The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

Soul Winner

2Scoops wrote: »

It can certainly disprove things, though.

Like what? Water is not Plutonium? The earth is composed solely of solid gold? That God does not exist? If God truly does not exist then it should be able to be shown conclusively by the scientific method. Really it should, think about it for a minute. Every single idea of God throughout history is false because He doesn't exist. That is very damming to us a species when you consider the great minds that believed that such a being could at least possibly exist, and yet as advanced as we are we still cannot disprove that one simple human projected notion. And don’t use the teapot around Mars argument or the flying spaghetti monster, they have not had the effect on mankind’s history that the notion of God has had. Surely He must exist?

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

Like what? Water is not Plutonium? The earth is composed solely of solid gold? That God does not exist? If God truly does not exist then it should be able to be shown conclusively by the scientific method. Really it should, think about it for a minute. Every single idea of God throughout history is false because He doesn't exist. That is very damming to us a species when you consider the great minds that believed that such a being could at least possibly exist, and yet as advanced as we are we still cannot disprove that one simple human projected notion. And don’t use the teapot around Mars argument or the flying spaghetti monster, they have not had the effect on mankind’s history that the notion of God has had. Surely He must exist?

You are conflating cultural influences with the scientific method. If God is a testable hypothesis then you should be able to provide an example of how such a hypothesis can be falsified.

kiffer

Soul Winner wrote: »

Like what? Water is not Plutonium? The earth is composed solely of solid gold? That God does not exist? If God truly does not exist then it should be able to be shown conclusively by the scientific method. Really it should, think about it for a minute. Every single idea of God throughout history is false because He doesn't exist. That is very damming to us a species when you consider the great minds that believed that such a being could at least possibly exist, and yet as advanced as we are we still cannot disprove that one simple human projected notion. And don’t use the teapot around Mars argument or the flying spaghetti monster, they have not had the effect on mankind’s history that the notion of God has had. Surely He must exist?

Ah... so the validity of a god is based on the effect that the notion of that god has on people?
So the fact that Amun-Ra was worshiped in Egypt for some time and had an effect on that culture makes him a valid god?
Excellent...

*You* can't scientifically test you God because it's against the rules... "Thou shalt not test thy Lord God" and other such words along similar lines...
And he won't answer unbelievers prayers so we can't set up a test in which he'll cooperate...
Given time we could probably construct a test to show whether or not praying actually does anything...
Get 1000 people all with the same disease and 1000 Christians to pray for them... and split them in to groups ... do proper double blind testing and have a whole rake of controls, etc. etc. ...

Some of the sick have one person praying for them, some have more than one, and some have none... but no one knows who's praying for whom until the end of the testing period...

If this was shown to have an effect then it would of course help answer the question... although we could be all messed up by friends and family praying for control people that should have no-one praying for them...
and of course there is the problem that maybe some of the Christians might be more or less devout and this could effect the result.

Of course even if the result of the experiment showed absolutely no effect then it would not rule out a non-involved Deistic God... or that God just wasn't granting prayers because he knew it was a test and he hates exams... (like all right thinking people! )

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

You are conflating cultural influences with the scientific method. If God is a testable hypothesis then you should be able to provide an example of how such a hypothesis can be falsified.

But the scientific method itself was born of an un-falsifiable philosophical approach to the evidence as AH outlined in an earlier post, and is as un-testable by the scientific method (that it spawned) as the God hypothesis. So even if I were able to provide you with testable evidence for the existence of God based on the scientific method, you would simply turn around and tell me that the method at which I provided the testable evidence is based solely on an un-falsifiable philosophy, which as it happens is the very philosophy that the scientific method itself is based on.

Soul Winner

kiffer wrote: »

Ah... so the validity of a god is based on the effect that the notion of that god has on people?
So the fact that Amun-Ra was worshiped in Egypt for some time and had an effect on that culture makes him a valid god?
Excellent...

*You* can't scientifically test you God because it's against the rules... "Thou shalt not test thy Lord God" and other such words along similar lines...
And he won't answer unbelievers prayers so we can't set up a test in which he'll cooperate...
Given time we could probably construct a test to show whether or not praying actually does anything...
Get 1000 people all with the same disease and 1000 Christians to pray for them... and split them in to groups ... do proper double blind testing and have a whole rake of controls, etc. etc. ...

Some of the sick have one person praying for them, some have more than one, and some have none... but no one knows who's praying for whom until the end of the testing period...

If this was shown to have an effect then it would of course help answer the question... although we could be all messed up by friends and family praying for control people that should have no-one praying for them...
and of course there is the problem that maybe some of the Christians might be more or less devout and this could effect the result.

Of course even if the result of the experiment showed absolutely no effect then it would not rule out a non-involved Deistic God... or that God just wasn't granting prayers because he knew it was a test and he hates exams... (like all right thinking people! )

Read my reply to Morbert above.

2Scoops

Soul Winner wrote: »

If God truly does not exist then it should be able to be shown conclusively by the scientific method. Really it should, think about it for a minute. Every single idea of God throughout history is false because He doesn't exist. That is very damming to us a species when you consider the great minds that believed that such a being could at least possibly exist, and yet as advanced as we are we still cannot disprove that one simple human projected notion. And don’t use the teapot around Mars argument or the flying spaghetti monster, they have not had the effect on mankind’s history that the notion of God has had.

If God is truly omnipotent then falsifying his existence is simply impossible. Indeed, an omnipotent being could make everything appear just so as he didn't exist and consciously evade any attempts to measure or quantify him. He may make the world in 6 days 6000 years ago but make it appear as though it was millions upon millions of years older. But, I'm afraid, here is where I must call in our friend the FSM, who is also claimed to be omnipotent and cannot be disproved. Its cultural and historical influence is completely irrelevant.

If you're into probabilities, you can certainly make a strong case that God most likely does not exist, given the complete absence of evidence for his existence the demonstrably false creation story and other tall tales in the Bible.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Surely he must exist?

Surely he must not exist? Many fictional entities have had a profound influence on human history. So what?

2Scoops

Soul Winner wrote: »

So even if I were able to provide you with testable evidence for the existence of God based on the scientific method, you would simply turn around and tell me that the method at which I provided the testable evidence is based solely on an un-falsifiable philosophy,

Provide the falsifiable evidence of God first, then we can worry about the nature of an unfalsifiable philosophy (whatever that is!). :pac:

robindch

Wicknight wrote: »

A more interesting question for me is how does someone who admits such ignorance of this subject still know we are all wrong?

Have asked this one a few times before -- the answer is that while he might know nothing about biology and isn't in a position to judge any evidence, he does fully trust the opinions of people who tell him that their conclusions are error-free and can be reached (see above) without reference to evidence, or in direct contradiction of it.

Weird but true.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Every single idea of God throughout history is false because He doesn't exist.

Every single idea about God that can be tested has been shown to be false.

That doesn't stop you and millions like you still believing he exists, so I think that should demonstrate to you that God is untestable and unfalsifiable.

No religious person has ever come up with a test that could falsify God, and as such science ignores the concept.

Soul Winner wrote: »

And don’t use the teapot around Mars argument or the flying spaghetti monster, they have not had the effect on mankind’s history that the notion of God has had. Surely He must exist?

The effect something has on humans is irrelevant. If the FSM had captured the imagination of millions of people that wouldn't stop it from being nonsense (look at Scientology)

If God exists surely we could find something, no matter how small, that we could test for, something more than the wishful thinking of a lot of humans, which on the grand scale of things means very little.

There has never been any support for the God theory beyond the opinion of believers. To me that tells me an awful lot.

And don't call me Shirley.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

But the scientific method itself was born of an un-falsifiable philosophical approach to the evidence as AH outlined in an earlier post

An "un-falsifiable philosophical approach"?? I think you are getting a bit confused here.

Firstly if you are suggesting that the scientific method itself is consider to be flawless and without error, no it isn't. There is a logic to the scientific method that could, and has in the past, been found to be false and the method updated or changed

The scientific method in the early 19th century used to rely a lot on observational modeling. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries scientists started to realize problems in this and the method moved to a different approach

The scientific method has been updated and refined a good few times precisely because people found flaws in it.

But I would also point out though that the scientific method is a human construct. It isn't a thing.

The purpose of science is to study the world around us, to understand it and to model it. Science is the modeling of phenomena. This includes gravity, rocks, humans and yes even God. Anything that does or is supposed to exist in reality falls under the scope of science.

Applying the scientific method to human philosophy doesn't make a whole lot of sense because philosophy isn't an external phenomena.

Certainly some principles of the scientific method can be applied to other things like philosophy and maths, but you don't study a human philosophy in the same way you study a natural phenomena, any more than you apply it to studying Shakespeare.

Soul Winner wrote: »

So even if I were able to provide you with testable evidence for the existence of God based on the scientific method, you would simply turn around and tell me that the method at which I provided the testable evidence is based solely on an un-falsifiable philosophy, which as it happens is the very philosophy that the scientific method itself is based on.

I very much doubt anyone here would say that. I can't even figure out what that is supposed to even mean :pac:

The purpose of science is to model things and then test these models for accuracy. That is the only way humans have so far come up with to accurately tell if what we think is happening is happening, what we think exists does exist.

Most Christians would have a model of God, at least in an relatively abstract fashion. What they don't have is any way to test the assumptions of this model.

As such you can't tell if the model is or is not accurately reflecting reality. All you have is your opinion that it is or isn't, and your opinion means diddly squat because you could just be wrong. A lot of people don't like the idea that they could just be wrong, particularly when being wrong presents them with a less favourable version of reality, but again that doesn't mean anything and in fact is more of a reason to ignore what people believe and focus only on what they can demonstrate.

If you can't demonstrate that you aren't wrong no one can rely on your opinion to form other scientific models. Doesn't matter how many people agree with you, they could be wrong as well.

The religious idea of power in numbers, that you simply need to get a lot of other people to believe the same thing as you and this some how means what you believe is more accurate is an idea that science realized was nonsense 300 years ago.

It doesn't matter if a million people believe a model is accurate if none of them can demonstrate this. It doesn't matter if only 1 person believes a model is accurate if she can demonstrate this.

Soul Winner

2Scoops wrote: »

Provide the falsifiable evidence of God first, then we can worry about the nature of an unfalsifiable philosophy (whatever that is!).

Ok.

The greatest evidence for the existence of God in history is the person of Jesus Christ.

This man came and spoke in the place of God.

He had no sense of immoral inadequacy

He forgave sins on His own authority.

He claimed that His life was a ransom that would somehow set the world right once He laid it down.

He claimed to have existed before Abraham and, that He came from His Father in Heaven and He believed in Satan. Which means if these things don’t exist then He could hardly be called a good or wise man which is usually the category the world that does not want to accept Him as supernatural puts Him in.

Now all these things by themselves prove nothing but if this Man who also before His death claimed that He would rise again after it, and this actually happened as a fact of history then surely this Man was who He claimed to be, was God's primary spokesperson to mankind, and was God Himself.

All that needs to be ascertained now is whether or not He came forth from the tomb as it is reported by the witnesses. If you can prove that He didn't then we can put Him away and don’t have to listen to Him as he was either a nut or fraud. But if we can prove He did rise from the dead, or at least give no other reasonable explanation as to the facts which surround the history of that event then we are dealing with the most unusual person to have ever walked on the stage of history.

The facts that surround the issue are many but if we take just three then that will do. The following are three facts that almost all New Testament scholars who have studied this subject are in agreement on:

1) That His tomb was empty when the women arrived at it.

2) That the disciples had post mortem appearance of Jesus.

3) That the disciples genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead in reality.

Now what 'one' naturalistic explanation can explain all these facts together? There is none. The only thing that can explain these three facts together is that Jesus actually rose from the dead, which as it happens was the first explanation and it is a supernatural explanation not a purely natural one. Everyone knows that dead people don’t rise from the grave naturally, but that is not was claimed by the reporters, they claimed that God raised Him up. Now if that is not evidence that God exist then I cannot provide any. You may come up with many naturalistic explanations for any one of the three agreed facts but none of them will explain all three facts together and you need to do that.

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

But the scientific method itself was born of an un-falsifiable philosophical approach to the evidence as AH outlined in an earlier post, and is as un-testable by the scientific method (that it spawned) as the God hypothesis.

The scientific method is not a fact or theory; it is a pragmatic approach which stems from empiricism. The scientific method therefore cannot be tested by the scientific method.

You, however, claimed that the question of God's existence *is* subject to the scientific method. I am asking you to demonstrate how.

So even if I were able to provide you with testable evidence for the existence of God based on the scientific method, you would simply turn around and tell me that the method at which I provided the testable evidence is based solely on an un-falsifiable philosophy, which as it happens is the very philosophy that the scientific method itself is based on.

Scientific hypotheses are independent of any religion or philosophy. It's why a christian scientist can be just as productive as an atheist scientist.

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

Ok.

The greatest evidence for the existence of God in history is the person of Jesus Christ.

This man came and spoke in the place of God.

He had no sense of immoral inadequacy

He forgave sins on His own authority.

He claimed that His life was a ransom that would somehow set the world right once He laid it down.

He claimed to have existed before Abraham and, that He came from His Father in Heaven and He believed in Satan. Which means if these things don’t exist then He could hardly be called a good or wise man which is usually the category the world that does not want to accept Him as supernatural puts Him in.

Now all these things by themselves prove nothing but if this Man who also before His death claimed that He would rise again after it, and this actually happened as a fact of history then surely this Man was who He claimed to be, was God's primary spokesperson to mankind, and was God Himself.

All that needs to be ascertained now is whether or not He came forth from the tomb as it is reported by the witnesses. If you can prove that He didn't then we can put Him away and don’t have to listen to Him as he was either a nut or fraud. But if we can prove He did rise from the dead, or at least give no other reasonable explanation as to the facts which surround the history of that event then we are dealing with the most unusual person to have ever walked on the stage of history.

The facts that surround the issue are many but if we take just three then that will do. The following are three facts that almost all New Testament scholars who have studied this subject are in agreement on:

1) That His tomb was empty when the women arrived at it.

2) That the disciples had post mortem appearance of Jesus.

3) That the disciples genuinely believed that Jesus rose from the dead in reality.

Now what 'one' naturalistic explanation can explain all these facts together? There is none. The only thing that can explain these three facts together is that Jesus actually rose from the dead, which as it happens was the first explanation and it is a supernatural explanation not a purely natural one. Everyone knows that dead people don’t rise from the grave naturally, but that is not was claimed by the reporters, they claimed that God raised Him up. Now if that is not evidence that God exist then I cannot provide any. You may come up with many naturalistic explanations for any one of the three agreed facts but none of them will explain all three facts together and you need to do that.

We asked for scientific evidence, not historical evidence (which has its own problems that I won't get into now).

The claim that the disciples had a post mortem appearance of Jesus, for example, cannot be tested.

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

You, however, claimed that the question of God's existence *is* subject to the scientific method.

Did I? When? All I remember saying is that the philosophy that undergirds the scientific methodology is as un-falsifiable as the God hypotheses. Don't remember saying that God is testable using the scientific method???

Morbert wrote: »

I am asking you to demonstrate how.

Read my post above for what I consider to be great evidence for the existence of God

Morbert wrote: »

Scientific hypotheses are independent of any religion or philosophy. It's why a Christian scientist can be just as productive as an atheist scientist.

Couldn't agree more.

The Mad Hatter

Soul Winner wrote: »

Now what 'one' naturalistic explanation can explain all these facts together?

They made it up?

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

We asked for scientific evidence, not historical evidence (which has its own problems that I won't get into now).

The claim that the disciples had a post mortem appearance of Jesus, for example, cannot be tested.

Show me scientific evidence that Quarks exist. I want to see one.

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

Did I? When? All I remember saying is that the philosophy that undergirds the scientific methodology is as un-falsifiable as the God hypotheses. Don't remember saying that God is testable using the scientific method???

If God truly does not exist then it should be able to be shown conclusively by the scientific method. Really it should, think about it for a minute.

.

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

Show me scientific evidence that Quarks exist. I want to see one.

Experimental evidence for the top quark

Soul Winner

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

They made it up?

So they lied? They chose to be ostracized by society at large, suffer hideous deaths and knew they weren't going to heaven anyway because they knew they were lying about God?

It doesn't make sense to make something like this up given the consequences for such actions at that time in history and especially when they knew that they were not going to gain anything in the short term from it in anyway or the long term for that matter.

If they made it up then they could not have known that what they were ‘making up’ would become the gargantuan movement it has become today. These were simple everyday men with no religious agendas as such which makes it psychologically inconceivable that they would ‘together’ make up such a story and perpetuate it in the name of their God knowing full well that bearing false witness was a sin under their own law.

Even if the "they made it up" explanation were true, how does that explain the empty tomb which most scholars are in agreement on as being a fact of the story? And if they lied then they didn't actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead because they knew that they had made that up which is also agreed as being a fact by most scholars? Plus the "They made it up" explanation cannot explain post mortem appearances.

So the “They made it up” explanation fails miserably to explain the facts and it doesn’t make sense anyway given the environment that they were living in at the time. Both Roman and Jewish pressure to stop preaching this message would have crushed this movement if it were a lie.


EDIT: The "They made it up" explanation could explain the fact of the empty tomb because if they were bold enough make up such a lie then they would be conceivably be bold enough to attempt removing the body of Jesus from the tomb in order to give their story some more oomph, but it still doesn't explain the other accepted facts.

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

.

Read it again. I said "If God truly doesn't exist" then that should be shown conslusively not if He does exist. There is a difference.

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

Experimental evidence for the top quark

And that was 1994, boy do I feel sheepish :pac: What about Gluons?

Flamed Diving

Soul Winner wrote: »

So they lied? They chose to be ostracized by society at large, suffer hideous deaths and knew they weren't going to heaven anyway because they knew they were lying about God?

It doesn't make sense to make something like this up given the consequence for such things at that time in history and especially when they knew that they were not going to gain anything in the short term from it in anyway.

If they made it up then they could not have known that what they were ‘making up’ would become the gargantuan movement it has become today. These were simple everyday men with no religious agendas as such which makes it psychologically inconceivable that they would ‘together’ make up such a story and perpetuate it in the name of their God knowing full well that bearing false witness was a sin under their own law.

Even if the "they made it up" explanation were true, how does that explain the empty tomb which most scholars are in agreement on as being a fact of the story? And if they lied then they didn't actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead because they knew that they had made that up which is also agreed as being a fact by most scholars? Plus the "They made it up" explanation cannot explain post mortem appearances.

So the “They made it up” explanation fails miserably to explain the facts and it doesn’t make sense anyway given the environment that they were living in at the time. Both Roman and Jewish pressure to stop preaching this message would have crushed this movement if it were a lie.

Other religions suffered the same fate, such as Jews. Are they all lying?

Soul Winner

Flamed Diving wrote: »

Other religions suffered the same fate, such as Jews. Are they all lying?

Be that as it may but that still does not explain the facts we are discussing. In any case Christianity does not claim that the Jewish religion is wrong. All it claims is that Christ ended that covenant in order to establish a new and better one, one without the yoke of bondage to an impossible law and He did it for them first and then for us. It was first preached to them not gentiles (non Jews) but they for the most part chose to reject it.

Plus all religions in the world can possibly be wrong including Christianity but one thing is for certain, they cannot all be right. I believe Christianity is right because I believe God raised Jesus from the dead as a fact of History. Give me a better candidate for a belief system than that and I will follow that one.

AtomicHorror

Soul Winner wrote: »

But the scientific method itself was born of an un-falsifiable philosophical approach to the evidence as AH outlined in an earlier post, and is as un-testable by the scientific method (that it spawned) as the God hypothesis. So even if I were able to provide you with testable evidence for the existence of God based on the scientific method, you would simply turn around and tell me that the method at which I provided the testable evidence is based solely on an un-falsifiable philosophy, which as it happens is the very philosophy that the scientific method itself is based on.

So, this whole argument is based on me telling wolfsbane that it makes sense to consider evidence when making decisions? Are you honestly saying that this is an unreasonable starting position?

And if you're basing this on that post I made, why have you ignored all my posts since then? I think I clarified pretty well.

Morbert

Soul Winner wrote: »

Read it again. I said "If God truly doesn't exist" then that should be shown conslusively not if He does exist. There is a difference.

Think about what you're saying. We can test the hypothesis that God doesn't exist but we can't test the hypothesis that God does?

What if we test the hypothesis that God doesn't exist and it fails?

(Neither question is testable, by the way)

The Mad Hatter

Soul Winner wrote: »

So they lied? They chose to be ostracized by society at large, suffer hideous deaths and knew they weren't going to heaven anyway because they knew they were lying about God?

I never said they knew they weren't going to heaven. But, 'knowing' as they did that they were saved, why not spruce the truth up a bit in order to convince other people?

Even if the "they made it up" explanation were true, how does that explain the empty tomb which most scholars are in agreement on as being a fact of the story? And if they lied then they didn't actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead because they knew that they had made that up which is also agreed as being a fact by most scholars? Plus the "They made it up' explanation cannot explain post mortem appearances.

Yes, but you really only have one source on this whole issue. All that has to happen is one small, strange thing, and myths will explode to huge proportions. Just look at Elvis sightings.

So the “They made it up” explanation fails miserably to explain the facts and it doesn’t make sense anyway given the environment that they were living in at the time. Both Roman and Jewish pressure to stop preaching this message would have crushed this movement if it were a lie.

Er...it fails to explain the facts assuming that they are facts. The difference between our positions is that you are seeing these stories as facts from the beginning.

kiffer

Soul Winner wrote: »

Read my reply to Morbert above.

Weak...

1. Did you really mean to say that the measure of a god is the effect the idea of the god has on the lives of people? So FSM is silly because the idea has had no real effect on peoples lives, while Yahweh and his various stories are not because they have, for better or worse...
Where does this leave the various pagan gods? The idea of these gods have help and affected people so they are more worthy of our time than the FSM...
Amun-Ra had a massive following and effected the lives of millions, and yet you dismiss him as easily as others dismiss your deity, but of course Amun is pretty much dead and gone now... he's failed the test of time.
Instead think of the Hindu gods... Do you dismiss them as easily?

2. The rules of your religion prevent you from testing your god, and you would reject the result of any test carried out by a non-believer that did not turn out in your favor...

(Hypothetical) Let us say that we could produce a test for God,
You are absolutely confident that it will come out in your favor, the atheist is convinced it will go the other way...
If it comes out in your favor then you're happy, but the atheists will probably complain that there was a problem with the test...
If it comes out with results that indicate that there is no God... then you'll reject it no matter how good the test is, it wont be good enough.

No one would ever be happy with the test, not even the agnostics would accept the test... I think we would never get round producing the test as each side would keep refining it further and further never agreeing on a final version that would be fair to both side, there would always be some detail that someone would want to take account for, not the least of which would be getting God to cooperate...

The over all issue of the existence or non existence of God is pretty hard to pin down...
but we can pin down the details of the world around us...
I don't have a God Test, all I have are tests that test the nature of universe around us.
These tests tell us many many things, including the age of the Earth... they give an age which is incompatible with a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis...

The Book of Genesis is not literally true, at the very very least the time scale is wrong, regardless of whether or not God did it.
Some people are over invested in Genesis... so anything that disproves Genesis must be wrong, no mater what.
To them no mater what evidence is presented the world must be ~6Ka old...

Any thing that says otherwise can be seen as an attack on their whole religion.

Soul Winner

Morbert wrote: »

Think about what you're saying. We can test the hypothesis that God doesn't exist but we can't test the hypothesis that God does?

What if we test the hypothesis that God doesn't exist and it fails?

(Neither question is testable, by the way)

No, if He really doesn't exist then we wouldn't even be having this debate, we would be just surviving. The knife edge of life permitting properties of the universe and of the earth are so thin that evolving auxiliary functions such as creating Gods in order to worship them would be detrimental to any species. Why natural selection would not inhibit this trait is very strange if that theory is correct. Who's idea was it that there is a God?

I believe that God intruded into the history of mankind and we have knowledge of Him due to that. From a purely naturalistic view of the world the conceiving of a deity because of its survival value makes no sense at all.

Soul Winner

AtomicHorror wrote: »

So, this whole argument is based on me telling wolfsbane that it makes sense to consider evidence when making decisions?

Nope it mostly stems from this comment:

AtomicHorror wrote: »

You can be a scientist. It's not difficult at all. It's not about knowledge or training, it's about your 'philosophical' approach to the evidence.

I just thought that that was a very strange thing to say. “it’s about your Philosophical approach to evidence” especially coming from somebody who appears to pride himself on things testable and falsifiable by the scientific method.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Are you honestly saying that this is an unreasonable starting position?

Not at all, I think it is a very reasonable approach to take. But when people use this same approach to theology it cannot be accepted because the idea of a God is un-falsifiable. All I pointed out was that this philosophical foundation on which the scientific method is based is as un-falsifiable as the God hypotheses. I’m not asking for the God hypotheses to be accepted by the scientific community or anything, I just found what you said strange simply because it came from you, that’s all. Had Wolfsbane said it I wouldn’t had batted an eye lid.

AtomicHorror wrote: »

And if you're basing this on that post I made, why have you ignored all my posts since then? I think I clarified pretty well.

Did you? Maybe it just didn’t ring that clear to me. Sorry. In any case the discussion has taken a few interesting turns since then and far be it from me to disrupt the circular meanderings this megathread is prone to take.

Soul Winner

kiffer wrote: »

1. Did you really mean to say that the measure of a god is the effect the idea of the god has on the lives of people?

No I didn't say that. I was mostly referring to human history and in particular the rise of Christianity. When one studies its history one finds that its origins are not like those of other religions. For one the major focus is a human character who made ridiculous claims about Himself (ridiculous claims for a mere mortal man to make anyway). For the first few centuries of its history it was an underground movement. People paid with their lives often suffering horrible deaths for professing it. They never gained any earthly power from it. It involved forsaking practically everything including family, friends and earthly possessions in order to follow it.

It is not like Islam which came to power through force of might. It is not like the eastern religions or any pagan religion which have at their centre focus deities or symbols, not that that makes it better, it just makes it very different to anything else at that time which means that influences from other belief systems is very little if any at all.

Any similarities you might make to it will have at their focus deities that were not historical characters like Jesus, rather they represent things like seasons and celestial bodies and things like that. The effect that this religion has had on history eclipses any other religion and is growing all the time.
I do not call this proof that God exists but it is compelling evidence that there is something other worldly at work in this world that cannot be explained in naturalist terms. Just because it cannot be seen doesn’t mean that its effects cannot be seen, just like gravity cannot be seen its effects are clearly evident in the universe.

kiffer wrote: »

So FSM is silly because the idea has had no real effect on peoples lives, while Yahweh and his various stories are not because they have, for better or worse...
Where does this leave the various pagan gods? The idea of these gods have help and affected people so they are more worthy of our time than the FSM...
Amun-Ra had a massive following and effected the lives of millions, and yet you dismiss him as easily as others dismiss your deity, but of course Amun is pretty much dead and gone now... he's failed the test of time.
Instead think of the Hindu gods... Do you dismiss them as easily?

I don’t dismiss them at all, I don’t know much about them in fairness, I am reading a book at the moment called “The lost years of Jesus” by Clare Prophet and there’s some really interesting stuff in that about eastern religions and beliefs that I never knew before. I’m half way through and I’m very intrigued so far. But most other religions just don’t grab me like Christianity does.

If it could be proven that Christ did not rise from the grave beyond a shadow of a doubt then I would have to go back to the drawing board. But this hasn’t happened in 2000 years, in fact there are people who tried to disprove it by studying the facts around it and have only come convinced of it themselves. It is mind blowing if it is true and it is for everyone who wants it.

kiffer wrote: »

2. The rules of your religion prevent you from testing your god, and you would reject the result of any test carried out by a non-believer that did not turn out in your favor...

(Hypothetical) Let us say that we could produce a test for God,
You are absolutely confident that it will come out in your favor, the atheist is convinced it will go the other way...
If it comes out in your favor then you're happy, but the atheists will probably complain that there was a problem with the test...
If it comes out with results that indicate that there is no God... then you'll reject it no matter how good the test is, it wont be good enough.

That’s because we are either irredeemably deluded or that there was something wrong with the test In any case being a Christian boils down to a simple relationship with an unseen person that you are convinced is alive and well and who has your eternal well being in view. Even if you could scientifically test the God hypotheses and show conclusively that such a being cannot and does not exist scientifically it still wouldn’t convince me that He doesn’t exist because I know He lives within my heart. But of course I would welcome any scientific test that could confirm that He does exist, not for my sake though but for those who need it so they too could believe in Him.

kiffer wrote: »

No one would ever be happy with the test, not even the agnostics would accept the test...

Well you said it yourself, even if it proved the existence of God then the atheist would claim that there was something wrong with the test so maybe that is one of the reasons that God has chosen not to be testable in this way, as the knower of all things He knows this won’t do any good. Jesus said “It is more blessed to believe having not seen” that is not a condemnation to those who need to see like Thomas did, Jesus submitted to his test and Thomas became staunch ever after. The statement is just axiomatic and shouldn’t be used as a club to beat people who need to see. The fact that Jesus submitted to Thomas’ test shows that Jesus at least is not against it. Read, study, research and test as much as you can, if God exists then He is not afraid of it, all truth leads back to Him. But don’t take for granted that the opportunity will always be open to you as Hebrews 4:1 says: “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.”

kiffer wrote: »

I think we would never get round producing the test as each side would keep refining it further and further never agreeing on a final version that would be fair to both side, there would always be some detail that someone would want to take account for, not the least of which would be getting God to cooperate...

I think the reply above deals with this too.

kiffer wrote: »

The over all issue of the existence or non existence of God is pretty hard to pin down...
but we can pin down the details of the world around us...
I don't have a God Test, all I have are tests that test the nature of universe around us.
These tests tell us many many things, including the age of the Earth... they give an age which is incompatible with a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis...

The Book of Genesis is not literally true, at the very very least the time scale is wrong, regardless of whether or not God did it.
Some people are over invested in Genesis... so anything that disproves Genesis must be wrong, no mater what.
To them no mater what evidence is presented the world must be ~6Ka old...

Any thing that says otherwise can be seen as an attack on their whole religion.

Well if we are to really study the book of Genesis then we must know what it actually says. To know what it actually says means we would need to know it as it was in its original language which was Hebrew. The literal English is very different to the literal Hebrew. The literal Hebrew (translated into English of course) states Genesis 1 as follows:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1
“And the earth became a waste and a desolation” Genesis 1:2

There is no indication at all in the Hebrew as to how much time elapsed between these two verses. There could be a vast gulf of time between these two happenings. What follows from these verses is a re-creation process. This is hinted at when God commands Adam and Eve to re-plenish the Earth. To re-plenish something suggests a prior plenished state. And Jeremiah states that in a vision he saw the Earth not a waste and desolation when there was no man but there was cities, literally ‘meeting places of intelligent beings’. Who knows how much time elapsed before Adam and Eve? It is not eluded to at all in scripture so no conflict there at all between scripture and the findings of science.

Plus the six day creation story, as already said the creation of the heavens and the earth had already taken place in Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 after it became a waste and desolation (for whatever reason) there is a re-creative process which took (from God’s point of view) six days. Now the word in Hebrew for ‘Day’ is ‘Yom’. Yom is simply a period of time. It can be used to describe any definitive period of time, Hebrew is very ambiguous like that, it is very like English that way, one word with many meanings. And as we are scrutinizing scripture it also says: “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” Psalm 90:4 and “…a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.” II Peter 3:8, but just like the tests mentioned above, those who do not want to believe will always want the literal ‘English’ translation of Genesis because it coincides with their atheistic view of the world.

Plus the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, that means that the waters were already there, and the point of view from which we must read the remaining text. “Let there be light” does not necessarily mean that this is the point where God created light, light was already created as Genesis 1:1 states, “God created the heavens and the earth” the “Let there be light” phrase must be seen from the point of view of moving over the face of the waters, and it should be translated “light be” or “light appear”, the face of the waters is where the spirit was hovering, if you place yourself here in your mind and look up then light appeared. What could have caused it to be clouded out? Some sort of cataclysm perhaps which blackened the sky? A cataclysm so powerful that it caused the earth to become a waste and desolation in the first place. In short if we want to debunk Genesis then we must understand what is says first and the King James English translation just doesn’t cut it.