Determining Reality

[Ana the Ist]

Nice try but I won't let you get by with such

a) error
b) nastiness
c) ad hom

There was quite a bit of "the thinking world," that expressed their opinion on that particular work, before this doubting Thomas ever had a chance to release it. I'm sure you know they scorned the work, and TP died an exiled pauper.

"Lay it down" all you want - you are simply wrong, and empirically so.

Again, more opinion. You haven't shown anything empirically. So is The manner in which someone dies and what the contemporaries of their day thought of them a reflection of the truth they spoke?

 

[food4thought]

THank-you for the links, but I did understand what you meant about time and the beliefs of scientists. My point was that the things you were claiming to be commonly accepted as fact simply aren't. An essay on time, and a Wikianswers page, doesn't create scientific consensus. As you said yourself, when you looked you found there was no consensus.

I retract my statement regarding the beliefs of scientists. Time dilation is an empirical fact confirmed by experiment many times over. The question for this part of our discussion really is: do you consider time a physical property? Why or why not?

As for scientists and god, are you aware that link has 10 pages??? I read a few but it never spoke about scientists and their beliefs on the origin of the universe. Does the survey make a correlation between scientists' belief in god and whether their understanding of science led to that belief? I found a survey that stated scientists base their belief in god on religious reasons, not science. Does the survey ask the scientists if they believe god created the universe? THese are the relevant questions aren't they? You can't simply point to a survey that says scientists believe in god or a higher power by a slim majority and then infer that belief in god is based on their understanding of science and that they believe god created the universe.

I could find no survey of scientists that answered these questions directly, so I did a little logical deduction and came up with the idea that those who believe in God (not just a higher power) are likely also to believe He created the universe... this is hardly a stretch. What scientists believe is really only a side point in regards to our current discussion, unless we want to use an argument from authority as our basis (something I ended up doing without really intending to). I agree with you and AlexBP (I think it was him) that the argument from authority is generally a poor way to determine truth and/or reality anyway.

you can accept the idea of a logical absurdity like an eternal Big Bang singularity, or the magical appearance of this singularity from absolutely nothing; but you have trouble with a Being who is not subject to space-time that is eternal?

Yes, here's why, its a less complex answer. I don't agree (and you haven't shown) that an eternal singularity is logically absurd. I do think its absurd that you would create an infinitely complex being like an omnipotent and omniscient god and somehow claim that he is a more "reasonable" answer. It doesn't even answer the question of "how did the universe begin?" It turns the question to "how did god create the universe?"

It may be true that proposing the Big Bang singularity as first cause is less complex than proposing an eternal God (depending on how you claim that singularity came to be); but that does not make the position any less absurd. As for an eternal or emerging Big Bang singularity being absurd... what exactly do you believe about the universe in it's first state? Please refrain from just pasting a bunch of links... I have no more time to spend researching here than you do.

God doesn't need to be in a temporal cause and effect environment to create something in which the temporal has significance.

Was there a time before god created the universe? A time when he created the universe? A time after he created the universe?

To my knowledge, that information has not been revealed to us (except for the fact that there is indeed a time after the creation of the universe), and thus I can only say "I don't know" to the first two questions. The Bible simply says "In the beginning God...", and that God "inhabits eternity" (whatever that means). This returns us to a question I asked you early in our discussion... do you agree that there is truth about reality that is currently, and perhaps forever, beyond our human capacity to know?

Wouldn't you agree that a biography and a poem should be interpreted differently?

THis discussion becomes impossible if I have to guess which parts of the bible you believe and which you do not. Do you believe mythical tales should be considered historical biography if they name some actual places and people? Do you believe the bible to be the inspired word of god? Or is it just some stuff some men wrote that contains some truth?

Hardly impossible. I am not saying I believe some parts of the Bible and not others! I am simply saying you need to use your brain when you approach the Bible; the same as you would in any other collection of writings with various formats and themes. If you conclude that the Bible is simply a collection of myths and fables, all I can tell you is that you're missing out . I do believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God... we must ask ourselves if we really want to get into Bible apologetics at this time, or whether we should return to how we define reality first.

 

[AlexBP]

Again, this is just silly. The Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age all began in most parts of the world well before Christ. There are countless technological advances that came before Christ. The wheel, phoenetic language, writing, animal husbandry, and even agricultural techniques that are still used today are some of the more important advances that all came before Christ. Mankind progressed from grunting families hiding in caves to vast empires that were technologically advanced in ways we still dont fully understand (great pyramids). It's not something you should actually believe given your education.

As I said, some of the technology used then is still in use today. From agriculture and architecture to war implements.

The point is this. History began sometime around 3000-2500 B.C. in the Middle East. So between 2000 B.C. and the time of Christ, in what way did life get better for ordinary people? One can hardly point to the Pyramids as progress. The Pyramids were built by having people push stone blocks weighing many tons up ramps. It was only because the Pharaohs had almost the entire population of Egypt as de facto slave labor that they could build Pyramids at all. When we look at the Pyramids, we should see a tremendous human rights abuse, not a great achievement. Likewise with a mention of "vast empires", it's certainly true that vast empires existed in ancient times, but were they any good for people? Most of those vast empires were horrendously violent and cruel? On the particular issue of new technologies, I've said that there was very little technology invented before Christ's time, not that there was none. Still the fact remains that the Romans farmed basically the same way that people had for thousands of years. They made clothing the same way that people had for thousands of years. Their civilization largely discouraged innovation.

Once Christian civilization began, technological progress actually began to benefit human beings. In medieval Europe they invented crop rotation, the iron plough, horse collars so that horses could do the ploughing, fish farming, and vastly improved breeding techniques to produce better strains of everything. Soon they had vastly more food for everyone and much less chance of starvation. They invented the fulling mill, the spinning wheel, and foot-powered loom, and other improvements in clothing-making, which allowed almost everyone to have clothes rather than dressing in rags for the first time. In ancient civilizations the great majority of labor was done by people. In medieval Europe it was done by animals, machines, wind, and water. This not only freed people from literally back-breaking labor, but also meant that it took fewer people to do the labor, so more people could follow intellectual or artistic pursuits. It begs the question of why there were so many changes in medieval Europe after thousands of years when many civilizations all over the globe could have made these changes and didn't? Clearly there must be some reason. The reason is that Christian civilization not only accepted but was actively in favor of progress, whereas no other civilization ever had been up to that point, as historian Rodney Stark has documented in his book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Lead to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.

 

[AlexBP]

You are aware that western civilizations practiced slavery well into the 18th century right?

After the fall of the Roman Empire, we have a gap of several centuries during which little history was recorded, though we do have a few anti-slavery documents from that period. For example, the writings of Saint Patrick are certainly against slavery. When the historical record resumes around the 600's and 700's, we find many Christian monarchs and leaders, such as Saint Bathilda, working to abolish slavery in Christian territories. Within a few centuries the practice of slavery through most of the parts of Europe where Catholics were dominant was gone, although it was still legal to use prisoners of war for forced labor. Hence western civilization became the first civilization to abolish slavery for moral reasons.

It is, of course, true that after European nations began colonizing the Americas they introduced slavery there and brought millions of slaves from Africa, and that will forever be a stain on history. However, for the purposes of this argument it should be noted that the Catholic Church was always opposed to slavery, as indicated, for instance, by the Papal Bull Sublimus Dei issued in 1537. The Church did not have the power to make laws in the Americas, however. It's also worth noting that slavery persisted in the Arab world and much of Africa long after it was abolished throughout the Americas, and in many places stopped only after European colonialists took over.

There is a wide gap between the "concept" of human rights and the "practice" of human rights. The "Code" describes the equality of citizens before the law. Ancient Greece had writers and philosophers who further developed the "concept" of human rights, even if they did not practice them. Your statement was about how "the CONCEPT of human rights didn't exist before Jesus" (paraphrasing) I can go back and pull your words into a quote if you like. So, to summarize, your statement is false. THe concept of human rights did exist centuries before Jesus, even if not practiced. If you want to change the discussion to the practice of human rights, we can, but I'd like you to first acknowledge that your original statement is wrong.

Perhaps if we're going to bridge this divide, we first need to agree on what the phrase "human rights" means. To me, it means at a minimum the trio of life, liberty, and property, and an announcement that the government can neither remove these three things from any person extra-legally and also that the government has a positive duty to protect these three things from any threat. Would you agree with that definition?

Under that definition, plainly the code of Hammurabi contains no trace of human rights, since it does not put any limits on what the government can do, but only on what ordinary people can do. I'm not aware of any ancient Middle-Eastern nation where there were limits on what the king/despot/emperor could do. They were absolute rulers, nothing less. As for the ancient Greeks, I'd have to know who you were talking about before I could discuss whether there's any notion of human rights in their writings. The most famous political writing of ancient Greece is Plato's Republic which conceptualizes an ideal nation where the government has absolute power to exterminate those its views as inferior, censor anyone for any reason, and so forth.

 

[razeontherock]

So is The manner in which someone dies and what the contemporaries of their day thought of them a reflection of the truth they spoke?

That is not at issue here, only your nasty ad hom "the whole thinking world."

Which is proven false.

 

[guitarmonster]

My reality that God is real is the miracles both big and small I have seen in my life. On top of that when I first became a believer I had an open mind. Being open minded allowed me to simply look at the evidence verses taking a wild guess and saying God isn't real. I know many say "the Bible is just a very well written story" but they fail to realize that we are not talking about 1 but 66 different books written by many different people. On top of that, there are also the other accounts written outside of the Bible that support claims of Jesus dying on the cross and raising from the dead.

With God you have to show your faith in him, and then he shows himself to you. It's hard to believe but I can tell you that the things I have seen with my own eyes, there is no way I could doubt his existence.

 

[razeontherock]

My reality that God is real is the miracles both big and small I have seen in my life. On top of that when I first became a believer I had an open mind. Being open minded allowed me to simply look at the evidence verses taking a wild guess and saying God isn't real. I know many say "the Bible is just a very well written story" but they fail to realize that we are not talking about 1 but 66 different books written by many different people. On top of that, there are also the other accounts written outside of the Bible that support claims of Jesus dying on the cross and raising from the dead.

With God you have to show your faith in him, and then he shows himself to you. It's hard to believe but I can tell you that the things I have seen with my own eyes, there is no way I could doubt his existence.

+1
this is the way Christianity works, and it is anything but circular

 

[AlexBP]

These, of course, aren't the only scholars who have made arguments against the historicisity of the bible. The point I was making is there are multiple biblical scholars on both sides, attempting to point out inaccuracy, or trying to defend the accuracy of the bible. The irony here is that if the bible were 100% accurate, why is there any discussion of the topic at all? Wouldn't the accuracy simply be apparent?

There are many problems with your line of argument here. First, I've never claimed that the Bible is 100% accurate. Second is that your logic is highly flawed. Just because there's discussion about a topic doesn't mean that one side of the topic isn't clearly right. There's discussion about whether the Nazi Holocaust ever happened, but it's not legitimate discussion. Those who say that it happened are entirely right and those who say that it didn't happen are entirely wrong.

On the larger issue, I agree with you that there are some who argue against the historical reliability of the Gospels and some who argue for it. I've read some of those who argue against it. I've also read some from the much larger and more credentialed group who argue for it. I find the arguments of those who argue for it to heavily outweigh the arguments of those who argue against it, and I've already explained my reasons for doing so. Have you read any books by those arguing for the historical reliability of the Gospels?

If you want to debate this further, I'll be happy to, but you'll need to make serious posts. Earlier you said this: "Ever read Harry Potter? It takes place in London....which exists! Therefore the quotes, people, and events therein must be true...right?" Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written a few years ago, therefore not comparable to the Gospels. When we evaluate the historical reliability of the Gospels, we must do so using the standards that historians use to evaluate the reliability of comparable texts from the ancient world. Do you believe that any texts from the ancient world are historically reliable? If so, what are the titles and authors of the texts that you'd trust, and why do you view them as historically reliable?

 

[Ana the Ist]

My reality that God is real is the miracles both big and small I have seen in my life. On top of that when I first became a believer I had an open mind. Being open minded allowed me to simply look at the evidence verses taking a wild guess and saying God isn't real. I know many say "the Bible is just a very well written story" but they fail to realize that we are not talking about 1 but 66 different books written by many different people. On top of that, there are also the other accounts written outside of the Bible that support claims of Jesus dying on the cross and raising from the dead.

With God you have to show your faith in him, and then he shows himself to you. It's hard to believe but I can tell you that the things I have seen with my own eyes, there is no way I could doubt his existence.

"On top of that, there are also the other accounts written outside of the Bible that support claims of Jesus dying on the cross and raising from the dead."

That's the first I've ever heard of this, care to mention what these accounts are?

"allowed me to simply look at the evidence verses taking a wild guess and saying God isn't real. "

Who is taking a wild guess?

 

[guitarmonster]

On this page there are several writings from people in history that were not professed Christians that support the existence of Jesus, and His resurrection. There are also writings about after Jesus ascended into Heaven that his apostles firmly carried their faith, and even when facing torture and death they "did not change their claim"

Is There Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?

Who is taking a wild guess?

I'm not taking one.

If you are the type of person who prefers to see evidence before having faith, consider the story of Simon Greenleaf. Mr. Greenleaf was one of the greatest legal minds, and was one of the founders of the Harvard Law School. When challenged by a student, he embarked on a mission to analyze the bible according to the rules of evidence and disprove it. The ending result was him discovering an incredible amount of accuracy and as a result he became converted.
Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf

If this whole Bible thing is just a hoax, then i would say it would be the most incredible hoax ever, I mean why would people (the apostles and other believers) actually allow themselves to be killed for their beliefs if they knew they weren't true? Does that make sense?

 

[Ana the Ist]

On this page there are several writings from people in history that were not professed Christians that support the existence of Jesus, and His resurrection. There are also writings about after Jesus ascended into Heaven that his apostles firmly carried their faith, and even when facing torture and death they "did not change their claim"

Is There Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?


I'm not taking one.

If you are the type of person who prefers to see evidence before having faith, consider the story of Simon Greenleaf. Mr. Greenleaf was one of the greatest legal minds, and was one of the founders of the Harvard Law School. When challenged by a student, he embarked on a mission to analyze the bible according to the rules of evidence and disprove it. The ending result was him discovering an incredible amount of accuracy and as a result he became converted.
Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf

If this whole Bible thing is just a hoax, then i would say it would be the most incredible hoax ever, I mean why would people (the apostles and other believers) actually allow themselves to be killed for their beliefs if they knew they weren't true? Does that make sense?

I was a bit disappointed by your first link in that only 2 of those documents I am unfamiliar with. I've seen the others, and their refutations, would you like to read some of those?
Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius: No Proof of Jesus
This only explains 3, though IMO the best 3, but it still soundly refutes the documents as proof. Did know before you posted that link that Pliny was not referring to Jesus Christ? Was it more surprising to find the name "Christ" used so freely in reference to others?
If you would like, I can also produce refutations of the other documents (if you don't feel like searching them out yourself) and we can discuss the merits of each in PM or another thread if you like. EVen if I were to take those documents at face value (and I don't) the most we could discern from them is that early Christians believed in Jesus, a fact I would gladly accept. It's not proof of a resurrection (as you said), only one mentioned the resurrection and that one was written by an early church theologian. Lol is that proof?

"I'm not taking one". I'm not taking any wild guesses either. I only asked because you seem to have mistakenly characterized the question of god's existence as having two options, belief or a "wild guess"

As for Simon Greenleaf, outdated would be an understatement. His blatant bias towards belief wouldn't be so bad if the premises which he bases his entire argument upon weren't faulty to begin with. He is starting from the idea that the bible has not been interpolated and should be taken as true until proven otherwise. Welcome to 2012 Mr. Greenleaf. There are more biblical passages that have been accused of interpolation than I care to list. The evidence for many of these is considerable. Granted, in his time many of the techniques used to detect authentication and falsification today did not exist. YEt, that is the foundation of the point he is trying to make, so its no longer relevant.

WHich reminds me, are you at all familiar with the "documents" that Christians have producedin an effort to "prove" Jesus Christ that have been shown to be undeniable hoaxes?
here's one example...among many...
Exclusive: Early Christian Lead Codices Now Called Fakes | LifesLittleMysteries.com

 

[Ana the Ist]

I retract my statement regarding the beliefs of scientists. Time dilation is an empirical fact confirmed by experiment many times over. The question for this part of our discussion really is: do you consider time a physical property? Why or why not?



I could find no survey of scientists that answered these questions directly, so I did a little logical deduction and came up with the idea that those who believe in God (not just a higher power) are likely also to believe He created the universe... this is hardly a stretch. What scientists believe is really only a side point in regards to our current discussion, unless we want to use an argument from authority as our basis (something I ended up doing without really intending to). I agree with you and AlexBP (I think it was him) that the argument from authority is generally a poor way to determine truth and/or reality anyway.



It may be true that proposing the Big Bang singularity as first cause is less complex than proposing an eternal God (depending on how you claim that singularity came to be); but that does not make the position any less absurd. As for an eternal or emerging Big Bang singularity being absurd... what exactly do you believe about the universe in it's first state? Please refrain from just pasting a bunch of links... I have no more time to spend researching here than you do.



To my knowledge, that information has not been revealed to us (except for the fact that there is indeed a time after the creation of the universe), and thus I can only say "I don't know" to the first two questions. The Bible simply says "In the beginning God...", and that God "inhabits eternity" (whatever that means). This returns us to a question I asked you early in our discussion... do you agree that there is truth about reality that is currently, and perhaps forever, beyond our human capacity to know?



Hardly impossible. I am not saying I believe some parts of the Bible and not others! I am simply saying you need to use your brain when you approach the Bible; the same as you would in any other collection of writings with various formats and themes. If you conclude that the Bible is simply a collection of myths and fables, all I can tell you is that you're missing out . I do believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God... we must ask ourselves if we really want to get into Bible apologetics at this time, or whether we should return to how we define reality first.

The question for this part of our discussion really is: do you consider time a physical property? Why or why not?
To be honest I'm not sure, I'm not entirely sure its relevant to this discussion any more either.
It may be true that proposing the Big Bang singularity as first cause is less complex than proposing an eternal God (depending on how you claim that singularity came to be); but that does not make the position any less absurd.
Actually, it does make it less absurd, and more reasonable. That's really the whole principle behind Occam's Razor, which in itself isn't evidence of truth, but it let's us eliminate less reasonable proposals from more reasonable ones.

what exactly do you believe about the universe in it's first state?
I'm content with the scientific description of the singularity that existed pre-Big Bang.

" To my knowledge, that information has not been revealed to us (except for the fact that there is indeed a time after the creation of the universe), and thus I can only say "I don't know" to the first two questions."

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold up a second. FIrst you propose that god created the universe, then you say "I don't know" when I ask if there was a time before god created the universe? If there was no "pre-universe time" then how do you know it was created and not eternal (always existing)? Likewise, if you don't know that there was an actual "moment" of universe creation, how do you know it (the universe) was created at all? To say that x caused y is to describe these things in a temporal state. This breaks down the very notion of a god that exists apart from time.

do you agree that there is truth about reality that is currently, and perhaps forever, beyond our human capacity to know?
If you are referring to future or past knowledge, then yes I agree. If you are leaving out the temporal aspect of reality, then I don't agree.

"If you conclude that the Bible is simply a collection of myths and fables, all I can tell you is that you're missing out ."
That's your opinion, and I respect it. Unfortunately, I can get reported for posting my opinion.

 

[guitarmonster]

i hope everyone realizes that time is a concept, it exists because we said it exists. It's a form of measurement like anything else. An example would be where Genesis talks about God creating the Earth in 7 days. You all don't think that it's literally talking he stared on Monday and ended on Sunday do you? We must remember that in the early days when God showed visions, the people seeing those visions had very little knowledge compared to what we have today. What they have written based on what they have seen is to the best of their ability. Just the same if you were to look into the sky and see something that you don't understand, you may write it down or tell someone else, but you will be forced to write down things as you understand them.

Also I have never figured out why people think that the big bang theory and creation as being so far apart. I know that we have some knowledge put together by scientists about this theory, and we also have the Bible saying that God created everything, but for some reason everyone is quick to say that both of these things are completely separate. The big bang theory could very well be the "how" as far as God creating the universe. Of course most Christians at this point would prepare to pick me up and toss me out into the parking lot at this point, but in my opinion the Bible says that God created the heavens (i'm assuming this is the writers interpretation of the sky or outer space) and the Earth, it does not say how he did it. There is no doubt that science exists, because we have tons of concrete evidence, so I can't doubt it's existence or part in creation of the universe. I believe science to be so amazing, so complex, that I believe there is a greater intelligence behind it. God created an Earth that is self sustaining, and this sustenance is provided through millions of scientific miracles.

do you agree that there is truth about reality that is currently, and perhaps forever, beyond our human capacity to know?

Absolutely, and that is one of the main points. Remember that in our lives here on Earth, every aspect of our lives has a limitation. Only so many hours in a day, you only live so long, etc. Outside of this physical life there is an eternal life that exists in a place without time, in this place there we are not subject to any limits. Of course no matter what, nobody can wrap their head around this concept, because our limited minds do not allow us to. I believe after we die and go to Heaven, we will acquire this missing knowledge of the universe, and we will see amazing things.

I can say this, for myself I did not find proof of God through knowledge of the universe, therefore I cannot provide it. I have seen proof in many other ways, one being miraculous healing, and I am not saying I saw this on tv or heard about it from a friend. I was there in person, with people I knew for a long time. I watched as a doctor just stood there completely lost, as he tried to figure out what happened to the large tumor that was just there a week ago, and is no longer there. I listened as he said "this is literally impossible, there has to be a mistake." I watched a woman who I knew for years that was badly plagued with multiple sclerosis, it was so bad that she was always in a wheelchair, but on good days was able to use crutches along as she had someone helping her. On a sunday morning when the pastor asked people to come up to the altar to pray for the youth of the church, she crawled her way up there to pray for them. When it was done she stood right up, her affliction was gone. The doctors said and I quote "even if there was a situation where the patient underwent a full recovery from multiple sclerosis, we must recognize that it would be scientifically impossible for full muscle regeneration is such a short period of time."

So what do we do when someone is healed, and the scientists or doctors say "this is impossible", who do we give credit to then? Now I know that what I just told you is not evidence, because it is not something that you can verify on your end. And yes, there are "Christians" who make things up or even pull hoaxes because they feel like they need to do that to make more people believe, but there is no place for liars and false prophets in the Kingdom of God, and they will get their due reward. I can tell you that if you were to hold a court hearing, where you were to test the presence of God. I would be able to fill the witness stand with highly respected doctors that would not testify to God's existence, they would testify to seeing something that they in their professional opinion consider to be scientifically impossible. We have the laws of science, and God breaks them to show us who he is.

 

[AlexBP]

I was a bit disappointed by your first link in that only 2 of those documents I am unfamiliar with. I've seen the others, and their refutations, would you like to read some of those?
Pliny, Tacitus and Suetonius: No Proof of Jesus

Are you aware that the "refutation" you linked to is on a page that promotes astrology and suchlike things. It's rather an odd choice for someone who brags about his dedication to "logic, reason, and evidence". Is it logical, reasonable, and evidence-based to believe things solely because an astrologer posts them online?

This only explains 3, though IMO the best 3, but it still soundly refutes the documents as proof. Did know before you posted that link that Pliny was not referring to Jesus Christ? Was it more surprising to find the name "Christ" used so freely in reference to others?

Really? Can you name any actual scholar who believes that Pliny was not referring to Jesus Christ?

Your understanding of "refutation" seems to be a bit different than everyone else's.

If you would like, I can also produce refutations of the other documents (if you don't feel like searching them out yourself) and we can discuss the merits of each in PM or another thread if you like. EVen if I were to take those documents at face value (and I don't) the most we could discern from them is that early Christians believed in Jesus, a fact I would gladly accept. It's not proof of a resurrection (as you said), only one mentioned the resurrection and that one was written by an early church theologian. Lol is that proof?

"I'm not taking one". I'm not taking any wild guesses either. I only asked because you seem to have mistakenly characterized the question of god's existence as having two options, belief or a "wild guess"

As for Simon Greenleaf, outdated would be an understatement. His blatant bias towards belief wouldn't be so bad if the premises which he bases his entire argument upon weren't faulty to begin with. He is starting from the idea that the bible has not been interpolated and should be taken as true until proven otherwise. Welcome to 2012 Mr. Greenleaf. There are more biblical passages that have been accused of interpolation than I care to list. The evidence for many of these is considerable. Granted, in his time many of the techniques used to detect authentication and falsification today did not exist. YEt, that is the foundation of the point he is trying to make, so its no longer relevant.

WHich reminds me, are you at all familiar with the "documents" that Christians have producedin an effort to "prove" Jesus Christ that have been shown to be undeniable hoaxes?
here's one example...among many...
Exclusive: Early Christian Lead Codices Now Called Fakes | LifesLittleMysteries.com[/quote]
You're lying once again. Nothing in that article backs up your claim that Christians produced a document in an effort to prove something about Jesus Christ? Honestly, what do you think is going to happen when you tell a lie like that? Do you think that we're not going to bother reading what you link to and that we won't notice that it's a lie? If so, your strategy doesn't seem to be working?

 

[AlexBP]

Some of the evidence for people believing in a flat earth in Columbus' time was in the link that you gave. (ironically)

That's news to me. The only link I recall giving that's related to Columbus and the myth of the flat earth is this one, and it flaty (yuk yuk) says that you're wrong and I'm right. It says: "The idea that the uncouth people of the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat is an example of the myth that has been propagated since the nineteenth century to give us a quite unfair view of this vibrant and exciting period." So pray tell, when exactly did I give a link to evidence for people believing in a flat earth in Columbus' time?

In post #81 you said "Would Columbus have sailed to the Americas if he accepted the beliefs of so many flat-earthers?" I then gently pointed out that nobody in Columbus' time believed in a flat earth and gave a citation to the article, written by an actual historian, to prove the point. Rather than admitting to being wrong, you doubled down in post #87 by saying: "For the record, its entirely likely that the majority of the population of Columbus' time did believe in a flat-earth." I asked you for some evidence to back up this claim, and thus far we haven't seen any. So I hereby ask you again: do you, or do you not, have evidence that Christopher Columbus ever met a single person who believed that the earth was flat?

I do realize that its largely anecdotal but not unreasonable since there are those who believe in a flat earth even today. Evidence for that can be found here Flat Earth Society - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. You can actually contact them yourself if you like, and they will give you a lovely bible-based theory for a flat earth. Quite humorous.

Okay, so you've got a page on Wikipedia which claims that the Flat Earth Society exists and links to this webpage. That raises two questions. First, why do you say that "they will give you a lovely bible-based theory for a flat earth", when in actuality the webpage doesn't mention the Bible? Second, what makes you think that the person who made that webpage actually believes that the earth is flat, as opposed to seeing it as a joke?

 

[food4thought]

The question for this part of our discussion really is: do you consider time a physical property? Why or why not?
To be honest I'm not sure, I'm not entirely sure its relevant to this discussion any more either.

"I don't know" is a fair enough answer... I suppose we have established that the argument from cause isn't going to help you believe, so this discussion should move on.

It may be true that proposing the Big Bang singularity as first cause is less complex than proposing an eternal God (depending on how you claim that singularity came to be); but that does not make the position any less absurd.
Actually, it does make it less absurd, and more reasonable. That's really the whole principle behind Occam's Razor, which in itself isn't evidence of truth, but it let's us eliminate less reasonable proposals from more reasonable ones.

I am sure we both know of instances where the more complex answer is actually the correct one. You can respond or not respond as you see fit.

what exactly do you believe about the universe in it's first state?
I'm content with the scientific description of the singularity that existed pre-Big Bang.

I was actually hoping for a bit more detail here, as the scientific description is varied on singularities. As a matter of fact, the actual definition of a singularity is debatable since there is no consensus on how to define a singularity... in their page discussing space-time singularities, stanford.edu states "... there is no commonly accepted, strict definition of singularity". If the experts can't agree on a thing's definition, debating the validity of the existence of said thing (particularly an eternal one) becomes difficult. Again, respond if you'd like.

" To my knowledge, that information has not been revealed to us (except for the fact that there is indeed a time after the creation of the universe), and thus I can only say "I don't know" to the first two questions."

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold up a second. FIrst you propose that god created the universe, then you say "I don't know" when I ask if there was a time before god created the universe? If there was no "pre-universe time" then how do you know it was created and not eternal (always existing)? Likewise, if you don't know that there was an actual "moment" of universe creation, how do you know it (the universe) was created at all? To say that x caused y is to describe these things in a temporal state. This breaks down the very notion of a god that exists apart from time.

Time may indeed have existed before the universe was created... I am unsure of whether the Hebrew word translated eternity necessarilly means without time, but I think it does... but it's nature may have been very different from space-time as we understand it. Then again, since none of us know what eternal existence is really like, perhaps it is possible for an eternal Being to cause something despite all our potential logical problems with causality in such a state... the nature of eternal existence is one of those truth's that exist beyond human ability to fully grasp. We can contemplate it, but cannot measure or experience it; therefore we cannot make empirical conclusions about it. The Bible says that God exists in eternity outside creation, and that He did indeed create the universe. I accept this in faith, the same type of faith you must have to believe in an eternal or magically emerging Big Bang singularity... you may believe that my faith is not logically founded (I would disagree, obviously) and yours is (not enough info from you for me to agree or disagree at this point); but your conclusion, as I understand it, rests equally beyond our ability to empirically test and thus involves a measure of faith. By the way, the definition of faith I use, and I believe most Christians use, is not "belief without evidence", but "belief beyond evidence"; or to put it differently, "belief without PROOF".

Faith | Define Faith at Dictionary.com

Respond if you like.

do you agree that there is truth about reality that is currently, and perhaps forever, beyond our human capacity to know?
If you are referring to future or past knowledge, then yes I agree. If you are leaving out the temporal aspect of reality, then I don't agree.

I meant me and you ourselves, not humanity as a whole, BTW. I mean there is information, such as the exact state of consciousness one would experience without time as we know it or in the absence of time, that we currently CANNOT know... and may never be capable of knowing. Things like what exists outside of space-time, what exists in the curled up dimensions of our space-time, and things humanity already knows that you and I will never have time to learn. This part of our discussion has relevance beyond an argument from cause, so please respond.

"If you conclude that the Bible is simply a collection of myths and fables, all I can tell you is that you're missing out ."
That's your opinion, and I respect it. Unfortunately, I can get reported for posting my opinion.

Yes, I feel that the constraints on you posting your beliefs are too restrictive, and I am sorry for that even though I think I understand why the site has had to institute that rule to avoid abuses. You can PM or email me if you like.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you determine reality? I can't remember seeing you post this... if you did, please forgive me for not wanting to sift thru the entire thread looking for it.

 

[guitarmonster]

At this point there is nothing more anyone can do to satisfy your request. We could throw thousands of documents up here and I don't think it would make any difference. Everyone has different reasons for believing in God, I had mine which was my life falling apart and not having anything to turn to. When turning to God I seen what I consider to be miracles. Of course the miracles I seen were irrelevant since most people think that we make this stuff up just to get people to believe.

Also I didn't know that Simon Greanleaf had a bias towards belief, according to this page he was actually Agnostic:

Is Simon Greenleaf Still Relevant? - CSI

By what I have read, he set out to DISPROVE the resurrection. Then after his research, he determined that according to the rules of evidence, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ could not be disproven.

Now I want you to think about something. I personally don't believe in Scientology, I don't believe it to be real at any point, I believe people who are following Scientology are following a story. The thing is, I have never had the need to go out of my way and find a Scientology forum to ask people to defend their beliefs, simply because I just don't care. I can tell you that no matter what, I just don't care in the least. Now I have a roommate who is an atheist, which that's fine. I don't force my beliefs on anyone, and I don't force them on him. The thing that gets me is it seems like he always makes a trip out to the livingroom to say something about Christians. Always saying "you know what get's on my nerves about God?" or whatever. So I keep saying to him "but your an Atheist, so shouldn't you not care?". I am having a hard time understanding, because if you really believe there is no God, why even bother talking about it when you can just go on your merry way and live your life? Are you seeking answers? Do you think there may be a possibility of a God but your not sure? Please help me to understand why if you have no belief, then why do you care in the first place. Because by what I have been told, the whole point of Atheism is to live a full life without having to worry about all that religion crap.

 

[razeontherock]

I was actually hoping for a bit more detail here, as the scientific description is varied on singularities. As a matter of fact, the actual definition of a singularity is debatable since there is no consensus on how to define a singularity... in their page discussing space-time singularities, stanford.edu states "... there is no commonly accepted, strict definition of singularity". If the experts can't agree on a thing's definition, debating the validity of the existence of said thing (particularly an eternal one) becomes difficult.

Just a point of interest, that current cosmology admits that any singularity appeared in their equations solely due to mathematical error. Current thought holds a dense plasma blob, of unknown size, instead. (I found that interesting)

Time may indeed have existed before the universe was created... I am unsure of whether the Hebrew word translated eternity necessarilly means without time

It contains the idea of "to the vanishing point," where we can no longer fathom anything past that - and beyond. In both directions, past and future.

From a physics standpoint, time makes no sense without both space and matter. Genesis 1:1 supports this idea

but it's nature may have been very different from space-time as we understand it.

That is very clearly taught within current science; once expansion started taking place, everything changed ...

 

[guitarmonster]

Ephesians 4:18 (NIV) They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.


My Pastor spoke on this verse, about how people have hardened their hearts to a point where they cannot accept God in the first place. This even occurred when Jesus was seen walking on water, and there was still disbelief:


Matthew 14:25-31
Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29 "Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

They saw him walking on the lake, and thought he was a ghost. Then he tells them who he is, and even after that Peter wants him to prove who he is by allowing him to walk on the water. Then as Peter began walking on the water he stared to sink, because his faith was weak. This shows you that as a human being, you are already accustomed to disbelief, we all are. Even those of us who have been believers for decades still struggle here and there. If you want to really know more about God, you have to first open your heart. He could literally pop out of thin air and identify himself directly to your face but unless your heart is open, your not gonna believe it.

 

[Ana the Ist]

At this point there is nothing more anyone can do to satisfy your request. We could throw thousands of documents up here and I don't think it would make any difference. Everyone has different reasons for believing in God, I had mine which was my life falling apart and not having anything to turn to. When turning to God I seen what I consider to be miracles. Of course the miracles I seen were irrelevant since most people think that we make this stuff up just to get people to believe.

Also I didn't know that Simon Greanleaf had a bias towards belief, according to this page he was actually Agnostic:

Is Simon Greenleaf Still Relevant? - CSI

By what I have read, he set out to DISPROVE the resurrection. Then after his research, he determined that according to the rules of evidence, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ could not be disproven.

Now I want you to think about something. I personally don't believe in Scientology, I don't believe it to be real at any point, I believe people who are following Scientology are following a story. The thing is, I have never had the need to go out of my way and find a Scientology forum to ask people to defend their beliefs, simply because I just don't care. I can tell you that no matter what, I just don't care in the least. Now I have a roommate who is an atheist, which that's fine. I don't force my beliefs on anyone, and I don't force them on him. The thing that gets me is it seems like he always makes a trip out to the livingroom to say something about Christians. Always saying "you know what get's on my nerves about God?" or whatever. So I keep saying to him "but your an Atheist, so shouldn't you not care?". I am having a hard time understanding, because if you really believe there is no God, why even bother talking about it when you can just go on your merry way and live your life? Are you seeking answers? Do you think there may be a possibility of a God but your not sure? Please help me to understand why if you have no belief, then why do you care in the first place. Because by what I have been told, the whole point of Atheism is to live a full life without having to worry about all that religion crap.

Well there is something we can do if you're up for it. If you PM me I will gladly go over each document with you and show you how they are either extremely weak and subject to interpretation or not evidence at all (like Pliny the younger). Maybe you're not interested in the truth, maybe you already see those documents aren't good evidence, I don't know.

I thought I explained Simon greenleaf's problem well enough. The basic premise for his whole argument is flawed. If you like, I can pull the quotes and explain in more detail. I can also do this for his obvious bias.

If you want to refer to my OP for the point of this thread, that might help you a lot. I'll admit the discussion got a bit derailed from how to determine truth to what is true.