Friday

God exists, therefore, God exists

I was having an enjoyable conversation with an anonymous Christian commenter here on my Easter post.

They were trying their best to answer some tricky questions and find evidence for Christianity when this one popped up.

The question was:
"What makes Christianity's obvious inaccuracies any more credible than other religions?"

And I got this wonderful circular argument as a response:
"Jesus said he was the way, the truth, and the life...AND he rose from the dead. I'll believe Him before anyone else."

This exemplifies a far too common argument. I have heard both family and friends make it in similar forms. It's a fallacy that only makes sense in the mind of someone who starts with the conclusion that God exists. If you already know God exists, then why not look to his infallible word to back that up? Problem is, it holds no water when you look at it from a neutral perspective.

If you are religious, please try to step back from your faith and legitimately ask the question: is my religion more likely to be man-made or true, and what makes it so different from other religions that we all agree are man-made?



As you can probably guess, I'm still waiting for the evidence.
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By Infidel at 1:39 AM

25 comments:

  1. Excellent post. Those of such faith have a hard time thinking freely and objectively.

    Coincidentally, I wrote a similar post yesterday (though it was not about a conversation with a Christian it did draw comment from one).
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  2. You should have told him the extreme ages of the ancients were a common trope of early middle-eastern mythologies. The Sumerians kings were far worse.
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  3. Richard Dawkins advocates not engaging with these non-thinkers, although I sometimes find myself having lengthy conversations with people who have been brainwashed into blocking all forms of rational reasoning.
    I know I am wasting my time but I still end up having conversations with them and know I will hear the same things over and over again.

    Great post, by the way.
    Regards,
    Zee- Black Woman Thinks
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  4. I disagree with Dawkins on that point. I think deprogramming is often a slow and sometimes unconscious process and can benefit from encouragement along the way. Its disheartening to come up against brick walls of faith and rarely see results, but judging from my experiences and the de-conversion stories of other bloggers, having challenges to one's faith can eventually lead non-thinkers to rethink.

    You are right, sometimes it is probably a waste of time, but engaging in constructive dialogue is the only humanitarian approach.

    Glad you liked the post.

    All hail the Napkin!
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  5. It's all fun and games until someone gets accidentally converted to Napkinism!
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  6. It is all fun and games until some uses God to wipe up a spill, and throws him out!
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  7. Larro said...
    Excellent post. Those of such faith have a hard time thinking freely and objectively

    Black Woman Thinks said...
    Richard Dawkins advocates not engaging with these non-thinkers
    - - - - -
    Yes, you folks sure do a lot of thinking but not much DOING...that's right, I said it, atheists are NON-DOERS. Now let's see you prove something that no one can see...atheists volunteering time and money to help others.
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  8. I agree with Anon. We need more atheist activists out there!
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  9. Yeah, Anon is right. Maybe I will Invest time and money in a blog aimed at helping people by promoting free-thought...
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  10. PLEASE. YOU PEOPLE WITH YOUR TINY CRANIAL
    CAPACITY. FREE-THOUGHT, NON-DOERS(WHO ACTUALLY USES GRAMMER IN THAT WAY). BLAISE
    PASCAL, EINSTIEN, C.S LEWIS TO NAME A FEW,
    WERE CHRISTIANS. THAT IS RIGHT BLACK WOMAN,
    C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N-S.....BUT, I AM SURE YOU
    WOULD NOT ENGAGE ANY OF THIS GENTLEMAN, BECAUSE, THEY ARE "NON-THINKERS". MY JUSTIFICATION ENSUES WHEN I READ BLOGGING ON
    SITES AS THIS ONE, AND, I FIND SO MANY PSEUDO-
    INTELLECTUALS. IT IS RIOT. PLEASE, PROVE TO
    SOMEONE OF INTELLIGENCE(MASTERS IN CHEMICAL
    ENGINEERING, B.S CHEMISTRY), THAT GOD DOES NOT
    EXIST, CAN YOU DO IT? DIDN'T THINK SO.
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  11. There's a subset of believers who are so indoctrinated they cannot come close to thinking rationally. These people would be described as non-thinkers. Pascal, Einstein, and C.S Lewis do not fall into this category.

    It is impossible to prove God does not exist, just as it is impossible to prove unicorns and faeries do not exist. The burden of proof for God's existence falls to those making the claim. Because you cannot prove otherwise, do you also believe in the flying spaghetti monster?
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  12. You slow-thinkers are as ones sliding down a precipice, refusing to take hold of a rope because you question the ropes ability to hold you. You can't see where it's tied to, so therefore it must not be tied. If someone can't fulfill the burden of proof to your satisfaction then you are the ones who actually lose. You guys are driven by ego and pride; Christians operate on humility and faith.
    Until you have an atheist saviour die and come back to tell us you were right, you will nervously await the only thing in your lives you can be sure of....your eventual death.
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  13. Thank you Anonymous, for providing us with such a poetic collection of Abusive ad hominem fallacies to complement a post on begging the question fallacies.

    If not to our satisfaction, what burden of proof has Christianity met? I really want to know.
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  14. ....I really want to know.
    - - - - - -
    No, I don't think you do. I have presented as much evidence to support the existence of God as you have to believe in the existence of global warming or love or the dark side of the moon. You'll see it when you believe it, but you don't want to believe it, do you?

    Part of our existence transcends the physical world and that is the only arena you are willing to explore. Humans are spiritual beings and you ignore a large portion of what constitutes being alive and human, opting for the scientific data only. Scientific data alone is enough to draw an open minded person to the belief in a creator, but unfortunately humans can also be stubborn. Fortunately, God can change minds and hearts...I have seen it myself.
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  15. I'm not sure how many of the Anonymous posts are yours, but apparently I must have missed your comments with the actual evidence in them.

    For the record, most of my childhood was spent as a devout Christian. I have seen and believed it.

    Enough scientific data for an open minded person to believe there is a creator? Impressive. Can I see this data? Open minded by this definition? Or by open minded do you mean willing to believe things on faith?
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  16. Can I see this data?
    - - - - -
    Yes, you do see it all the time. It's everywhere you look. All of creation shows the work of the Creator.

    You're good with numbers. Run this one.
    What should the population of the earth be if humans were here 2 million years ago....please show your work.
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  17. Funny you should say that "It's everywhere you look", my most recent post Concocting the ultimate viral idea listed "Everything in the world is evidence for idea" as one of the elements.

    I must mention again, even if we don't know how something works, that doesn't mean we should explain it with a creator. Science has explained many natural phenomena that were once explained with God. What makes you think that trend wont continue? Not that there is really anything left to explain with God. If you persoanally believe it or not, science has very credible explanations for how life came to be and through science we know much about the universe.

    According to the US Census Bureu the world population is 6,781,241,645. What are you getting at?
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  18. Not that there is really anything left to explain with God.
    - -- - - - - -
    Where did science come from? Science? Everything that was once considered supernatural and later defined by a scientific process doesn't eliminate the Creator at all. It just reveals more about the Creators creation.

    The present world population reflects a growth rate consistent with a starting point of less than 10,000 years ago.
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  19. So you are explaining existence using God? You are creating something incredibly complex to explain something simple we already know exists? How does that help explain anything? How do you explain God? See my post Occam's Chainsaw .

    As for the world population, You can't take recent exponential growth statistics and apply them backwards through history. We know growth rates were much slower until recently (0.032 to 0.057% per year for most of recorded history). There are many many different factors involved in limiting a species population. You apply the same thinking to say, mosquitoes, and we'd be literally wading through them by now.

    How about you show your working?
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  20. You apply the same thinking to say, mosquitoes, and we'd be literally wading through them by now
    - - - -
    Don't you mean fruit flies? Here, I'll show my work:

    I love exponential growth when used by those unaware of the basics for the derivation. You can use the same system to show that we are up to our armpits in fruit flies every 3 years or so...
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  21. Yeah, but mosquitos are scarier.
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  22. But frankly, sir, if we analyze everything freely and objectively, we cannot conclude anything. All matters of life boil down to an endless argument that has no secure answers. What we do know is the complexity of life and how very impossible it is to have evolved on its own. Everything around us points to some sort of intelligent design, which can mean any sort of God-figure. it boils down to a matter of preference. would you rather put your life and existence in the hands of chance, or the hands of God. In my opinion, God makes more sense. Religion doesn't make perfect sense, and i don' understand how one can claim to be the one true religion.oh! and Mr. infadel, your not actually attempting to prove anything, your just trying to disprove religion. that is a dishonorable way to debate. The only reason you seem so correct is because you have already denied, with all intentions, the existence of a God. If i deny the existence of cheese, no matter what you show me or feed me, i can always deny it with some irrational statement. Just keep that in mind when you argue, you must PROVE YOUR POINT, not merely disprove the others point
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  23. I think many peoples problem are the fact that a single human being simply cannot comprehend how vast the amount of time that has passed since life evolved on earth is.
    It's even impossible to try to work into your brain that "only" 1.000 years ago Vikings discovered America.
    I certainly cannot comprehend just how many years 1.000 years is, let alone millions of years.
    But sure, believing in evolution is also a form of faith, since I really can't say that I've witnessed it for myself in the short time I've walked the earth.
    But why I choose to believe in science, rather than an almighty god and/or gods that supposedly created everything, is simple.
    I am a living, breathing person that thinks for myself and don't just sit back and let "God" test me or provide for me. That is probably my main tiff with (certain) religious people. That they simply "give away" the life they have because the believe "God" is the one running the show anyway.
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  24. How is it dishonourable to just be out to disprove someone elses point? I don't call it dishonourable, I would call this the scientific method.

    ... Ok I get why you don't understand that.
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  25. I don't believe in a flying bearded man in the sky who watches my every move and sends people who think rationally to a lake of fire to burn forever mainly because that is psychotic.
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