Posts by John

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

Stating that 'I don't believe in deities because there's no compelling evidence to support it' isn't a metaphysical claim.

If you mean SCIENTIFIC evidence then is a metaphysical claim.

It's Scientism.

https://www.aaas.org/page/what-scientism

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

There is no philosophy involved.

If you really think this you're against all academic knowledge in human history.

Atheism is a metaphysical claim.

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy.

It's that simple.

Be very careful of the those who try to prevent you from philosophy.

Philosophy is the universal headlight of human understanding.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

Nobody speaks for atheism.

Yes.

Because Atheism it's not a logical conclusion but one single article of personal faith.

Nietzsche is just the most famous Atheist.

Every atheist has a different metaphysical justification to the axiom of Atheism.

The nearest point of consensus in justification of Atheism is from the "Four Horsemen".

Atheism is a philosophical mess.

Atheism = I find the claims that Christians make about the world to be unconvincing.

Thank you for your justification of Atheism.

But I don't agree with your justification of faith.

Do you mean all Christians as individuals? If so, how did you get to personally know 1/3 of the world population?

Do you mean all Christian denominations? I think your knowledge of Catholicism is very poor.

Did you ever considered Agnosticism?

Agnosticism is a very logical position.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_justification

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

Nietzsche was the most intelligent and sincere Atheist in human history.

He knew Atheism is not a logical conclusion but an axiom or a starting point.

His axiom is quite intriguing (God is dead instead of the usual there's no God).

His personal justification of his axiom is just a sensation of joy (Gay Science) from this axiom, or the joyful knowledge of knowing God is dead.

Also it's very interesting his unique concept of oblivion (logical conclusion of Atheism).

His oblivion is the eternal recurrence/return (his greatest idea according to himself).

This idea says that all things will repeat itself in the same way forever. But there's no awareness of this repetition, maybe only to a few lucky (like him).

Those who are aware of the eternal return must decide if it's heaven or hell. Nietzsche said he decided to chose heaven. He said yes to the eternal return.

This is defined as metaphysical Atheism.

Recently we have a New Atheism proposed by the "Four Horsemen" (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens).

The New Atheism's axiom (PROBABLY there's no God) is justified by Scientism and logical refutation of Sola Scriptura.

Many people give intellectual and volitional value to a normal (but temporary) doubt about the existence of God. This situation is described by the St. John of the Cross as the "dark night of the soul", and he explained this is a necessary purification to the soul.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

"God is not a magician" is perhaps the most amazing thing I have ever read in this forum.

I know you think God is a magician.

But magicians are bound by nothing.

That's why magicians are just fiction.

It's very easy to be an Atheist with such silly and flawed concepts of God.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

The only theological assumptions I am making is that there is a god who made all things, who is the epitome of love and goodness, who is active in the world and who desires a relationship with humans.

Metaphysically active.

Physically actions or interventions from God are miracles and they are quite rare.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

Many scholars disagree but even so, predicting that the Roman's patience would soon run out with the Jews is not impressive at all. When we read those prophecies in detail it is clear you have to cherry-pick a couple of phrases to get anything useful for your case. That is always the case with bible prophecy.

Actually was very impressive.

BTW there are some paranormal events in the Temple after the Cruxification until the destruction. Jewish priests documented such events.

What statistics are you referring to? I am making a simple observation that if god revealed anything through the bible it is reasonable to expect some evidence of that when you read the book. There is none.

This your subjective opinion.

Statistics can be used to compare excludent subjective opinions. The majority of subjective opinions is there's evidence of Divine revelation in the Bible.

Personally I would have hinted at germ theory of disease. Or mentioned the fact that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. Something simple but interesting and way ahead of its time.

The purpose of the Bible is the salvation of the soul.

I was going to carry on but you get the picture.
All your work is ahead of you. This is a thread where I am very happy with the OP and very disappointed with the quality of the conversation that followed.

Just your opinion (again).

Nobody - absolutely nobody - cares about you Roman Catholic dogma. It is totally irrelevant to challenge.

So the position of the largest monotheistic religion in human history is totally irrelevant in a discussion about God.

Your reasoning is very strange...

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

That doesn't work. You asserted earlier that your god cares about physical suffering. He clearly doesn't.

Because there's no instant solution does not means God doesn't care. His solution is eternal reward in Heaven.

But according to christians god invented those natural laws from scratch.

He's not a magician.

God is bound by His very nature.

The predominance of predators and parasites was god's idea. The natural world reflects the nature of the creator.

Natural world is ruled by randomness not by God's will or nature.

He could have made the world any way he wished.

No.

He designed it to maximise pain.

No. Natural world is not directly designed.

You are so obsessed by the soul you are willing to justify any physical suffering aren't you?

The existence of the immortal soul is a logical conclusion that predates Christianity.

Logic is true.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

So why is the physical world perfectly designed to maximise suffering?
If you don't agree then you need to learn more about the last 3 billion years of the history of life.
24 pages of avoiding the question!

This is my position:

Suffering = conscious perception of evil.

I'm not talking about non human "suffering".

Non human animals do not have consciousness. So they can't perceive evil (natural and moral). Non human animals are just biological machines.

Consciousness is a very recent phenomenon in history (+- 6000 years).

About natural evil I will write down all the premises that lead to my conclusion. If you don't agree with my conclusion then point out exactly what premise you don't accept and why. OK?

# God is bound by His nature.

#God must always choose the best option possible.

# God created only conscious being in His image (nature, intellect and will)

# the first stage of existence of every creature must be in free-will. (because God is justice and justice demand authenticity).

# privacy from God's full presence is needed by free-will.

# privacy from God's full presence requires natural laws.

# natural laws produce natural evil.

Therefore natural evil is inevitable in all possible worlds.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

John_Mann

He is also not the wonderful intelligent designer christians claim he is. 99% of all the species that ever existed failed. They are extinct. Their last representatives died out.

I'm not a creationist. I don't believe evolution is guided (especially non human evolution).

Five times in the history of life almost all of life was violently wiped out through catastrophic events. These are not the actions of the same god who claims to care about the death of every sparrow.

Are you talking about non human animals? Non human animals doesn't perceive evil in any form.

Why do you quote the Bible like a fundamentalist? Are you a Sola Scriptura Atheist? Do you quote single texts and think there's only one interpretation to it?

You have not even started to deal with these first two points (which you have conflated into one point).

Well recently you was saying that I haven't answered at all.

Saying that I don't even started to deal means some progress

John_Mann

Posts by John_Mann