There is no such thing as an "atheistic worldview", atheism is purely the lack of belief in a god. What bias do you think that a freethinkers website would have, which doctrine of beliefs are they trying to promote?
Don't kid yourself, that isn't Descartes talking. Note where "freethought.org" redirects, "infidels.org." A tad specific with regards to religion to just be a bunch of nonbelieving free thinkers, no?
Sure there is - your fellow atheist freethinkers affirm that atheism is a worldview even if you deny it. Atheism is part of the more broad worldview called naturalism. Other types of naturalism include communism and secular humanism. Also the Nazis were naturalists at their core, and based much of what they did on social Darwinism.
So really naturalism doesn't have a very good track record with Hitler's concentration camps killing millions of people, and Stalin's purges killing millions of people, and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge killing millions of people.
Hitler was influenced by social Darwinism, and the Nazis used eugenics, but both were rather bastardized versions. Hitler was a prick, and motivated by power, quite basically. Sure, the scientists left to their devices in the camps did some bad things, and they wouldn't have killed as many as they have if they weren't there, but Christianity left to it's own devices is no better. Mass rural witch hunt, anyone?
No one claims that they're word for word copies, but it's blatantly obvious that previous stories were taken and expounded upon for the bible.
Note to Christians: This is any and every religion. Judaism was a modification of previous Semitic and Sumerian religions. Divine revelation is the evolution of thought.
Yeah, I know...the whole "those past gods? Pfffft, all fairytales....now THIS one is actually true" ideology.
Just as long as you apply this to specific people. It is not an argument against religion in general.
Well, we do live in the real world, we need reality as a guideline. Could anything be achieved if we had to take in the possibility of any and all types of supernatural activities one's imagination could dream up?
You might want to look up the Sistine Chapel. You may also want to look up Max Weber, Freud, and the various sociologists that have dealt with religion as a focus.
Is that a fact, is it? Not possibly just your belief?
Myth said:
1 a
: a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon b
: parable,
allegory
Myths are "stories about divine beings, generally arranged in a coherent system; they are revered as true and sacred; they are endorsed by rulers and priests; and closely linked to religion. Once this link is broken, and the actors in the story are not regarded as gods but as human heroes, giants or fairies, it is no longer a myth but a folktale. Where the central actor is divine but the story is trivial ... the result is religious legend, not myth." [J. Simpson & S. Roud, "Dictionary of English Folklore," Oxford, 2000, p.254]
Wrong. Incorrect usage of Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
"After this therefore because of this." Seems you're wrong.
No, just because you don't believe that science is objective doesn't make it so. True science is objective and can be tested and reproduced.
You're not helping the case, you just said true science doesn't exist, beyond the abstract, which is what they were pushing you into. There is no
proof that anything can be tested and reproduced infinitely, which is what is needed to prove something. Science attempts to
disprove, not prove. There are no true facts in science, only empirically untrue.
1- "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father..." -- Ezekiel 18:20
"I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation..." -- Exodus 20:5
The first is legal, and in regards to how someone is to be judged in court. The second is with regards to the entire nation of Israel, and their covenant with God.
2- "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." -- James 1:13
"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham..." -- Genesis 22:1
Myth vs. philosophy. Difference in language being used (and I don't mean Greek and Hebrew, though that's a factor)
3- ... I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." -- Genesis 32:30
"No man hath seen God at any time..."-- John 1:18
You could have easily gone much more direct than that,
"And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle." Exodus 33:11
"And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." Exodus 33:20
Not just in the same 1000+ pager, nor the same book, but within
ten verses of each other in the same chapter. But then it would become a little too clear that "face-to-face" is an expression used a few times in the bible, always figuratively to express a point. Truer still, the appearance of God at all, is oft-used in a metaphoric sense.
4- "... with God all things are possible." -- Matthew 19:26
"...The LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." -- Judges 1:19
I'll give you that one. I'm unsure of what the specific meaning of Judges in this case is, it could be a translation error, as the wording seems a bit odd, and I forget what that's in reference to.
5- "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised." -- Genesis 17:10
"...if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." -Galatians 5:2
Hebrew[B said:
[/b]8:6-13] 6But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
8For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
The bible is not without error, and I don't believe everything it says, but it isn't data. You can't look at it the same way as comparing science textbooks
. A lot of Christians do, but then a lot of people in general are morons, so that isn't specific to Christianity.
If we cannot trust the human mind, then we cannot trust the theist’s apprehension of theistic truths, from the Bible or otherwise! If we cannot, as Plantinga says, “presuppose that [our] faculties are reliable”, then we cannot presuppose that the theist’s faculties are reliable in apprehending theistic truths. Therefore the theologian cuts off his own head by arguing against the rational worldview.
Quite true.
