If God manifested himself, how would you know that it was God?

[Kylie]

LOL, that's a good one. The notion that people abandon God because of knowledge

Well, it's been my experience. I've known quite a few atheists who used to believe, and turned to atheism because they gained the knowledge that the claims of the Bible could not be true.

What absolute, preposterous slander for the justification of going atheist!
People stop believing in God for one reason and one reason alone- because they no longer want to think that there is a force which punishes disobedience but does not promise to deliver to their life all their desires.

The number of disobedient people in the world who remain UNpunished seems to prove this claim false.

All of the big atheist philosophers lost their faith to exactly that- the so called knowledge and philosophizing was just to try and justify their continued dissent after the fact.
And it's no different with all former believers.

What? Care to justify this claim or is this just spouting general comments that apply at best to a minority?

How exactly does worldly knowledge, which avails no alternative to God, cause one to not believe in God?

By showing that the claims made by the Bible are wrong.

Atheists cannot even be honest with themselves, so I don't really expect them to be honest about anything pertaining to religion_

Oh please, stop spouting the propaganda. You're just giving yourself an excuse to discount atheists and then using your discounting of them to justify the excuse.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

LOL, that's a good one. The notion that people abandon God because of knowledge

What absolute, preposterous slander for the justification of going atheist!
People stop believing in God for one reason and one reason alone- because they no longer want to think that there is a force which punishes disobedience but does not promise to deliver to their life all their desires.

I'm sure that's what you like to tell yourself. Thinking that convinces you that your religion is special, and that no one would ever want to leave it unless they had some nefarious or sinful purpose in mind. As hard as it is for you to accept, the fact is that people do leave your religion because they no longer find its doctrines believable. I am one such person, but I am not alone.

 

[Kylie]

I learnt this in secondary school approximately 45 years ago. Every Catholic school child knows this fact. So why must you fatigue me with such a request, when you can easily look it up yourself.

Why, it can even be found in Wikipedia (not that that's a source I endorse):



So far a verbatim quote from Wikipedia.

Wouldn't it be better for you to do some reading - from time to time - about Christianity. After all you're posting in a Christian forum.

I don't care about what tradition says. Traditionally held views do not mean those views are correct. Give me an actual source that says that Luke was a doctor, something that can be tested. Even a passage in the Bible that shows him actually performing medicine as a profession.

Indeed, the wiki article for the Gospel of Luke makes it clear that the author is not named in any of the writings attributed to him, and the tradition that says Luke wrote them comes from the 2nd century. So at least 150 years AFTER the events described.

So you are going to have to do better than this, I'm afraid.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Exactly!



I agree with this. The Bible says my sheep know my voice. It's a spiritual discernment that can't be explained. If you don't know God then you wouldn't really know if the being was God or not, but if you know God then your spirit would discern the truth. God doesn't change, so in addition to spiritual discernment, He wouldn't do anything contrary to the Word of God but an alien being or some other false god would. Their agenda would be different from what God would want.

Yes, the true knowledge of God is through Spirit-led, Biblical knowledge, as we understand more and more about the blest Person and Work of God's Son at the Cross.

 

[wiske]

My point is that you didn't specify that you were talking about a subgroup of atheists and it appeared that you were talking about ALL atheists.



If they are ex-atheists, then they are not atheists who acknowledge God. You cannot say that a person who does a thing is a particular kind of person if they are not that kind of person when they do that thing.

By this logic, babies drive cars. I drive a car, and I was once a baby. But the car-driving does not occur during the time of being a baby, just as in your claim, god-acknowledgement does not occur during the period of being an atheist.

I feel like you are trying to debate with wordplay. Please try to be clear.



Ah, yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Let's see then.

The Dead Sea Scrolls date from between 408BCE at the earliest to 318 BCE at the latest. Let's just say that they were made 400 years before the alleged birth of Christ for the purposes of our discussion.

What do the Scrolls contain? Well, they contain some stories from the Bible. THIS one, for example, has a conversation between Lamech and Noah. So, this has to happen before Noah dies. According to Wikipedia's article on NOAH, he dies 350 years after the flood. So when was the flood? According to THIS page, the flood took place in 2304 BC ± 11 years. So between 2315 BCE and 2293 BCE. That means that this particular copy of the text was created about 2000 years AFTER the events it describes. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to consider a source that was made nearly 2000 years after the events it describes as accurate. Even today with modern analysis techniques, we have a hard time of it. I have absolutely no confidence that the people of 400 BCE would have been able to create reliable records of events that happened almost two thousand years previously.

Let's look at another one.

There is the Isaiah Scroll which, not surprisingly, contains the book of Isaiah that is in the Bible. The dates that the scroll was written range from between 335 BCE to 100BCE. The events described are claimed to be from the 8th century BCE, about 350 years before the scroll was written.

So, yeah, the Dead Sea Scrolls aren't actually contemporary sources. Can you provide any, as I asked?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are extant documents. For every extant document, how many, do you think, were lost forever? Did you know that we have no extant documents, written by Homer? By Julius Caesar? By the biographers of the Roman emperors? Medieval documents of great importance?

Could it perhaps be that the scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls had at their disposition older documents?

 

[Kylie]

The Dead Sea Scrolls are extant documents. For every extant document, how many, do you think, were lost forever? Did you know that we have no extant documents, written by Homer? By Julius Caesar? By the biographers of the Roman emperors? Medieval documents of great importance?

Could it perhaps be that the scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls had at their disposition older documents?

Oh, is this really the best you can do? This is speculation, not evidence! You cannot speculate facts into existence. Keep trying.

Oh, and as for your claim that we have no medieval documents of great importance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

 

[wiske]

Have any evidence that people leave the faith because of simply reading Dawkins or other atheists books?

I doubt it, because there are plenty of studies out there that have actually asked this question to people who have lost their faith and although it may be disappointing to you, it is not because of Dawkins or the like, it is because of a realization, the stories they used to believe, become something they can no longer reconcile, as they acquire knowledge.

Again, this could be why, those who have achieved higher levels of education, are far more likely to be atheists.

You can't stop the knowledge and education train, it just keeps rolling along.

If they are so highly educated, then how is it possible that they are completely ignorant of philosophy? How can it be that they can't even write in their own language?

I don't believe that 99% of atheists on the internet are higher educated. Internet fora, blogs and various gathering places on the web are convincing proof of this. Frankly, it's a cesspool.

By the way, why did Internet Infidels, Dawkins Foundation, Brights, and others remove the fora from their sites? Because the embarrassment was to big to bear.

 

[Roonwit]

Give me an actual source that says that Luke was a doctor, something that can be tested. Even a passage in the Bible that shows him actually performing medicine as a profession.

Colossians 4:14, though I'm not sure why that matters.

and the tradition that says Luke wrote them comes from the 2nd century. So at least 150 years AFTER the events described.

Ok, first off, the 2nd century began 70 years after the events described, not 'at least 150'. Secondly, the fact that the earliest currently available written sources that name Luke as the author date to the mid 2nd century does not mean that Luke itself was written that late, nor that the traditions are false. The text itself does not name Luke, but it does claim to be an account by one of Paul's companions.

Roonwit

 

[WindStaff]

I'm sure that's what you like to tell yourself. Thinking that convinces you that your religion is special, and that no one would ever want to leave it unless they had some nefarious or sinful purpose in mind. As hard as it is for you to accept, the fact is that people do leave your religion because they no longer find its doctrines believable. I am one such person, but I am not alone.

What do you find that is not believable?

Humor me, so I can back you further into the a corner which says you basically left your religion out of chosen ignorance.

You can't accept Christianity because it doesn't make you the master of your own fate.

 

[WoundedDeep]

My point is that you didn't specify that you were talking about a subgroup of atheists and it appeared that you were talking about ALL atheists.

If they are ex-atheists, then they are not atheists who acknowledge God. You cannot say that a person who does a thing is a particular kind of person if they are not that kind of person when they do that thing.

By this logic, babies drive cars. I drive a car, and I was once a baby. But the car-driving does not occur during the time of being a baby, just as in your claim, god-acknowledgement does not occur during the period of being an atheist.

All this is nothing but a disagreement/misinterpretation of how and what I write. No point in debating about that.

I don't know about you, but I'm not going to consider a source that was made nearly 2000 years after the events it describes as accurate.

The Old Testament, to which your post relates, is a modern translation of the Hebrew Bible, which is in itself is a compilation of texts that date as far as 11th century BC. Furthermore, I am asking you to see the Dead Sea Scrolls and compare the texts that actually relate to the New Testament, which clearly could be verified since the events described in the NT happened around the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Does the Dead Sea Scrolls contain any texts that validate the Bible's NT texts as accurate translations? This is the answer you should seek. In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls do validate the Jesus in the Bible:

http://www.grantjeffrey.com/article/article1.htm

Also, if you believe that later records of early history is automatically inaccurate, how then can any record of human history be accurate to you?

 

[Roonwit]

LOL, that's a good one. The notion that people abandon God because of knowledge

What absolute, preposterous slander for the justification of going atheist!
People stop believing in God for one reason and one reason alone- because they no longer want to think that there is a force which punishes disobedience but does not promise to deliver to their life all their desires.

All of the big atheist philosophers lost their faith to exactly that- the so called knowledge and philosophizing was just to try and justify their continued dissent after the fact.
And it's no different with all former believers.

How exactly does worldly knowledge, which avails no alternative to God, cause one to not believe in God?
Atheists cannot even be honest with themselves, so I don't really expect them to be honest about anything pertaining to religion_

Windstaff, what are you trying to achieve here? How can you claim to know the reason for every person choosing to become an atheist? There are many different reasons, and most of them are honest ones, as far as I can tell. At any rate, I do not find that intellectual dishonesty is the preserve of any one group.

Ad hominem attacks really don't make for good debate, especially when you have long since departed from the topic of this thread.

Roonwit

 

[WoundedDeep]

It's difficult to describe. It's an inner sensation that I would feel during prayer, for example. A sensation that, at the time, I interpreted as originating from the divine.

Did you then, have things you prayed about, that you knew for sure was answered?

 

[wiske]

I don't care about what tradition says. Traditionally held views do not mean those views are correct. Give me an actual source that says that Luke was a doctor, something that can be tested. Even a passage in the Bible that shows him actually performing medicine as a profession.

Indeed, the wiki article for the Gospel of Luke makes it clear that the author is not named in any of the writings attributed to him, and the tradition that says Luke wrote them comes from the 2nd century. So at least 150 years AFTER the events described.

So you are going to have to do better than this, I'm afraid.

Whenever evidence is offered, you shift the goalposts, a "technique" that I have witnessed so often here. I suggested that you look it up for yourself, but no, you prefer to steal my valuable time further still.

My given answer was more than sufficient and I was not obliged to offer it, but I did.

 

[wiske]

Oh, is this really the best you can do? This is speculation, not evidence! You cannot speculate facts into existence. Keep trying.

Oh, and as for your claim that we have no medieval documents of great importance: Magna Carta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I made no such claim. I only suggested that many medieval documents are copies of copies of copies. Apparently you have no idea when the Middle Ages began? And how can it be speculation that we have no extant documents from the hand of Homer, Caesar (or his scribe), etc. Show some evidence for that, please. Where are those documents. Naming the libraries is sufficient.

 

[Kylie]

Colossians 4:14, though I'm not sure why that matters.

Thanks.

Ok, first off, the 2nd century began 70 years after the events described, not 'at least 150'.

Agreed. My bad. I was mixing up 2nd century with two centuries. Been a hectic day for me.

Secondly, the fact that the earliest currently available written sources that name Luke as the author date to the mid 2nd century does not mean that Luke itself was written that late, nor that the traditions are false.

Doesn't mean that the traditions are true, either.

And I have to wonder why no one apparently held this view prior to this time.

The text itself does not name Luke, but it does claim to be an account by one of Paul's companions.

Irrelevant. I've seen people write stories claiming to be a friend of Harry Potter's.

 

[Kylie]

All this is nothing but a disagreement/misinterpretation of how and what I write. No point in debating about that.

Agreed. Just try to be clearer in what you say in the future please.

The Old Testament, to which your post relates, is a modern translation of the Hebrew Bible, which is in itself is a compilation of texts that date as far as 11th century BC.

Texts that describe events that happen long before. I am not arguing the dates, I am arguing that the events desscribed happened long before and we have no way of knowing if the records we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls are accurate to what really happened centuries previously.

Furthermore, I am asking you to see the Dead Sea Scrolls and compare the texts that actually relate to the New Testament, which clearly could be verified since the events described in the NT happened around the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And there are no NT writing contained in the Dea Sea Scrolls. Of course, if you can show me some texts from the NT that are also contained in the DSS, I'd be happy to have a look.

Does the Dead Sea Scrolls contain any texts that validate the Bible's NT texts as accurate translations? This is the answer you should seek. In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls do validate the Jesus in the Bible:

Grant R. Jeffrey Ministries

A lot of claims, no sources. And he has a definite bias.

Also, if you believe that later records of early history is automatically inaccurate, how then can any record of human history be accurate to you?

Well, I consider a source to be more accurate if it was actually written AT THE TIME OF THE EVENTS IT DESCRIBES. Unfortunately the DSS are not. I also consider it more reliable if it contains claims that can be tested in the real world. And if there are many sources that say the same thing (and I don't mean word for word identical, I mean that tell the same story without contradictions).

 

[Kylie]

Whenever evidence is offered, you shift the goalposts, a "technique" that I have witnessed so often here. I suggested that you look it up for yourself, but no, you prefer to steal my valuable time further still.

My given answer was more than sufficient and I was not obliged to offer it, but I did.

How am I shifting the goalposts? I asked for a source, you give me hearsay. Hearsay is not and has never been a source.

And the fact remains that fact is not determined by tradition.

 

[Kylie]

I made no such claim. I only suggested that many medieval documents are copies of copies of copies.

And since we have no test for the reliability of the copying method, how can we be sure that the DSS are accurate copies of the texts which were allegedly written down almost 2000 years before?

Apparently you have no idea when the Middle Ages began?

From WIKIPEDIA: In European history, the Middle Ages, or Medieval period, lasted from the 5th to the 15th century.

The Magna Carta was written in 1215. Now, I may be wrong (correct me if I am), but the year 1215 does fall within the range of 5th to 15th century, yes? And so, the Magna Carta is a medieval document, yes?

So what is your point here?

And how can it be speculation that we have no extant documents from the hand of Homer, Caesar (or his scribe), etc. Show some evidence for that, please. Where are those documents. Naming the libraries is sufficient.

First of all, I never made any such claims about that.

Secondly, the existence of the son of god and saviour of humanity can't really be compared to an old poet.

Thirdly, we know that someone had to write the things attributed to Homer. We have NOTHING that is alleged to be the work of Jesus.

 

[WoundedDeep]

How am I shifting the goalposts? I asked for a source, you give me hearsay. Hearsay is not and has never been a source.

And the fact remains that fact is not determined by tradition.

You want the source that says Luke is a doctor, even if it is a Bible passage?

Luke the Evangelist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"My dear friend Luke, the physician, and Demas greet you." (Colossians 4:14)

 

[Kylie]

You want the source that says Luke is a doctor, even if it is a Bible passage?

Luke the Evangelist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"My dear friend Luke, the physician, and Demas greet you." (Colossians 4:14)

And if you read my last few posts in this thread, you'll see that once I was provided with an actual source, I accepted it.

Let me make this clear - personal anecdotes, traditions, hearsay, etc are NEVER evidence, even if the claims they make are true. To be an actual proper source to be considered evidence, it must be something that can be experienced by someone other than the person making the claim. When you claim you learnt it in school 45 years ago, this is not evidence because I can't see your school experience for myself. But when someone gives me a Bible passage that I can go and look up for myself, I can.

Do you see the difference?