Spiritual Evidence and Proofs of God’s Existence

[nPeace]

Uh, Inana was 2000 years before the Israelites were a people. This is the first known writing by a human in existence. A small sample written by Enheduanna. Clearly as transformative as any Biblical praise.

Also Genesis is confirmed to be written as a response to Mesopotamian myths. Heaven, souls returning there is not originally a Hebrew belief.
That is Greek.

Hymn to Inanna

The Hymn to Inanna (also known as The Great-Hearted Mistress) is a passionate devotional work by the poet and high priestess Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE), the first author in the world known by name...

www.worldhistory.org

: To run, to escape, to quiet and to pacify are yours, Inana. To rove around, to rush, to rise up, to fall down and to ... a companion are yours, Inana. To open up roads and paths, a place of peace for the journey, a companion for the weak, are yours, Inana. To keep paths and ways in good order, to shatter earth and to make it firm are yours, Inana. To destroy, to build up, to tear out and to settle are yours, Inana. To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana. Desirability and arousal, goods and property are yours, Inana. Gain, profit, great wealth and greater wealth are yours, Inana. Gaining wealth and having success in wealth, financial loss and reduced wealth are yours, Inana. Observation (1 ms. has instead: Everything), choice, offering, inspection and approval are yours, Inana. Assigning virility, dignity, guardian angels, protective deities and cult centres are yours, Inana.
6 lines fragmentary

132-154: ... mercy and pity are yours, Inana. ... are yours, Inana. To cause the ... heart to tremble, ... illnesses are yours, Inana. To have a wife, ..., to love ... are yours, Inana. To rejoice, to control (?), ... are yours, Inana. Neglect and care, raising and bowing down are yours, Inana. To build a house, to create a woman's chamber, to possess implements, to kiss a child's lips are yours, Inana. To run, to race, to desire and to succeed are yours, Inana. To interchange the brute and the strong and the weak and the powerless is yours, Inana. To interchange the heights and valleys and the ... and the plains (?) is yours, Inana. To give the crown, the throne and the royal sceptre is yours, Inana.
12 lines missing

155-157: To diminish, to make great, to make low, to make broad, to ... and to give a lavish supply are yours, Inana. To bestow the divine and royal rites, to carry out the appropriate instructions, slander, untruthful words, abuse, to speak inimically and to overstate are yours, Inana.

158-168: The false or true response, the sneer, to commit violence, to extend derision, to speak with hostility, to cause smiling and to be humbled or important, misfortune, hardship, grief, to make happy, to clarify and to darken, agitation, terror, fear, splendour and great awesomeness in radiance, triumph, pursuit, imbasur illness, sleeplessness and restlessness, submission, gift, ... and howling, strife, chaos, opposition, fighting and carnage, ..., to know everything, to strengthen for the distant future a nest built ..., to instill fear in the ... desert like a ... poisonous snake, to subdue the hostile enemy, ... and to hate ... are yours, Inana.

169-173: To ... the lots ..., to gather the dispersed people and restore them to their homes, to receive ..., to ... are yours, Inana.
1 line fragmentary

174-181: ... the runners, when you open your mouth, ... turns into ... At your glance a deaf man does not ... to one who can hear. At your angry glare what is bright darkens; you turn midday into darkness. When the time had come you destroyed the place you had in your thoughts, you made the place tremble. Nothing can be compared to your purposes (?); who can oppose your great deeds? You are the lady of heaven and earth! Inana, in (?) the palace the unbribable judge, among the numerous people ... decisions. The invocation of your name fills the mountains, An (?) cannot compete with your ...

182-196: Your understanding ... all the gods ... You alone are magnificent. You are the great cow among the gods of heaven and earth, as many as there are. When you raise your eyes they pay heed to you, they wait for your word. The Anuna gods stand praying in the place where you dwell. Great awesomeness, glory ... May your praise not cease! Where is your name not magnificent?
Once you have said 'So be it', great An does not ... for him. Your 'So be it' is a 'So be it' of destruction, to destroy ....... Once you have said your ...... in the assembly, An and Enlil will not disperse it. Once you have made a decision ......, it cannot be changed in heaven and earth. Once you have specified approval of a place, it experiences no destruction. Once you have specified destruction for a place, it experiences no approval.

209-218: Your divinity shines in the pure heavens like Nanna or Utu. Your torch lights up the corners of heaven, turning darkness into light. ... with fire. Your ... refining ... walks like Utu in front of you. No one can lay a hand on your precious divine powers; all your divine powers ... You exercise full ladyship over heaven and earth; you hold everything in your hand. Mistress, you are magnificent, no one can walk before you. You dwell with great An in the holy resting-place. Which god is like you in gathering together ... in heaven and earth? You are magnificent, your name is praised, you alone are magnificent!

: Advice ..., grief, bitterness ..., 'alas' ... My lady, ... mercy ... compassion ... I am yours! This will always be so! May your heart be soothed towards me! May your understanding ... compassion. ....

I was searching for some information on this.
I have a question. Do you believe that information was passed down from generation to generation by God's people?
I ask, because it seems some people think the writings of the Bible, began in Moses' time, but if Moses wrote a record of documents collected from past history, that would make his writings older. Would they not?

A Difference of Opinion
After experts had carefully examined the Gilgamesh Epic, opinions became divided over which Flood account was older, the Mesopotamian one mentioned in the Epic, or the one found in the Bible. Many adopted the viewpoint that the non-Biblical account was first. For example, in Gods, Graves, and Scholars, C. W. Ceram asserts that it is “impossible to question the fact that the primal version of the Biblical legend of the Deluge had been found.” Perhaps the young man with whom I had spoken had based his viewpoint on such a statement.


But is it correct? Does the Flood narrative of Genesis really have its origin in Sumerian or Babylonian legends? It seemed best to seek an answer to that question by making a comparison of the Bible’s Flood account with that found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

 

[Valjean]

Not when it is verified with evidence, No.

Agreed
And you have no real, objective, empirical, evidence. You have hearsay and "spiritual evidence," ie: your own feelings, which you're heavily invested in.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Yes, but I don't think atheists are critical thinkers. I don't believe critical thinker could be an atheist.

Critical thought applied to the problem of gods leads to only one possibility: agnostic atheism

Evidently atheists are being misled by their own gullibility for desired propaganda.

There is no such thing as atheist propaganda. Most atheists are humanists and critical thinkers, and truthfulness is a virtue in humanism and a product of critical thought (sound conclusions are correct conclusions). And unlike those merely giving lip service to love and the Golden Rule as they propagate their bigotries and impose their dogma on the unwilling where possible, humanists actually embody their values.

I don't think you consider scientists interpretations guesses. So it's evident bias is at play here.

Yes, there is a rational bias in play - conclusions based in evidence properly understood are more valuable than beliefs supported by faith, because only the former are useful, and much believed by faith is unfalsifiable, which consigns it to the empirical dustbin (Popper's Razor). Science is not guessing. It describes what it sees, and it's descriptions are accurate if they correctly predict outcomes.

We don't have to guess who is behind accurate prophecy. It's not man. That's a given.

Only scientists make high quality prophecy, by which is meant a specific prediction that is unlikely, that is easily recognized to have been predicted when the prediction is confirmed, definitely came before the discovery, and which was not self-fulfilling. Biblical prophecy doesn't meet this standard. It's usually none of things, but never all of them as is the case with scientific prophecy. And even then, these scientists aren't claiming to have superhuman prescience, nor do they consider their many confirmed specific prophecies suggestive of gods.

What is evidence? It's either empirical, or it's not

All evidence is empirical. To be evidence is to be evident to the senses.

a lot of your theories are not. There are mere hypotheses. Whale evolution for one, which is the best example you have for macoevolution.

No scientific theory is a mere hypothesis, and if you don't know what the evidence is or how to interpret it properly, then the conclusions are indistinguishable from faith-based beliefs.

and I am saying that scientist tell us the sun is 93,000,000 miles away from the earth, and we go by what they tell us. We do not know it scientifically. Have you travelled to the sun and measured the distance?

Yes, we do. We know it empirically and by many methods, none of which depend on going there. A frequent error of apologists is to limit what constitutes evidence to the evidence the scientists used, as if I shouldn't believe that the science underlying the Apollo mission if I haven't see how it was developed and don't understand the math. That's not the evidence I rely on. The men came home alive. That tells me all I need to know about the validity of the science used. And that's the evidence in support of all scientific pronouncements the stunning success of the method. People who call science a faith-based religion because people who can't reproduce it accept its validity don't understand that difference between have results that confirm one's idea and ideas that can't be tested or which make no predictions.

Bible writers wrote down what they heard... from God... not man.

There's a good example of an unfalsifiable, faith-based proclamation. It has no truth value since it can't be used to predict or explain anything.

Even atheists. You won't want to admit it, but your fore-parents grandfather, aunt, somebody, held values passed down through generation, which has had some influence on atheists

Nothing lasting. My moral values are all my own, and they wouldn't change even if nobody shared them. They derive only from the application of reason to the intuitions of the conscience, which for me are utilitarian ethics for societies and Golden Rule ethics for myself. I can't derive either of these empirically (is-ought divide). They just feel right, and that is enough. reason tells me what specifics support these intuitions. You can see where murder, lying, and theft are easily called immoral just from what I've said here. Slavery, misogyny, and homophobia feel immoral because they oppose those two basic values from which all others derive.

I explained why Jesus had to die - why he gave his life as a sacrifice.

I must have missed that. Why was that required? The implication is that a tri-omni deity is incapable of tolerating human error. That's unbelievable. I can do it and so can you, so why not a god? And the answer needs to explain why that's not possible, not merely assert it with an explanation of being too holy, which explains nothing.

 

[nPeace]

I see you are still having problems with the quote system.
Having to fix your posts is hard work, and a bit confusing as to which words are yours from which are mine.

He is doing so intentionally! He's imitating the arguments made by theists, to demonstrate how insubstantial the justifications are.
It's an analogy.

The analogy does not fit, because one makes claims 'just because I can'. The other makes claims based on evidence.
For example, if I said I have a document written 3 million years ago, that's a claim. If I can produce evidence supporting my claim, it becomes a fact.

OK, show me some actual demonstrations. Not claims of demonstrations, actual, reproducible demonstrations we can test today.
Whom do you mean? People today?
Anybody can make claims. Without tangible evidence they are best ignored.

We have witness accounts from actual people who lived during the time the certain cultures, events, and people.
When there is evidence to support these claims, these become facts.
Considering other pieces of evidence which show these witnesses to be credible, strengthens their testimony, so the the absence of evidence argument that critics bring up, are really strawman arguments made, due to their being unable to refute the evidence.
Agreed?

I mean that religious "knowledge" is fragmented, but science is agreed on major principles.

Only if you lump all religion in one basket, which is unreasonable.
To be clear, what do you mean by science is agreed on major principles?

The disagreement is on details.

What do you mean? Do you mean like how people say the Gospel writers do not agree on details, and they nit pick at the details to see what they can find? Or how they try to find details in the Bible, that would differ, so as to claim they contradict each other?
Are you okay with the disagreement in details?

Science is open to new information, it actively seeks it, then incorporates it into updated knowledge.
Change doesn't necessarily indicate systemic problems. Improvements and updates are change, too. As I've said, science is our best guess; the best source of knowledge we have

When? How? How do you reproduce and test dreams, except in your own head?

If one dreams, and the interpretation given for that dream proves reliable - that is, it comes true.
They dream again, and the same thing happens, again, and again, and again.
Not that this is a case of normal dreams, that can be replicated like... "Okay, Go to sleep let's monitor your dream and test it to see..."
This has been replicated by the one who determined to use the dream, so it's not like God will say, "Ah. The scientists want to see if dreams are from me. Let me..."
That's mad thinking. Why would any sane person think they can replicate a dream or vision?

Those however, who see that the dream does come true, have evidence of the reliability of not the dream, but the prophecy, because they know it must be from a divine source.
For example, Daniel 8, is a prophecy that came true. It proved to be a reliable prophecy.

When, again and again, the Bible presents a prophecy that comes true, in exact detail, it gives the ready clear evidence that the Bible is trustworthy, and reliable. So that there is no need to doubt the reliability of prophecies not yet fulfilled.
Nor is there any reason to pay any attention to the strawman argument 'absence of evidence'.

I'm appealing to authority; to those best versed on biblical text and history, and without agendas:

appeal to authority
You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.
It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However, it is entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.

Your logical fallacy is appeal to authority

You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.

yourlogicalfallacyis.com

I can quote numerous persons who disagree with that. I quoted one, already.
I disagree with the author's opinion, in the article you posted. Note... opinion.

No, the contradictions and falsehoods are glaring. Both casual and careful readers can see them.
It's not my head stuck in the sand.

That's your opinion.

 

[nPeace]

Agreed
And you have no real, objective, empirical, evidence.

We do.

You have hearsay and "spiritual evidence," ie: your own feelings, which you're heavily invested in.

Nah. That's an empty claim, which time and again you failed to demonstrate. So you don't even have any evidence for what you say. You just say it anyway... and then ask people for evidence. Seriously?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The investigation of truth is the same no matter which sphere one is investigating.

It is for the critical thinker, but not for the faith-based thinker, who has his own standards for religious pronouncements. They only need appear in a holy book or feel right to be called truth.

Things like the virtues can definitely be tested. So for example when is it best to show mercy and when should justice be applied.

They would be "tested" against subjective standards. People will disagree on such matters, and there is no objective standard for them to decide that one is right.

There are plenty of spiritual proofs God exists.

There is no sound argument that ends, "therefore God." This is a falsifiable statement. If it is wrong, such an argument exists and can be presented here. If it is correct, it cannot be falsified (note: falsifiable doesn't mean can be disproven ,but rather, if it's wrong it, that can be shown; evolution is falsifiable but will never be falsified if it is correct.)

Religions go through stages. When they begin they are effective but over time decay and only the outward practices remain. So each religion has its spring, summer, autumn then winter.

You've made this claim before, but the evidence contradicts you. Christianity, for example, wasn't more effective when it was new, nor less effective now. Likewise with your religion. It's never been effective if the measure of that is improving the human condition. Humanism has done that brilliantly, but not the religions.

Without the aid of great spiritual Teachers I believe we would still be barbarians.

Do you mean like Jesus and Mohammad before the Enlightenment? Their teaching left people barbarians. The Christians were conducting inquisition and killing alleged witches until humanist sensibilities made that illegal in north America, and the Muslims, who have been exposed to much less of humanist influence, are still stoning people to death, cutting off hands, pushing people off of tall towers, and burning them alive in cages. That's the barbarism of unmitigated Abrahamic religion. Cooler, kinder heads were needed, and the Enlightenment produced them, not the religions.

Today we see the world is bowed down by sorrow, trouble and grief having wars currently (Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine) and having had two world wars.

That's business as usual for humanity, and most of the world is spared from direct involvement. The Jehovah's Witnesses came by today, but my wife sent them away. Too bad. I love talking with them. The last time, they began with that Abrahamic nihilism you just manifested - the world is going to hell in a basket meme. What was so interesting was that when I told them that I disagreed, and that the life had never been so good for so many, rather than try to refute that, they were flabbergasted and speechless. They just left. Dose that mean that they had never heard that answer before, or didn't know how to proceed? It seemed so, but that seems impossible. Maybe they just understood that their time would be better spent on Death Row and Skid Row (the despondent) than Restaurant Row (happy people).

We are in dire need of direction now and once again God has sent an Educator with a plan to help guide us out of this mess.

The plan doesn't work. How old is it now? Nor have any of the other Abrahamic religions provided solutions. Who in the world is making a difference for peace? Not the religions. It's secular governments and agencies, like the EU, NATO and the UN. Who stepped up during the pandemic to provide for needs? Not the religions. What have the religions contributed to countering global warming? Only humanism - the philosophy of reason applied to evidence and compassion - has made inroads in any of those. I'll bet you know the cliche definition of insanity. Continuing to trust the religions to make a difference in any of these areas is a losing proposition.

Only by turning to God and His latest Messenger is my belief, that we have any chance of peace.

The opposite is more correct. Only by turning away from Abrahamic religion will we ever have a chance to come together. Look at all of the contention on the Baha'i threads over the past few months as the faithful tried to defend homophobia because the Baha'i god allegedly condemns the practice. Very divisive. Perhaps you recall the specific Baha'i with the gay son, whose homosexuality he disapproves of. He might say that that attitude is not divisive, but if he does, I would expect the son to disagree.

It’s not possible to judge religion as if it were matter

It is possible to judge religion as if it were a human activity dependent on the physical world, because that's what it is.

On the other hand religion gives a definition of man that can cure all humanity’s ills.

Here's another of those empty claims contradicted by history.

 

[Valjean]

Religion does all these things but concerns itself with spiritual instead of material matters. The investigation of truth is the same no matter which sphere one is investigating. Things like the virtues can definitely be tested. So for example when is it best to show mercy and when should justice be applied. The law of physics doesn’t have an author but that doesn’t matter. Principles are tested.

But how would one test these spiritual matters?
Science and religion are two entirely different things, with different goals, foci, modalities, and definitions of "evidence."

The laws of physics have no author? So.... God did not do it, it all operates automatically?
We're in agreement, then.

Moral principles are not the magesterium of science, nor are spiritual values, meaning or purpose. These are , essentially, untestable by science.

Non-overlapping magisteria - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Objective reality and facts, mechanisms, and the measurable, testable laws of physics are the purview of science. Science does not make judgements on moral principles, meaning, purpose, &c.
Annoyingly, though, religion is constantly making judgements of objective reality and physical mechanisms. What's worse, when possible, it enforces them and lobbies legislatures to base laws on them.

 

[Kenny]

In the analogy, the thing that people need saving from is the shooter. In Christian theology, the thing people need saving from is God's judgment.

Maybe in a twisted sort of way. In reality the shooter is Satan - who has the power of death. The law breakers are humanity. The judge is never a "shooter". As you noted "When someone does something at great personal cost to save others from a bad outcome, they've acted bravely. What they did is praiseworthy." Jesus came to save others out of a bad outcome.

And as I pointed out, this implies that the thing Jesus saves us from - i.e. God's judgment - is bad and should be condemned.

So... since the judge is never the "shooter"- I would disagree. Most of was you are stipulating is just a victim mentality IMV

 

[Valjean]

There are plenty of spiritual proofs God exists. The virtues. The Prophets.

You have a very strange, apparently personal, definition of "proof."
I could say thunder and lightening were proof of Zeus, or wisdom proof of Athena.

Your religion attributes X to God, then uses X as "proof" of God.

Circular reasoning - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Without the aid of great spiritual Teachers I believe we would still be barbarians. And These Teachers all get their inspiration from the same Source - God.

But would we be good barbarians, or bad barbarians?
Do you think our troglodite ancestors lacked moral or ethical values?
Virtues vary culturally, but we've had them since our hunter-gatherer days. Morality, propriety and values are artifacts of our obligate communal nature. They evolved because they were utilitarian, not because "great spiritual teachers" pointed them out to us.

 

[nPeace]

No scientific theory is a mere hypothesis, and if you don't know what the evidence is or how to interpret it properly, then the conclusions are indistinguishable from faith-based beliefs.

No hypothesis is a theory. All evidence for the evolution of whales are hypotheses. Of course, don't mind me. See for yourself.

Yes, we do. We know it empirically and by many methods, none of which depend on going there. A frequent error of apologists is to limit what constitutes evidence to the evidence the scientists used, as if I shouldn't believe that the science underlying the Apollo mission if I haven't see how it was developed and don't understand the math.

We are only following suit. we simply use your examples, to open your eyes, We are very seldom successful, but in a few cases, we do.

That's not the evidence I rely on. The men came home alive. That tells me all I need to know about the validity of the science used. And that's the evidence in support of all scientific pronouncements the stunning success of the method.

This is your evidence, huh... and you criticize the Creationists!

People who call science a faith-based religion because people who can't reproduce it accept its validity don't understand that difference between have results that confirm one's idea and ideas that can't be tested or which make no predictions.

Oh no. We do understand. It's you guys that have a problem with it... till you realize it's what you have too.
Then you accept it, but strange enough can't see that it is the same thing you criticize. Baffling.

There's a good example of an unfalsifiable, faith-based proclamation. It has no truth value since it can't be used to predict or explain anything.

No. It is a good example of how atheists listen. They hear one thing and off they run without examining or investigating anything.
We actually demonstrate that the men really did write down what they did, from God.

Nothing lasting. My moral values are all my own, and they wouldn't change even if nobody shared them. They derive only from the application of reason to the intuitions of the conscience, which for me are utilitarian ethics for societies and Golden Rule ethics for myself. I can't derive either of these empirically (is-ought divide). They just feel right, and that is enough. reason tells me what specifics support these intuitions. You can see where murder, lying, and theft are easily called immoral just from what I've said here. Slavery, misogyny, and homophobia feel immoral because they oppose those two basic values from which all others derive.

I don't believe a word you just said. Why? Because we have a conscience, yes, but we often justify what goes against our conscience, in order to do what we want, and that becomes our conscience - it feels right.

For example, someone rapes and murders our daughter, and there is no punishment to the perpetrator.
To us, the perpetrator needs to die. We may not feel right at first, taking an ax to his head, but the more we think about it, the more it seems the right thing to do.
We humans tend to justify our actions, when we want to do something.
That's human nature.

I must have missed that. Why was that required?

Apparently, you did miss it. It was to another poster.
Why was Jesus' sacrifice necessary.

The implication is that a tri-omni deity is incapable of tolerating human error.

No. I don't know where you got that from.
The Bible says, God tolerated with much long-suffering vessels of wrath made fit for destruction.
It says, God demonstrate his own righteousness, because God in his forbearance was forgiving the sins that occurred in the past.

That's unbelievable. I can do it and so can you, so why not a god? And the answer needs to explain why that's not possible, not merely assert it with an explanation of being too holy, which explains nothing.

You are right. I think this is one thing I can agree with you on.
Although, there are some things that we can do, which God can't, and there are some things God can do, which we cannot do.
So comparing ourselves to God, in all areas, is not reasonable.

For example, God cannot lie, but we can, and do.
God cannot dwell in unrighteousness, but we can.
God's holiness sets him far apart from us.

 

[SkepticThinker]

We do.


Nah. That's an empty claim, which time and again you failed to demonstrate. So you don't even have any evidence for what you say. You just say it anyway... and then ask people for evidence. Seriously?

So much evidence apparently, that you listed it all here?

 

[blü 2]

The Torah, is not the Bible, and the Bible is not the Torah.
If you understand the Bible, you will understand that. If not, you understand nothing, about the Bible.
It's as simple as that.

In the sense that Genesis is not the bible and Isaiah is not the bible and the gospels are not the bible and Paul is not the bible, sure.

BUT the Tanakh is all about the Jewish God and the NT claims to be about the same God and that same God did all the things in the Torah, and you want to hold [him] up as the exemplar of morals. Whereas I see that God as typical of [his] times, like all gods a reflection of [his] worshipers and their values. That's why God has changed with time, from the henotheistic model who demanded no other gods be placed ahead of him, to the post-Babylonian sole deity, to the apocalyptic god of the gospels whose kingdom is now running 2000 years late, to the post-NT politically devised triune Christian god who is unambiguously not the Jewish god at all. Oh, and the God who reluctantly renounced slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries, and changed [his] views on divorce in the 20th century (when two world wars gave an enormous fillip to the 19th century's proto-feminism by introducing millions of women to paid employment) and who is still struggling with LGBTQ but will adjust as society adjusts.

After all, a god must keep up with [his] followers or lose them, and a god without a following is no god at all.

I explained why Jesus had to die - why he gave his life as a sacrifice.

No you didn't. You didn't tell me why any sacrifice was necessary, let alone that one. We're talking about an omnipotent being who can have whatever [he] wants with one snap of those omnipotent fingers ─ but instead [he] selects or creates a son and sends him on a suicide mission. Explain to me why that was necessary, what it accomplished that an omnipotent God could not otherwise accomplish.

Tell me, do you consider people given a Bravery Honor, for saving a life, or lives, at the cost of their own? Straight answer... No beating around the bush and running away from answering the question this time. Do you?

Yes, I admire bravery and self-sacrifice. So in your book all those people who volunteered for military service in WW1, WW2, Korea, Nam, &c &c &c and died as a result were each Jesus-equivalents? Really?

But don't answer that till you've provided the explanation I requested about why the crucifixion of Jesus was necessary.

 

[Valjean]

The analogy does not fit, because one makes claims 'just because I can'. The other makes claims based on evidence.
For example, if I said I have a document written 3 million years ago, that's a claim. If I can produce evidence supporting my claim, it becomes a fact.

Equivalent arguments, supports and evidence. That's the analogy.

We have witness accounts from actual people who lived during the time the certain cultures, events, and people.
When there is evidence to support these claims, these become facts.

We have hearsay, at best, and maybe just claims that there were witnesses. We have no way to know. None would be admissible in court. Even eyewitness accounts by living witness are known to be unreliable.

We can't interview these witnesses. We have no historical corroboration from disinterested third parties.
How would these witness accounts be distinguishable from folklore, or the witness accounts from other religions?

Considering other pieces of evidence which show these witnesses to be credible, strengthens their testimony, so the the absence of evidence argument that critics bring up, are really strawman arguments made, due to their being unable to refute the evidence.

Cite some sources.

Only if you lump all religion in one basket, which is unreasonable.
To be clear, what do you mean by science is agreed on major principles?

[/QUOTE]
The germ theory, relativity, heliocentric solar system, plate techtonics, evolution and its mechanisms, chemistry, radiometric dating, and thousands of others.
The details of these are constantly being revised as new evidence emerges, but the basic outlines stand.

What do you mean? Do you mean like how people say the Gospel writers do not agree on details, and they nit pick at the details to see what they can find? Or how they try to find details in the Bible, that would differ, so as to claim they contradict each other?
Are you okay with the disagreement in details?

[/QUOTE]
The Bible is a collection of writings from largely unknown authors. It has been extensively edited.
The content has been edited, eg: the dozens of gospels have been cherry-picked to just three, by a committee with an agenda.
The bible contains known factual errors, eg: The Jewish exodus, and the world wide flood.
The bible contains numerous contradictions.
The bible makes numerous fantastical claims and miracles, which noöne would believe were they introduced today, even with first-person, eyewitness testimony.

Very little of the Biblical narrative can be empirically corroborated, it is, essentially, folklore.
Nunerous other religions are based on similar, poorly evidenced narratives. What makes the Bible more authoritative than any of these others?

If one dreams, and the interpretation given for that dream proves reliable - that is, it comes true.
They dream again, and the same thing happens, again, and again, and again.
Not that this is a case of normal dreams, that can be replicated like... "Okay, Go to sleep let's monitor your dream and test it to see..."
This has been replicated by the one who determined to use the dream, so it's not like God will say, "Ah. The scientists want to see if dreams are from me. Let me..."
That's mad thinking. Why would any sane person think they can replicate a dream or vision?

[/QUOTE]
Seriously? Stories of dream interpretations and perception of concordance? This is your evidence?
Those however, who see that the dream does come true, have evidence of the reliability of not the dream, but the prophecy, because they know it must be from a divine source.

For example, Daniel 8, is a prophecy that came true. It proved to be a reliable prophecy.

[/QUOTE]
It's a STORY. It could have been written after the fact. How do you know that whatever author wrote this was not just making it up?
This is not reliable, objective, testable, disinterested evidence.

 

[SDavis]

When speaking about evidences and proofs with regards to God here I am not speaking about scientific proofs but spiritual proofs. I believe that the human mind cannot grasp God so it is fruitless trying to prove God scientifically as we are told He is Spirit. Then to prove God we need to look at spiritual evidences.

What are spiritual proofs and evidences of God? Some say the virtues. Others, the transformative effect the Teachings of the Great Spiritual Teachers have had on the character of the individual and society. Still others say miracles.

Readers might like to contribute by adding how their Prophet’s teachings transformed the life of the individual and society or add their own spiritual proofs of God’s existence.

Spiritual - unseen - no tangible or visible evidence there is a spiritual world around us.

What of the human soul / spirit? Or the spirit /soul in any thinking creature upon this Earth...... It's not tangible - nor is it visible without the body it wouldn't be seen or heard or felt - I don't know about felt because you really can't feel a spirit/soul, you feel the body that it inhabits.
Because humans have a physical body science feels it can prove the existence of the soul/spirit

Probing the universe’s mysteries, Stephen Hawking proved the power of the human spirit

Stephen Hawking overcame the loss of his working limbs and voice to become the best-known theoretical physicist of his era, upending the scientific consensus that nothing escapes the intense gravity of black holes. Earning countless honors, he used his fame to appeal for saving the Earth...

www.pbs.org

Scientific proof of the human soul?

(//www.fi.edu/learn/brain/index.html)By Danielle Larson, Guest Commentary -- The Beacon "I think therefore I am." The immortal words of Descartes pondered by every UP student in PHL 101 are the philosopher's best attempt at answering the many questions surrounding the nature of human...

www.upbeacon.com

Does the Soul Exist? Evidence Says ‘Yes’

New scientific theory recognizes life’s spiritual dimension.

www.psychologytoday.com

Hawkins said there is no limits to the human spirit - God said after the Tower of Babel what man imagines to do won't be withheld from him

The same principle applies to God our Father he is not in a physical body but he exists. He can't be seen, but he can communicate - supernatural, meaning not natural to earthlings. The Bible says the heavens cannot contain him and according to science space is infinite.

All life is of him but he is life sustained within himself and able to give and create life. Those who don't believe in him will mock spiritual evidence.
It is written in Scripture how the word is mocked and of the unbelief and funny how Jesus said there will be no more signs - meaning after his death, burial, and Resurrection there will be no more evidence of his existence - either you believe in him or you don't - individual choice.

 

[blü 2]

Does the Flood narrative of Genesis really have its origin in Sumerian or Babylonian legends? It seemed best to seek an answer to that question by making a comparison of the Bible’s Flood account with that found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

It certainly doesn't have its origin in history ─ the evidence against any such event as is described in Genesis is overwhelming. Where did that extra billion cubic miles of water come from, and where is it now? Why is there no universal flood layer all over all continents, islands and the ocean floor? Why do animals not have evidence of a genetic bottleneck all of the same date? And so on.

Writing existed in Mesopotamia by 3000 BCE, devised by the (non-Semitic) Sumerians. Their cuneiform script was adopted by other (Semitic) Mesopotamian societies in the ensuing centuries. (The Egyptians were developing their own version of writing at about the same time, but it appears they're not relevant here ─ as you know, there's zero archaeological evidence for an Egyptian Captivity.) Mesopotamia has the two great rivers and the story of a farmer who saved his family and livestock from a flood by ingeniously using a floating device would be not too surprising. The accuracy of oral history as compared to written history has been examined in many places ─ I came across it with the shenachies of the Scottish Gaeltacht ─ and oral history is very clearly inferior. The Flood story was written down by the Sumerians, and passed to their neighbors the (Semitic) Akkadians, whence it made its way to (Semitic) Babylon. From there to (Semitic) Canaan is not a difficult leap.

No evidence connects the story itself to Canaan or the Judean region. Instead the bible version, thought to have been written down shortly after the middle of the first millennium BCE at the end of the Babylonian Captivity, strongly ─ I'd say very strongly ─ appears to be a version of the Sumerian / Babylonian tale.

 

[blü 2]

And atheists claim they know the Bible. Really?

I keep having to point out to you what you don't understand about the bible. Of course, technically I'm an igtheist rather than an atheist, but that's not central to the issue here.

They think too much of themselves. That's the problem.

You mean they think too much for themselves? You should try it some time ─ it can be much more educational than the parrot routine.

 

[YoursTrue]

Agreed
And you have no real, objective, empirical, evidence. You have hearsay and "spiritual evidence," ie: your own feelings, which you're heavily invested in.

I don't have to "see" something with my literal eye to behold it. OK, eyes, not eye unless I only have one eye.

 

[YoursTrue]

Spiritual - unseen - no tangible or visible evidence there is a spiritual world around us.

What of the human soul / spirit? Or the spirit /soul in any thinking creature upon this Earth...... It's not tangible - nor is it visible without the body it wouldn't be seen or heard or felt - I don't know about felt because you really can't feel a spirit/soul, you feel the body that it inhabits.
Because humans have a physical body science feels it can prove the existence of the soul/spirit

Probing the universe’s mysteries, Stephen Hawking proved the power of the human spirit

Stephen Hawking overcame the loss of his working limbs and voice to become the best-known theoretical physicist of his era, upending the scientific consensus that nothing escapes the intense gravity of black holes. Earning countless honors, he used his fame to appeal for saving the Earth...

www.pbs.org

Scientific proof of the human soul?

(//www.fi.edu/learn/brain/index.html)By Danielle Larson, Guest Commentary -- The Beacon "I think therefore I am." The immortal words of Descartes pondered by every UP student in PHL 101 are the philosopher's best attempt at answering the many questions surrounding the nature of human...

www.upbeacon.com

Does the Soul Exist? Evidence Says ‘Yes’

New scientific theory recognizes life’s spiritual dimension.

www.psychologytoday.com

Hawkins said there is no limits to the human spirit - God said after the Tower of Babel what man imagines to do won't be withheld from him

The same principle applies to God our Father he is not in a physical body but he exists. He can't be seen, but he can communicate - supernatural, meaning not natural to earthlings. The Bible says the heavens cannot contain him and according to science space is infinite.

All life is of him but he is life sustained within himself and able to give and create life. Those who don't believe in him will mock spiritual evidence.
It is written in Scripture how the word is mocked and of the unbelief and funny how Jesus said there will be no more signs - meaning after his death, burial, and Resurrection there will be no more evidence of his existence - either you believe in him or you don't - individual choice.

I love that scripture that says the heavens cannot hold the Almighty God.

 

[shunyadragon]

"Spiritual proof" sounds like an oxymoron. Spiritual evidence might make some sense, but only on a subjective, individual basis.

More like spiritual poof! as evidence. I believe in a 'Source' some call God(s), but any idea of proof or evidence is illusions of delusions to justify a one sided agenda.

 

[sayak83]

No. That is not how things work in life.
If the political ruler wants to choose judges for the Supreme Court, he does not want to know if he goes to the toilet. He only wants to know if he is credible, trustworthy... Once there is evidence for that, it's a done deal.
You are strawmanning.

Talk of clutching on straws....
I don't know what happens in your silly supreme court appointments. But in private companies, where performance and profitability truly matters, employees have to go through performance review every year and every project has to be individually checked. Just because you did a good project once two years ago does not give you a clean chit for the other 10 projects you do after.