When Atheists Tell The Truth...

[PickelledEggs]

So I’m reading through this thread and being impressed by the honesty expressed.
Virtually everyone essentially said that even if the Bible or the God of the Bible were proven to be true, they would still reject Him.  In one sense, that doesn’t surprise me, since that’s what the Bible predicts.  But in another sense, seeing that level of denial is a bit mind blowing.  But it started me thinking about the demand for evidence and whether or not the demand is real or just rhetorical (i.e. used for mere effect)?

Do you think your own demand for evidence or the objections you have are just rhetorical, real, or maybe both?

Are you robert?

Also. What realm of delusion do you hail from?

[SGOS]

No, he is not a drive-by.  I thought so at first, but that was dispelled quickly.  His old board died and he found this one.  If we continue to treat him with respect and share our truths with him I think he will stay around.  I find it refreshing that a theist be here.  I do not think he will change my mind about anything, but I like to find out how theists think.  And finding one who does not become outraged by my open questions is very rare indeed.  I, for one, hope he sticks around.

What kind of board was his old board?  Christian?  Atheist?  I get the impression that he's honestly reporting his perceptions, although misled.

[Mike Cl]

What kind of board was his old board?  Christian?  Atheist?  I get the impression that he's honestly reporting his perceptions, although misled.

I'm not sure which board it was, but in one of his earlier posts he mentioned that the board was sold or it folded for some reason.  I'm not sure what the nature of that board was.  I agree with your perception of him.  If he is to be believed, and I don't know why not at this point, he as spent quite a bit of time researching his positions.  That is what I find so interesting.  I too have spent a good deal of time researching the bible and christianity and it has led me to the opposite conclusions than he.  He seems intelligent and thoughtful, so far.  I'm interested in finding out the points on which we really disagree; points where he and I go in opposite directions. 

[Termin]

So I’m reading through this thread and being impressed by the honesty expressed.
Virtually everyone essentially said that even if the Bible or the God of the Bible were proven to be true, they would still reject Him.  In one sense, that doesn’t surprise me, since that’s what the Bible predicts.  But in another sense, seeing that level of denial is a bit mind blowing.  But it started me thinking about the demand for evidence and whether or not the demand is real or just rhetorical (i.e. used for mere effect)?

Do you think your own demand for evidence or the objections you have are just rhetorical, real, or maybe both?

  I think you don't understand concepts that are outside of your experience.

  First lets go back the original question

  How would it affect your atheism?

   Atheism is a lack of belief, in my case it's due to lack of evidence, and nothing more.

How would you reconcile yourself to embracing the need to worship him, :worship:  to denying your atheism?

  It is never explained why the need to worship him ? Is he a dictator ???

  I said I wouldn't like it, why ? because the God in the bible is not a moral being, that is why.

  Now, if the characterization of God as is described in the bible turns out to be completely wrong, then who knows. Ill give her a chance.

 

[trdsf]

You're correct.  If you possess the trust (i.e. faith), then you don't necessarily need evidence.  But a lot of people like to have a reason or some evidence as to why their trust (i.e. faith) will be well placed.  Faith = Trust.  Faith doesn't = Blind Leap.

No, actually, faith in the religious sense is a blind leap.  It's the point at which one says, "Okay, despite the inability to prove this, I'm going to believe in it anyway."  In fact, this is why philosopher Søren Kiergegaard refers to it as a 'leap to faith' (not 'of' -- this is a common misquote).

You're conflating the theological and colloquial uses of the word 'faith' here.  When I submit my time card tonight, I can say that I have faith that my supervisor will process it before payroll closes on Wednesday, but that has nothing to do with anything supernatural, or even just unevidenced.  I trust her to do her job, because I know from long history that she does, and nothing magical has to happen here.  So in it colloquial use, yes, faith = trust, and trust can be and is based on evidence and observation.  In the theological sense, it is of necessity a blind leap because demonstrability and evidence have run out.

[Odoital778412]

If I was living in the Amazonian rain forest and never heard of your particular interpretation of your particular denomination, would I still go to Hell, even if I was a good person?

I could give a simple answer, but since you've uncovered at least two issues, I'll take some time to explain it.  First, you say, "If I was a good person?"  The simple fact is, there are no truly good people, as all human beings violate the moral law.  There is not a single human being that does not freely violate the moral law, and so there is not a single human being on the planet who has ever existed that could actually be considered "a good person."

Second, you ask, "would I still go to Hell...?"  To understand this question, let me give a little illustration.  Suppose I'm walking in some big city downtown, and I come across 10 homeless people lined up sitting on the ground against the wall where they tend to sleep.  So a feeling of compassion comes over me, and I look into my wallet.  I have debit cards, credit cards, and a couple of bills.  I have a $100 dollar bill and a $20 dollar bill.  I'm feeling pretty compassionate, so I walk over and give the one guy who's not sleeping and is looking at me that $100 dollar bill.  I keep my $20, but I give him the $100 and walk away.  So after I do that, should I be lauded for my generosity and compassion that I had on the one guy, or should I be attacked and derided for not helping the other 9 people who were down on their luck?  In other words, if I freely decide to help one person, does that mean I'm somehow obligated to help them all?  Think carefully before you answer that.  Lots of people and organizations help people, and none of them help them all, even when they could make choices to help more than they do.  Does that mean that they are doing something wrong?

The answer should be obvious.  Because God has decided to offer a pardon to some does not mean that He must offer a pardon to all.  In fact, He's not obligated to offer a pardon to any.  And given that every single human being has committed crimes against Him hundreds, thousands, or millions of times over, He would be fully justified in simply punishing His creation for those crimes.  Instead, He's chosen to have compassion on us and offer a way out for those who respond to His act of grace, but most people will reject His offer.  So should He be blamed for guilty people going to Hell who either haven't heard or have rejected His offer of pardon when He wasn't obligated to make such an offer in the first place?  No.

So yes, most people who haven't heard will likely end up paying for their crimes, as will most people who have heard of God's offer of pardon and chosen to reject it.  However, God is light and gives us light.  And if we respond to the light we've been given, He will give us more light.  What I mean by that is that it's possible that God will have chosen to show compassion on those few to whom God has given light but who haven't specifically heard of Christ.  However, if that does occur, they will still be saved by the sacrifice of Christ, and no one can tell you for sure that such a thing will occur.  All I can say is that it's at least possible, should God make that choice.

I hope that answers your question.

[Odoital778412]

tell that to a poor little virgin girl……..liar

He did not force Himself upon Mary.  She was a willing participant.  In addition, that comment was meant in terms of normative expectation, not special circumstance.

[Odoital778412]

I would not say that. I am all about empirical evidence. The wheels fall off when you put words in peoples' mouths.

If you wouldn't say that, then I obviously wasn't referring to you.  Also, not everyone did say that.  It's just that nearly everyone said it.  So the wheels are still on.

[Odoital778412]

If you were presented with empirical evidence that Hitler was your supreme ruler and wielded god-like powers, would you accept him as your lord or would you reject him?

Many atheists have no problem accepting the existence of a god if empirical evidence is provided, but believing in the existence of a being doesn't mean we choose to follow it or accept its law without defiance - especially if we perceive such a being as inconsistent, detrimental to human life, cruel, and ruthlessly unfair.

Please put away your straw man. Atheists don't have a problem with accepting the existence of a god (assuming there's evidence to substantiate the claim) - we have a problem accepting a morally bankrupt god as being worthy of following.

That's somewhat like asking me if I'd like to see a one-ended stick.  I'm not tempted to want to see such a thing because such a thing couldn't be.  In order for the evidence you suggest to be given, the very God you're saying Hitler might be revealed to be wouldn't actually exist at all.  God would have to violate His nature in order to reveal such a thing, so I'd already know that such a thing, by logic &  nature, simply couldn't happen.  I understand the point of your question, but the logic of the question doesn't allow for it to be answered in the affirmative.  It's self-stultifying.

I suspect that you're saying something to effect of, "I see your God in a similar fashion as I do Adolf Hitler in that I'm morally repulsed by Him and His behavior.  And you expect me to believe in that just because it's proven that He does in fact exist?"

Is that something akin to the point you're trying to get across?  I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth.

Assuming that's the kind of thing you meant, I would answer it this way.  You have a misapprehension of God and His actions.  It would be somewhat akin to reacting to Mother Teresa as if she were Adolf Hitler even though their actions were totally different.  It would be as if the following were true:

Life spent sacrificially helping the poor and needy = Moral revulsion and horror (Your misapprehension of God and His actions)
Life spent directing subjugatory military conflict and systematically murdering people on a racial basis = Deep admiration (Your misapprehension of Christian views)

There is no straw man.  If you read the thread, I was reacting to honest answers given, in which various atheist say that if the God of the Bible and what it records were proven true, they still would choose to reject Him.  The way it's set up, it doesn't give you the option of inserting or asserting something different.  In other words, if you're talking about ruthlessness, cruelty, genocidal, etc... then you wouldn't be referring to the God Christians worship.  You'd only be referring to your own misapprehension of that God, and that's not what the original thread said.

In other words, the thread didn't ask how'd you respond if a ruthless, cruel, and genocidal God were proven true.  It didn't say, what if the atheist's conception of the Christian God were proven true.  It was specifically about the Christian God being proven true, which means in the way that Christians understand Him.  So it really doesn't leave you the room to redefine the thought experiment in such a way that it would allow you to smuggle in your rationalization used to reject the Christian God.

[Odoital778412]

The big guy takes a dim view of that sort of thing from what I understand so see you in hell sinner. Or have you cherry picked that part out of your particular version of god likes and dislikes?

Well, no actually.  Since we're not saved by works for by observing the Sabbath, I'm not worried about going to Hell for the reason you suggest.

[Odoital778412]

The bible can never be proven to be accurate.  Why?  There are simply too many of them.  There is too much each of those bibles left out.  Why is Mark a better source than the Gospel of Thomas, for example?  Because it was decided politically that one was worth keeping and one was not.  The Bible is totally man-made.

Proof for me would have to be some demonstration that God exists.   I have seen none, nor experienced none.  So, if god does not exist then why should I search out what it is this invisible god wants.  If God is god then that proof should be available and easily seen by all.  But it isn't.  I like to use reasons for what I do, not because of beliefs, for beliefs do not need reasoning.

It sounds like you’ve been reading Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman, and others.  No offense intended, but what you’re saying suggests to me a very limited knowledge of Canonicity itself.  It also suggests that you’re not generally familiar with the manuscript evidence for the scriptures spread across three continents, contemporaneous with each other, and exceedingly early when compared with other works of antiquity.  Pages and pages could be said about, but I’ll address the less complicated issue and point you to resources for the other.  Before I get into that, let me just say that I certainly don’t mind if someone reads Pagels, the Jesus Seminar, Ehrman, and others, but you’re also going to have to read mainstream scholarship as well.  The reason that all of those I’ve just mentioned are somewhat famous is because they are seen as saying something new, edgy, and irreverent.  When one has just a broad knowledge of the topic, not even that deep, you discover that it has virtually nothing to do with the quality and veracity of their scholarship.

Okay, with regard to the idea that there are too many of them, I think not.  There are so many manuscripts from across the world available, that you can actually use the various traditions to check on the others to see if things have been changed.  In addition, you can read the words of the early church fathers, often called the Patristic Fathers, and reconstruct nearly the entire New Testament just from quotes in their own writing.  And the broader point that I’m making is that there are multiple ways in which you can test and cross-check the various texts to see if there are any variations.  And the fact of the matter is that there are very few.  Those that are of any minor significance are usually notated in every Bible, and they include things like the long ending of Mark and the woman at the well in John, Chapter 8.  However, none of those variations touch on any core Christian doctrine and could therefore be completely removed without changing anything about Christianity.  The rest of the variations have to do with punctuation and spelling changes or errors, not genuine corruptions of the text itself.  There is more historical attestation for the Bible than for any other document of antiquity and this attestation is greater by orders of magnitude.  Also, there have been more discoveries just in the last 15 or 20 years that are providing still more attestation.  I would point you toward the following books on the topic.  Feel free to read them alongside those that agree with the points of view you hold now.

The Canon of Scripture by F. F. Bruce

The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate by Michael J. Kruger

Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books by Michael J. Kruger

The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture's Fascination with Diversity Has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity by Andreas J. Köstenberger

Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic, and Apocryphal Evidence (Text and Canon of the New Testament) by Daniel B. Wallace

Can We Still Believe the Bible?: An Evangelical Engagement with Contemporary Questions by Craig L. Blomberg

Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels by Craig A. Evans

Reinventing Jesus Paperback: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss The Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture by J. Ed Komoszewski

The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities by Darrell L. Bock

Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way by Philip Jenkins

The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant? by Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

Jesus & the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times by Paul Barnett

I hope that’s helpful.  A huge amount of detail could be gone into on this topic.  If you’re interested, those versions that come closest to a word-for-word translation of the text are the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the English Standard Version (ESV).  You can always get a side-by-side treatment of both and see if they are actually saying different things.  I think that you will find, they are not.

[Odoital778412]

It is rhetorical because you have no evidence.

If you had evidence, then we wouldn't have to argue whether your god exists, we would just not want to worship the former Canaanite war god. But you don't, so there is no reason to talk to you.

If it's rhetorical, then you wouldn't be interested in evidence in the first place.  It's not because none exists.  And sure we'd be arguing, even if there were evidence.  That's the entire point of the threat.  If the God of Christianity and the Bible were proven completely true, most of the atheists in that thread indicated that they still would reject Him.  In other words, they were admitting that evidence didn't matter, and even if evidence existed, they would still reject Him.  In short, they were admitting to a mass campaign of denial or otherwise suppression of the truth (Rom 1 & 2).

[Odoital778412]

What kind of board was his old board?  Christian?  Atheist?  I get the impression that he's honestly reporting his perceptions, although misled.

It was called DifferHonestly.  The operator used the screen name "spblat".  Mostly it was atheists.  There was one other theist, a Pastor, who frequented the place.

[trdsf]

You have a misapprehension of God and His actions.

You use this phrase or one very much like it a lot.  Many of us -- myself included -- were raised in one flavor or another of Christianity.  Those of us who were are versed, to one degree or another, in Christian mythology, Christian apologetics, and various Christian views of what their god is like.

How do you know -- and by know, I very much mean 'I can demonstrate objectively' rather than 'I really really believe' -- that you're not the one with a misapprehension?  Never mind other religions, or those with no religion -- there are over 40,000 different denominations just of Christianity.  Even Christians can't agree among themselves on the nature of god, of Jeshua bar-Joseph (assuming he even existed in the first place) -- heck, even over whether you should cross yourself right-to-left or left-to-right.  That doesn't suggest truth, revealed or otherwise.  So the question of authority and demonstrability is now very important, as you're speaking in pronouncements and conclusions rather than in the give-and-take of debate.

I don't question your faith.  I'm sure you genuinely believe.  But belief just isn't good enough for me and I expect it isn't for many (most?) others here, and 'I/the Bible/god said so' is not sufficient authority to compel belief.  This is what we call an extraordinary claim: that there is a divine authority behind all of physical reality whose existence defies objective demonstration.  As has been said before, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  I'm not even sure how you could differentiate between an alleged miracle, and the action of an extremely advanced alien intelligence -- Clarke's Law applies here, too.  If any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, any sufficiently advanced (technology-using but biologically evolved and otherwise perfectly material and natural) alien is indistinguishable from a magic-worker.

I want to remind you that the bible is not evidence, not any more than 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' is evidence that there's a school of magic up in Scotland.  There are a few events therein that are confirmed by outside sources, for example the Babylonian exile, but there are many more that are not, and many that are demonstrably factually inaccurate, and many that are mutually exclusive -- they cannot both be true.  You may choose to accept it, but that does not compel its acceptance as valid to anyone else.

Fundamentally, you are speaking mysticism to rationalists.  Carl Sagan wrote a short essay called The Dragon in my Garage.  I don't ask you to read it in the hope that you'll change your beliefs.  I ask you to read it in order to understand the rationalist/skeptical minds that you're trying to communicate with here -- as far as I'm concerned, you're claiming there's a dragon in your garage, and I begin to suspect that you really don't understand why you're not getting anywhere by just repeating the claim or adding another special case.

[Johan]

The simple fact is, there are no truly good people

And cops wonder why so many people think they're assholes.