If you wanted to convert an atheist who wanted to believe....

wolfsbane · 06-04-2009 06:08PM

ned78 wrote: »

For me, one example where the Bible really shoots itself in the food when it claims Noah is 600+ years old, and that all of the animals/insects/birds of the world can fit on a boat made from wood, which would need to be the size of County Cork.

For an athiest, this gives us a message that people circa 2k years ago were dumb enough to believe that people could live to be 600+, and that they'd believe anything. I mean, to someone from a less educated time, this would certainly look like a God shining his light down on us - when we know it's just the clouds and sun today :

The details about the Ark can be examined in several creationist sites, for example:
Two of Every Kind
The Animals on Noah’s Arkhttp://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n2/two-of-every-kind

You also assume longevity has always been subject to the same enviromental and genetic factors as today.

Let me suggest that the people of old were no different from us in their gullibility. Those who believe energy can self-organise over billions of years into incredibly complex living organisms seem to me to be more gullible than the most ignorant idolator.

Fanny Cradock · 06-04-2009 06:08PM

Winters wrote: »

The fact is that the story of Jesus (Born to a virgin mother, performed miracles, persecuted and killed then rose from the dead etc.) has been told by stories and scriptures for many thousands of years. Infact there are old egyption, greek, asian etc. stories which pre-date Jesus and the bible which would lead you to the obvious conclusion that the story of Jesus was based upon these and show that it was not in anyway unique.

We have had the Christ-myth debate at some length here before. Search under the keyword Horus if you want to investigate this further. I would be delighted if you would enter into a debate to further your claims, but not here.

Winters wrote: »

The fact that there were numerous people during those times all claiming to be the new messiah beg to ask the question, what makes him unique over all the others? Was it that it was all true or is it that his story was told louder than the others?

Yes, that certainly is a big question. Why did this particular messiah's claims inspire his followers even after his death? Presumably Jesus' followers, like every other Jew of the time, thought that the messiah would be issuing in God's Kingdom and it would be like nothing on earth. Instead, this pretender to the throne of God rode into town on a donkey and was nailed to a cross a short time later. Again, better debated elsewhere.

Winters wrote: »

The bible was not written during the days of Jesus but was a collection of books published hundreds of years afterwards, this would logically give rise to concerns about the authenticity of its contents and who chose what books to actually put into it?

Where are you getting this '100's of years afterwards' business from? To another thread!

06-04-2009 06:11PM

JimiTime wrote: »

Lets not forget, that those who started the 'lies', were willing to die, and did die for the lie too. Not a case of the guys at the top taking advantage of the gullible, as in suicide bombers etc. This was the guys at the top. The actual people who 'knew' for 'certain' if it was a lie or not. Strange behaviour to let oneself be tortured and killed to perpetuate a lie that you know is a lie.

People have been willing to die for their causes for a long time, it doesn't make what they die for any more or less true.

angelfalling · 06-04-2009 06:14PM

Strange behaviour to let oneself be tortured and killed to perpetuate a lie that you know is a lie.

I'm constantly amazed at the things people will die for.

wolfsbane · 06-04-2009 06:16PM

angelfalling wrote: »

This is hard for me to swallow. I often find it difficult to understand if God is the ultimate creator and controller (who is quite capable of anger and vengeance, or used to be and somehow got into therapy to control his anger management issues) than why does he "allow" for the things that he hates so much? You can't attribute it to "satan" or humans because if he made everything then he made humans with the ability to sin, for whatever reason.

He doesn't say, other than that all He does is right. We are called to trust Him on the stuff He doesn't reveal. I know Him, and that He is True, so I trust Him. But if I did not know Him, I still would consider it possible that a God might exist in perfect righteousness even if He for whatever reason permitted evil to enter His creation. Me not having all the facts, I would allow that God might have a good reason.

Liber8or · 06-04-2009 06:18PM

People thought the Sun was a God at one stage. Just because it rose up and down and different stages during the day.

Allow to me to propose a modern day analogy of the miracles of Jesus Christ.

-1980's Microsoft is set up.
-By the late 1990's Microsoft is the principle and leading developer of Software.
-Today, Microsoft remains the number one achiever in Computer Software that has spread to every part of the globe.

Jump 200 years from now... What I have written is not 100% accurate, but many people would deem it relatively accurate.

-Microsoft, through collaborations and take-overs has become the leading developer of software...

Again, not entirely accurate but getting there...

My point being: People in the here and now and not entirely accurate about the facts and renown Microsoft has established, mostly because of emotion and bias.

How can you expect people to write accurate accounts of a man that died 200 years beforehand? Microsoft is massive and everyone knows about it. Jesus was massive (in his own context) and everybody knew about him. Yet, the writings and history on Jesus are more dubious due to the circumstance as to how and when they were written and yet, we, in our present time cant remain objective and factual about Microsoft.

Who knows? In 200 years time people might think Microsoft invented democracy, or Linux, or a processor known as Pentium, which created millions of jobs and saved entire nations from bankruptcy.

People will exaggerate and twist ambigious statements to fulfill their own insecurities and prejudices. Microsoft will make themselves out to be the leading software designer to have ever existed but it doesn't make it true... and neither do the stories about a man called Jesus.

If a Jesus ever existed, he was more likely to have been a wealthy business man who gave money to the poor and helped them more than the other business men.

References to curing blindness and raising Lazarus (Mentioned in previous post) from the dead could have been; putting ointed water to clear some infection and Lazarus was death like from a hangover and Jesus gave me the modern day equivalent of a Life-line.

JimiTime · 06-04-2009 06:19PM

bluewolf wrote: »

People have been willing to die for their causes for a long time, it doesn't make what they die for any more or less true.

Thats the fallacy. 'People die for their causes'. A person dies for a cause they believe to be right or true. If what the apostles preached was lies, they 'knew' it was lies, so they died for a cause that they 'knew' was a lie. It wasn't that they thought their cause was right. They would have 'known' it was a lie. Again, it would be very odd that so many would give up their lives, in most torturous ways, to perpetuate something they 'knew' was a lie.

Biro · 06-04-2009 06:19PM

angelfalling wrote: »

Of course it matters. I guess I don't get what you are saying. So, based on the culture the person lives in they will act accordingly? Yeah, duh.

I mean, these things change even year to year. We used to think it was perfectly acceptable to hit kids when they misbehaved, and now most people would admit they don't agree with that. Some wouldn't approve of the occasional spanking, even. So good and evil can change without a culture over time, too.

I don't think you do get it. What you are doing is giving the factors that decipher right and wrong in various cultures. What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter what's considered right or wrong at any given time in any given culture.
The point I'm trying to make is that humans will always do wrong things and right things. Good versus Evil if you like. Whether someone decides that those acts are indeed good or evil are irrelevant.

PDN · 06-04-2009 06:21PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Winters, what's the deal with MarkMI6? He really seems to like your posts

The old superglue on the Thanks button trick!

angelfalling · 06-04-2009 06:22PM

JimiTime wrote: »

Thats the fallacy. 'People die for their causes'. A person dies for a cause they believe to be right or true. If what the apostles preached was lies, they 'knew' it was lies, so they died for a cause that they 'knew' was a lie. It wasn't that they thought their cause was right. They would have 'known' it was a lie. Again, it would be very odd that so many would give up their lives, in most torturous ways, to perpetuate something they 'knew' was a lie.

I've known plenty of people who very strongly believed that something that wasn't true or didn't have WAS true and DID happen. I don't think they necessarily KNEW they were lying-- just like I don't think that people who have faith in other religions THINK they are lying when they recount miracles in their own religion. But, if only one religion is true, someone is lying about something (knowingly or not

)

wolfsbane · 06-04-2009 06:22PM

Wicknight wrote: »

How is it indescribably wicked if we are simply inheriting Adam's fallen nature? It is like blaming someone with Down's Syndrome for inheriting their parents faulty genetics.

And who decided that we would inherit this fallen nature in the first place? Who decided that a "nature" could be inherited in such a fashion?

You don't have to go far before you get to a point where God must have chosen that this would be the way it would be, despite knowing what would happen, ie he decided that this would be the way it is rather than simply allowing it to happen.

God does not tell us how it is we are inextricably linked to Adam's sinful nature - but we are. And we behave like he did - so his condemnation passes on to us. You don't understand it? Tough. Believe it. See it for yourself in all the wicked things you and the rest of mankind get up to.

Yes, God decided sin would enter His creation. He could have stopped it. He allowed it to happen. But He did not make it happen. He did not force Satan or Adam to sin.

Winters · 06-04-2009 06:23PM

Killaqueen!!! wrote: »

Yes, I see where atheists are coming from but let's start at the basics. There is so much evidence for the existence of Jesus as you seem to understand - exaggerated or not, that in my eyes he has to have existed

But people will ask how does this differ to that of Muhammed? To that of the other religions. They all have equally as dubious texts written to support their claims. The fact would also be, from a true historians point of view the vast majority of this evidence is also not a primary source and cannot be truly relied on.

Killaqueen!!! wrote: »

.The Gospels are separate accounts from separate people, telling the story of Jesus and the miracles he performed. Are they simply inventing this? Yes, they are followers, but their accounts each have their differences.

But what about the books that did not make it into the bible? Who decided that book A, B and D gets in but book C does not? What was it that book C contained that they did not approve of?

Killaqueen!!! wrote: »

Perhaps atheists would be more convinced if an account came from 'one of their kind'. Take Julian the Apostate, who wrote around 300AD:

Can you say with 100% certainty that these were not taken out of context to support one sides argument over another? Are you sure that his meaning is that someone actually healed people and that it was not just a metaphor for something else? Was he told as a child this story by a storyteller and believed it till he died due to misguidedness?

Killaqueen!!! wrote: »

He seems to accept that Jesus performed miracles

He performed miracles at a time when people had little to know understanding of the world around them. Would you today say that a magician performs a miracle on stage OR would you call it an optical illusion?

People of today would be more educated then those of 2000 years ago and yet many still think that a miracle is performed in Las Vegas every night when a magician makes their lovely assistant levitate.

Killaqueen!!! wrote: »

The fact that he mentions Bethsaida and Bethany too. Mark 8:22 states that Jesus healed a blind man in Bethsaida and John 12:1 states that Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead in Bethany.

As i mentioned, what is to say he is not mearly referring to stores he grew up hearing that had been passed down through generation through generation (a-la Chinese whispers).

An logical and rational person will always look for an answer that provides the truth in a rational way. The problem is the story of Jesus has too many if's and but's in it that requires a person to have faith and blind belief that it is true, which the OP will find difficult to fix. Faith is not logical in the sense that is requires you to stop seeking answers to questions as you have already received them in the sense that it was 'God's plan' or 'The will of God' etc.

Fanny Cradock · 06-04-2009 06:26PM

Liber8or wrote: »

People thought the Sun was a God at one stage. Just because it rose up and down and different stages during the day.

Allow to me to propose a modern day analogy of the miracles of Jesus Christ.

-1980's Microsoft is set up.
-By the late 1990's Microsoft is the principle and leading developer of Software.
-Today, Microsoft remains the number one achiever in Computer Software that has spread to every part of the globe.

Jump 200 years from now... What I have written is not 100% accurate, but many people would deem it relatively accurate.

-Microsoft, through collaborations and take-overs has become the leading developer of software...

Again, not entirely accurate but getting there...

My point being: People in the here and now and not entirely accurate about the facts and renown Microsoft has established, mostly because of emotion and bias.

How can you expect people to write accurate accounts of a man that died 200 years beforehand? Microsoft is massive and everyone knows about it. Jesus was massive (in his own context) and everybody knew about him. Yet, the writings and history on Jesus are more dubious due to the circumstance as to how and when they were written and yet, we, in our present time cant remain objective and factual about Microsoft.

Who knows? In 200 years time people might think Microsoft invented democracy, or Linux, or a processor known as Pentium, which created millions of jobs and saved entire nations from bankruptcy.

People will exaggerate and twist ambigious statements to fulfill their own insecurities and prejudices. Microsoft will make themselves out to be the leading software designer to have ever existed but it doesn't make it true... and neither do the stories about a man called Jesus.

If a Jesus ever existed, he was more likely to have been a wealthy business man who gave money to the poor and helped them more than the other business men.

References to curing blindness and raising Lazarus (Mentioned in previous post) from the dead could have been; putting ointed water to clear some infection and Lazarus was death like from a hangover and Jesus gave me the modern day equivalent of a Life-line.

Well that analogy was needlessly in-depth. We're not idiots, you know.

Out of curiosity, this '200 years' figure you mention has relevance to the NT in what respect?

Kipperhell · 06-04-2009 06:27PM

kelly1 wrote: »

- Miracles
- Cause of the big-bang
- Private revelations of the Saints
- Christ's Resurrection
- The apparent design in DNA
- The beauty of nature
- The existence of love and our moral conscience
- The fact that the (diminishing) majority of us believe in a Supreme Being.
- The extreme evil we see in the world suggests (to me anyway) that there is a demonic force driving people to commit evil which points to an opposite which is God.
- The origin of consciousness/reason/will/intelligence/creativity.
- So many huge question remaining impenetrable to science.

In order
- Prove a miracle. Unlikely odds are not miracles
- Just because the cause is not known it is no evidence of god
- Not aware of any saint to be proven to tell the future
- Hearsay is really all that is
- There is apparent design in a crystal formation it has no meaning
- The beauty of nature is also linked to it's ugly side which is just as important. Do you look at poo and think wow god designed that!
- The emotional complexity of humans is no different to any other part of our design. It means no more than the existence of the little toe.
- Majority rule doesn't really mean anything. At one point most religions were based on natural events does that mean they were right then.
- How you determine evil being ignored bad actions show no existence of an evil force or a good force.
- This is the same as your earlier point on love and morals
- Unanswered questions do not mean you make up the answer to solve them. If you don't know the answer to an equation substituting your own answer you will never bother to figure out the true answer.

Using logic and current knowledge your finger prints would be deemed illogical. That's fine just call it faith but don't confuse it with logic.

Fanny Cradock · 06-04-2009 06:29PM

JimiTime wrote: »

Thats the fallacy. 'People die for their causes'. A person dies for a cause they believe to be right or true. If what the apostles preached was lies, they 'knew' it was lies, so they died for a cause that they 'knew' was a lie. It wasn't that they thought their cause was right. They would have 'known' it was a lie. Again, it would be very odd that so many would give up their lives, in most torturous ways, to perpetuate something they 'knew' was a lie.

It certainly leads one to think. However, if you are of the opinion that it's all founded on a series of lies then it certainly isn't as convincing as it would be to either or us.

Liber8or · 06-04-2009 06:29PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Well that analogy was needlessly in-depth. We're not idiots, you know.

Out of curiosity, this '200 years' figure you mention has relevance to the NT in what respect?

Gospels were written 200/300 years after the death of Jesus. Or so the story goes...

Fanny Cradock · 06-04-2009 06:29PM

Oh yeah? Where are you getting that from?

Liber8or · 06-04-2009 06:31PM

Read it in one of these posts... trying to find it now. Maybe the person who originally wrote it was wrong.

angelfalling · 06-04-2009 06:35PM

He did not force Satan or Adam to sin.

So, sin exists without god, then, is that so? This does NOT make sense no matter how many times you repeat it. Why would God bother to create sin (this isn't about allowing or not allowing someone to sin, but allow the nature of sin itself to exist within the beings he created). If its SO bad, why create it?

It's like saying I'm the creator of a world of my own and for funsies I'm going to drop a few rapists into the mix when I don't have to. He didn't have to create sin.

Look, let me step back a second. You are trying to make the point that you are not about to second guess why God created (not just allowed) something like sin. Our point is in the end, this is someone's desperate attempt to rationalize the existence of things they feel are bad in the world via the creation of their religion.

Winters · 06-04-2009 06:35PM

wolfsbane wrote: »

Yes, God decided sin would enter His creation. He could have stopped it. He allowed it to happen. But He did not make it happen. He did not force Satan or Adam to sin.

If I gave a child in a classroom a loaded gun and it killed people, would I be to blame? I allowed it to happen, I did not stop it happening but I definitely was not the one that made it happen.

However, I have the reasoning and knowledge to know not to give a child a loaded gun, I can see the consequences. Would this mean that god himself did not have the foresight to see this happen and so is not a supreme being? Or that he is so actually sick and twisted her did it as he knew we would indeed slip up and sin?

These are the problems the OP is going to run into, its near impossible for anyone to show an Atheist that God is a supreme all powerful and all knowing being as he has been made out to be (wrongly?). There are too many acts, even in the bible, that show he is not always compassionate, not always unjust and not always forgiving. He act's in strange ways that defy logic and sense. An Atheist would need to be given reasoning for these acts, to connect the dots if you will, to show that they were actually done with good reasoning, particularly without someone using the worth faith. As you cannot ask people for faith to believe in them without that person already been converted (if they are an Atheist with reason/logic)

PDN · 06-04-2009 06:36PM

Winters wrote: »

The fact is that the story of Jesus (Born to a virgin mother, performed miracles, persecuted and killed then rose from the dead etc.) has been told by stories and scriptures for many thousands of years. Infact there are old egyption, greek, asian etc. stories which pre-date Jesus and the bible which would lead you to the obvious conclusion that the story of Jesus was based upon these and show that it was not in anyway unique.

Ho ho! Logic and rationality didn't last very long, did it? I love the way those who claim to be skeptical are ready to be so unskeptical when it comes to baseless claims of this kind of stuff. How about you give us a reliable source that can demonstrate where the story of Jesus was told thousands of years earlier?

The bible was not written during the days of Jesus but was a collection of books published hundreds of years afterwards, this would logically give rise to concerns about the authenticity of its contents and who chose what books to actually put into it?

Hundreds of years? Really? Would you like to outline your logical and rational reasons for believing that?

PDN · 06-04-2009 06:37PM

Liber8or wrote: »

Gospels were written 200/300 years after the death of Jesus. Or so the story goes...

Logic and rationality at work again.

You guys crack me up!

Liber8or · 06-04-2009 06:40PM

PDN wrote: »

Logic and rationality at work again.

You guys crack me up!

Logic is the understanding of how things work in accordance to laws.
Rationality is the ability reason.

I clearly mis-quoted someone's information. I fail to see how logic and rationality apply...

Fanny Cradock · 06-04-2009 06:42PM

Liber8or wrote: »

Read it in one of these posts... trying to find it now. Maybe the person who originally wrote it was wrong.

I get get ya :pac:

I'll give you some free advice. Don't believe everything you read on the internet, especially if it comes from 'some guy'.

Liber8or · 06-04-2009 06:43PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I get get ya :pac:

I'll give you some free advice. Don't believe everything you read on the internet, especially if it comes from 'some guy'.

You should apply your own advice to the Bible my friend.

PDN · 06-04-2009 06:46PM

Liber8or wrote: »

Logic is the understanding of how things work in accordance to laws.
Rationality is the ability reason.

I clearly mis-quoted someone's information. I fail to see how logic and rationality apply...

So you think it is logical and rational to swallow bogus claims, and then repeat them on a public message board?

Liber8or · 06-04-2009 06:47PM

PDN wrote: »

So you think it is logical and rational to swallow bogus claims, and then repeat them on a public message board?

Funny that, despite my error in quoting what someone else said, perhaps you should do the same about the Bible?

wolfsbane · 06-04-2009 06:47PM

Liber8or said:

If "God" created me, and "God" made me intelligent, so much so that he would know that I would question his apparent existence. Since, inquisitiveness and curiosity are inherant in intelligence.

(Careful now, I am gonna quote the bible here.) For example, when Eve asks the snake why she can't eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. There is an example of human inquistiveness, designed by "God". Surely, at those early stages of human development, he could have remade us to cut that out and prevent us Atheists asking questions down the road.

Indeed He could.

Therefore, if he was aware that his own designs would question his existence, surely all us "non-believers" have a get out clause?

"You made me intelligent enough to ask questions, so its not my fault your existence became one of those questions..."

You confuse man's orginal state with ours. Adam and Eve did not question God's existence. They knew him face to face. They disobeyed Him.

We today are born with a fallen nature, a nature that suppresses the knowledge of God and is blinded by Satan. We are responsible for the light we have by nature - our conscience and the magnificence of creation witness to the existence of our Creator. But rather than seek after Him, we invent fables to explain Him away. For that we are guilty, not for asking questions. Indeed, it is our failure to ask the questions our conscience and creation insist on that condemns us.

Only the ignorant ones would not question his existence and therefore be guaranteed automatic entry to the Heaven Festival?

It is the wilfully ignorant who deny His existence.

Seems a bit unfair to me...

Their ignorance seems very wicked to me.

However, should I be facing the "Big Man" when my time is up, I shall surely quote my case to him and be on my merry way.

Sadly, that is so. I hope and pray you will seek the Truth before that awful end.

Biro · 06-04-2009 06:50PM

Liber8or wrote: »

Funny that, despite my error in quoting what someone else said, perhaps you should do the same about the Bible?

Gasp! You're right... Because you loosly quoted "some guy" who may have been wrong then we should all assume that the Bible is definately wrong! Brilliant!!
ALL of history is also wrong too by the same reckoning....

PDN · 06-04-2009 06:51PM

angelfalling wrote: »

http://www.carm.org/questions/about-bible/when-were-gospels-written-and-whom
This is a pretty interesting link about when the gospels were written.

Personally, I don't feel there is necessarily any proof that the gospels were written by the people who they are attributed to anyways. Even here, the Christian apologetics don't attribute the writings any earlier than 50 AD and likely after 70AD. That's a long time after the "life of Christ".

Rationally and logically it makes perfect sense for them to be written then (ie 15 to 40 years after the death of Christ). The eye-witnesses were starting to get on in years and wanted to commit their testimony to paper while they were still alive.

Would you reject eyewitness testimony of Bloody Sunday, that someone wrote today? Or someone's account of the signing of the Good Friday agreement.

If you wanted to convert an atheist who wanted to believe....

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