Atheism requires as much faith as religion?

[polymath257]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
The Bible is just a book, it won't lead to to Christ any more than reading a physics book will make you a physicist.
God is found through prayer & faith, not through reading the Bible.

Faith comes *after* the evidence supporting belief. Anything else is simply self-delusion. So yes, I have searched for your deity (and others) and nothing was found. Faith and prayer are simply ways to keep you performing rituals instead of actually thinking.

[RiversideRedneck]

The_Box wrote:

The idea that Jesus performed miracles or resurrected or was a divine being, are all based on the supernatural or magic.

Because Jesus defied the laws of nature?

I'm glad to see you're starting to believe in Jesus.

What else do you want to learn?

They're con-artists who often bilk people out of significant sums of money.

Just like politicians....

It fits it to a tee.

This is where we need to work on you. You think Christianity is based on "magic" becuase you can't comprehend something that happened that defies our human laws of physics...

[bohart]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
But we *have* found evidence. We know the life is a chemical process. We know that the precursors of the chemicals of life existed on the early earth. We know that those precursors spontaneously form more complicated structures in the environment of the early earth. We know that those structures can catalyze many of the reactions of life. We know that they will spontaneously form into cell-like structures which will bud and grow.
In the other direction, we are learning the absolute essentials for living things by our study of bacteria. We are able to decipher that RNA and not DNA was the original genetic material. We know that that RNA can form not only the genetic material, but also catalyze reactions needed for life.
The point is that the gap between what we know spontaneously forms in conditions similar to the early earth and what we know the earliest life was like has shrunk dramatically over the last 50 years. And yes, that *is* progress on the question. And yes, the above *is* evidence of abiogenesis.

sorry, this belief requires more faith than I can muster

[The_Box]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Because Jesus defied the laws of nature?

Is claimed to have, yes.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

I'm glad to see you're starting to believe in Jesus.

I'm not. There's no reason to actually believe he did any of those things. That's choosing superstition over reason.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

Just like politicians....

Um, okay?

RiversideRedneck wrote:

This is where we need to work on you. You think Christianity is based on "magic" becuase you can't comprehend something that happened that defies our human laws of physics...

Your argument could be applied to every religious claim. How does Zeus cause lightning? Well, you just can't comprehend how he does it!

You're skipping over the fact that there's no good reason to believe Zeus throws lightning or Jesus resurrected to begin with. It's delusion.

[It aint necessarily so]

Eagle12 wrote:

You probably have strong opinions about Doctors being sued in court for malpractice. I do to and don’t think competent Doctors should ever be sued. Even if they make a mistake.
But in medicine there are MD’s that are frauds and incompetent. Their body count is like ten times higher than the average competent Doctors. There needs to be a way of weeding out those in medicine who are dreadful.

There is, but it's not done with lawsuits. It's done by state medical boards, which investigate complaints about doctors, and which have the power to discipline and revoke medical licenses.

[Adam]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
God is not lost, you misunderstand.
I expect no less from an atheist, though.
Keep up the "good" work.

Not an atheist. Just skeptical toward ridiculous claims.

[RiversideRedneck]

The_Box wrote:

Is claimed to have, yes.

"claimed"? It's part of our recorded history, it's no claim.

I'm not. There's no reason to actually believe he did any of those things. That's choosing superstition over reason.

You don't get to choose whether or not you want to "believe" history.

Your argument could be applied to every religious claim. How does Zeus cause lightning? Well, you just can't comprehend how he does it!
You're skipping over the fact that there's no good reason to believe Zeus throws lightning or Jesus resurrected to begin with. It's delusion.

Where was it written that Zeus threw lightning?

Where's the Zeus bible?

(good luck finding it)

Zeus and his ilk have gone down in history as myth.

Jesus is a prominant role in the lives of many people worldwide.

[It aint necessarily so]

ThePlayfulDragon wrote:

"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

Actually, it is. Think about it. Compare that comment to this one, which is correct: The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

[The_Box]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
"claimed"? It's part of our recorded history, it's no claim.

It's no more 'recorded history' than Muhammad meeting Allah or Buddha achieving Nirvana or Joseph Smith talking to angels.

These are religious CLAIMS; not historical facts.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

You don't get to choose whether or not you want to "believe" history.

It's not history.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

Where was it written that Zeus threw lightning?
Where's the Zeus bible?

Homer and Hesiod both wrote about Zeus.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

Zeus and his ilk have gone down in history as myth.
Jesus is a prominant role in the lives of many people worldwide.

Times changes. In the past, people thought Zeus was real just like they do Jesus now. And in the future, Jesus will be regarded as a myth, like Zeus is today.

[polymath257]

bohart wrote:

<quoted text>
sorry, this belief requires more faith than I can muster

Perhaps if you learned some basic science, you wouldn't have such difficulty understanding how the world works. This isn't faith. it is evidence-based deduction.

[RiversideRedneck]

The_Box wrote:

It's no more 'recorded history' than Muhammad meeting Allah or Buddha achieving Nirvana or Joseph Smith talking to angels.
These are religious CLAIMS; not historical facts.

Yes, Islamic claims are just that, claims. Thanks!

It's not history.

Yes it is.

Homer and Hesiod both wrote about Zeus.

Funny atheist. You believe that a man named Homer actually existed & you take that as history but you fight back against people like Matthew, Mark & John.....
You can put your foot in your mouth whenever you're ready.

[Adam]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, Islamic claims are just that, claims. Thanks!

If you were born in a muslim family in an islamic country, you'd believe their stories instead. FACT!

[The_Box]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, Islamic claims are just that, claims. Thanks!

So are Christian claims, Mormon claims, Hindu claims, Buddhist claims, Scientologist claims, etc.

They're all claims. Nothing more. You have no good evidence that Jesus performed any of those miracles.

You are delusional.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

Funny atheist. You believe that a man named Homer actually existed

Homer did exist. It is name assigned to the person who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. There are questions about when those writings took place and how much responsibility he had in their writings, but really that's all moot.

The point was that Zeus, like Jesus, was written about.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

& you take that as history but you fight back against people like Matthew, Mark & John.....

The Gospels were written by anonymous authors half a century after the events in question and 3/4 are not even independent.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

You can put your foot in your mouth whenever you're ready.

Maybe when you manage to make a single good argument.

[polymath257]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, Islamic claims are just that, claims. Thanks!

So are Christian claims.

[Dave Nelson]

http://www.scientificexploration.org/edgescie...

Download the pdf of the magazine and read the article about Einstein and E=MC2. The article is in understandable English for the most part.

Note momentum. That is a property of motion.

You might peruse some other articles in there.

[Catcher1]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Ya, that place don't represent Riverside very well. It's made for city folks to come down & spend $12 on a beer :)
You should visit Engal's Park in Norco during Rodeo week.$2 beers.

I'm not into dirt, Bud or paper cups.

[bohart]

polymath257 wrote:

<quoted text>
Perhaps if you learned some basic science, you wouldn't have such difficulty understanding how the world works. This isn't faith. it is evidence-based deduction.

You really need to publish some articles, write a book, or go on TV and explain how you've solved the mystery of life, because you seem to be the only one who knows it. Your spontanous generation of life theory goes way back to the Greek philosophers, and that fits perfectly because it is a philosophy.That philosophy took hold in the 19th century until modern science started discovering the enormous complexity of even the most so called simple life forms.

I need to learn basic science? Basic science states with remarkable, never been proven wrong clarity, that life comes from existing life. Your the goober advocating a miracle , the lifeless goo coming to life, a one time only event in the primordial past that happened only once, and doesn't ever happen again because it would violate all known science.Join everyone in the 21st century where real scientists unencumbered by their faith look for real answers not to promote their world view.

Biogenesis - never been proven wrong no exceptions
Abiogenesis - never been proven right, no exceptions.

Now evidence based deduction would say that the person who believes that abiogenesis works does so on the basis of no proof, only a belief.

[Dave Nelson]

Dave Nelson wrote:

http://www.scientificexplorati on.org/edgescience/
Download the pdf of the magazine and read the article about Einstein and E=MC2. The article is in understandable English for the most part.
Note momentum. That is a property of motion.
You might peruse some other articles in there.

That article is very informative. It gives a rational perspective of possibilities.

But in the last page they, and others, fail to mention another possibility.

You have what we call energy flowing. It appears to recycle itself. It is assumed that the Big Crunch pulls everything back together. But there is another possibility. You take a hunk of that flow and create a separate loop. Starts a new continuum.

I will use an analogy of electricity, and magnetism.

You have a difference in charge and balance from a central point in a collection of matter, and a seeking of equilibrium. This causes your flow, something that goes outside the causation of the imbalance. Each section of the flow is occupied by this energy, so you have a quantity occupying space, if you will. You short it out. Which is a trick. You separate that section from the whole, creating a new system of transfer.

[RiversideRedneck]

The_Box wrote:

So are Christian claims, Mormon claims, Hindu claims, Buddhist claims, Scientologist claims, etc.
They're all claims. Nothing more. You have no good evidence that Jesus performed any of those miracles.
You are delusional.

Contrary to popular atheist belief, YouTube didn't exist in Jesus' time. All they had was what they could write down.*hint* that's how ancient history was recorded.

Homer did exist.

To quote the aforementioned atheists: Prove it.

After all, the only thing you have to go on is what? Recorded history.

It is name assigned to the person who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey. There are questions about when those writings took place and how much responsibility he had in their writings, but really that's all moot.

Moot.

The point was that Zeus, like Jesus, was written about.

Still haven't found a Zeus bible?(I know you googled it & found nil)

The Gospels were written by anonymous authors half a century after the events in question and 3/4 are not even independent.

See? You did it again.

You readily accept that homer was real & wrote the Iliad.

You readily deny that Matthew, Mark & John "had no proof".

You're sad.

Maybe when you manage to make a single good argument.

Like the Zeus bible?

Do you know that nothing was written about Zeus originally? Except for what was written as "story pictures" on pots & plates.....

hmmm

[The_Box]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Contrary to popular atheist belief, YouTube didn't exist in Jesus' time. All they had was what they could write down.*hint* that's how ancient history was recorded.

So you accept the claims that Mohammad talked with Allah, Buddha achieved Nirvana, and Joseph Smith met angels?

These were all things that were written down.

We don't consider them history because they're all obviously religious mythology and legend, just like Jesus' miracles.

*I* don't have a double standard on this issue.*You do.*

RiversideRedneck wrote:

To quote the aforementioned atheists: Prove it.

Prove that we assign the name Homer to the writer of the Iliad and Oddysey?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey

RiversideRedneck wrote:

After all, the only thing you have to go on is what? Recorded history.

You're missing a key element here: plausibility.

I can start writing two books right now about my friend Joe. One talks about him growing up, and playing high school football, and being a construction worker.

The second one talks about how he can fly, and he is 30 feet tall,
and he has a vacation home on Jupiter.

If a future historian were doing some research on Joe and found the first book, he'd probably view it as a reliable source written by a friend. If he found the second book, he'd dismiss it as legendary, or mythical, or straight-up fiction.

RiversideRedneck wrote:

Still haven't found a Zeus bible?(I know you googled it & found nil)

Why do I need to find a Zeus bible? You're operating on the premise that anything written down (and not intended to be fictional) counts as history. Things about Zeus were written down. History? People wrote that Joseph Smith met angels. History? People wrote that Mohammad talked with Allah. History?

There are COUNTLESS supernatural religious claims, yet you reject all of them except for Christianity's. Why are you so inconsistent?

RiversideRedneck wrote:

See? You did it again.
You readily accept that homer was real & wrote the Iliad.
You readily deny that Matthew, Mark & John "had no proof".
You're sad.

"We have 2 epic poems. A guy wrote them." is a pretty easy claim to accept.
"A guy was a god, performed miracles, and rose from the dead." is an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.