I think your point is mostly true when it comes to religious beliefs, but that’s because religion is based on being right and others being wrong or ignorant.
But you can totally believe in one supernatural thing, like astrology, but think astral projection is unscientific bullshit. And I’m sure, for instance, lots of people believe in ghosts but not magic.
So you’re saying if George R R Martin wrote Game of Thrones in modern-day New York, then the Lord of Light would be credible? There’s a whole genre of books called Urban Fantasy, with elves and fairies and vampires in our modern world backed by real historical events. You’re saying that’s a basis of credibility?
I completely disagree.
How so? You would expect a once-in-a-millennia flood to happen once in a millennia, right? What about referencing a historical event makes made-up bullshit more credible?
I agree just saying it’s bunk isn’t a good argument. Listing scientific reasons why something is impossible would be a better argument.
But my question isn’t what makes a good counter argument. My question is what has made the claims of supernatural a good enough argument for you to believe them?
Actually this is all up for debate. Some things are probably accurate, while other things appear to be written at later times. I think it is disingenuous to suggest the former without mentioning the latter. I get that it doesnt fit your narrative, so you will conveniently leave it out cause that it what you people do.
I’m pretty sure we (the historians) would know those books were written in that genre. There would be references to it.
Also, the characters wouldn’t be mentioned in multiple other, dispassionate and opposing sources.
Josephus, for instance, was a practicing Jew, born of a high priestly Jewish family who studied with and respected the Pharisees. Why would he lend credibility to Jesus by saying this:
Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works -a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.
Unless he believed it true? He was contemporary of Jesus. Lived at the same time period. Was the most respected historian of the time.
There are dozens of other historians (Pliny, Tacitus, etc) that did the same.
As I was writing “millennia” I knew it was a bad choice of words. I was going to go with “life time” but that’s less broad. So maybe “once in history” flood would be more fitting.
Rogan had 2 guests on recently who specialize in this field and they talked about these findings and how amazing they were. You should check it out. If I find it I’ll post it.
But it would still fail. Science or the “scientific process” can only measure and observe physical events or phenomena. Supernatural events would be outside of the scope of work or the jurisdiction of science. There’s no way to measure the immaterial. It’s like dividing by zero. It doesn’t make sense.
Because of you think back as far as you can to the beginning of the universe, there’s only 3 possibilities in my mind.
POSSIBILITY 1: the universe aways existed.
This can’t be true (and everyone basically agrees). If you went back an infinite amount of time you could never arrive at this moment we find ourselves in.
Additionally, eternality can’t account for “how the stuff (matter) was put here to begin with.”
Possibility 2: this universe was born from another universe (the multiverse). But this puts us once again, in an infinite regress to the point that we could never dig ourselves out of to exist at this point.
Possibility 3: someone/something/some being created the universe.
Ok…. I think we can all understand this but we’d have to deduce certain facts or essences of this “creator”
He/she/it must be immaterial or else he/she/it would be the created as well as creator. Doesn’t make sense.
He/she/it Must transcend time and space.
Because space time and matter are accidents of one another (you can’t have one with out the other 2 existing) this creator must exists outside of or independent of these realities.
He/she/it Must be all powerful.
This one is self explanatory. He/she/it Is responsible for willing things or creating everything we know. That would take some form of enormous power.
He/she/it Must be all knowing.
If He/she/it created everything then He/she/it understands how everything works, where everything is, etc…. Think of a computer software coder. They would know where every line of code is, what it does, and how it will behave, etc…
He/she/it Must be a PERSONAL being.
Why? Because before the universe existed there was nothing. Then, at T1 (moment of time 1) there was something. That implies “a will” to create. A will implies “agency” and agency implies “personhood.”
Listen- I love these discussions. I could go on for days…. This is my first passion.
The vast majority of biblical scholars, even critical ones, agree the manuscripts we have of the Gospels are first and second century. That means that many people who were with Jesus were alive still. John, for instance, lived until 100 something AD if I have my memory correct.
It would be like someone today writing about JKF. His family still exists, his friends and contemporaries….
But even more powerful, they all agree that all of these manuscripts are derived from the same earlier source called…. Wait for it…. Q
Well that implies that Q was written at or near the time when Jesus lived and performed his miracles.
To give you some reference here about how important that is…
We all believe in Julius Caesar right? Well why? Well because Cicero and others who lived during his time wrote about him. Ok- so why don’t you doubt Caesar exists Djrion? Because your only real grip is the religious or supernatural conclusion derived from the Gospels…
What narrative? My narrative is the mainstream narrative.
Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He was a real human being. He led a ministry. Claimed to be God eternal incarnate. For this, he was charged with blasphemy by the priests. He was turned over to the Romans, tried and crucified.
Later, his followers and others who weren’t followers, attested to the fact that he had risen and was indeed alive.
If God exists, he or more likely she, is an underachiever. What a colossal folly it is that humans have for eons invented gods and believed so adamantly in what is completely implausible. Then in retrospect, they regard previous gods, those of distant generations, as not having current validity. Religions come and religions go. Were there a god, and god was good, there would be justice in the world. God actually would give a flip about humans. Atrocities committed by humans would not exist. As for the Doctrine of Free Will, I ask where is the free will of victims of atrocities? The only value I see in religion is its attempt to set forth what is acceptable human comportment versus what is not among humans living in societal groups. No sane deity could have invented Islam. The greatest waste of human energy I can think of is spending time praying to some invented ethereal being. For all we know, aliens may descend on the earth and like the morlocks of Wells, turn humans into livestock, and the poor wretches would still occupy their time praying to an invented deity so fond are humans in believing in the supernatural.
There is temporal justice in the world. But the real justice exists and is doled out in the hereafter bikki. That’s the way it works.
Why do you believe he doesn’t. Have you ever you are looking at this from your very limited perspective? As Paul said, “for now, we see through a glass darkly.”
If Gid exists, and there is an eternity in paradise in the hereafter, then what difference does 50, 75, 100 years make? None. Every suffering, every temporal injustice, every imperfection is irrelevant so long as it’s perfected in eternity.
Imagine being created and having a conversation with God bikki. He gives you a choice…
“My beloved bikki, I give you 2 choices choose wisely.
Choice 1…. I end your life now. You go back into the darkness of death.
Choice 2…. You live the next 100 years paralyzed and in pain, but I promise you eternity in a glorified body of perfection in bliss.
Which do you take? Would you endure the 100 years of pain for eternal paradise? Or would you avoid it and choose instant death?
I’d choose 2. Because 100 years is immeasurably small compared to eternity.
Well then we wouldn’t be “human beings” would we? We’d be something else. Some form of automaton unable to make free choices. Unable to love, experience joy, laugh, etc…. Is that what you think God should have done?
He made them already…. They are called the choir of angels.
You’ve used this line before. It doesn’t follow. Those individuals that suffer have free will. They are free to make choices. But they are not exempt from the choices of other OR their own poor choices.
If you mean those that find themselves in natural disasters or victims of accidents, I would submit to you that God created the best possible world for us where these instances are limited.
I mean- go look into the vastness of space. Would you trade your spot here for there? We live in a garden oasis. Just because some people are victims of nature doesn’t disprove God.
He didn’t- men created Islam. The only 2 religions created by a deity (and it’s really 1 religion) is Judaism and Christianity.
Islam tells its adherents to read the Torat and the Injeel to understand where they came from (it also claims they are corrupted which is an odd contradiction). But it admits coming from the older religions.
No one is absolutely certain of it- but most scholars believe Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Old Testament - the Torah.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers.
But let’s say they are wrong…. Makes no difference really. Thousands of facts from the Torah have been historically confirmed. It’s a small problem for the Jew…. A non existent problem for the Christian because while the Old Testament is worth reading, we are not bound by anything in it. We have a new Covenant.
I said what you wrote earlier is up for debate, you denied that. I then asked you a question regarding chapter 1 of your fantasy novel and you said it is up for debate, proving my earlier point. The rest of your blabbering is just that, blabbering.
I’m not denying Jesus existed. I’m asking what makes you believe the great flood was an unnatural event caused by God?
Not necessarily. " Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and all that. So something that is considered supernatural today may be explained by science in the future.
In fact, the way I see things, everything is scientific. We just don’t understand a whole lot of it.
As for the philosophy discussion on the origins of the universe, I can appreciate all that. You won’t get an eye-roll out of me for questioning the Big Bang or any of that. But none of that creation stuff has anything to do with the stories of the Bible we’ve been discussing, like the Flood or the resurrection of Jesus.
(Of course, Creation is a HUGE part of the Bible, but every religion and culture has their own creation myths.)
So I’m not asking if you believe in anything we can’t explain by science, in anything supernatural, I’m asking why do you believe in the Bible stories specifically? Why do you believe the Flood was sent by God, and that it was a punishment or cleansing?
There are multiple flood myths, many older than the Christian one, and we can concede many may refer to the same real event. I’m asking about your belief in a Christian God as the driver of that event. There’s no proof of that anywhere.
It’s true that God said he would bring the flood for the sins of Noah’s age, but even that doesn’t make it “unnatural” or super natural. I’m simply saying that we now believe we know where and when that event took place and we have evidence of it.
But you understand that if science can explain it- it was never supernatural to begin with. It was simply misunderstood.
Yea- I vehemently disagree with this.
Take something as simple as a thought in your mind. How is that produced? Does the thought come first and then the physical measurement or does the physical produce the thought (epiphenominalism)?
What is the difference between a brain and a mind? Can we even prove minds exist?
If you believe science can answer these questions I’m just not sure what to tell you. It can’t and never will.
I’m sure you’ll pull up numerological articles claiming they know the answer…. These practitioners would get laughed out of any philosophy class for making such a statement.
Because there is a cause and effect relationship in the Bible. God said (through the author) that he would send the flood. Then the Bible recounts the flood. And then later, we find evidence of a great flood in all different locations on earth (even USA). Is that just a coincidence?
It’s the same event. We don’t know exactly when the time of Noah was. We can use the Bible’s reference to each person’s age to draw back to it…. But some believe that that timeline isn’t meant to be taken literally. (I’m not a strict creationist that believes the world has only existed for 6,000 years and Christian’s are not required to believe such). So it’s entirely plausible that other civilizations are simply recounting the Biblical story.
There is debate on who authored events which nullifies your point on verification. I’ll concede some is probably an authentic historical reference (as I did so in my original claim).
He takes a hyper complex process, claims it is simple, and that wants you to believe that science can and never will be able to answer, therefore it must be god.
And that was never my debate to be had. I admit that we don’t know all the authors of the Bible books. I also submit to you that knowing the authors isn’t as important as verifying the events, people and places they wrote about. Keep up. Stop having your own side debate/discussion with yourself and trying to pull me into it.
My point is the opposite of his point. He’s saying if an event isn’t supernatural, science will figure it out soon enough. I grant that.
I’m saying that there are events that are supernatural and science will never explain them. We may believe we just are premature in our understanding but it would be a fatal flaw to believe this.
Distinction. Keep up.
Try to listen before you trip over yourself making a point that doesn’t apply.
A “thought” in and of itself, is the simplest of things to conceive. It literally has no constituent parts. It consists in the ether. It has no material, no weight, no mass…. That’s what I mean by “simple.”
The process…. That’s complicated. That’s what we’re discussing.
Does the brain or mind produce the thought…. Or does the thought emerge and use the brain/mind as a vessel.
Here’s where the complication begins.
You reference nueroscience…. They’ve struggled with this question for over a hundred years. You act as though they have the answer. They don’t. Lol.
100% false. Literally, one of the dumbest statements to have ever been posted on this board.
100 false.
We’ve worked it all out…just a guy who doesn’t believe in the most basics of science, believes in Qanon, doesn’t believe the earth is round, thinks NASA lies and there is no mars rover, never been to the moon, who thinks Trump won the election, who believes we should seize private industries he doesn’t like, who thinks Jesus is the most documented person in history and that no scholars disagree on whether he existed.
We’ve got a perfectly concise picture of who we’re dealing with now. Totally makes sense from start to finish. We have a Christian Dominionist wackjob with very, very little integrity. Totally fits the bill, makes sense, and explains your positioning on everything so far.