Is there such a thing as an atheist?

[Cycel]

What are your objections?

They are many and I would hardly know where to begin, but I could start, I suppose, with the discussion that Nl and I are having over the nature of the vault of heaven, or the vault of the sky, as written of in Genesis 1.

My view is that Genesis 1 represents an ancient cosmology. Part of that cosmology requires that the dome of the sky be hard to hold back the waters above. Keep in mind the scripture says, "... darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.... And God said, 'Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters' " (Genesis 1: 1-6). That dome is the sky. In the dome are windows to let water through when it rains and those windows were all opened at the time of the flood. The waters in this scenario did not have to cover the entire spherical Earth. Noah's flood only needed to fill the area under the dome, like filling a snow globe.

There is evidence for this view, but this is where I would start. Below is a diagram of the Hebrew conception of the universe as described in Genesis.

 

[mustaphadrink]

I hope that clears up your misunderstanding.

There was no misunderstanding. I responded to what you wrote.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Alternate translation: But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. (Daniel 12:4 KJV)

The growth of knowledge was once linear (red line) but it has become exponential (green curve).

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What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul. OR what shall it profit a man if he knows everything and ends up in hell.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Don't redefine a word. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a deity. That's it.

Thankyou for your opinion. I will make a note of it and continue to point out the tremendous amount of faith an atheist needs to believe what they do.

 

[mustaphadrink]

God exists and must have had a beginning.

PROOF PLEASE.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Mustaphadrink, you cannot claim that everything that exists has a beginning and then exclude one item alone from your list. It demonstrates your willingness to force a round object through a square hole. You do the work yourself of undermining your own credibility. I'll just leave you to it.

Who says so? You? As you are blinded by satan, I am not exactly going to draw my wisdom from you. Only a fool would do that. FYI, I can say what I like as long as the moderators are happy with it.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Even the linear line in the graph shows an upward trend.

You do have a valid point though. When I wrote the words you are responding to it occurred to me that for most of human history, from man ape to stone age man, there would have been no upward trend in knowledge. Even through the bronze and iron ages most people would notice no steady improvement in technologies, as we see today. The constant increase in knowledge that we take for granted came about only recently in human history, and most of it is tied to the scientific method.

History does not support your vain ideas as it is replete with nations and cultures that set the world on fire with their progress in art, science, technology etc. You are only interested in pushing atheist ideas that suits your own narrative, not the truth which you can't handle.

 

[mustaphadrink]

We don't have any double blind studies to confirm this.

What a joke. You atheists will say and do anything to ignore the fact that the miraculous does and is happening.

I told the head honcho of the Australian Atheists society who wrote an article in the newspaper which said the miraculous doesn't happen. I sent him details of a baby being raised to life with all the details he needed to verify the fact. Did he follow it up? NO, he was happy in his ignorance and lies.

Now I would bet a dollar to a 100 that if a double blind study was produced which confirmed the truth, you would still find some way of rubbishing it for the simple reason satan has blinded your eyes and he ain't going to let you understand the truth in any way, shape or form because he is the father of lies and that is what he feeds you day in and day out.

 

[Cycel]

As I believe in God, I must believe what He tells me.He is Alpha and Omega. Did God have a beginning? Our earthly logic would certainly lead us to think so. How is He the beginning and the end? How can He alone be self sufficient? I have no clue.

I think this question of God's existence was the source of the first doubt that entered my mind. Where it came from I don't know. I attend Sunday school and church on a fairly regular basis. My father worked shift work and occasionally worked Sundays as well, so when he had the car we did not go to church. I remember posing this question to my best friend. She was Catholic and never missed church. Her father drove her and her mother to service each Sunday and came back to pick them up at its conclusion. I figured if anyone might know where God came from she would (we were about 10 years old, and in matters religious I considered her an expert). I think her default position was that God had always existed, but not being happy with that she proposed, for me, that being God he might have made himself. I didn't pursue it further with her, but I was less happy with a God who made himself than I was with a God that had no beginning. The whole matter niggled away at me. I didn't stop believing in God at this time, but I continued being troubled by a claim that, in my mind, made no sense.

Cycel, I am confident being in mortal bodies on a mortal planet, the eternal things are beyond our understanding. I can't explain it, nor will I try, because I simply don't know. Too many will tell you what they think, without having anything of substance to base it on. I also believe that one day these things will be understandable.

I think you’ve hit on something that must weigh on the minds of many physicists. Just how much are we able to grasp? Even the Big Bang causes me concern. I know that the evidence thus far all seems to point to it, and that the other scenario, the Steady State model of my youth, has been robbed of all its followers, but I just can’t get my head around the notion that everything arose from a singularity. How?! But, at least, there are observations that point to it being a probability and apparently the mathematical models work. Who am I to judge? I will be happy though if someone comes up with an alternative explanation that fits the observations.

God, that other hypothesis, has no observations or mathematical models to back it up. Christians will point to life or the existence of the universe itself as evidence for God, but absence of scientific explanations is not evidence for the supernatural. I have to go with those explanations that derive from things we can measure.

 

[Cycel]

Even the linear line in the graph shows an upward trend.

You do have a valid point though. When I wrote the words you are responding to it occurred to me that for most of human history, from man ape to stone age man, there would have been no upward trend in knowledge. Even through the bronze and iron ages most people would notice no steady improvement in technologies, as we see today. The constant increase in knowledge that we take for granted came about only recently in human history, and most of it is tied to the scientific method.

History does not support your vain ideas as it is replete with nations and cultures that set the world on fire with their progress in art, science, technology etc. You are only interested in pushing atheist ideas that suits your own narrative, not the truth which you can't handle.

Try addressing something from the passage of mine you referenced. Then we will have something to discus.

 

[danalee]

They are many and I would hardly know where to begin, but I could start, I suppose, with the discussion that Nl and I are having over the nature of the vault of heaven, or the vault of the sky, as written of in Genesis 1.

My view is that Genesis 1 represents an ancient cosmology. Part of that cosmology requires that the dome of the sky be hard to hold back the waters above. Keep in mind the scripture says, "... darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.... And God said, 'Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters' " (Genesis 1: 1-6). That dome is the sky. In the dome are windows to let water through when it rains and those windows were all opened at the time of the flood. The waters in this scenario did not have to cover the entire spherical Earth. Noah's flood only needed to fill the area under the dome, like filling a snow globe.

There is evidence for this view, but this is where I would start. Below is a diagram of the Hebrew conception of the universe as described in Genesis.

So this all comes down to literal theology. Well, at the time that was written, is it not impressive that a dome was at all inferred?

 

[ABMF]

I submit they are simply liars - to themselves and to those they tell that to. We have all heard the saying "there are no atheists in foxholes", well I believe that is true. I believe when facing death every man knows he is facing a meeting with his maker. People simply want to be the man in charge. They don't want to answer to anyone, or anything else. They want to believe they are the ultimate authority in their life, that they run the show. I had a thought a couple of days ago - how long would it take an atheist in a space ship, after being jettisoned out the door like so much flotsam, to call on God? That thought alone makes one feel quite insignificant.

Do you speak in the heavenly prayer language of tongues?

 

[Cycel]

I told the head honcho of the Australian Atheists society who wrote an article in the newspaper which said the miraculous doesn't happen. I sent him details of a baby being raised to life with all the details he needed to verify the fact. Did he follow it up? NO, he was happy in his ignorance and lies.

The Palm Beach Post - Google News Archive Search

The news media is quick to jump on stories of miracles, as they did with the one above in Montreal. Where is the media rush that covered the story of this resurrected baby? A baby returning to life is a big story. Who reported on the event? Can you link to a media outlet so I can examine the claims? I think you said earlier this happened in Africa? Two missionary girls reported praying over a dead baby and bringing it back to life after a witch doctor had failed to resurrect it?

I can tell you I once believed in ghosts, and back when I did I read all the books on the subject I could, especially those by Hans Holzer. I can also tell you I believed every word he wrote. Like you, I wanted so badly to believe that I accepted all the claims, at least until they started getting a bit more bizarre and I found my credulity tested. Claims of modern day miracles are not so different in quality from the claims of spiritualists. Have you ever found your credulity tested?

... satan has blinded your eyes and he ain't going to let you understand the truth in any way, shape or form because he is the father of lies and that is what he feeds you day in and day out.

The problem with miracle stories is how do you confirm the authenticity of them? Blindly accepting the claims is just not good enough

 

[Cycel]

So this all comes down to literal theology. Well, at the time that was written, is it not impressive that a dome was at all inferred?

Ah, so you don't take Genesis 1 literally. Do you accept that it is a myth?

 

[phil112]

................. Just how much are we able to grasp? Even the Big Bang causes me concern...................

Not understanding how it happened is not sufficient reason, in and of itself, to reject the possibility of God. After all, we are here. Something happened for that to occur. You haven't rejected the possibility of it happening any other way, so why single out God to disbelieve?
I know I have asked on this board before, and probably on this thread, but I will ask you personally: Have you ever read Pascal's Wager?
I find it an intriguing way of looking at the question of God from an atheistic viewpoint. Here is a link if you haven't already read it. Tell me what you think of this. It isn't a real simple, either/and/or, way to look at it.
Pascal's Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Cycel]

Just look at the last 250 years we have gone from horse and buggies to the sky's the limit. Just from when I was born 1954 we have gone from bad TV to televisions that have to be setup and programed before they play and from party line phones to cell phones. I would say that is a good indicator that knowledge has increased at a rapid pace when compared to the first several thousand years of earths history, based on my Christian view of a younger earth. So far as I can tell the prophecies of Daniel are for our time as we are living in the end. My opinion and thoughts.

I fully accept your observation on the rate of scientific and technical advancement, but not on the claim it was prophesied in Daniel. Did you note the other biblical passages I posted that made no mention of the apparent prophecy that appears the King James Bible?

 

[phil112]

Do you speak in the heavenly prayer language of tongues?

When? To who? Your question needs to be a little less vague.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Of course not. Genesis incorporates figures of speech as do all literary types; however, the biblical account of creation does not exhibit the forms or substance of myth as are clearly evident in the early pagan creation myths. It takes about one reading of Genesis to see that you have something altogether different from ancient creation myths.

As Brach points out: Modern and post-modern attempts at syncretism have failed amongst reputable scholars. For example, attempts to see an allusion to the goddess Tiamat in the Hebrew word tehôm, “the deep” (Gen 1:2) failed since such an equation violated the rules of morphology and equivalency in cognate languages. Neither is the reference to the Spirit of God “hovering over the waters” in that same verse seen as being a covert allusion to the Phoenician myth of the world being hatched from some type of cosmic egg. In short, nothing has been found in the biblical narrative of creation to tie it to the mythical ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies.

Neither is Genesis 1 or 2 poetic in form. The Hebrew form of the verb is exactly the same as is routinely used for Hebrew narratives. Furthermore, Hebrew poetry seldom if ever uses the Hebrew indicator for the direct object, whereas Genesis 1 and 2 do. There are additional grammatical and syntactical forms in Genesis 1 and 2 that can only be found in prose literary genre, not in poetry. Thus these accounts may not be listed under poetry.

What we do find, however, is a carefully and closely reasoned narration of events that in Genesis 1 are set in almost a dry didactic form. Emphasis is laid on definition, naming, evaluating and a general ordering of events. As such, the accounts have more in common with narrative prose than anything else.

While the Genesis narrative cannot be called “historical” in the usual sense of the word, in that most use the term to indicate facts independently verifiable by two or more sources or witnesses, it certainly appears to be claiming to record actual events in the stream of happenings in our kind of space-time world.

Genesis 1 is no more a myth than the existence of the person behind the avatar Cycel... lol.

 

[Percepi]

Not understanding how it happened is not sufficient reason, in and of itself, to reject the possibility of God. After all, we are here. Something happened for that to occur. You haven't rejected the possibility of it happening any other way, so why single out God to disbelieve?
I know I have asked on this board before, and probably on this thread, but I will ask you personally: Have you ever read Pascal's Wager?
I find it an intriguing way of looking at the question of God from an atheistic viewpoint. Here is a link if you haven't already read it. Tell me what you think of this. It isn't a real simple, either/and/or, way to look at it.
Pascal's Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


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I find this video to be a wonderful response to Pascal's wager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU

[video=youtube;fZpJ7yUPwdU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU[/video]

There are an infinite number of possible entities, or Gods, that may reward us or punish us after we die. There are countless other possible scenarios as well. One of those scenarios being, obviously, the case in which there simply is no afterlife and when we die, we're done for. It's also possible we're just brains in jars in which reality is a mere simulation.

Honestly, choosing to worship Yahweh simply to avoid hell is a mercenary bet with incredibly slim odds. I'd rather focus on what can be known than living my life according to something that can't be known within our lifespans.*

*Yes I understand Christians believe God CAN be known, but Pascal's wager suggests God can't be known (though, he does later contradict himself). Regardless, the wager is based off the idea that if you don't know, you might as well believe. My response to this is, if we don't know, let's not live our life as if it's true until we do know.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Obviously, you're not dealing with a new medicine concocted in a laboratory from the material universe that you want to measure the effects of. Since God is an intelligent sentient transcendent spiritual being with a freewill and the causer of miracles, there is a requirement to get His agreement to participate in your double blind study for the double blind study to be valid. This is no different than the requirement to find people who need healing and get them to agree to participate.

As I stated:

"Supernatural healing miracles can work within a standard definition of science "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment"; however, because of their supernatural nature and cause they operate differently than simply mixing two chemicals together in a test tube. They are observable and documentable but there are requirements for their manifestation and reasons why they don't always manifest that must be taken into account."

I then go on to point out that:

"Nevertheless, as they certainly are occurring you can observe them occur and spend time with the people who are healed and examine their before and after medical records with them for those who are so inclined anyways if you are willing and able to invest the time and energy to do so.

I spent about a year once a week in a genuine Christian healing room attached to a Vineyard church and was able to observe a number of genuine supernatural healings occur in local people from the community. There were no theatrics, no requests for donations, and nothing of the sort like you see on television. AND, I experienced one myself.

If you can obtain God's permission to obtain your double blind study, then you can conduct it. If not, then you'll have to use another method. I recommend my approach which was in line with the application of the scientific method in an anthropological context.

We don't have any double blind studies to confirm this.