...god is “designed”!

[McBell]

Nope, in a nutshell i have so little confidence in the intellectual honest from atheist in thir forum..... That before wasting time in searching for the sources I whant to know if that ata would convince you in the first place.......... If not then why wasting time

That is a rather long winded "yes".

 

[ChristineM]

Nope, in a nutshell i have so little confidence in the intellectual honest from atheist in thir forum..... That before wasting time in searching for the sources I whant to know if that ata would convince you in the first place.......... If not then why wasting time

Atheists are not the dishonest ones.

 

[leroy]

Atheists are not the dishonest ones.

What’s dishonest about asking if you would accept “X” as evidence?

 

[McBell]

**crickets**

waiting for the evidence

**crickets**

 

[ChristineM]

What’s dishonest about asking if you would accept “X” as evidence?

I am not speaking about a single point. And of course you are the instigator of mocking honesty.

 

[Samael_Khan]

I believe the first organised religions began to develope around 10000 years ago. There is no evidence of god worship before this time. In fact t think the first gods were Hindu.

From what I have read, there was God worship older than that and before organised religion developed. One example is the Lord of Beasts, discovered through a cave painting, which was worshipped in France and in other places by hunter gatherer societies between 18000 to 16000 bce. In the Bruniquel cave in France there is an altar that was created by Neanderthals in 176 500 BP, but we don't know what they worshipped. This worship wasn't organised but very loose and not well developed.

 

[McBell]

See post #84

 

[ChristineM]

From what I have read, there was God worship older than that and before organised religion developed. One example is the Lord of Beasts, discovered through a cave painting, which was worshipped in France and in other places by hunter gatherer societies between 18000 to 16000 bce. In the Bruniquel cave in France there is an altar that was created by Neanderthals in 176 500 BP, but we don't know what they worshipped. This worship wasn't organised but very loose and not well developed.

I live in France, one of my hubbies is Cro-Magnon. The cave paintings ive investigated show no sign of worship. But the works are dated between 22 and 30 thousand years ago.

From mt understanding (limited) of Neanderthal, they were big into ancestor worship.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Multiple independent sources sett Peter and the apostoles as witneses of miracles and they where willing to die for that belif.

...

Before asking for evidence, can you please confirm if this would be good enough for you?

I have looked into this claim and found that was not the case. But if you could find these supposed independent sources you would have the beginning of evidence for your beliefs.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Nope, in a nutshell i have so little confidence in the intellectual honest from atheist in thir forum..... That before wasting time in searching for the sources I whant to know if that ata would convince you in the first place.......... If not then why wasting time

Naughty, naughty. You know that this is massive projection on your part.

Just present your evidence.

 

[Samael_Khan]

I live in France, one of my hubbies is Cro-Magnon. The cave paintings ive investigated show no sign of worship. But the works are dated between 22 and 30 thousand years ago.

From mt understanding (limited) of Neanderthal, they were big into ancestor worship.

Have you seen The Sorcerer in Les Trois-Freres, Montesquieu-Avantes, France? Apparently a guy named Henri Breuil and also Reza Aslan consider it the earliest image of God that we know of. Apparently that along with the rest of the images in the cave reveal the cave to be a place of worship and that this God was revered because it had power over animals which the hunter gatherers wanted it to assist them with.

I also find it amazing that worship existed even before modern humans developed. I am just beginning to learn about the extent of Neanderthal religious tendencies.

You are an archaeologist if I remember, right?

 

[ChristineM]

Have you seen The Sorcerer in Les Trois-Freres, Montesquieu-Avantes, France? Apparently a guy named Henri Breuil and also Reza Aslan consider it the earliest image of God that we know of. Apparently that along with the rest of the images in the cave reveal the cave to be a place of worship and that this God was revered because it had power over animals which the hunter gatherers wanted it to assist them with.

I also find it amazing that worship existed even before modern humans developed. I am just beginning to learn about the extent of Neanderthal religious tendencies.

You are an archaeologist if I remember, right?

I don't get that far south, there is much to see around the dordogne (around 1000 significant caves) so no, i haven't seen the cave at Les Trois-Freres yet.

The meaning of the cave art at there is still being debated. Taking into account human development and the thought process behind animalism.

I believe cro magnon thanked the animals that gave up their lives to feed them. I can see how this developed into anamalism.

I am not an archaeologist but have a keen interest in anthropology. Im at my happiest crawling in a dark damp cave searcing for artifacts.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes these evil fishermen.... They fooled and manipulated everybody so that they can take over the world.

I think it is incredibly dishonest of you to only focus on that one aspect that @Wild Fox pointed out concerning control of society (ie: political power) while completely ignore the other aspects he mentioned - like the psychology of coping with the harder aspects of life (like famine, desease, pain, death,...).

Jesus corresponds very well to the latter. The christian god is a god for the weak, for the bottom of society: the poor, the sick, the oppressed. And yes, later on this religion was adopted and married into societal rule and was efficiently used to rule with an iron hand for centuries.

So why do you only focus on that one aspect while ignoring the others?
Could it perhaps be that you feel like it's "easier" to argue for your god by only focusing on the one thing while ignoring the rest?

Also not that @Wild Fox at no point said that these gods are "designed" intentionally and with a priori planning... as in a guy waking up and planning "I'm going to invent a god today".

I have no doubt that those who came up with those gods, or who added unto already existing ones, were sincere and really believed what they said. And I think @Wild Fox would agree. I don't think he believes that religions are a "conspiracy" by some kind of "elite" secret society for example.

Do you think Peter and the apostles where part of an evil Masonic, organization?

ha.... funny. I'm reading as I'm replying so I didn't read this sentence before I wrote my last paragraph above.
Funny how you are indeed trying to make it seem as if @Wild Fox thinks or implies that there is some secrete society conspiracy at the bottom of every religion. Well, I doubt it.

.... Or would you say that they where working for the jewelry industry..... Maybe they invented "the jesus" so that they could sale crosses and other fancy stuff.

Or perhaps they simply believed what they wanted to believe because it fits their psychological needs.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

We Humans have some sort of “religious instinct”……..we “feel” as if there is something out there.

It's called superstition.
Yes, like most animals, we are very prone to superstition.

Next to that, we also have an instinct to infuse agency in otherwise random events. This is an evolutionary artefact of spending millions of years as prey of predators.

Like the infamous example goes... if we are in the jungle and hear a noise in the bushes, we'll sooner think it's a dangerous predator sneaking up on us rather then merely the wind.
The underlying psychological consequence, is that we tend to feel "special" and "targeted". Combine that with superstition and belief in magical agents (be it centaurs, angels, leprechauns or gods) is almost like an inescapable result.

Even to the point of UFO sightings. We see a strange light in the sky? MUST be aliens visiting us, because who wouldn't want to visit us special humans?

In fact, we even make the position of the stars and planets about us.... It's called astrology.

At bottom, al these things are a result of a simple evolutionary survival mechanism: to assume agency and intention with you as the target. Aka Type 2 cognition errors (the false positive).

Belief in God(s) was caused by this instinct. And then this belief in God evolved in to what we call religions.

Yep.

Not just belief in Gods though. Also voodoo, astrology, poltergeists, ... and just about everything magical / supernatural.

Talking specifically about Jesus, well he was a historical person who did stuff that witnesses interpreted as miracles,

There's no evidence he actually was a historical person though.
I think any of three options is possible:
- it's based on a historical person and beefed up so that if you were to meet this person, you'ld barely recognise him as jesus
- it's actually several historical persons botched together into a legend
- it's just stories.

I'm betting on option 1 or 2.

No matter what the answer is though, it's all hearsay nonetheless. Things interpreted as "miracles" are a dime a dozen. Also, apparently none of these miracles were impressive enough for contemporary corroboration by independent sources.

My point is that God was not “designed” in the way the OP suggests, it is not like someone woke up and decided to create the idea of God for some purpose in mind.

I agree that that is not how it happened, as I explained above.
It's also not what the OP is saying happened.

So the question is why do we have this religious instinct? Is it a delusion that evolved through natural selection? Did it evolved by chance? Or perhaps God created us with this instinct.

See above. It's an evolutionary artefact. A survival mechanism. It's engrained in our psychology.

or why did the witnesses interpreted their observations as miracles………where they hallucinating? Or perhaps there where actual miracles. (I would argue that the second is the best explanation but I am open if you have any other hypothesis)

When somebody makes an extra-ordinary claim without a shred of evidence, the "best explanation" for the claim never is that the claim is correct.

First of all, considering the accounts we have are by far not first-hand accounts, but rather copies of copies of translations of translations of copies of stories passed on through oral traditions.... the telephone game impact must be taken into account. That alone already puts a a very dark cloud over its credibility. Especially if we add into the mix that this occurred in a time of extreme scientific ignorance and where superstition was so much through the roof it was even part of civil law.

Hallucinating, honestly mistaken, lying, warped / embellished stories as they are passed down the generations,.... all of these are infinitely more plausible then "a miracle occurred", even only for the simple fact that we have precedents for ALL of them and NONE for actual miracles.

On top of that, you also have the thousands upon thousands of other gods / religions to deal with. For your christian religion to be right, all others must be false.

So right out the gates, you would agree that 99% of religions are false religions. By definition, that would mean that they were invented by humans.
So we have thousands of precedents of humans inventing religions.

We have zero precedents of religions being actual revelations of gods.
We have zero precedents of any miracles.
We have zero evidence for the existence of any gods or anything supernatural.

So knowing all this, how could "a miracle occurred" ever be "the best" explanation for anything?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok but whether if the stories are real or not is irrelevant for my point……..the point is that early Christians (including the apostoles) believed that this stories where real and that belief caused the Christian Religion.

Obviously the christian religion exists because there were people that believed it.
That's true for every religion - including all those you don't believe in, which is like 99.99% of them.

So what's your point?
"it's true because they believed it"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, Christianly predates the bible (new testament)

belif in christ arrose because the apostoles honesntly and sincerly belived in Jesus

And Islam arose because people honestly and sincerely believed mohammed.

What of it?

EVERY religion arose because the early adopters honestly and sincerely believed it.
Tarrot card readers exist because their victims honestly and sincerely believe it.

What of it?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I am simply asking her if the evidence that I suggest (if real) would be enough or not to prove my point.

1 If yes I would proceed to provide the evidence

2 if no I simply whant to know why not? What else would she need?

But that is ok, I understand that avoiding direct answers is part of the atheist methodology

Is withholding evidence and using it as a carrot on a stick part of the "theist methodology"?


Your question, btw, makes no sense. You are asking someone to speak out of this mysterious evidence would be enough to concede the point BEFORE giving the opportunity to examine said evidence.

If you would have simply given the evidence the first time it was asked, then you would have had your answer already. Ironic isn't it?

I'm replying to this thread as I go through it and I wonder if I'll encounter a post where this mysterious evidence is shared.

I doubt it, but would love to be proved wrong.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Nope, in a nutshell i have so little confidence in the intellectual honest from atheist in thir forum..... That before wasting time in searching for the sources I whant to know if that ata would convince you in the first place.......... If not then why wasting time

How would she know if this evidence would convince her, if she isn't given this evidence first?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What’s dishonest about asking if you would accept “X” as evidence?

The fact that you refuse to share X so that it can be evaluated first.
You're asking her to commit blindly to it.

It's not gonna happen.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I'm replying to this thread as I go through it and I wonder if I'll encounter a post where this mysterious evidence is shared.

I doubt it, but would love to be proved wrong.

Well how about that @leroy
I got to the end of the thread.

Still no evidence.

O well