Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

while yours is just another one of your many demented distortions because that's what always serves you.

"Distortions will get you through times of no dementia better than dementia through times of no distortion."

[Alexis Jacobi]

Harry seems to have got through all this unscathed ...

I guess it's time for me to post my Paté de Harry Baird recipe ...

I know, I know, it's unconventional but it (he?) will be served with a chilled Australian rosé to honor his place d'origine:

[henry quirk]

No, pro: you don't get it, bro.

Smeagol wants my toothpick ().

It pines for it.

It's upset I won't submit to its gobliny desire.

As a self-identified human lesbian: I just can't give up the love to any passin' ring-slave.

[henry quirk]

Harry seems to have got through all this unscathed ...

The hell he did. He's absent, not forgotten. He's one of my listed stamps.

[iambiguous]

Believing in Christianity is Irrational
By John W. Loftus

Through the process of elimination then, the evidence for Christianity is historical evidence from the ancient superstitious pre-scientific past, and that's it. Period. I don't see how any sane informed person can disagree. Really.

No, really. Aside from conflicted historical accounts and a leap of faith -- "God exists because the Bible says that He exist" -- what other evidence is there?

This evidence is supposed to be good enough to convince rational outsiders that God sent his incarnate son to this planet, via a virgin, to atone for our sins, who subsequently was raised from the dead and will eventually reward believers and condemn nonbelievers.

And it will be good enough for those looking for something -- anything -- able to comfort and console them in a world as profoundly problematic and precarious as the one we live in. I'm sure there are any number of men and women coping with the consequence of this -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hawaii_wildfires -- able to fall back on one or another religious faith. After all, what else is there?

Thus, nothing that John W. Loftus and those like me argue here is likely change many minds. There's God or there's "shit happens". Pick one?

I'd choose God myself if I could figure out how.

Thus this...

I have looked at this supposed evidence and it doesn't produce a scintilla of a reason to accept it. So let me take a different, surprising tact, to help believers see why this is the case.

I've written a whole chapter in my book, Why I Became an Atheist, titled, "The Poor Evidence of Historical Evidence," which I consider essential reading if any believer really wants to know the truth.

...goes in one Christian's ear and out the other. Yes, you now know the truth: No God.

Okay, what then when your life becomes a living hell, or the doctor just gave you the death sentence?

[Dubious]

I thought you were 'the slut'.

For you, I will be.

A Micky-D Happy Meal * and she's yours, G.

Remember: penicillin is your friend.




*and a box of Franzia Red

...as a lobotomy is yours. But then, why bother, since more than half is already in permanent Rip Van Winkle mode, though possibly major surgery may cause a slight increase in IQ or at least, make you less foul-mouthed among your other outstanding qualities.

Upon reconsidering, the boxcar solution to the nearest landfill would be the most appropriate solution for a disgusting fucker like you.

[Dubious]

Dubious — tortured romantic! as stormy as a Northern squall! — cannot be considered a man of leisure. He’s a man of constant struggle!

::: thunder rolls in the mountains :::

Indeed! I have a very Byronic personality. Nice of you to notice!

[Dubious]

If all these niceties don't end this thread, I'd be surprised!

One must make one's contributions while there's still time!

These are all very potent symptoms of the Decline of the West!

[Dubious]

No, pro: you don't get it, bro.


As a self-identified human lesbian: I just can't give up the love to any passin' ring-slave.

Does this mean you are not "henry quirk" but instead "Henrietta quirk"?

What a mistake-a to make-a!

If so, get thee to a nunnery...post haste!

[iambiguous]

Okay, IC, the seventh video:


God and Mathematics
https://youtu.be/QJBOiZXkKu8

Here however some of us will be more sophisticated in responding to this than others. In other words, those with a more comprehensive understanding of mathematics and of how the dots are connected between math and the physical world around us.

And, admittedly, I'm not one of them.

Instead, I am more likely to probe the extent to which there is a mathematical equivalent of morality. Though, of course, for Christians that will be God.

Anyway, the video starts out by noting that mathematics is a fundamental reflection of the universe. Which immediately brings some around to this: Did God invent mathematics as well? Or is mathematics just something that God had to take into account Himself pertaining to Creation in the Book of Genesis?

In the beginning, God, wholly in sync with mathematical absolutes, created the heavens and the Earth?

As for scientists, we are told, "scientists do not use mathematics merely as a convenient way of organizing the data. They believe that mathematical relationships reflect real aspects of the physical world."

On the other hand, the preponderance of scientists do not make the same claim for morality and ethics. And that's where Christianity comes in.

Also, the narrator leaves out the part where for centuries, Christian ecclesiastics made the lives of certain scientists living Hells for daring to note things that ran counter to church dogma.

Enter the philosophers...

"Why is mathematics so effective? Philosophers who address this question fall into two camps...naturalists who believe all that exists is space-time and its physical contents. They exclude supernatural causes. And theists who believe in a God who created the universe."

Then of course this part:

"Naturalists cannot provide a reasonable explanation for the physical world."

Okay, but compare what we do know now and what, say, those around the time of Aristotle knew. A staggering amount of new knowledge. Next up: compare what we know now to what we will know given the equivalent amount of time in the future.

At the same time compare what evidence we have today that the Christian God does in fact exist with the evidence that was around back when Jesus Christ was around. The "leaps and bounds" there.

And, we are told, while scientists are unable to provide us with a definitive ontological explanation for physical and mathematical reality, the theists are!

How? Presto!

"God has chosen to create the world according to the plan he had in mind."

The proof? Genesis!

And then this circular logic:

"All of this adds up to an argument for the existence of God that goes like this:

1] if God does not exist, the applicability of mathematics is just a happy coincidence.
2] But the applicability of mathematics is not just a happy coincidence.
3] Therefore God exists."

See, didn't I tell you: Presto!!!

And, once again, a crucial reminder: it's one thing to connect the dots between a God, the God and mathematics. It's another thing altogether to connect the dots [mathematically or otherwise] between a God, the God and the Christian God.

Which the narrator makes no attempt to do. Not only that but this video doesn't even end with a verse from the Christian Bible.


Anything to add, IC?

[attofishpi]

Okay, IC, the seventh video:


God and Mathematics

Well HELL_o HELL_owe.

Now ya talking.

Well, my favorite comedians here are Age, attofishpi, henry quirk and Immanuel Cant.

Y?

Don't get me started.

Oh, I see you used a type of shorthand for the word WHY?

Let me point out something for your faithless short of sight atheist brain, doing a bit of permutation\combination maths.

Approximate odds of the letter Y being phonetically identical to the word "WHY" is 1 in 11,364, or about 0.000088

So extremely slim odds that the letter Y = the word WHY AND happens to be the letter that CHRIST made when he dangled away insisting we all love and respect each other.

That we indeed have faith, and are faithful to each other.

Comprehend? or is all that just a big joke to U?

[iambiguous]

Okay, IC, the seventh video:


God and Mathematics

Well HELL_o HELL_owe.

Now ya talking.

Well, my favorite comedians here are Age, attofishpi, henry quirk and Immanuel Cant.

Y?

Don't get me started.

Oh, I see you used a type of shorthand for the word WHY?

Let me point out something for your faithless short of sight atheist brain, doing a bit of permutation\combination maths.

Approximate odds of the letter Y being phonetically identical to the word "WHY" is 1 in 11,364, or about 0.000088

So extremely slim odds that the letter Y = the word WHY AND happens to be the letter that CHRIST made when he dangled away insisting we all love and respect each other.

That we indeed have faith, and are faithful to each other.

Comprehend? or is all that just a big joke to U?

Pick one:

1]
2]
3]

Y?

Well, what would Jesus do?

[attofishpi]

Study all the books of philosophy and waffle on like you do, but you are SHIT at logic, and in philosophy it's rather important. You haven't got the intelligence to comprehend God.

[Harry Baird]

You would have me agree God built the chicken to mimic suffering.

Not for the moment. I (provisionally) moved past that when you rejected that explanation. Now, and for the moment, I'm simply asking you for your own (causal) explanation of the behaviour in question, which does not need to assume anything about (mimicking) suffering, joy, or mindedness in general - nor about their lack. Just take the behaviour as it can be objectively described, and explain it (causally).

Here, I'll make it as easy for you as possible: let's take just a single example, the video I shared earlier which shows a herd of cows being released into a field after six months' of winter confinement in a shed. Turn off the sound, ignore the title, and just watch how the cows behave.

I described this behaviour as follows: "The cows run and leap vigorously". That description makes no reference to joy, suffering, or any emotion or mind, and nor does it imply any such things (nor their lack, either). If you object to the adverb "vigorously" in this respect, then we can leave it out.

"The cows run and leap" is a purely objective description of their behaviour.

Now, what is your (causal) explanation of that behaviour?

[iambiguous]

From a New York Times article, "Its Building Destroyed, a Lahaina Church Finds Sanctuary in a Cafe"

"Mr. Brown, the pastor, who lost his house in the flames, invoked the biblical story of Job, the righteous man who endured trial after trial.

'God never makes a mistake, and I believe that today,' he said. 'Now, if you’re asking me if I understand — no.'

'It’s God’s grace that we’re here,' Mr. McCarthy told fellow worshipers at the coffee shop, where nearly every seat was taken.



Only rarely will there be a newspaper article about one or another natural disaster in which someone is quoted saying "This is more than I can bear. I can no longer believe in a God that would allow this".

And it's all understandable. It's either God and His mysterious ways or these terrible things just happen for no ultimate reason at all. You just ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And with no immortality and no salvation down the road you are only able to somehow endure the ghastly pain and suffering.