COFTY! You are forgetting all the HATE, MURDER, TORTURE, GUILT, REPRESSION, WAR, POVERTY, and SUFFERING that Theology has lovingly given humanity.
For any that still believe in God and Jesus, what is your reasoning on this matter?
by BourneIdentity 88 Replies latest jw experiences
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cofty
iwantoutnow - You are right religion has been responsible for all of that but I actually think that we would have had those things with or without theology. Religion probably served a useful purpose in the history of humanity by binding groups together.
Religion is about myths we tell each other. Some have been useful and others were designed to oppress and control.
My objection is to the habit christians have of confusing dogma with reality.
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Onager
TTWSYF:
Respectfully, although you are right as far as each of us are not witness to personal and profound intimate communication / revelation with God, there is still a large amount of evidence.
One example of evidence could be the way the apostles and 90% of the early Christians leaders were tortured to death is evidence. Why die for a lie? To what end?
While it is possible for men to die for a lie, it is not possible for the lot of sinners that made up the apostles to go thru what they went through and not fold up if it were a lie in my opinion.If they KNEW it was a lie, they would have recounted when the blade started to peel their skin off of their bodies. It's common sense.Thank you for your response, but I'm sorry you are wrong to say that there is evidence for the existence of the biblical god. If there was any evidence then there would be only two types of people in the world: people who accepted the evidence and people who would rather die.
Your example of the early Christian leaders being tortured to death is clearly wrong because we know that people have been martyred for beliefs which are contradictory to those of Christians. The Jews who accepted death by burning at the stake rather than convert to Christianity during the inquisition for example. Even to the point of refusing the final "mercy" from their Christian tormentors of being strangled before the fires were lit. Imagine the faith it would have taken to refuse a quick death and face the torment of the flames.
All that martyrdom shows is that people will die for their beliefs, it provides no evidence that those beliefs are true.
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TTWSYF
Thank you for your response, but I'm sorry you are wrong to say that there is evidence for the existence of the biblical god. If there was any evidence then there would be only two types of people in the world: people who accepted the evidence and people who would rather die.
There are always 2 types of people on any side of an argument. Those who accept the evidence and follow the truth and those who do not accept the evidence and frankly just refuse and won't even look at it.
Your example of the early Christian leaders being tortured to death is clearly wrong because we know that people have been martyred for beliefs which are contradictory to those of Christians. The Jews who accepted death by burning at the stake rather than convert to Christianity during the inquisition for example.
The early Christian martyrs were not only believers of a faith that they would die for. They were witnesses. The apostles were witnesses of Jesus's resurrection and COULD not deny what they knew to be true. That is quite different from someone who has faith in their faith. Although both were martyrs, there's a major difference when you are a witness and know that it is false.
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Onager
The early Christian martyrs were not only believers of a faith that they would die for. They were witnesses. The apostles were witnesses of Jesus's resurrection and COULD not deny what they knew to be true. That is quite different from someone who has faith in their faith. Although both were martyrs, there's a major difference when you are a witness and know that it is false.
Yasir ibn Amir al-ʿAnsī (Arabic: ياسر بن عامر العنسي) (sixth/seventh century C.E.) was an early companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He is the second martyr in Islam, with the first being his wife, Sumayyah.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasir_ibn_Amir#Death_and_legacy
Here's another quote from that page:
But Yasir and his wife had no one to defend them; they bore no arms, and they were the most defenseless of all the martyrs of Islam. By sacrificing their lives, they highlighted the truth of Islam, and they built strength into its structure.
Do you see that your evidence of the truth of Christianity is exactly the same type of evidence used to prove the truth of other religions? Obviously, this is cannot be evidence of either, or any, religion being true.
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TTWSYF
I'm not denying other martyrs.
I am denying that your example can compare to the earliest christian martyrs who claimed that ' Jesus indeed did rise from the dead after 3 days and I heard him say that''
That was what the apostles and dozens of others proclaimed unto death They were witnesses of the risen Lord and could not deny it. It wasn't only a faith thing, it was a witness thing too. Convinced by witnessing his resurrection and proclaiming it. Certainly you can see how that is a possible significant difference to someone dying because of anothers' words.
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Giles Gray
"One example of evidence could be the way the apostles and 90% of the early Christians leaders were tortured to death is evidence. Why die for a lie? To what end?"
This line of reasoning is used by nearly all judeo-christian theologies in order to substantiate their faith. It utilises a logical fallacy known as the Argument from Ignorance.
The fallacious nature of this argument is clearly demonstrated by the fact that Muslims and Mormons can also employ the same false reasoning to uphold their competing theologies.
It is also incorrect to presume that the first century martyrs knowingly died for a lie. The fact that they died by such gruesome executions indicates the extent of their conviction in what they believed.
However, this only goes to demonstrate the folly of using faith as a metric to assess what is truth. Faith allows people to hold conviction in their beliefs without sufficient evidence. As a result, people have died because of holding fast to a belief based on poor epistemology.
Being martyred because of adhering to faulty premises only reveals the fallibility of religious conviction. People can die for being mistaken, which is certainly no indication that what they died for is true. Therefore the martyrdom of the first century Christians can hardly be used as evidence that what they believed in was truth.
" Although both were martyrs, there's a major difference when you are a witness and know that it is false."
Such evidence can only be considered anecdotal and is impossible to distinguish from folklore. That's still not sufficient evidence for God.
The above statement negates the unfalsifyiable claim that the martyrdom of the first century Christians can in any way be considered as evidence that the god of the bible exists. If believers of other theologies can have faith based on false beliefs, it leaves us no methodology in order to be able to distinguish the early Christians from any other believer.
For example, the prophet Muhammad many times witnessed an Angelophany as well as many other miracles. He also died a martyr.
The faith of Islam and classic Christianity contradict each other in many ways, yet by the above reckoning they both equally tick the criteria that qualifies as evidence of their gods. This way of reasoning is therefore irreconcilable and defies the laws of logic.
The only way to prove either theological claim would be to supply sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the claim was factual. Therefore, testimony from either of the religious fables cannot be considered as evidence, because they both meet the required criteria while at the same time prove contradictory to each other.
As there is no contemporary evidence to substantiate that the early Christians did actually witness the resurrection of Jesus, (a point equally applicable to the assertions surrounding the prophet of Islam) the testimony of their claim cannot be verified one way or the other. It therefore cannot be considered evidence for God.
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Onager
TTWSYF:
I'm not denying other martyrs.
I am denying that your example can compare to the earliest christian martyrs who claimed that ' Jesus indeed did rise from the dead after 3 days and I heard him say that''
That was what the apostles and dozens of others proclaimed unto death They were witnesses of the risen Lord and could not deny it. It wasn't only a faith thing, it was a witness thing too. Convinced by witnessing his resurrection and proclaiming it. Certainly you can see how that is a possible significant difference to someone dying because of anothers' words.Close companions of Jesus and close companions of Muhammad who both die as martyrs are only different if you start with the claim that Jesus was special. You're trying to prove that Jesus was special though, so you can't start with that.
All of this only goes to prove my point, though, that everyone who professes a faith in any god, primarily has faith in other men first.
Faith that the men who wrote the books were telling the truth.
Faith that the martyrs were right to die for those beliefs.
Faith that every translator, printer, compiler and interpreter did so honestly and without changing the meaning for their own purposes.
Faith that your parents or whoever first told you these beliefs were true wasn't misled.
All believers faith in their god rests on top of a massive pyramid of faith in fallible humans. Humans that we know for a fact were not perfect, were subject to human failings such as a desire for power, control or fame. Again you might say that God preserves his word down through the ages, but that doesn't work because it's this monolithic pyramid of human's version of God that you are invoking.You can't use what's being proposed to prove the proposition.
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TTWSYF
Hi Giles Grey and Onager,
Just saw your post. Will address all of your questions in the next few days or less. I won't have time to effectively answer each one now. That said, let me start with [me=bold text, Giles Grey italics texts] question about my claims
"One example of evidence could be the way the apostles and 90% of the early Christians leaders were tortured to death is evidence. Why die for a lie? To what end?"
This line of reasoning is used by nearly all judeo-christian theologies in order to substantiate their faith. It utilises a logical fallacy known as the Argument from Ignorance.
The fallacious nature of this argument is clearly demonstrated by the fact that Muslims and Mormons can also employ the same false reasoning to uphold their competing theologies.
It is also incorrect to presume that the first century martyrs knowingly died for a lie. The fact that they died by such gruesome executions indicates the extent of their conviction in what they believed
GG,I am aware of the awful circumstances involving all forms of martyrdom. I am speaking of the differences that are unique to early christian martyrdom.
My post about the 1st apostles IS different because the apostles were the witnesses.They were NOT converts, who heard from someone else. They saw the RISEN LORD. They didn't hear about it from someone else ..So that means, if their story was not truthful, there would have been a crack. Too many witnesses for it NOT to be true. ANY other faith is based on what someone else had testified to. The Christian Church was started by the apostles and dozens if not hundreds others who were witness to the resurrected Jesus. Most eventually tortured to death., Why not recant if it were not true?
My Point?-It's true. Jesus did rise from the dead. My opinion, maybe not yours.
Onoger wrote Close companions of Jesus and close companions of Muhammad who both die as martyrs are only different if you start with the claim that Jesus was special. You're trying to prove that Jesus was special though, so you can't start with that.
Not saying that Jesus was different [but of course, I think HE was..lol]
I am saying that the apostles were different in so much as they [and dozens of others] were actual witnesses. They were not convinced because of someone else's words. They believed because THEY SAW.
You really don't see the diff?
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Onager
TTWSYF: I am saying that the apostles were different in so much as they [and dozens of others] were actual witnesses. They were not convinced because of someone else's words. They believed because THEY SAW.
You really don't see the diff?
I'm not being a smart-alec, but I really don't see any difference. Think about it though, every muslim feels the same about their prophet and companions that got martyred. That's billions of people who feel exactly the same way that you feel about your story, about their story. They say that their prophet did miracles, they say that their eye witnesses believed and had faith to the extent of being martyred.
If you had been born in rural Pakistan, what do you think the odds are that you would be arguing just as strongly for the truth of Islam, using the same arguments you are using now?