I'm not sure one should dismiss God anymore

[MikeH]

Comparing the believe in Santa Claus with the faith in God is as stupid and ridiculous as claiming that the Bible contains a scientific valid account of creation.

There are many many many valid arguments one can use against theism or Christianity, but the Santa Claus one is one of the most silly ones. (on par with the alternates like the flying spaghetti monster)

The problem with the flying spaghetti monster is that it really is just as plausible. We don't think Christianity is silly only because we've grown up with it. If you think about it, it is quite silly.

[MikeH]

Parents tell child at a young age that there's a guy called "Santa Claus" who will bring them presents if they're good. Santa Claus is somehow omniscient and has magical powers. Child believes it because they're wired to believe what they're told.

Parents tell child at a young age that there's a guy called "Jesus" who will bring them eternal salvation if they're good. Jesus is somehow omniscient and has magical powers. Child believes it because they're wired to believe what they're told.

What's the difference?

[Meticulous Man]

No, but that doesn't say anything about the moon landing's credibility. The argument you presented against the term "atheist" works equally well for pretty much any other term. Which is to say, it doesn't work. "Big" implies "small," "yes" implies "no," "antidisestablishmentarianism" implies "disestablishmentarianism," and so on, but that says nothing about either position.

But how do you prove to someone that the moon landing took place? They could come up with an endless series of counter-arguments and choosing what to believe would finally be a question of taste.

[Robert]

Repeating the Santa Spaghetti Nonsense doesn't make it true.
But I'll just repeat what I said earlier, there are many valid arguments against Christianity or theism in general, the Santa Spaghetti Nonsense is a joke compared to all the sane arguments one can make.

In fact the argument: "MikeH doesn't exist because something I just made up doesn't exist either" makes as much sense.

[giblets]

Not my problem if you don't have faith in the flying spaghetti monster. All who have heard of Him but decided His existence is pretty unlikely will suffer for eternity. It's their own damn fault.

[David Floyd]

In fact the argument: "MikeH doesn't exist because something I just made up doesn't exist either" makes as much sense.

But that would be a stupid argument. I know MikeH exists, because I've met him in person, as have many other people here.

The argument is more like "The existence of God is JUST AS LIKELY as the existence of the Tooth Fairy", in the sense that I can't disprove either one to everyone's satisfaction, but I can show that neither makes much sense based on science and logic, which are about the only things we have to go on.

[Provost Harrison]

I've dismissed God. He was a lousy worker and was getting paid too much for it!

[Barnabas]

The problem with the flying spaghetti monster is that it really is just as plausible. We don't think Christianity is silly only because we've grown up with it. If you think about it, it is quite silly.

The issue about Christianity is that many people who seem to have known Christ himself, seem to have had pretty horrible deaths in the first years of the Christian Era (because of their beliefs). It makes it hard to believe that they would have died for an invention of theirs.

The most rational explanation for me would be that Jesus was not properly crucified, that he somehow survived, and then fooled everyone into believing that he resurrected

other explanations would be they ended up believing their lies, or they had continued with their lies for so long that they didn't mind dying because of pride issues

I have faith in the resurrection btw, what I posted above is what I think with my cold head

[Provost Harrison]

Ever heard of Chinese whispers? All these stories were completely word of mouth, past along verbally and obscured by the mists of time...

[Ben Kenobi]

Hypothetical deity creates universe 7000-10,000 years ago but makes it look like it's 14 billion years old, even with things that are completely unnecessary to fake (like fossils) to add to the appearance of great age.

One, where does the bible say that the universe was created 7000 to 10 thousand years ago?

Two, what the bible does say is that someone some unspecified time ago had it revealed to him that God created the universe in 7 yodhs (days/epochs).

That's it. The dates come from folks trying to add up all the years in the lifespans between each of them, and arriving at a number around 4000 years. Assuming that the genealogies are complete, and that the overlap in ages is correct. Nowhere does the bible teach that there were only 4000 years between Adam and Christ. And that doesn't mean that there were that many years as we understand them between Christ and the creation of the universe.

The Genesis account is very unspecific. It's not even clear whether it's days of creation, or days of revelations. "It was evening and then it was morning, the first day".

So you are arguing against a straw man here Boris.

He then creates beings, but via divine revelation written down in his officially-sanctioned holy book, he gives them a fictional account of how he created everything that if read plainly says the universe and the Earth was created in 6 days some 7-10,000 years ago.

Except it never says that. It never says 7000 to 10 thousand years ago Boris.

He also says later that only people who have faith in him and believe he exists get saved.

Actually, he attempts to destroy mankind in the flood sparing one righteous family that built a boat to survive, from whom all the rest of humanity descends.

So yeah, eventually he gets around to this whole ' salvation' deal.

Now, these beings grow in knowledge and they discover all the abundant evidence that the universe is 14 billion years old, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, that life evolved over billions of years, that there was no worldwide great flood as described in the holy book, etc. So all the evidence shows that what the holy book says (if taken at face value) is not real.

One, the Holy book does not explicitly give a date for these things. It's not like you flip to Genesis 1:1 and see a date four score and ten thousand years ago. It's not the fricking Gettysburg Address.

Neither does it say that the flood was worldwide.

Ergo, lots of the beings (the ones who engage in critical thinking) make the perfectly logical conclusion that the deity described in the holy book doesn't exist, because the attributes and actions ascribed to it in that very book aren't factual.

They do so by claiming that the bible says things that it actually doesn't say.

Then, by that deity's own rules, those people don't get saved, because they trust that the evidence the deity planted is true. Doesn't that seem pretty, I don't know, unfair? Deceptive?

You are making a leap here. Where does scripture say that unless you believe in the account in Genesis, that you will not be saved? No. It says, as you correctly stated, that unless you believe in him you will not be saved. How does the issue of whether he created the universe in 10 thousand years or in 14, or 10 or 20 billion years (depending on the source, ) have any impact on the answer that it was still Him who created the Universe?

How does the question as to whether the flood inundiated part or the whole of the earth address the point that God brought the flood to destroy mankind? Men don't live everywhere, even today, Boris.

That is not a "rare" belief.

Where does this Christian book say you must believe in it or be damned? I don't see it.

Are you ****ing serious?! As a Christian, you'd be perfectly okay if the Jesus story never actually happened?

The proper analogy would be the question, "Does the question as to whether the crucifixion occurred in 30, 33, 28 or 35 AD have any bearing to the essential facts of the crucifixion? No. That is the point you are making here. You are asserting that the fact that the universe is believed to be 10, 14, or 20 billion years (depending on who you talk to, ) automatically makes all of the creation account in Genesis false. This is a bad argument. The account in Genesis doesn't say anywhere that this all occurred 10 thousand years ago.

I'm pretty confident that I understand the importance of the covenants and the blood sacrifice that Jesus supposedly made. If that's all a lie, fictional information planted, I'd say that has a *huge* theological impact.

Absolutely. Now, my point is that the questions you raise regarding the 'totality of the flood', and the 'days of creation' are not essential to the Christian faith. Full stop.

Faith in God is about trust, and how can you trust a God that fakes the most critical aspects of his divine revelation to his beings?

Except that they aren't the most critical aspects of his divine revelation. That's the point that Jon is trying to hammer home. You've correctly understood the most important parts, so why are you nipping around the edges? This makes no sense to me. If you can quote chapter and verse why Christ dying for man saves us from our sins, then you have understood the primary message of the Gospel.

What if he's deceiving you about other things, such as being saved at all? Che posited a while back, what if god is actually evil and all the hope that is brought about by faith is just a trick, but when we die everyone is damned, regardless of faith? If you suggest god can deceive his creations at will like you are saying, you can't discount that possibility at all.

This is a good question. Now if God were in fact evil, why would we know what is good and what is evil? We still know there is a good out there. If God were truly evil, wouldn't he make it so that there was no good, and no knowledge of the good? Only Evil? Or perhaps we would regard evil as good and good is evil, because God is after all evil. See where I'm going here?

[Ben Kenobi]

The fact that deeds done in history can sometimes be relevant today doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with the matter at hand.

It does when the question is, did Jesus die and resurrect from the dead.

[Hauldren Collider]

I have Ben on ignore so I have to extrapolate:

No Ben, I won't marry you, I don't swing that way. Alby's still single though.

[David Floyd]

It does when the question is, did Jesus die and resurrect from the dead.

You are making the assumption that that did, in fact happen. In essence you are assuming that God exists as a predicate for an argument about whether God exists. Either that, or you are telling me that it was within the medical science abilities of people living ~2000 years ago to bury (well, entomb) a guy who had been crucified, wait three days, and then go bring him back to life.

[Ben Kenobi]

David, look at it from the historical perspective. The sources which do observe the resurrection say two things.

One, that Christ died, and rose from the dead.

Two, that the Jews argued that the disciples stole the body.

This is very strong evidence that in fact, Christ's tomb was empty. It's also strong evidence that Jesus was crucified, that he died on the cross, and that he was buried.

The Jews don't say, "Jesus is alive, and that he walked out"

They say that the disciples carried out the body.

They presuppose, as hostile witnesses that he died on the cross, and that he was buried in the tomb.

They also presuppose that the tomb was empty.

So what are the plausible explanations as to how they managed to smuggle the body out, with an armed guard, a huge stone over the opening to the tomb, all without disturbing the burial wrappings?

Peter says that he believed that Christ was dead. That he was gone and that he was wrong about him being the Messiah. He isn't convinced, until after he runs out after the women who found the tomb empty and looked at the burial wrappings.

Why, if he were lying about all this, does he admit that he believed that he was wrong about Christ?

[giblets]

If his disciples couldn't get past the armed guard and the huge stone then how did Jesus do it? Magic? I guess that works if you assume God exists.