Atheists, what needs to happen so that...

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A thousand years or so ago some odd egotistical maniac from an interstellar civilization could have stepped out of his spacecraft into a city or village of that time and shot off a gun or demonstrated a TV or driven around the village in his motorcycle and be declared a god. The village elders could write up the event that a god had appeared and no doubt it would have been passed down from generation to generation and there would be no doubt that god had visited Earth.

Today the visitor would have had to demonstrate teleportation or changing lead to gold or some other technological advance that may still be in the future and gullible people woulds be convinced that a god had visited.

People are gullible.

Wonder if we cloned a human, and that person wasn't just an automaton whether it would help?
Na! God was watchin' and felt sorry for the poor fella, it wasn't his fault he was cloned, so he gave him a spare soul he just had laying around to help him out.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

ruveyn

I am an agnostic, and I don't believe anything that isn't proven. So, prove anything supernatural exists (or doesn't).

~Kate

I believe in God, but I'm not religious. All I did was go to church once with friends. If you believe, great. If you don't believe, it's ok with me.

-Physical suffering. We can already nearly completely numb pain, but one day we'll be able to do it in such a manner that people can function normally while in that state.
-If you saw the entire universe (all there is, unless you're going down the multiverse route) you would see God, or a lack thereof. If you didn't, what would you do?
-If they are his laws, and the Bible is his word, then consider these. According to the Bible, π (the number pi) is 3, we shouldn't be able to see most stars, because they were only created 10,000 years ago, and a single man can make a ship 450 feet long using basic tools and wood without outside help.
-Soul, if I die and come back to life does my soul come back down or do I get a fresh one? If I can regen can I join the prophet fraternity?

A Google Scholar search for "evolution altruism cooperation" gives me 10 pages of results. A search in a scientific data base for "evolution AND (altruism OR cooperation)" gives me 3844 hits. I conclude that you are misinformed.

If you follow AG's suggestion and buy Shermer's book, I offer you a deal: I get the book as well, and we discuss it here, one chapter per month. At the end, you tell me whether you still claim morals can't have an evolutionary basis, and what arguments you have.


You confuse is and ought, and you are wrong about what evolutionary theory predicts.

I didn't suggest buying the book, but I did bring it up to make it clear that it isn't as if nobody is addressing this, and because I have read and do own that book. It is also a popular book, and one that a lot of people have read and enjoy, and it is reasonably respectable. That would be an interesting discussion though. I certainly would recommend it to anybody who isn't educated on this possibility.

The thread on space exploration brought up a concept that would certainly convince me:

If we were to encounter a sentient alien race, and that race had a religion which agreed in all major particulars with any religion on Earth, I would have to conclude that this religion contained "the truth".

Especially if they were indistinguishable from humans who were created in the image of God. The likelihood of this, considering the infinite variabilities of the ecologies of different planets, is as about as close to zero as you can get.

It's believed that we were created with the purpose of having free will. Obviously, destoying the planet, killing people, etc etc is taking the whole free will thing a bit too far. To be honest, at the moment, you don't really have free will. You can't say what you want in public, you can't do what you want, there's places you can't smoke and drink, you have to follow rules wherever you go, you have to work to live, sometimes to the point where you live to work. If what is believed is true, then there will be far more free will in the new system. If you read the bible properly, then you see that when you die you don't go to heaven, or hell. The bible has gone through many changes over the years, but the original scriptures still exist. They've been translated perfectly (as in grammatically too so it says the same thing in both languages) and it quite clearly says that people don't go to heaven, as a matter of fact nothing happens when you die. God gave up the life of his only son so that we could live the life that God intended, everlasting life on an earthly paradise with free will. And every one will be perfect human beings too, so we won't think bad thoughts or do bad things. And before you go thinking 'well who's to say what's bad or what's good?' we were all created in God's image, not literally, but it means that we are supposed to think as he does, feel as he does, hold the same morals that he does. (I say he, neither man nor woman)
The way this will happen is that people that have given God a the whole thing a chance will survive armegeddon. People who have just denied it at the first instance will not. People who haven't had a chance (new born babies, people who haven't been shown the right stuff) will survive. And then a thousand year period of judgement will take place. This is judgement day. This is when God will decide wether you're fit for the new system, if not then you will die. If so, you will live forever in paradise.

Dunno if I believe it yet, but I'm studying it.

This is actually what the Bible says, and it's annoying when people get passionate about what the bible doesn't actually say, like they believe the wrong thing.

Sorry about the rediculously long post. I felt it needed a long explanation.

Dogenegra, may I assume that you grew up in a strongly Jehovah's Witnesses background? Also that you generally haven't talked to anybody serious in theology who was not a Jehovah's Witness? The reason I ask is that you've also stated:



Now, obviously, every other Christian in existence staunchly disagrees with this statement(to the point where they'd even brand you a heretic), and every Christian who believes in hell disagrees with the earlier statement. Yet, you state these things, not as if they are matters of debate, but rather matters of fact. Now, I am going to guess that you aren't big into theology so much as you are somewhat interested, but that you haven't debated or studied different opinions at length so much as just been taught the Jehovah's Witness view as fact and only given opposing views as strawmen to be knocked down, and the reason that is is because usually people who have studied a lot of different things and who engage them in an honest manner are more cautious with their statements.

As it stands, the case for hell is a case based upon the interpretation of certain words in scripture, so to say "the Bible doesn't say that" often requires a much stronger view on what is said than perhaps could even be granted by a person who is interpreting something. (translation is inductive, not deductive)

The Bible will never persuade me of anything. It is the worst kind of contaminated evidence.

Well I was actually brought up in a strong christian environment. I've only been looking into the Jehova's Witness thing for a few months. I'm not sure wether I believe it all yet, but the fact that they have the original scriptures, and the fact that it generally makes a lot more sense, logically and theorectically, lead me to believe that they read the bible properly. And they don't change any of the wording like other religions based on the bible do. For instance, i think it's catholics that say that saying Jehova is blaphemus, cause it's too holy or something, when as a matter of fact, the bible states that God wants to be called Jehova and wants people to use the name.

I just think that all the evidence regarding the reading of it leans towards to Witness' side more than any other.

But what I don't get is... why does it matter if they read the Bible properly or not? There should be bigger questions - why do you believe in the Bible at all? Why do you think it's a credible source for anything? Why do you think it has any relevance to your life and the modern world?

Last edited by KaiG on 21 Jul 2010, 1:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Umm.... they only have the same scriptural resources as other groups I thought, as they are only a recently developed Protestant group, but not one that is based upon archaeological study.

As for changes in the wording, that's a matter of speculation of course. Jehovah's witnesses have their own interpretation of the original text, and one that many people don't believe seeing it as distorting the text.