There is no evidence for God, so why do you believe?

[Sheldon]

It Aint Necessarily So said: ↑
I find that it is the faith-based thinker who loses sight of what faith actually is, as he tends to see it as a virtue and a path to truth. It is neither. It is merely the willingness to believe as true that which ha not been demonstrated to be correct. Where's the virtue there? What could be a less meaningful and less examined belief than one acquired that way. And why faith, which can't possibly be a path to truth if all ideas including wrong ideas can be believed by faith?

This just isn’t correct.

An odd claim given the rest of your post pretty much confirmed what @It Aint Necessarily So had said, but just phrased it differently.

 

[Five Solas]

Someone claimed they could receive intelligence from god beyond their abilities. SO I asked for evidence. I do not care bout the apologetics - "God won't be tested, God says no sometimes", if one wants to lean on those apologetics then great. But I will still ask for evidence when claims are made. Do you think your God answers prayer ever? If so, that is a genie

Within Reformed circles we hold that the Canon is closed. That means that we now have all the knowledge/information needed for salvation. So, what we need to know about God is in Scripture and that will not change untill the Second Coming of Christ.
There are no new revelations from God. So if we day that God tells us something, we refer to where Scripture says that.
That implies that if there are in fact new revelations from God it should be added to Scripture which is ,in fact, the self-revelation of God. But that does not happen in reality and we reject any claims like that.
We believe God speaks to his church or individuals through the Scriptures - nothing else.

 

[Five Solas]

when beliefs can and are held on nothing but faith,

You have a substantial misunderstanding of what saving faith is. You are in fact criticizing your own misunderstanding.

Saving faith is based on knowledge of God and proof that He can be trusted. Scripture contains ample proof. My faith is not blind. If you think it is you are wrong.

What reaction do I expect from you? To question the proof...

 

[Sheldon]

"Biblical scholars and scholarly historians are not the same thing, though of course they need not be mutually exclusive. However it is an historical fact that the names assigned the gospels, Mathew Mark Luke and John, did not appear until the 2nd century, the earliest writings of those gospels were anonymous. Biblical scholars can and do also hold subjective beliefs, but you are I'm afraid conflating the latter with historical facts, when beliefs can and are held on nothing but faith, whereas historical facts are subject to much higher criteria and methods of validation. The gospel names were assigned at the first council of Nicaea, but are made up.

Your links are the subjective opinions of a Christian apologist, it's in the title at the top of the page, he offering subjective beliefs. You are simply Googling what you want to believe, it's up to you of course, but meaningless in a debate. As this religious apologists beliefs are not objective evidence for the claims he makes, and do not change the fact that earliest writings of the gospels were unauthored or anonymous, and the very earliest written account is decades after the events they purport to describe. The authors speculation they reflect contemporary documents is just his subjective belief, and he can offer no historical evidence to support this. You will find innumerable blogs on the internet from religious apologists making this type of claim. The fact that the earliest written accounts of the gospels were unauthored is not a subjective opinion, no credible historian disputes this."

I read all your posts and understand the atheist scholars view and motive, sorry to say that they lack credibility.

Another meaningless subjective and unevidenced claim? My motive is debate, not sure what other motive one should have in a debate forum.

I also read the biblical scholars and what they base their views and findings on and it’s a solid foundation of evidence and proof.

It has neither, and again it is hard to imagine a better example of this fact than you simply making a bare unevidenced assertion like this, as if it has meaning in a debate.

Now as far as anecdotal comments…

You've just offered two already, and not addressed a single word in my post, despite this second response to it.

I’ve already lived and tried just about all the world has to offer, heard and done just about everything the world has to offer and found this type of life empty, hopeless and a path to death.

And here we have a third meaningless anecdotal claim. You seem unable to grasp how meaningless these are, or why.

When I received Christ, He was the one I was looking for all along, none of your comments or flimsy scholarships can change anything of what I know and have obtained from God.

So that's your fourth anecdotal claim in a row, and a clearer example of a biased closed mind is hard to imagine. You have failed to address one word from my post, offering nothing but anecdotal hand waving, try again, you may manage to actually address something I said on your third attempt.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Another meaningless subjective and unevidenced claim? My motive is debate, not sure what other motive one should have in a debate forum

Another problem with debating with you is you don’t read my comments, I said the atheists scholars motives of biblical studies…

 

[Five Solas]

There are no historian eyewitness accounts of Jesus,

It would have been more honest to say that that you do not accept the biblical eyewitness accounts.
To say, "There are no..." is a factual statement which is simply not true.

 

[Sheldon]

That’s the worst thing I could imagine for someone.

Why not offer the best you think there is? As yet you have failed every single time to offer any, indeed I'm sorry to say but you don't seem to know that anecdotal claims are not remotely objective evidence.

 

[ElishaElijah]

So that's your fourth anecdotal claim in a row, and a clearer example of a biased closed mind is hard to imagine. You have failed to address one word from my post, offering nothing but anecdotal hand waving, try again, you may manage to actually address something I said on your third attempt

Post #2815 explains why your sources for biblical scholarship are disqualified, their motives, the numerous biblical scholars who disagree with your view and their evidence.
There is quite a bit in that so all you’ve said is you reject the apologist view, now there are 90+ scholars listed.
I find your comments and answers sorely lacking.
Also, you can reject my testimony but it also demonstrates the power of God to salvation which is consistent with the same salvation, change from death to life, filling of the Holy Spirit when I believed which is documented in Scripture. The message of the Gospel and its effects haven’t changed.

 

[Sheldon]

Another problem with debating with you is you don’t read my comments, I said the atheists scholars motives of biblical studies…

Hilarious given this was the second time you quoted and responded to my post, and ignored every single word of it. You're not debating, just reeling personal opinions, anecdotal hand waving is poor debate.

"Biblical scholars and scholarly historians are not the same thing, though of course they need not be mutually exclusive. However it is an historical fact that the names assigned the gospels, Mathew Mark Luke and John, did not appear until the 2nd century, the earliest writings of those gospels were anonymous. Biblical scholars can and do also hold subjective beliefs, but you are I'm afraid conflating the latter with historical facts, when beliefs can and are held on nothing but faith, whereas historical facts are subject to much higher criteria and methods of validation. The gospel names were assigned at the first council of Nicaea, but are made up.

Your links are the subjective opinions of a Christian apologist, it's in the title at the top of the page, he offering subjective beliefs. You are simply Googling what you want to believe, it's up to you of course, but meaningless in a debate. As this religious apologists beliefs are not objective evidence for the claims he makes, and do not change the fact that earliest writings of the gospels were unauthored or anonymous, and the very earliest written account is decades after the events they purport to describe. The authors speculation they reflect contemporary documents is just his subjective belief, and he can offer no historical evidence to support this. You will find innumerable blogs on the internet from religious apologists making this type of claim. The fact that the earliest written accounts of the gospels were unauthored is not a subjective opinion, no credible historian disputes this."

If you respond again at least try to directly address any of the refutations I offered, and using something beyond subjective anecdote, and had waving denials.

 

[Sheldon]

Post #2815 explains why your sources for biblical scholarship are disqualified, their motives, the numerous biblical scholars who disagree with your view and their evidence.

No it doesn't, it offers biased subjective denial.

There is quite a bit in that so all you’ve said is you reject the apologist view,

Nonsense, read it again, more carefully. Better still quote the relevant text you're trying to refute.

now there are 90+ scholars listed.

So what, I already explained several times that biblical scholars are often also religious apologists and what you offered were their subjective beliefs, and falsely claimed these were historical facts, the two are not remotely the same, and again I explained why, and how vastly different the standard or criteria for validating historical claims is from someone doing what you have done here, again and again and offered your own subjective beliefs.

I find your comments and answers sorely lacking.

I'm guessing by now, that the irony of how meaningless this subjective claim is, offered without any context whatsoever, is entirely lost on you.

 

[ElishaElijah]

However it is an historical fact that the names assigned the gospels, Mathew Mark Luke and John, did not appear until the 2nd century, the earliest writings of those gospels were anonymous.

Not sure your point because everyone agrees that the 4 gospels are anonymous, the names were assigned due to the evidence of the writing style and study of the books and concluded these names were then assigned.
What’s interesting on how you view this is that these men are fictional. Where would you get that idea?

 

[ElishaElijah]

No it doesn't, it offers biased subjective denial

90+ Biblical Scholars and the evidence who are qualified scholars by any standard including by God’s standard.
Compared to atheist scholars who don’t meet the criteria for biblical scholarship. If a person doesn’t have the Holy Spirit they cannot be considered a biblical scholar and you talk about bias, these men are biased and blind.

 

[Sheldon]

Not sure your point because everyone agrees that the 4 gospels are anonymous,

That it is an historical fact that the gospels are unauthored. Something you have disputed until now, and bizarrely now accept out of the blue?

the names were assigned due to the evidence of the writing style and study of the books and concluded these names were then assigned.

The names are fictional, so what are you trying to claim is being compared to what? This makes absolutely no sense.

What’s interesting on how you view this is that these men are fictional. Where would you get that idea?

What men? The names are fictional, do you know what fictional means? The gospels were unauthored??? I really don't think you have fully grasped this fact yet, unsurprising perhaps as you were unaware of it at the start of this discourse.

 

[Sheldon]

90+ Biblical Scholars and the evidence who are qualified scholars by any standard including by God’s standard.

Already explained that biblical scholars can also be offering subjective beliefs, as they were in your examples, not historically verified facts as you claimed, why this fact evades you here is baffling. You are using an appeal to authority fallacy though that is pretty clear.

Compared to atheist scholars who don’t meet the criteria for biblical scholarship.

Ah now I understand, you don't even know what a biblical scholar is, or an historical scholar. let alone the difference. Dr Carrier, Dr Bart Ehrman are qualified and atheists, note they have doctorates. So this claim is just embarrassingly wrong, as well as embarrassingly biased.

If a person doesn’t have the Holy Spirit they cannot be considered a biblical scholar and you talk about bias, these men are biased and blind.

Oh dear, you are embarrassing yourself here sorry. However both biblical and historical scholarship has absolutely nothing to do with one's subjective beliefs, a fact you have repeatedly failed to understand. This is of course a textbook no true Scotsman fallacy.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There are no historian eyewitness accounts of Jesus, just Christians who follow the gospels. One historian who investigated then called them harmless superstition. The gospels are anonymous, non-eyewitness and Matthew and Luke are sourced from Mark according to Christian scholarship.

It would have been more honest to say that that you do not accept the biblical eyewitness accounts. To say, "There are no..." is a factual statement which is simply not true.

If he's like me and probably most other skeptics, his attitude is that there is no reason to believe that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses, nor would it matter if they were, as the accounts can't be corroborated. An eyewitness account of a resurrection has no more value than a second-hand account (hearsay). Neither is convincing. From Wiki:

"Like the rest of the New Testament, the four gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110. Despite the traditional ascriptions, all four are anonymous and most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses."

You have a substantial misunderstanding of what saving faith is. You are in fact criticizing your own misunderstanding.

I'd say that it is you who doesn't understand what faith is, but that's typical for theists. They've been taught that believing by faith is a virtue, and that it is a path to truth. It is neither of those. It is merely insufficiently supported belief, nothing more or less.

Believers seem to assume for themselves some kind of expertise regarding religious matters such as understanding scripture, but my experience is that the opposite is true. If you want a dispassionate assessment of these matters, go to a humanist, who is generally skilled in critical thinking, and has no agenda apart from accurate, dispassionate assessment. If you ask somebody who assumes the God exists, is good, wrote the Bible, and that the Bible is all correct, that's what you'll see and report. For example, you believe by faith that faith is a virtue, and so you can argue to no other conclusion, whatever the evidence.

And what a windfall for the world that skeptics have a voice now to identify these errors, and report what makes them errors. It's one of the major reasons theism is evaporating away in the West, others being its lack of relevance in their lives, its hatreds and bigotries, its hell theology, the advance of science, the rise of the "New Atheists" and their best sellers, religious hypocrisies in the news, entertainment media which routinely depict religion and clergy unfavorably, and the general respectability of atheism despite centuries of bigoted depictions of unbelievers in scripture. It's OK to be an atheist, except possibly in one's own family. Also, this antiabortion ruling from the Supreme Court will hurt the church (and the Court, and the Republican party).

Saving faith is based on knowledge of God and proof that He can be trusted. Scripture contains ample proof. My faith is not blind. If you think it is you are wrong.

And there it is. That is incorrect. There is no knowledge of any deity, just unjustified belief. There is no proof that any deity can be trusted, either. Faith is always blind by definition. If there is evidence to support a belief, it's no longer faith.

I understand that you resent posts like this one. You likely see it as mean-spirited, maybe even demon inspired. If so, that's your religious indoctrination speaking to you, the one that likes to depict the believer as good and the skeptic as evil (bigoted hate speech straight from the scriptures).

But none of that is relevant to the skeptic. He just wants to explain why the theist is wrong when he makes false or empty claims of fact about gods and his religion, and lessen the influence of religion, especially the part that teaches believers to hate him for being an atheist, hatred the faithful call love, as they do their homophobia and misogyny. It's up to the skeptic to point this out to help diminish the damage organized, politicized religion does to believers and unbelievers alike.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I find that it is the faith-based thinker who loses sight of what faith actually is, as he tends to see it as a virtue and a path to truth. It is neither. It is merely the willingness to believe as true that which ha not been demonstrated to be correct. Where's the virtue there? What could be a less meaningful and less examined belief than one acquired that way. And why faith, which can't possibly be a path to truth if all ideas including wrong ideas can be believed by faith?

Wrong. That is not what Christians believe or claim. Saving faith is based on the reliability of God which He had demonstrated clearly in history. Saving faith is firmly based on knowledge of God. You are making fun of your personal misrepresentation of what we believe.

It doesn't matter what Christians claim faith is. I've just explained why I don't consider believers to be a reliable source on religious matters. Your definition is what I expect from a believer, and you know that I reject it.

What I get from all your many words is that you do not believe in God, Jesus Christ, or in the accuracy if Scripture. So, you reject the evidence.

For the critical thinker, it's the other way around. Evidence precedes belief. What the believer offers as evidence isn't convincing. That's why the claims of the believer are rejected. The faith-based thinker begins with a premise believed by faith and then massages the evidence to make it appear that his premise is a derived conclusion. That's the wrong order.

You are blind to the truth and the evidence as well. It is futile to enter into a debate with anyone like you.

You've come unarmed to debate with critical thinkers. You cannot persuade one without sound conclusions drawn by applying valid reasoning to relevant evidence. You have no truth, just faith-based beliefs that do not rise to the level of knowledge. It is the faith-based thinker who has blinded himself with a faith-based confirmation bias that closes the mind to contradictory evidence. And they're proud of it. They consider it a virtue to ignore evidence that contradicts what they believe by faith. Two very prominent theologians have told us as much:

• The moderator in the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye on whether creationism is a viable scientific pursuit asked, “What would change your minds?” Scientist Bill Nye answered, “Evidence.” Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, “Nothing. I'm a Christian.” Elsewhere, Ham stated, “By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record."

• "The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right..." - William Lane Craig

Can one be more blinded to truth and evidence than that?

 

[ppp]

I would have thought that he had more of an idea what he is talking about than you do, Policy. Doesn't his experience of his life count for anything?

I do not deny that he has had an experience, @samtonga43. And I assume (until demonstrated otherwise) that @ElishaElijah is attempting to relate his experience as clearly and honestly as he can. But his having an experience, and his interpretation of the cause of that experience are not the same thing.

If I were from culture that believes that elf shot causes people to have seizures, then I would interpret a seizure as being caused by my angering the wee folk. The experience would be real. My interpretation of the cause would be unjustified. Like @ElishaElijah, my having the experience would be inadequate to justify my explanation for the experience.

 

[Sundance]

Is this how you view all atheists, or just the one you're posting to? If the former, see above.

And there are no standard atheist arguments. Nothing claimed to be true is beyond the scope of critical analysis. Empiricism and critical thinking always apply in matters of what is true.

I was speaking specifically to the individual to whom I was responding.

And are you sure about your assertion? That there are no typical arguments used in attempting to argue against the existence of Divinity? I’m curious. What do you think, then, about the pantheistic conception of God (like the Stoics taught)? Or the polytheism which characterized most of the ancient world? Or Deism?

 

[Sundance]

I don't know why you keep saying I don't understand? There are different types of pantheism. Yours may be more theistic.
It is not impossible to criticize using standard atheists arguments? Why would it be impossible? Yes the universe has independent reality but your feelings are not a reliable marker to what is true in the sense of divinities and such.
In fact the "feeling" side of the argument is covered in the Stanford entries on philosophy under different types of pantheism. Feelings are great but to say something is universally true you need evidence. You think atheists haven't heard "the universe is God because I feel it"? I'm not denying your feelings but it does not demonstrate that the universe is God any more than a Christian who says Jesus is real because I feel it. A sense of awe and majesty, worship or reverence is also a common argument for religions.

"Pantheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

8. Evoking religious emotion
Most straightforwardly it has been maintained that the One is holy because we feel a particular set of religious emotions towards it. (Levine 1994, ch.2.2) For Rudolf Otto, (1917) whatever is holy or ‘numinous’ is so characterised on the basis of our non-rational, non-sensory experience of it rather than its own objective features and, taking its departure from Otto’s work, one approach has been to argue that the feelings of awe which people feel towards God can be, and often are, applied to the universe itself. Whether it is really possible, or appropriate, to entertain such feelings towards the cosmos as a whole will be discussed below, but the chief point to make here concerns the extreme subjectivism of this response; it’s coming to rest upon feelings which, while sincere enough, indicate nothing whatsoever about the universe itself. On this view, all that distinguishes a pantheist from an atheist is feeling; a certain emotional reaction or connection that we feel to the universe. It would become akin, say, to the difference between one who loves art and another who is relatively indifferent to it. Prima facie, however, this approach puts the cart before the horse; rather than say that the One is divine because we feel a set of religious emotions towards it, it seems more appropriate to suppose that we feel those emotions towards it because we think it is divine

I would agree with most of this. In fact, I referred to the crux of this matter quite explicitly in my last reply: The universe is identical to God precisely because it’s conceived as such by some people. Indeed, in my view, there are things about the Universe that do make it worthy of such a conception. The conception absolutely does make a difference, as with any kind of belief in Divinity.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My comment has nothing to do with whether there are spiritual truths, but whether you and your claims are credible. With your approach, even if I believed that spiritual things were real, I would have no reason to believe that you had any idea what you are talking about.

I would have thought that he had more of an idea what he is talking about than you do, Policy. Doesn't his experience of his life count for anything?

I'm with @Policy on this. I don't accept theists' interpretations of much as my recent posts above attest. It's because of the problem with faith-based thinking an its inability to generate demonstrable truths. The method simply doesn't get one to sound conclusions, something only fallacy-free reason can do. This is sharply prescribed and constrained method of processing information, and the only path to demonstrably correct ideas. I liken it to the sharply prescribed and constrained rules of addition. If 7+5 aren't 12 every time, or 4+3 seven - if you use any other rules - you generate an incorrect sum. That's faith. In fact, I have a wonderful quote illustrating the wrongheadedness of faith:

• “If somewhere in the Bible I were to find a passage that said 2 + 2 = 5, I wouldn't question what I am reading in the Bible. I would believe it, accept it as true, and do my best to work it out and understand it."- Pastor Peter laRuffa

Why would a critical thinker be interested in anything a mind willing to think like that generated? And so, where skeptics will accept descriptions of believers' experiences, they reject their interpretations of them, beginning with knowing a god or having a relationship with one. When a believer tells me that, I recognize that he is misinterpreting his psychological experience and projecting it outside of his head onto external reality. He has an intuition and considers it an apprehension of something not confined to his mind.

Why? In my case, I made that same mistake once, when I was a Christian, but I had an experience that revealed that to me, when the intuition disappeared upon leaving my initial congregation following discharge from the Army. The initial experience was "Spirit-filled," or so I thought, experiencing euphoria as if it were not a mental state, but an apprehension of something else. Two more years of going to various churches that were dead showed me that what I had experienced was the effect of a gifted and charismatic preacher, not a deity. A deity would have followed me, whereas the euphoria was site-specific.

So I understand that illusion and recognize it others when they claim to know God. I accept that they have an experience that they understand as God, but not their interpretation of what they are experiencing.

are you sure about your assertion? That there are no typical arguments used in attempting to argue against the existence of Divinity?

I know of none. I don't attempt to make that argument, nor do most atheists, who, like me, are agnostic atheists. What would such an argument look like?

What do you think, then, about the pantheistic conception of God (like the Stoic taught)? Or the polytheism which characterized most of the ancient world? Or Deism?

I'm agnostic there as well. I have no way to rule any of those in or out. I have no use for the concept of god. It lacks sufficient supporting evidence to believe that such a thing exists, it explains nothing, and for many, a god belief is a distraction from reality.

What does pantheism add to an understanding of reality? How is that idea different from belief in a godless, unconscious universe, by which I mean, what manifestation of one is not present in the other the testing for which would help us decide which idea has more explanatory or predictive power? None that I can discern, which is also the case with deism and polytheism.

In other words, If the pantheistic, polytheistic, or deistic deities exist, then what tangible manifestation can one discover that reveal that fact, and how can that knowledge be used to predict outcomes better, the sole value of ideas about reality? If there aren't any to speak of, then there is no value in knowing that a deity exists, and such a belief simply doesn't matter.

Notice that this is not an argument against the existence of deities, which I told you that like most other atheists, I don't make. It's an argument against belief that they exist that says that there is no reason to believe as much and there would be no value in knowing that such things are the case if they are.