CALLING ALL ATHEISTS TO A CHALLENGE!!!

I know this might not be well accepted, but who cares! Anyhow. There was a time when the Muslims did serve the one true God, but bitterness caused them to stray away from him and when a person does this, they create other gods to fill the void. This is how their Allah, which is not the true God has a form of the true. And even now, the Jews don't worship the one True God yet. They call him by a Hebrew name, but they don't worship him. Don't get me wrong, some do. And even now, there are many Christians who had worshiped the one true God, and they call him by a gentile name, and yet they no longer worship him as such, and have become vain in their imaginations. But these things must happen, and you know why? Because the righteous will be separated from the Just. God is waiting till his will is played out. Some will believe others will not, many will perish few are being saved. Some grow more cold and cold, and others more faithful.

It is obstruction in the same way the Jews thought they knew God and killed the prophets. They thought they knew God and killed Jesus. And they will think they know God and they will kill his servants. Ever since the beginning the devil has been using people full of self-righteousness to kill his true servants. And it will be this way until he comes to show everyone just how wrong and evil they truly are.

You mean Zoomer's "11 Points"? Some of them should be amended indeed, as they're horribly illogical.

There are more than ten commandments in your list of commandments. (Humans seem to have tieded up the list bit to shoe horn it in to ten)
To Red Tory - Humans made up the ten commandments and they make up the laws of our legal system, so what is your point?
Ramon - You did not argue any of my points, so you concede that the hold some merit.
I follow no doctrine, I am beholden to no author. I read, I learn, I read some more, I learn some more. What I have learned here is that you can not argue your point in a clear and intelligent manner.
Ramon - How do you follow god if you don't follow the bible or preachers or other holy books? Where does the nonsense that you spew come from? Does god talk directly to you? And if he does how do you know it is not just that inner voice that everyone hase. How could you possibly prove that you are sane and not delusional? People that hear voices tend to need psychiatric assistance. Do you need assistance? If this voice in your head that you equate with god told you to kill someone would you do it? If so you need to check yourself in.
You say that you know that god's standards are good, how do you know they are good? Does "goodness" exist outside of god comanding it to be good?
Most of the people on the earth don't actualy believe in god and yet thay are not all out killing each other.(most are just going through the motions so far as god is concerned, just out of social custom, they don't actual believe they just go with the flow, most have no clue whether or not deities exist) So I am sure that god is not needed for goodness to exist.

Red Tory which one is illogical, I will restate it clearer if necessary.

Do you say everything out of assumption? How are you credible then.

Exod 34:28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. *

Notice, ''TEN COMMANDMENTS.''

And here we go again, you keep considering yourself a good person. Haha, that is laughable. Have you ever lied, cheated, stolen, lusted, or been angry without cause at someone? Have you ever? Go ahead justify yourself, show us all how really conceited you can be.

And yes he does speak directly to me, but how would you know that? God is not our minds, he is greater than our minds. Anyone that worships a god with their minds is worshiping, not the true god, but a false god. That is why I say atheism is another religion.

And yes, the bible didn't teach me about God, but the Holy Spirit did, am I going too far?

Point: we create specific laws, but what basis do they have and from whence do they derive their moral legitimacy? This relates back to jurisprudence...



Articles nine and eleven of your list, in the way they are currently phrased, commit fallacies of irrelevance.

"9) Each religion's explanation of god is contradictory with the other religion's descriptions. (more likely that they are all wrong)"

The fact that religions disagree with each other over the nature of theological/moral/philosophical issues in no way demonstrates that they are all false. Similarly, I could claim that disagreements within the scientific community over certain issues shows that all scientific theories are wrong.

Secondly, this argument could easily be turned against atheism; since atheism's explanation of God (non-existent) contradicts other systems of belief, it too is false.

Contradiction instead logically entails the existence of one true religion or set of beliefs (atheism included) through simple reasoning. Since religions typically make mutually exclusive claims, you can typically apply tertium non datur to ascertain that there is only one true belief, arriving at the sole question of A v¬A - either an assertion made by a belief structure is true or it is not.

Contradiction demonstrates that certain beliefs are right and others are wrong, it in no way shows that they are all wrong.



"11) people tend to be the religion of their parents and their communities. (Americans don't tend to have religious revelations that Ra or Thor or Shiva are the real god, and people in India don't have revelations that include scientology as the correct way) religion is a cultural phenomenon i.e. it is made up"


Again, a fallacy of irrelevance. The fact that people tend to hold the same beliefs of the culture they live in does not logically imply that those beliefs are false (instead I would argue that it relates back to contradiction, see the previous note).

Similar to the previous point, we can easily turn this on its head. A child that is raised in a militantly atheistic home will probably grow up to become an atheist, similar to the way in which you say a person raised in a religious community will adopt that religion.

Does this mean that atheism is a cultural phenomenon and "made up"? No.



I wouldn't use these as arguments for atheism if they can so easily be turned around and used against it...

Ramon I bet you think that you are one of the folks that get to go to heaven? (they all think they are going to heaven) What have you done to get a golden ticket on the heaven express? What make you so special? Have you dedicated your life to helping the poor or have you adopted a child that would have otherwise been aborted? Have you given all of your possessions to the poor? Have you helped the homeless, or the unemployed? Have you helped in the aftermath of a flood or tornado or huracain? Have you welcomed strangers in to your home in their time of need? Now there are people that do these things and I am abong them but I don't do them because of a future reward, I do them to help my fellow man because I know no god is going come out of the sky and fix all of these injustices. It is up to people like me and you to help each other.
Oh and the jews didn't kill Josua (Jesus, his name got miss translated so now we are stuck with the wrong name) The Romans did the killing. Stop hating on the jews. You talk bad about the muslims but don't worry they think it is you who have strayed from the path.
That is the weird thing about religions, they all think that their god or way is the right one and everyone else is in tthe wrong.
They can't all be right. More likely thay are all wrong.

Ramon why do you think your tribal god is the right one and everyone elses is wrong? Out of 6 to 7 billion people what do you think the likelihood of you being the one that has it all figured out?

your arrogance will keep you out of your heaven.

This seems to be a common arguement among many athiests, and even Christians today. The simplest answer would be that God will only answer the prayers if our intentions are good. Example?
Lets say you are in deep debt, and need money desperately. God is not going to give it to you if He knows that in the future, when you are out of your debt, you will spend it on unnesessary things that will bring you back to the same hopeless situation. Or worse, bring to into the world even more.
If He knows your intentions are good, and if it is nesessary for us to have, then of course He will answer our prayer when we have faith and ask earnestly for what we want.
If you had a teenager who wanted money, you're not going to give them the money if you knew what they're going to do with it. I mean, come on, they're teenagers. In the same way, if you had a child who wanted a bag of candy, are you going to give it to them? Of course not. A child is not going to eat a peice of candy and leave the rest for later. They're going to gulp the whole bag down.
But back to the point. Even we ourselves might not know what we're going to do in the future if God answers our prayers. God might know we have bad intentions, but we wont nessesarily know that.
Then there's another case, why does God let someone we love pass away or leave us, even when we pray for them back? We have to understand that God has a plan for EVERYTHING. We might not know the cause, but with these things we just have to trust that God knows what He is doing, because He does. This is just my perception on it, however.

Red Tory your points ar well taken. So if I remove those two and condense my list down to 9 items does it stand a chance of passing the smell test?

Also I realize that I made a similar logical error in the post i just sent along the same lines.

Thats you're way of rationalising it, of making things better than they seem. I do not need to rationalise it I feel no need to sugar coat things.

Sharon X - What do you say for the person that lost a limb in an auto accident. They pray and pray for their lib to return and nothing happens.
GodHatesAmputees.com

No one, not even the most rightous person has ever had a severed limb reappear. Doctors might reattach the limb but none has ever miraculously reappeared.

in your example about money - How would you ever know if the money was from god or if it was just from a normal process?

I think articles one, three, seven, eight and ten are based on evidence rather than logical validity, meaning people could bicker about them endlessly, which is why I wanted to stick to discussion of argument patterns rather than points based on subjective scales.

I only commented on nine and eleven because I thought they were the most obvious, but if we're looking to expand the discourse...

"4) religious documents have proved to be inaccurate and contradictory, illogical and blatantly fraudulent (Not good evidence) I was trying to insert a link to an article about how the bible has been changed over the years but i don't know how to get the link to work for you all. (you can find it at Beliefnet."

Ramon will jump all over me for saying this, but religious beliefs are capable of change. I think this notion of many religious being contradictory and inaccurate (giving a nod to instances where they are correct, however) is an important one. I know that my own Bible (or more accurately the one I used to have) had huge notes in margins and big blocks of study sections aside from the main text, discussing which parts come from rather dubious sources or were/weren't included in certain early manuscripts.

Remember that this purported to be a search for the universal truths of all existence. The truth does not change, only our own human ideas and perceptions surrounding it do. Therefore it's important to be able to say "we are wrong; let us now turn to the right".

It's a valid criticism of many religious texts, but hardly disproves the existence of a deity. In essence, this is a case against certain beliefs, but not a case in favour of atheism.



"5) humans have made up thousands of gods throughout their history."

Perhaps you could provide some form of elucidation, as I'm not sure how this differs from article eleven (religion as a cultural phenomenon).




"6) arguments for god are illogical, (circular arguments etc.)"

Aye, many arguments used in favour of God in colloquial discourse are illogical. We could say the same of arguments used in favour of atheism, which is what I was trying to demonstrate in my previous post. What's the point here?

God heals amputees, just look at newts!

Yeah, like I said, thats MY perception on it. I'm not trying to change anyones mind. I'm just saying what I believe about this.

Well, In that case, you're not going to die if you lose a limb. Sure life will be a bit more uncomfortable, but its not a crucial thing; however, if God saw it as totally nesessary, He would return the limb to a person who has lost it.

If you are a Christian, you KNOW that this life will pass away, but you also know that when it does, you will pass on to another life. A life of joy, and peace. Where there will be no more pain.
The most rightous person who has lost a limb would not care about it. They know that this life's temporary anyways. We have a hope that there is something better than this place. A faithless person might say that it is unfair, and that our God is not a loving God because he did not give us what we asked for. Our God is a loving God, but a just God. God would rather we walk by FAITH, not by sight.
Also, in this world we have knowledable doctors who can sew a limb back together if possible. If not, there's prosthetics. All hope is not lost.

Are you talking about coincidence? In true Christianity, there is no coincidence. If you were dirt poor, a newly saved Christian, you prayed to God for food, and someone came to give you enough money to buy a whole meal one day, to a Christian that is answer to prayer, not a normal process. Whatever the incident, or situation, I believe there is no coincidence.
Like I said above, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just saying what I believe.

There is only one God that said, ''You shall have no other god before me.'' No other God can speak. They are just idols, though some people speak to themselves using their own minds. Silliness. And by the way, no one can get to heaven by helping the poor, or adopting a child. And, my friend, you think you are excluded, you have your own religion in which your mind is your god, and your peers who also follow themselves and science are the ones who worship with you. You are no different.

You have two options though, seek him while you are alive, or find him when you die, but by then it will be too late. This is how ANYONE can be saved, if the believe on Jesus Christ that God sent, because he took on the penalty of death on himself. And yes, HE WAS PERFECT. And you are not. Until you become perfect maybe you can convince me that you have a case. Again men are unjust, as you prove over and over again, yet you defend the integrity of men. Which God doesn't esteem so highly, and neither do I.

What amount of things, all things, or some things? I don't see how this contradicts anything Christianity has to offer though.


So you adhere to the theory of knowledge known as Empiricism?

What would constitute evidence? If evidence must adhere to the criteria set by the scientific method, then any possible supernatural explanation would be non-scientific by the very defition of science...(given that science pre-supposes naturalism) So I'm not sure what the complaint/arguement is here.

I have this to offer as a starter..

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4K_WZpIkM4[/video]

I would like for you to respond to these four, under a naturalistic presupposition of course.

Red_Tory already made a great response to this, but I would like to add atleast one thing to this.
Each truth claim should be examined individually as a truth claim.
(Tory, if you've already stated this I apologize, I've not read everything in the thread.)

Tory has addressed this.

I would like to know how making up a god or gods would effect the veracity of there being a god or gods. Other than of course the made up one. Are you saying then, that the Judeo-Christian God is conjured up?

All or just some? I would agree if you said some.... I couldn't agree if you said all...
For example... I'm not sure how this is an argument against God, just an argument against some arguments.

I already know you'll take contention with the Kalam Cosmological that I presented, I was not introducing it as a topic of debate. Just showing that there are logical arguments for God.


This seems to be rather close to be an Ad Hominem Fallacy, "bad arguments in past, therefor no reason to believe new ones."
I think this again raises the question, "What constitutes evidence?"

What relevance does this have to current offered explanations?

See my reponse to #3.

Tory responded to this, and I don't feel I need to add more other than what I stated under #4.

How so? Also, how is, what is reality determined? Do we pre-suppose naturalism?



This is potentially a Genetic Fallacy.

We can work with what we have.

I know this is aimed at Sharon, and I apologize Sharon for hijacking this part of the discussion. The first question I must ask to be able to know what I would say is; "What caused the accident?" If they were drinking and driving, welp, consequences of sin.

I will however use a real-world example. Childhood neighbor of my mothers lost both arms in a round-bailer. First got caught, second was lost trying to retrieve the first. This is a different situation.... I would say it's quite possible that forces of evil could be behind a situation more like this, but that doesn't resolve the actual question being raised. It certainly isn't what I would consider the most-common cause.

Have you ever seen a limb regenerated?



How do you know this?

How do you know none have ever reappeared or regenerated?

1) What would constitute a miracle to you?


2) I would argue that God works within his own creation.


Furthermore...

EDIT: I lean toward a more cessationist route when it comes to miracles, but do not discount any possiblities.

Can you explain why existance is evidence of God?, given my refutations of your analogies by demonstrating why evidence linking the source (how light works) to the object (blue sky) was needed... and how your 3 liars situation relates to this logical dilemma.

a) when a person experiences a near death experience -outer body or experience of afterlife- they cannot derive information that their body has not been subjected to (auditory, touch, sight and memory) that can cross reference with reality (e.g. a sign only visible from birds-eye view in hospital). I have been scouring the internet today for related evidence on this as its a hot-topic but when I went to the controlled experiements,...
Paranormal claims: a critical analysis By Bryan Farha, Michael Shermer
Near-death experiences: A neurophysiologic explanatory model
Melvin L. Morse, David Venecia and Jerrold Milstein
(you can find via google scholar) there is lack of evidence for a seperation of body and conscience.
...and the afterlife experience have a strong correlation with their personal beliefs i.e. a Christian will see Jesus/God and their family/acquaintences etc, a hindu will see an afterlife coloured by their religious beliefs and experiences, a child will meet 'living friends' as opposed to relatives (Farha & Shermer).
b) Some electrical impulses -brain activity- and the cells within the body die off and others parts will increase temporarily due to reduced electrical inhibitor. The body physically is changed during the process of death; physical changes within the brain are demonstrated to be causes of death, amenesia, personality changes, spatial awareness and hallucinations. Conscienceness is the active neuro-network of a brain, fed by nutrients and oxygen and scripted for through its relationship with the sensory network.bad and good ports of protein-kinase c (and potentially other learning molecules [protein kinase a]).
Protein kinase C, learning and memory: a circular ... [Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 1997] - PubMed result -circular determinism for physiology on behaviour
c)What evidence do you have that a soul exists?

Also please expand on the method you use to ascertain absolute truth.

Jimmy Diggs using your information here about miracles, there could be no way of knowing when a miracle happens. Me sending you this message could be a miracle!
As you can tell I'm not good at logic but that doesn't mean that I am on the wrong side of the argument, just because my arguing skills are lacking!

Here is one for you!

Just for arguments sake let's say that there really is no god. And everyone on the planet becomes aware of this. What would happen? Mass chaos? Business as usual? World peace? Or a mix of all of the above?

My bet is on the mix!

Ok how about this situation - God shows him/herself but informs us all that there is no heaven or hell. I still bet on a mixed reaction.

Or how about no heaven but hell still exist?

Or the funnest one, heaven exist but only atheist get to go there!

I'm not sure how that's relevant...?