Apologetics are supposed to be "reasoned arguments to support scripture."

[MineralMan]

Last edited Thu Aug 31, 2017, 10:57 AM - Edit history (1)

Reasoned. Logical. The problem with all of that lies in the underlying premise that a supernatural deity which is all-powerful, all-knowing and infallible actually exists and affirms what is in the scriptures being discussed. Unless you accept that premise, all apologetics fail the basic tests of logic.

Most apologetics are circular in nature, at best, and can be argued back to that underlying premise, which can only be true based on faith that it is true, rather than on any evidence of truth.

Once the underlying premise is exposed, apologetics fall apart as tautologies. Now, the argument against apologetics is futile, because the believer will simply cite faith in the premise, but there is no actual logic or reason involved. Unless you accept the premise, the logic is false. If you accept the premise, it can be argued as truth, but there is no evidence for the premise.

All religious arguments have that premise as their foundation. It is impossible to succeed in such an argument, since the person you are arguing with accepts the premise on "faith."

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

[exboyfil]

1. You hit upon a problem

with sacred scriptures. After 2000 years really all relevant interpretations have been pursued. The only area in which they may have value is extrapolation to the modern world.

This is why you get increasingly ridiculous scenarios reconciling the observable world to scriptures (see Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis).

Scriptures in isolation did not produce the Enlightenment or abolition. These things could have happened without the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

[zipplewrath]

7. History of Ideas

I read a rather long book called "The History of Ideas". It traced the history of some of the most fundamental "ideas" over time. He tackles everything from energy production (Fire through nuclear power) as well as the idea of democracy and the field of psychology. He also covers religion and faith. In his conclusion he draws many thoughts but one is quite interesting. All the other fields/ideas he discusses have evolved and "advanced" over the millennia. However, organized religion and faith in general is no more "advanced" today than it was 3000 years ago. Quite the opposite, it just "reinvents" itself over and over. You get the same basic collection of dieties and spiritual connections to the world and each other being repackaged over and over.

It doesn't mean any of them are wrong of course. What is interesting is that even if they are all "right" in some sense (all blind people touching a different part of the elephant), humans have never advanced or consolidated their understanding. While science pursues a "unified field theorem", faith and religion has gotten virtually nowhere on any sort of "universal" understanding. And to a great degree, no one tries. Quite the opposite, most (but not all) spend their time trying to not only "prove" themselves right (or more perfect) and demonstrate how "wrong" other understandings are.

[yallerdawg]

2. Let me tell you something I picked up from Scorcese's movie "Silence."

.We look for the external fact and proof of God and religion, outside of "our self?"

We can actually see it and document it in the acts of others. We see it all the time and have proof throughout history.

God doesn't answer? God doesn't offer "proof?"

Maybe, maybe it IS all around us.

[longship]

3. So "no proof" is proof?

Begging the question, I would think.

Sorry.

[MineralMan]

5. Faith, my friend, faith. It doesn't actually have to be true if you

have faith. Never mind that others have faith in other things. It is only the faith that you agree with that could possibly be true.

[yallerdawg]

6. If you saw Jesus, and saw what he did...

would that be "proof?"

[longship]

9. Who has actually done that?

And no, the Bible will be no help here. Too many problems there.

[yallerdawg]

12. When we SEE unshakable faith and a willingness to die in the name of that faith...

a willingness to sacrifice EVERYTHING for that faith - when we see lives lived in accordance to their faith - is this not evidence of faith?

Is this not enough to hang your hat on, so to speak?

[MineralMan]

13. Oh, for pete's sake! People died for Hitler's principles, too.

People will willingly die for beliefs, but their willingness does not prove the validity of those beliefs. People have willingly died for lots of beliefs, including Christianity, I suppose. their willingness and faith, however, says nothing about the truth of what they believed.

Think about it, please. The only thing proven by the fact that some people are willing to die for a belief is that some people are willing to die for some belief. That is a tautology. Such willingness is evidence of nothing else at all.

Humans can have faith. There's no question about that. But faith is evidence of nothing other than that people can have faith in things.

[yallerdawg]

18. I'm not looking for internal validation of MY faith.

Like you, I won't find it "in there."

Some of us want evidence and facts in support of our faith. I'm suggesting we can find it in the acts of others, an unshakeable proof of faith.

How you interpret it internally is entirely up to you.

Regardless - we can only hope we are interpreting it correctly.

[Mariana]

25. "...an unshakeable proof of faith."

No one is denying that faith exists, that people can have faith, or that faith can and does influence the behaviour of the faithful. I don't understand why you keep arguing that point.

[longship]

14. Like when people fly airliners into buildings?

Sorry, my friend. I have no intention of hanging my hat on such a thing as faith. As Gershwin wrote: "It ain't necessarily so."

I will stick to methodological naturalism, science.

[Mariana]

15. No one denies the existence of faith. No one.

Faith is absolutely a real thing.

[Angry Dragon]

46. all that proves is faith

[Mariana]

26. I said in another thread

That it would be great for Jesus to come back to earth and perform all the same miracles he supposedly did before, but under controlled conditions and allowing testing by skeptical scientists. Benny Hinn style miracles wouldn't do.

He told Thomas to poke and prod him, so Thomas would know he was for real. Why not everyone else too?

Let him turn water into wine, stop thunderstorms, walk on water, feed thousands of people with a small amount of groceries, shrivel a fig tree with words, raise a rotting corpse from the dead, reattach amputated appendages, and so on.

He should probably skip the miracles that are cruel, like casting demons into innocent pigs.

That would go a long way toward convincing unbelievers that something supernatural is going on. It would get the attention of religious people who aren't Christian, too.

[MineralMan]

4. I'm sorry, but that's pretty much nonsense.

We have a very narrow, distorted view of of ourselves, really. There is no proof of deities in that.

Unless, that is, those deities are products of our own minds. Human beings have created a multitude of deities in their own images. Hundreds of gods. Thousands of gods. According to your statements, all of them are real. Some of them are supposed to be the "only gods," and there are many of those as well.

The acts of humans encompass a full range of things, from a mother's love for her child to genocide. I'm not looking for the acts of humans to provide evidence of anything but the variations in human behavior. Certainly not evidence that any deities exist. None are needed to explain human behavior.

[yallerdawg]

8. There's a big difference between "I don't know" and "Damn certain."

People die for their faith - everyday. Unquestioningly.

That is a fact.

I'm just saying, there are facts external to ourselves, if we look.

Your argument - an age old argument - is in how to "interpret" the facts.

[longship]

10. And people crash airplanes into buildings for their faith, too.

So I don't see where you are going here.

[yallerdawg]

16. What is the fastest growing religion on earth now?

The one that crashes airplanes into buildings.

Acts of faith seen in others ARE seen as proof and evidence.

[longship]

17. I find that an odious argument.

How is that any argument to support this thing you call faith?

Fact: People fly airliners into buildings based on their faith.
Conclusion: Faith is a religious asset.
BZZZZT! Wrong!

People also murder gynecologists because of their faith. Obviously to some that is also a positive value for faith.

Myself, when I hear "faith" I think "Now I'm going to hear some pure rubbish." That opinion has never let me down.

Gershwin had it right:

[MineralMan]

19. Probably the fastest growing is non-belief.

That would be my best estimation. Still acts of faith are evidence of nothing but faith. They do not provide evidence that there is reason for such faith.

So, non-belief is probably the most rapidly growing thing, not any of the organized religions, I think.

[Voltaire2]

41. You would be wrong.

Islam is growing fastest and the religious in general are outpacing the non religious because of birth rates.

[MineralMan]

11. Facts are facts. They have evidence of being facts.

I'm sorry, but people dying for their "faith" do not demonstrate the truth of their beliefs. It simply means that people will fight for things they believe, whether those things are true or not.

My argument is that there are no facts to support belief in deities and that all arguments to the contrary are based on faulty premises.

Faith is evidence of nothing other than the fact that some people will believe almost anything. Faith is a real thing, but that doesn't mean that what one has faith in actually exists. Faith is just belief in something that lacks evidence. Things that have actual evidence do not require faith. They simply are and can be observed as being what they are.

[yallerdawg]

20. Then, there's this story.

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

[MineralMan]

21. Written by someone who was not there.

Again, a tautology. It says this in the Bible, so it must be true. I've read thousands of books. Many of them were works of fiction. What you posted was written by someone who did not actually see this happen. You assume it is true, because you have faith that it is true. I think it is not true, but is rather a story designed to bolster faith.

Words are not evidence, especially words written long after the supposed incident occurred.

[yallerdawg]

22. This is from the historical Apostle/Disciple John - who is giving a firsthand account.

If you consider it all to be a fiction, then all are fictional characters and there really was no one there.

The same argument can be made about Stanley Kubrick's version of landing on the moon.

If you start from the position of it never happened, any argument is possible.

If you keep an open mind - there is a compelling logic and narrative here.

If an all-powerful being creates a people with free will and self-determination, that creator has to leave a reasonable doubt. That, after all, IS the choice. If we knew for certain, why the hell would we even live our lives and not go live with God (as Bill Maher says)?

[MineralMan]

23. No, actually, it is not a firsthand account.

Not at all. It seems highly unlikely to have been written by John at all. The oldest fragment of it dates from the 2nd century. Evidence. We have no evidence that it was written by that person.

You may believe that it was written by John. You may have faith in that. Neither your belief or faith, however, are evidence of anything. There is a scrap of a codex from the second century.

[yallerdawg]

29. You don't BELIEVE it is a firsthand account...

because you don't BELIEVE the sourcing.

If a disciple/apostle tells his story, his testimony, does he have to actually transcribe it and notarize it himself, or can it just be his firsthand account, whether we see his original document or not?

Obviously, a great many of his contemporaries considered it to be reputably sourced - just like Muhammad, John Smith, L. Ron Hubbard today.

[MineralMan]

34. You're right. I don't.

Why should I?

[marylandblue]

39. You can't compare the record of any ancient figure with any modern figure

For someone like L. Ron Hubbard or even Joseph Smith, we have extensive multiple sources from both supporters and detractors, original documents, photos or paintings and so on.

For even the best documented ancient figures, like Julius Caesar, we have much less to go on. For Jesus we have even less than that. We have four accounts of his life. Not only are none of them notarized, they aren't even signed. The attributions we have are from people living over a century after the documents were purportedly written. And in the ancient world, without printing or publishing houses, and few public libraries, forgery was rampant. So many people wrote works in Galen's name during his own lifetime that he actually wrote book called "How to Tell if a Book was Written by Galen."

The earliest available versions of the Gospels are at best, copies of copies of copies with clear evidence of textual changes. Three of them read like they were cribbed from one another. Even those three contradict each other in certain points, as if the writers felt free to embelish or speculate as they saw fit.

We have no information on what any of Jesus' contemporaries actually thought of him. We can assume they mostly didn't think much of him at all, because the greatest miracles in the New Testament don't even get a passing mention anywhere else. You'd think that if 500 people saw a dead man come to life (as described by Matthew), then that might have created quite a stir. But not even Matthew's friends Luke and Mark seemed to find it worthy of notice, let alone a neutral or hostile 3rd party (even if only to say it didn't happen).

Even worse, there were other Gospels written at the same time, by other Christian groups that express different points of view. When the group that developed into the Catholic Church gained power, they actively suppressed those other groups and their "heretical" Gospels, so only a few survived to today. We have no idea many different stories of Jesus simply disappeared.

One of the most well known events in ancient history is Julius Caesar's death on March 15, 44 BC. But would I bet my immortal soul on that being absolutely true? Absolutely not!

[yallerdawg]

43. 2000 years from now...

if we have no record of John Smith and L. Ron Hubbard, will "future us" dismiss them as fictional creations?

We have "no clear record" of an underground religious movement punishable by death for a century?

If the bar is 100% scientific certainty or grounds for dismissal, then climate change, evolution, landing on the moon, and autism caused by vaccines are all in legitimate doubt by this standard.

500 people watch Criss Angel perform magic right before their eyes - 2 shows daily. Not a stir.

[marylandblue]

44. You are making ridiculous comparisons

Last edited Fri Sep 1, 2017, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Comparing scientific truths to historical truths is non-sensical. Scientific truths can be verified by independent experiment and observation. If every scientific paper and textbook disappeared today, and all we had left was the scientific method, all of science could be reconstructed simply by using the method. On the other hand, if all of our historical records disappeared, we could not reconstruct history using historical methods.

Once an historical record disappears, it's gone forever. And 95% of the ancient record has disappeared. So ancient history will never have anything close to the certainty provided by science. However, based on the records now available to us, I think it is likely that Jesus existed and started a messianic movement, but unlikely he performed any miracles or rose from the dead. That's because "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." For Jesus' miracles, the proof isn't even ordinary, it's vague, fragmentary and self-contradictory. Does God really want you to bet your soul on how good (or bad) of a historian you are?

[trotsky]

45. So much misinformation in one post. Sigh.

Sure, if we lose documentation of those individuals, future people may indeed consider them fictional. And that would reasonable to do so. However, that is simply speculation and has no relevance to the *actual* lack of documentation of your Jesus fellow.

We have "no clear record" of an underground religious movement punishable by death for a century?

Please take a moment and understand this: no one is questioning the history of Christianity. We know the religion existed. We *don't* know for sure if the Jesus described in the bible did. You are either sincerely confused, or are willfully trying to do a bait-and-switch to compare the documented history of the religion versus the undocumented existence of its alleged founder.

If the bar is 100% scientific certainty or grounds for dismissal, then climate change, evolution, landing on the moon, and autism caused by vaccines are all in legitimate doubt by this standard.

I don't know if you thought this would be a shocking statement but that's the way science works, you know. There is always room for doubt - if you have a better theory, by all means put it forth. But again this is a complete red herring when it comes to the utter lack of independent documentation of your Jesus.

Additionally, someone saying "you aren't 100% sure of this" doesn't mean "I am therefore totally supported in believing whatever I want."

[marylandblue]

27. So it has a compelling logic that can be doubted?

what kind of logic is that?

[yallerdawg]

28. The whole basis of free will...

is to have "faith in the absence of proof."

If we absolutely knew there was a God, that our lives and destinies were in fact ordered and predetermined, we would not have 'free will.' Would there even be a point to living?

[marylandblue]

30. Yes, because our feeling that we want to continue to live

would also be predetermined, as well as our response to God.

George: What would you like to eat tonight?
Harry: Spaghetti.
George: What if your choice was predetermined by God?
Harry: Then I definitely want spaghetti.

[yallerdawg]

31. Since I started my observations with the movie "Silence"...

there's a great movie on this subject just out - "Arrival."

There is a "paradox" here, isn't there?

[marylandblue]

32. I don't see an actual paradox here

I only see a contradiction. Supposedly God hides from us so we can have free will. But we see people who 100% believe in God act as if they have free will anyway.

[yallerdawg]

33. Choosing to require definitive proof is a choice.

Accepting proof and living God's plan is another choice.

The 'paradox' is in acknowledging God has a plan - and, in effect, choosing to not have free will.

From "Star Trek: TOS" - Khan and Milton: "I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven." There's our free will.

[marylandblue]

37. still don't see the paradox

You choose to believe certain things. You can choose to believe things that are mutually exclusive. You can choose to believe that God both exists and doesn't exist at the same time. You can choose to believe that God is both 3 and 1. That doesn't make it a paradox. It just means you believe two different things.

[yallerdawg]

38. Then you are assigning no value to the choice, as if it's neutral.

Not believing in God is as momentous a decision as believing in God, but you can't have it both ways.

Some philosophies consider this "the nausea of existence," not having or choosing a purpose and not having any proof and certainty that one choice is more correct than any other choice - we somehow have to validate "an authentic life."

The "leap of faith" is a wholehearted, committed choice - either way.

The 'paradox' remains - if you believe in God, the all-powerful omnipotent being, the alpha omega, 'free will' is actually out the door. Your story is and has been written for all eternity.

[marylandblue]

40. No, because

If he is omnipotent, he can choose not to use his power, so he isn't necessarily controlling me. If he is omniscient, he knows what I will do, but that doesn't affect my free will.

A leap of faith is a whole other thing. It isn't about giving up your free will, it is about using it. It doesn't assume you have no free will, it assumes you are "condemned to be free" in the words of another philosopher, and no power in the world, not even God himself can take this burden from you.

[Voltaire2]

42. actually not believing in gods is the default state for humans

people have to be taught to believe in gods, which is why all religions demand that the children of their followers be indoctrinated in their religion.

[Cartoonist]

35. That's funny

I just read the story the movie was based on and there was no deity present in any form. Sounds like the filmmakers used a lot of poetic license.

[yallerdawg]

36. "Story of Your Life."

Those aliens weren't mysterious god-like entities in relation to us with their transformative technological and language systems?

And the whole notion of "free will" - if we know what is, was, and what is to come - isn't that the story?

[Cartoonist]

52. What was their motive?

Everythings a Rorshach test. You see God everywhere, I guess.

Oh, and what believers call free will is actually duress.

[Angry Dragon]

47. why does god need man??

[MineralMan]

48. To worship and obey the deity, apparently.

But that begs the question: What sort of deity needs constant affirmation?

[Angry Dragon]

49. not one I would want to worship

[marylandblue]

50. One modelled after ancient middle eastern absolute monarchs

Those ancient kings and emperors demanded absolute obedience and obsequiousness.

[guillaumeb]

24. Recommended.

And agreed.

[Eliot Rosewater]

51. Ever see this movie?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1058017/

For those who dont believe in you know what, it is a must.