not laws, they are not absolute.
Saying that "a statement is a theorem of logic" does not account for logic, but presupposes existence of logic. This is begging the question.

Nice try, but i do not believe you understand the Laws of Logic.

Originally Posted by Fat Eggbert

ie "It's ok as long as it doesn't step over the line. But if it does it is false by default."

You act as if this is a bad thing.

And the website has a minor problem. It basically says if you take away god there is no right or wrong, so we should believe in god. But that doesn't mean a god exists. It's just wishful thinking. Sure it would be nice if a god existed but that doesn't make it true...[/Quote]

Those are your words (the bolded ones), not the website. What the website merely states is that The Atheist world view can not account for right and wrong. Christianity, and only Christianity makes sense of right and wrong because it is a reflection of the Righteous nature of the Creator God and his expectations of Humanity. To clear it up, right and wrong is evidence of God because it is the most logical and rational explanation of this phenomenon.

Originally Posted by Fat MrIndigo

Historical evidence refutes several parts of the Bible, notably in relation to statistics and population numbers in different regions. In any case, the fact that something is written down does not make it true.

Be more specific. This is very vague, but i have an idea of what you might be onto and i might already know that you are false.

No they don't. Every single Creationist argument against evolution comes from profound misunderstanding of the science.

Ignorance. This post is pure, arbitrary, ignorance. Without a single knowledge of any of the arguments i would be willing to give you in another thread.

We promote real science.

Fixed for accuracy

Prove it. None of this is true.

Most of those links (i added one on "lack of belief" because it taught me what lack of belief was and how it is irrational to say one lacks a belief) provide arguments for the evidence of God. Unfortunately, instead of logically destructing my argument, you again arbitrarily say "NO, YOU'RE WRONG, YOU CAN'T PROVE HIS EXISTENCE!!!! EVEN IF YOU TRY AND PROVE IT YOU'LL ALWAYS BE WRONG"

No, religion at all makes no rational sense.

Please expand instead of arbitrarily saying it.

All of the problems with atheism in terms of rationality and "atheism is irrational why do we have morality" are all logically incorrect and stem from either misunderstanding or deliberate falsehoods about what atheism and rationality are.

Please expand

What's your point? There are plenty of reasons to conform to moral standards; the chief among them being that humans are a social species and the benefits of being in society and following the rules outweigh the short-term gains of going against them.

the problem here is that you end up running into situational ethics. All you can offer is subjective, ever changing morality. That hasn't accounted for why it's nearly unanimous that murder arrouses fealings of "that's wrong!"

This argument fails because the comparison of human morality to god's morality necessarily assumes that there is a baseline of human morality to judge. It therefore follows that the standardised God morality is not actually necessary; humanity could enforce it's own morality independently.

I'm having a hard time deciphering what you are trying to say... I'll try this again and if i get the same response, than something i'm saying is wrong...

Those kids are not being held to any standard. They do whatever they want because that's what they want to do. Now, in Christianity, there is a Law (not a code) God uses to govern humanity that says "you can't do whatever you want because that is wrong". Obviously, no human being can keep this perfect law and the law ends up condemning us to hell. Thanks be to God however, that Christ kept this law perfect and offered himself as a sacrifice on the cross for us! Now i am dead to sin, and alive in Christ. It is only in my gratitude that i try and be Christ like, which requires i respect my elders. I am now attempting to keep the law to the best of my ability, because i am dead to sin and can not be called a child of God if i live a life in willing sin. I EXPECTED to act this way. Atheism can not have these expectations, as it falls on the individual human to behave and choose his own actions, what he selfishly desires.

Originally Posted by Fat LevitatingLamprey

RESPONSE TO CURRENT ARGUMENT:
The Bible is at least partly a history book. Many events have been proven to be true eg: 'Moses'did lead some people across a shallow seasonal lake called the Reed Sea.
Also, J-Man, many religions in their base ideal(like political ideals) are perfect, but looking at Europe's bloodthirsty massacres between Christians, Atheists, Protestants, Catholics and such it is clear to see that (while you did say world peace is unnattainable) religion is not as pure as you claim. I'm not discrediting any religion, but pressing yours upon someone else and disparaging everyone's views as garbage when scientific atheists have just as much of a right to claim their beliefs in unreligion isn't right.

EDIT: Also, to everyone I'd just like to point out further the very spurious link of morality and a deity. I won't trash-talk it, but arguments need a stronger base than this link-free style.

In regards to your edit, i could just repeat all the words of the link, but i'm just lazy. There really is no point in saying one thing if a website explains what you are going to say more than likely better.
Anyways, as DK has pointed out, there are maniacs, or power control freaks that will work in the name of religion. The Catholic church of the middle ages that spread word by the sword (although i vaguely remember in my readings that there might not have been rationally sound ethical challenges to this...) was not the true Christian Church....

Originally Posted by Fat Eraddd

As a Christian, I lol'd so hard. You have got to be joking me. You CANNOT logically prove the existence of God, and the evidence at best is inconclusive (the evidence including the miracles on peoples' lives, the bible (a book that is KNOWN for its inaccuracies in parts due to the amount of translations and mistranslations that have gone into this book). The bible is a history book yes; however, to take everything by exactly its word is stupid and leads to all this extremist stuff that many Conservative Christians are quite famous for. The only way we know God is through faith; I believe you quoted the correct Hebrew verse, so you should be familiar with this concept. There is no logical or materialistic way of proving God.

You believe that science is compatible with Christianity. Then @#!*% it, start putting in those beliefs, instead of spouting out archaic @#!*% and nonsense that Christians with some bit of sense would be shaking their heads at.

I can not tell if you are a christian, but this post makes it very difficult to believe you are and makes you look like a complete fool. The first two sentences are uneccesary and are a futile attempt to be aggressive and make me feel like that is futile to argue what i am arguing... Anyways- i have just given logical arguments for the existence of God. You can't say "it's impossible." You are ignoring my point instead of tearing into it. You give no specific event of how the Bible fell from accuracy. You give no example of how the Bible, read word for word in whole for its context leads to extremism. Insteady you unreasonably just say it does.
How do i put in a belief? How do you know that it's we don't have sense and aren't shaking our heads at you?

Originally Posted by Fat sonickid01

He barks!

Big talk, sir. Eraddd beat me to it but you value faith so highly yet insist on giving nonsensical allusions to proof. I won't ask you to display your proof in this thread because it's already way off topic but if you're quite certain in your arguments then post a new thread and challenge the lot of us to disprove it, or at least PM someone who feels particularly contentious (I'm far too lazy for back-and-forth PMs).

It's always easy to argue with bold, groundbreaking assertions while excluding any kind of reference to evidence. Empty claims!

You appeal to immutable laws of logic. I can contradict this and you'd change positions; this is because you begin with your conclusions set already. This type of argumentation is unfalsifiable, because the beautiful things in nature prove your deity and the dirty things in nature prove your deity and no matter what the situation is you may attach your deity on the end and say "it's because of my personal god!" There is no way to distinguish between a world with a god and one without, no control so to speak, and no predictions to prove it since contrary evidence is waved off as "he just did it that way cause my god wants to."
To see if he paid attention to understand why I'm saying this:
No, I cannot possibly disprove your claims of a god, it is simply impossible in practice.

Edit: adding to the below post- "...as far as we know and can determine in a practical manner given the equipment and experiment we have and acknowledging that we cannot have 100% certainty, although perhaps very close."

Originally Posted by Fat CaptKirby

J-man, I hope god does not strike me dead, though cursed, before I finish this post while listening to metal that may or may not possibly be praising his dastardly foe (or zany inbred cousin???) Satan (who can understand that zany music!!!). Anyway, it is literally impossible for a god to be responsible for our world continuing to move, that would be gravity. A god could be responsible for our world ceasing to end, on the other hand. The only way that god could possibly be responsible is if CRAZY DEMONS were constantly trying to stop the Earth from turning, with god and/or noble angels constantly making it move or fending off the crazy demons! Also you have absolutely no proof that any rulers are being deposed by god, since they are in fact deposed by other people! Phew glad god kept beating my heart during this post, I thought I might make him angry enough to stop tickling my ticker.

This is as much as i can post now.

[popemobile]

J Man I honestly cannot believe that after having been banned for so long, you are literally doing the exact same thing that got you banned in the first place

it's baffling

[sonickid01]

Oh my flying spaghetti monster, this post is a riot.
(To be sure, I'm not simply trolling if anyone feels I may be, and I'm trying to argue in a very calm manner. However I can't not react to this)

Originally Posted by Fat J-man

It [The Bible] was never meant to be a "story book", or a "moral compass". It IS a history book. The people of the early church was a church that celebrated the risen Christ, whose resurrection can not, and shall never be refuted. This Christ is the Christ of the Bible.

Originally Posted by Fat The Duke of Irony

Please expand instead of arbitrarily saying it.

Originally Posted by Fat J-man

Some of the science invovled in what you call "evolution" (in the molecules to man sense) we do not disagree with.

Originally Posted by Fat The Duke of Irony

Be more specific. This is very vague, but i have an idea of what you might be onto and i might already know that you are false.

Originally Posted by Fat J-man

Only an ignorant fool would try and dispute Natural Selection or variation within species. We do have sound scientific arguments (but that is for another day, but i encourage you to give it a chance and look into some). We do not oppose science, we promote its advance. We only oppose that which intentionally opposes the Authority of God's word.

Originally Posted by Fat The Duke of Irony

Please expand instead of arbitrarily saying it.

Originally Posted by Fat J-man

As for God's existence, it can be proven. Much of the immaterial things we know can only be accounted for in the Christian World View. Only in a universe created by the Christian God (also the God of Judaism, though many Jews reject his gospel, and thus unfortunately worship in vein)

Originally Posted by Fat The Duke of Irony

Please expand instead of arbitrarily saying it.

Originally Posted by Fat J-man

See:
http://carm.org/transcendental-argument
http://carm.org/failure-of-atheism-t...t-for-morality
http://carm.org/i-lack-belief-god
http://carm.org/failure-atheism-account-rationality

In addition, no other world religion makes rational sense in regards to Humanity. They all require some form of working righteousness that is impossible in reality to achieve. They offer no assurance of salvation.

Originally Posted by Fat The Duke of Irony

Please expand instead of arbitrarily saying it.

Ignorance. This post is pure, arbitrary, ignorance. Without a single knowledge of any of the arguments i would be willing to give you in another thread.

I simply couldn't resist. If he gets around to addressing my points in my last post, I'll post a less tongue-in-cheek response, but I'm posting this because the things the Duke of Irony said are very close to what was running through my mind reading this post the first time.

EDIT: To latch onto my point in my last post about falsifiability, if your story about Jesus' resurrection CANNOT POSSIBLY be disproven under ANY REASONABLE CIRCUMSTANCES within the scope where what we can test is relevant then it cannot possibly be proven either. That is a textbook example of an unfalsifiable claim. Any such assertion made on similar grounds is highly dubious from the start and should be immediately subjected to further scrutiny. In other words, if you make an unfalsifiable claim then that should be a huge tip-off from the beginning that something is very wrong about this claim.

If I have a misunderstanding of falsifiability, then someone please inform and correct me. :P

[Eggbert]

You act as if this is a bad thing.

Basically your argument: "yea i'll go along with science as long as it doesn't prove us wrong. if it does, it doesn't matter if it could be correct or not it is false by default because then we would be wrong."

Very logical right? j-man: master troll. he has this all planned.

[Luduan]

Hey J-man, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret that might just blow your fucking mind: you don't actually believe in an objective theory of morality.

Edit: also mindlessly quoting an apologetics website without bothering to understand, well, anything at all is not a very convincing debate tactic.

[cim]

Do any of you actually think you're going to convince Jman of anything, or that the discussion will be worthwhile despite disagreement?

[sonickid01]

No, but mental masturbation is both amusing and psychologically relaxing for some reason. I live in an area where nonreligion is heavily, heavily frowned upon and where I am looked at as "different" in school and am a sort of closet atheist at home. Although it has very little effect on anything, it is quite nice to be able to come here and express myself in this freedom here on cong.

In addition this is, although way too off topic from the OP to be considered anything remotely relevant, a chance to test my own argumentation on these subjects and see how they hold up to others' scrutiny, and from this I can better adapt, fix my arguments, read and evaluate others, have them evaluate mine and be somewhat prepared if confronted on the same subjects IRL.

[CaptKirby]

Yes, I believe I convinced him that god does not make the world turn because it would be impossible. Unless god is Atlas, but instead of propping up the world he props it up and moves a little every second!

[Morm]

Originally Posted by Fat sonickid01

Oh my flying spaghetti monster

I always preferred the saying "Oh Your God" by Bender in Futurama, as a flying spaghetti monster is a mock deity and I prefer to was my hands of that bullshit all together. Just throwing that out there for you.

[Hipmonlee]

Ok, Jman, I mean, you probably wont just trust me, but I dont think you really understand the carm argument either.

The point being, that if you want to be a christian, then be a christian. But defend it according to what christianity means to you, not some hokum philosophy you found on the internet.

But to make the argument regardless.. Try thinking of it this way:

Ok, lets accept that the transcendental laws are in fact about the state of the universe and not about language.

Ok, now think of a different set of rules, that relate only to language. The function of these laws is to describe what is a legitimate sentence and what sentences are self contradictory and therefore contain no information, as well as things like what sentences are equivalent.

For instance a phrase like "a cloud that is not a cloud" is not valid. It is self contradictory and therefore it contains no information. When you hear this sentence you learn nothing about the nature of this cloud that isnt a cloud. Is it a body of vapourous water or not? We are no wiser..

The point here being that the function of language is to convey information. In the case of the cloud that is not a cloud, neither you or I have any understanding of what it means, hence there is no information conveyed, hence it is not language.

The transcendental laws are in fact all included in these language laws.

Now, consider a Godless universe where the transcendental laws do not apply. In this universe something can be a cloud that is not a cloud. Except that the sentence I just used is not a legitimate sentence according to the laws of language I just described. I havent described anything. It's not that this is an example of a universe that cannot exist because of the necessity of God, it's not even that this isnt an example of a universe, it's that this isnt actually even an example. What it is is jibberish.

The transcendental laws are transcendental because they are the laws of language and language is how we are communicating. They exist in a universe that is just a rock because I am describing that universe using language. They exist in the absence of people because I am describing the absence of people using language.

Have a nice day.