Proof that the Abrahamic god exists?

[Nihilist Virus]

Those are my feelings on the matter as well. Most atheists I've talked to about God are aware of the arguments, both philosophical and scientific, for the existence of a Super Intelligence. Many atheists I've chatted with were more interested in making me look foolish than actually examining the evidence. In fact most characterized what I presented as evidence as "not evidence."

From the many articles and books I've read, I know of many who when from non-belief to belief based on evidence they examined. Why one atheist rejects the same evidence another embraces is a mystery to me. It's not a matter of intelligence IMO. It's ultimately a matter of the heart.

What are these good arguments you're describing? The only argument I've ever seen that was halfway decent was fine tuning.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Yes, I agree and do give him that, even though he is a little quick to brush off what we do give him without even attempting the benefit of the doubt in favor of God, but I suppose some people are just so deeply rooted in skepticism that it will take nothing less than Him appearing in the sky.

I just hope that when that day happens... that people like him will remember what we said, and repent for all of the time they disbelieved, and not end up in the group who ends up blaspheming Him because of the hardships that would follow afterward.

I'll give YHWH the benefit of the doubt if you give Allah the same.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

What are these good arguments you're describing? The only argument I've ever seen that was halfway decent was fine tuning.

And, at best, those arguments only point to a deistic god, not to the God of Christianity. Yet the apologists wielding those arguments are seldom deists.

 

[PapaZoom]

What are these good arguments you're describing? The only argument I've ever seen that was halfway decent was fine tuning.

That one seems a good place to start.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You should really start reading my posts before replying.
The ancillary information makes it more likely, yes. Your baseball game increases the likelihood, but as this is easily found information not by much. However the gospel account information, held in the face of popular opinion until ultimately it was proven correct such as Pilate's title, increases the likelihood a great deal as it is an independent witness affirmation as well.

As to the gospels. Mark was likely first, followed by Matthew and Luke who perhaps used a hypothetical Q-gospel as source and then John. Please get your facts straight.
In the first place, this is not confirmed and even if we grant it, we still have three independent sources. There are numerous other accounts as well, many with poor theology according to the Church and subsequently excluded, but if we add these we have multiple independent accounts.
As to being an eye-witness, so any historian writing on Gettysburg has to be rejected for not being there? This is nonsense. A poor source remains a poor source if he was an eye-witness or not. The same is true for a good source.

As to alien abductions: They follow the culture my friend. They differ from country to country depending on their preferred aliens, they change after popular movies etc. As to the first and probably most, sleep paralysis and psychological phenomena relating to it and brief psychotic episodes (in the medical sense) would easily explain them. There are actually many accounts from diverse cultures of demons etc. visiting at night that alien believers like to point out, but this is all because it is a side effect of human physiology.

As to alien abductions, they are not naturalistic. They are not empiric. Or are beings descending from heaven then Naturalistic? Don't try and pull a fast one. Besides, that remains an assumption as you have never given me the scientific method you used to establish their probability or do you believe that science can just assume what it wants to be true and it never needs to be tested?

If you think that alien encounters, provided they occur, are not naturalistic in origin then you are simply unreasonable.

If you think a document written third or fourth hand decades later in another language is better than an immediate, firsthand, professionally scrutinized account because of cultural coercion, then you are simply unreasonable.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

That one seems a good place to start.

Are you waiting for me to argue your case for you?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

If you think that alien encounters, provided they occur, are not naturalistic in origin then you are simply unreasonable.

If you think a document written third or fourth hand decades later in another language is better than an immediate, firsthand, professionally scrutinized account because of cultural coercion, then you are simply unreasonable.

You again show your ignorance. The gospels were wriiten between 70 AD to 110 AD if you hold to the views of modern criticism, but the only reason they say so is because they want to place their composition after the fall of Jerusalem since Jesus mentions this as prophecy. If we remove that detail than dates in the 50s to 80s AD becomes more probable.
So even if we assume the critical view, it is at most one or two people removed if at all and not in another language, composed originally in Koine greek by second language speakers thereof.
If you reject second hand accounts of this nature, then most of the American Civil War never happened. You are being silly, please research how history is recorded.

Alien encounters are not naturalistic because no zoologist etc has ever seen one, nor do we know anything about their physiology etc. They are therefore indistinguishable from demons etc as we do not know if only natural forces apply. This would be placing the cart before the horses and assuming something with no evidence except your personal opinion. Or are dragons naturalistic? Or if I claimed Angels used the Ethereal substance and had Ambrosia in their veins, with suitable descriptions of how this functions, does this make them naturalistic? You are being disingenuous here my friend. You can't just make up suppositions and call it naturalistic.

Still waiting on your scientific methodology for Alien abductions being more likely than the Resurrection by the way.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You again show your ignorance. The gospels were wriiten between 70 AD to 110 AD if you hold to the views of modern criticism, but the only reason they say so is because they want to place their composition after the fall of Jerusalem since Jesus mentions this as prophecy. If we remove that detail than dates in the 50s to 80s AD becomes more probable.
So even if we assume the critical view, it is at most one or two people removed if at all and not in another language, composed originally in Koine greek by second language speakers thereof.
If you reject second hand accounts of this nature, then most of the American Civil War never happened. You are being silly, please research how history is recorded.

Alien encounters are not naturalistic because no zoologist etc has ever seen one, nor do we know anything about their physiology etc. They are therefore indistinguishable from demons etc as we do not know if only natural forces apply. This would be placing the cart before the horses and assuming something with no evidence except your personal opinion. Or are dragons naturalistic? Or if I claimed Angels used the Ethereal substance and had Ambrosia in their veins, with suitable descriptions of how this functions, does this make them naturalistic? You are being disingenuous here my friend. You can't just make up suppositions and call it naturalistic.

Still waiting on your scientific methodology for Alien abductions being more likely than the Resurrection by the way.

I don't reject second hand accounts outright. I reject second hand accounts of fantastical claims. I explained this in the wallet analogy. Your invocation of the civil war is a straw man.

You accuse me of putting the cart before the horse, then you help yourself to the assumption that Jesus was able to predict the future and therefore scholars are wrong.

You compare demons who come from ??? and who are composed of ??? and who act according to the laws of ??? with aliens who would come from another planet and who would be composed of atoms and who would act according to the laws of nature.

No zoologist has ever seen a dinosaur, are we therefore unfounded in concluding that they had a circulatory system and a nervous system? All we have is their skeleton.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I don't reject second hand accounts outright. I reject second hand accounts of fantastical claims. I explained this in the wallet analogy. Your invocation of the civil war is a straw man.

You accuse me of putting the cart before the horse, then you help yourself to the assumption that Jesus was able to predict the future and therefore scholars are wrong.

You compare demons who come from ??? and who are composed of ??? and who act according to the laws of ??? with aliens who would come from another planet and who would be composed of atoms and who would act according to the laws of nature.

No zoologist has ever seen a dinosaur, are we therefore unfounded in concluding that they had a circulatory system and a nervous system? All we have is their skeleton.

Please read my post. I said that I was applying the Critical view with dates of 70-110 AD, I was just adding that on as an aside.

You reject second hand accounts with fantastical claims? Thats fine, you have that right.
However, a historian does not, hence the Historical Critical method that I had employed here. For most mediaeval or Ancient accounts have some element of the fantastic, such as gods intervening to help Marcus Aurelius against the Quadii for instance.
As for the Civil War accounts, there are accounts of one man taking on scores of the enemy or one sharpshooter stopping hundreds of men in their tracks or Messengers escaping by the skin of their teeth and other fantastical war stories. You clearly have not read widely at all. The historian has to take into account some amount of embellishment for if he rejected accounts due to their fantastic nature, there would be very little left.

You have never seen an alien, so you do not know that the laws of nature apply to them. That is an assumption. From many abduction accounts the Aliens can read minds or create objects in their palms or do other fantastic things, so there is little difference from other mythic beings. Just because you feel they should act within your scientific framework does not mean they do and as there is no evidence, you have no way to test this. So to call them naturalistic is a base fallacy.
Also, you conveniently ignored my point that if I phrase Angels differently and create pseudo-scientific gobbledygook to back it up, then by your system I can call them Naturalistic. Its completely ridiculous, I am sorry.

As to dinosaurs, we have evidence to work from, so thats a complete red herring and you know it. It has no bearing whatsoever to my argument.

Now, still waiting on my scientific methodology, or are you willing to admit that from a scientific perspective the Resurrection is more probable than Alien Abductions? You have been trying (and failing miserably) to undermine a valid scientific argument without giving any scientific evidence or method whatsoever for your contention that the abductions are more probable.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Now, still waiting on my scientific methodology, or are you willing to admit that from a scientific perspective the Resurrection is more probable than Alien Abductions?

I cannot see this idea as anything short of moronic. You have not addressed the physical evidence of abductions, that is, scoop marks and the formation of scar tissue within a span of 24 hours (which, since you claim to be in the field of medicine, you know is impossible but for otherworldly technology).

And even if it is true that the resurrection story is more probable, that doesn't even come close to showing that it is anywhere in the realm of possibility. The probability of a Boltzmann brain manifesting is less than the probability of a modern-day bacterium forming spontaneously; does that mean that the latter is in any way probable?

 

[Xalith]

Why I can't give Allah the benefit of the doubt:

The guy who came up with Allah, and Islam, Muhammed, is a completely unreliable source.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

I cannot see this idea as anything short of moronic. You have not addressed the physical evidence of abductions, that is, scoop marks and the formation of scar tissue within a span of 24 hours (which, since you claim to be in the field of medicine, you know is impossible but for otherworldly technology).

And even if it is true that the resurrection story is more probable, that doesn't even come close to showing that it is anywhere in the realm of possibility. The probability of a Boltzmann brain manifesting is less than the probability of a modern-day bacterium forming spontaneously; does that mean that the latter is in any way probable?

Your challenge was not whether it was in the realm of possibility, but whether it was more probable than alien abductions, which I believe I have shown to be the case, based on historical method.

As to scoop marks and the scar tissue formation: There have never been any studies done that confirmed the existence of 'scoop marks' so no scientist or doctor can comment on them and therefore they are inadmissible as evidence. Besides, they are suggested by punch biopsies actually in use by medicine and resemble normal skin depressions anyway (at least the pictures I have seen, I doubt they really exist).
As to scar tissue in 24 hours, that is longer than it usually takes for a basic scar to form. Else if you cut your finger, you would bleed to death. As soon as a clot forms, the fibrin and clotting cascade start laying down scar tissue. There are anyway many conditions with rapid scar formation or overgrowth (keloids) so this is no evidence of anything at all.

Now please, stop trying to divert attention away from the fact that you have failed to show by any scientific method that Alien abductions are more probable than the Resurrection.

 

[civilwarbuff]

Why are we talking about alien abductions on this thread? Take it somewhere else.......

 

[Xalith]

Why are we talking about alien abductions on this thread? Take it somewhere else.......

I agree. Alien abductions are completely off-topic here.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Why are we talking about alien abductions on this thread? Take it somewhere else.......

I agree. Alien abductions are completely off-topic here.

I apologise, I was merely responding to the original challenge that Nihilist Virus posted.
I shall refrain from doing so further. Besides, I think I have sufficiently made my point, but yes, it was off-topic.

 

[PapaZoom]

Are you waiting for me to argue your case for you?

I wasn't preparing an argument to try to convince you away from your current position. We're having a friendly chat from my perspective. I don't think that one can convince someone the reality of God if they are either convinced He doesn't exist or if they've already heard the arguments (such as fine tuning) and don't find them convincing. I'd be happy to try to make the case that fine tuning points to a super intelligent designer of the universe but that argument doesn't point to the God of Abraham IMO. It's not my area of expertise but I can offer some ideas in support of the fine tuning argument. If that's of interest.

 

[Oncedeceived]

I wasn't preparing an argument to try to convince you away from your current position. We're having a friendly chat from my perspective. I don't think that one can convince someone the reality of God if they are either convinced He doesn't exist or if they've already heard the arguments (such as fine tuning) and don't find them convincing. I'd be happy to try to make the case that fine tuning points to a super intelligent designer of the universe but that argument doesn't point to the God of Abraham IMO. It's not my area of expertise but I can offer some ideas in support of the fine tuning argument. If that's of interest.

I think fine tuning is a great example of evidence for an Intelligent Designer but I think even more than that is the order within the universe. No natural explanation can give a good solid reason why any such order should be evident in the universe. The fine tuning alone is convincing to me but when you consider that not only are the parameters what they need to be to allow for life to exist at all, for life to come into being at all is based on an order than must be presupposed prior to any life.

 

[expos4ever]

1. No anecdotes (personal events)
2. No long commentaries.
3. Use scientific evidence.
4. Preaching is not evidence, but simply restating your claim.
5. No circular logic. (Bible is true because it says so.)

Not sure exactly what you mean by scientific evidence. What about an "historical" argument?

In any event, I suggest the best kind of apologetic for the general truthfulness of the Christian worldview - that does not depend on notoriously unreliable personal anecdotes - would consist of a complicated historical treatment that would show that the Christian worldview (and I am not going to try to unpack that right now) is a good "explanation" for certain historical events. That last statement of mine is admittedly general almost to the point of meaninglessness so let me try to sharpen it up with an analogy. Most informed people, I believe, think OJ Simpson killed his wife and another person. And we would believe it even in the absence of "hard" evidence (like DNA, blood spatter, etc.). In short, given all the alternative explanations, I suggest the best one that makes sense of a number of "historical" facts - e.g. no credible alibi, a record of rage and jealousy, how OJ behaved afterward, etc. Note that none of these facts comprise knock-down hard physical evidence. But together, they paint a picture that, at the very least, is suggestive of Mr. Simpson's guilt. To transpose this principle back into the context of your question: I believe that certain scholars (not me, of course!) could construct an argument that the essential truthfulness of the events recorded in the gospels (and amplified in the other books of the New Testament) comprises a compelling explanation for other things that we know with confidence (e.g. the birth and rapid growth of the early church in a context that was hostile to it, etc.).

I trust it is clear that while I am not providing an "answer" to your question, I am suggesting the general form that such an answer might take.

Footnote: I believe an entirely even-handed proper approach requires everyone to toss aside a priori assumptions. One example of such an assumption is that a human being cannot be restored to life after being knock-down cold dead - I am obviously referring to the claim Christians make to the effect that Jesus came back to life after being really dead (i.e. to draw a contrast to hospital scenarios where people are "revived"). In short: I see no obvious reason why it would be legitimate to rule out a resurrection event a priori: obviously, it is an extraordinary claim but that does not make it impossible. If you rule such a claim out in advance, then you are, in my view, "rigging" the game.

 

[expos4ever]

And as a postscript having scanned the thread, I think there is at least something to be said for "fine-tuning" as establishing the plausibility of belief in God.

 

[Peter1000]

But that is not how rationalism and empiricism work. We live in the natural, not the spiritual. You are trying to tap-dance to say "god done it" without giving me scientific proof. Just answer the question using scientific evidence.

The mass of the proton divided by the mass of the electron is 1836.15267245.

This important scientific ratio has its own symbol (u) and is considered a miraculous constant because it has held to be true since the beginning of time and in all quadrants of the universe.

Science cannot explain how this ratio came into existence and they cannot explain how all protons and electrons ever existing can maintain this constant ratio.

Science does know this: this ratio is so miraculous that if it were larger or smaller by 1 in 10^37 THERE WOULD BE NO LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE.


This is scientific fact. It can be tested and duplicated, and confirmed. It is the real scientific deal.

So do you want to guess what the mathmatical, or scientific odds are that this ratio just by random chance came about. The random chance is so rediculously low and so near zero, that by scientific standards it is zero.

So if there is a zero possibility for this ratio to come into existence by random chance, the clear alternative is to consider at least, the possiblity that a superior, intelligent being, with the knowledge about this ratio and all other natural phenomenon. Not only the knowledge but also the ability to put it all in motion. Intelligence is the only answer. It is the scientific way.