Thread: Christians and Atheists - What's the Deal?

Well that is why the church doesn't teach a lot of that stuff any more. Like I said the bible was written for people thousands of years ago, it is obviously a bit out of date. That is why the church updates their teachings, and when they preach they preach the important parts, with updated meanings. There are a lot of Christians and some still teach stupid stuff that should of been gotten rid of, but you can't blame all of them for what one sect teaches.

They often get a lot of flak for accepting some parts of the bible and ignoring others. That is what they should be doing. What you want to look out for, is people who decide on an arbitrary scale. Ideally, they would be thinking about it and deciding what applies today, and what are things that apply to the time period in which it was written. In which case when you ignore something, you should be able to explain why it is okay to do so.

The people who wrote the bible didn't understand god fully. However they saw a glimpse of him, and that is what they are trying to write down and explain through the stories. You will never get a perfect image of god, but you can get an idea of him. It is hard, but that is why you learn this stuff through your entire life.

Much of the bible was written over a thousand years before Jesus was born too, and when you study Jesus teachings you will find that even he said things that contradicted the bible. So if parts of the bible as he knew it was outdated when he arrived, it shouldn't be a surprise that a couple thousand years later, the newer stuff is a bit outdated as well. The meaning isn't outdated, and that is the key point. The meaning is what you are trying to learn. Trying to live a better life, being a good person, getting closer to god are all things that still apply to us and probably always will. A reference to someone making a human sacrifice, obviously isn't.

Originally Posted by Alric

First lets start with the bible. To understand the bible you need to do two things. First, understand the perspective that it is written from. Second, understand that it is written using allegory.

Most of the stories in the bible are likely true, and were passed down from person to person before being written down. Things like Moses and the flood, were probably a story of a region flooding, not the entire world. From the perspective of the person who witness the flood, their entire world was flooded. To them that was the world, so they wrote it as such. That does not mean the entire world flooded. Things like the creation of earth, and the Adam and Eve story and allegory. They are not meant to be taken literal. Instead they are written to explain things that were never witness by men.

The bible is filled with things that would have applied to society back when it was written, but not to today's living. When it says to do something silly, it may have been for real practical reasons, that simply do not apply anymore. That doesn't make the bible wrong, it makes it outdated. And of course the bible has some bad stuff in it, because the stuff was common in the thinking of people back then.

Parts of the bible has been shown to be true, or based on real stuff. The bible obviously isn't the direct word of god. However that does not mean it can't be a legitimate document of religion. A person can believe that its based on real stuff, and written from the perspective of a human living in that time, and helps teach people to be a better person. It is very likely that is exactly what it is. So there is a fair debate between the person having been inspired by god, or simply inspired by some goodness he felt inside due to being human. A reasonable person could debate it from either side.

Okay, now to Jesus. Most people agree Jesus was probably a real person. He did good things, and he preached his belief. He probably did exist, and believing in him is perfectly reasonable. Debate come from the opinion that he was the son of god, and not just an amazing man who taught great things. It was so long ago, it really is hard to know.

God vs science. If god does exist then he should exist within reality. Everything he does should be explainable by science. There is no conflict between believing in science and believing in god. The fundies are wrong, because they are taking things from the bible literally. You are not supposed to. When someone says god created earth in a week, that is an allegory, written by someone thousands of years ago, not a fact. It isn't supposed to be fact, and was never intended as a fact. Why seven days? Because that many days probably had some significant to the writer at the time.

Hence why no one really argues with people about the bible if they just think its a book of symbolism.

Not lets get to the main point. As many people already pointed out, the main debate usually comes down to one thing. Why believe in god if you can't prove he exist? Why believe he doesn't exist if you can't prove it? Well lets look at this from a scientific perspective.

1. First a question. You wonder to yourself, does god exist?

2. Next you look around at the world. You can make many observations, the bible, Jesus, personal experiences are all valid things you can look at.

3. You take your many observations of the world and eventually you make a hypothesis. The two main ones are. "Oh you know all the stuff in my life really does point towards the possibility of god." Or "You know, most of this stuff can be explained in other ways, so I don't think there is a god." Though there is always the, "All this stuff makes sense, there had to be a real god, but I think he was likely an alien that visited humans far in the past. This explains why ancient people often had technology that doesn't fit in."

All three are entirely possible. They are valid hypothesis. Often in science if you look you will find hypothesis that are seen as weird or stupid, some times they are and some times they can actually be proven true. And things that everyone thinks is right, may eventually be wrong.

Step four would be to test and experiment on your hypothesis. However, you can't really develop a test to see if God exists or not, and that is the problem we face today. Believing in an unlikely hypothesis does not make you delusional or wrong. It is just an opinion, which you can't prove.

Why can't we develop a test? Can we not do it now due to technological limits, or can we not ever because God is just a dick and likes to play Epic Hide & Seek?

Believing in an unlikely hypothesis is sort of delusional and wrong because there's no rational basis for doing so. This is of course if we take "believing" to mean "absolutely accepting" or something.

So really you are looking at peoples observations, and considering if they are reasonable. For example, if you say, I believe Jesus was special because he lived a life that would be impossible for a normal human to live through. This is reasonable, very few people could live that kind of life. Maybe he was special. If you believe it is because he is the son of god, that is a reasonable hypothesis.

People have conscious and they have morels. We are clearly different than all the other animals on earth. This is a legitimate observation. If you believe it is because we have a soul, that is fair belief. If you believe it is because of evolution, that is a fair belief as well. They don't even necessarily conflict, because one could also believe that the soul of a person is created by higher brain activity. Though you are getting more into philosophy.

Except such supernatural hypotheses are shaky at best. Thinking that evolution is the basis of what we call morality is far more likely than an invisible creator simply decreeing what is right and wrong. We know that animals who work together and cooperate tend to succeed in passing their genes on. We don't know that an invisible creator exists, and have every reason to think that one doesn't.

The Christian person sees that religion helps a persons spirituality and personal growth and helps them better form bonds within their community. Since you admit freely you might be wrong, you are obviously not delusional. So why take the stance that their might be a god, when you can just easily be wrong, because religion has other benefit and tries to provide answers to other philosophical questions you might be trying to understand. Your not stupid or crazy or delusional for looking to religion, while considering philosophical questions.

Originally I was going to say "Well there's nothing inherently wrong with this, although I disagree, obviously, because I don't think religion is very good for 'spirituality' and personal growth," except I saw "so why take the stance that there might be a god?"

The answer was because religion has other benefits and tries to provide answers to other philosophical questions. Is this really justification for believing in God? I really don't think saying "God did it" will get anyone far in their pursuit of truth.

We can't test if there is a god because of the lack of technology at the moment. However, that isn't to say it wont one day be possible. I remember listening to the radio recently, and people were talking about a way to test, to see if there are alternate dimensions. They were talking about using the large hadron collider to slam particles together, and then measure them. They theorized that if you slam two particles together hard enough, it may be possible to launch a piece of the particle out of this dimension and into another. Matter can not be created or destroyed, so it should have the same mass after the test. However if their theory is correct the test will result in there being less mass. Not because it was destroyed, but because it was thrown into another dimension.

Weather god is an actual being, or just a "force" in the world, I totally believe humans will one day be able to find out.

As for using religion to help seek answers to philosophical questions, religion does try to explain many things far more than just god. So a reasonable person can learn much from it. Just saying 'god did it' is an extreme over simplification of anything. There thousands of books and ton of history written of Christianity, all discussing why god does what he does, what he is, and questioning all sort of things in the world. "God did it" isn't even scratching the surface.

You do realize that priests and stuff go to collage or schools specifically to study religion right? They spend years training. No one who put years of serious thought into the subject is going to just say, "God did it." That is kind of a childish view. And you would be right if you said that many Christians hold a childish view of their own religion, because many haven't put in much thought. However, some people have, and they are better people for it, regardless of their final opinion. Be it they believe there is probably a god, or believe there probably isn't.

Okay, the Christians here need some help

Maybe they should learn how to discuss issues without moving the goalposts, strawmanning, making fallacious remarks, wrongly accusing others of making absolute claims (whilst making them themselves), or being incapable of reading basic definitions from Wikipedia (whilst telling others to read it), then.

I have seen a whole lot of attacks against Christians on these forums - about how we're ignorant, we're elitist, we're weak, we're imbeciles etcetera etcetera.

See, I told you this was true about many of the Christians here.

Originally Posted by Alric

3. You take your many observations of the world and eventually you make a hypothesis. The two main ones are. "Oh you know all the stuff in my life really does point towards the possibility of god." Or "You know, most of this stuff can be explained in other ways, so I don't think there is a god." Though there is always the, "All this stuff makes sense, there had to be a real god, but I think he was likely an alien that visited humans far in the past. This explains why ancient people often had technology that doesn't fit in."

The second on you list is not a hypothesis itself, but rather the rejection of the other two. The problem is that the "hypothesis" that "god somehow created life magically" is not provided a logical basis. There is no evidence to suggest that and that idea and it is not necessary to explain anything at all.

Originally Posted by Alric

All three are entirely possible. They are valid hypothesis. Often in science if you look you will find hypothesis that are seen as weird or stupid, some times they are and some times they can actually be proven true. And things that everyone thinks is right, may eventually be wrong. Step four would be to test and experiment on your hypothesis. However, you can't really develop a test to see if God exists or not, and that is the problem we face today. Believing in an unlikely hypothesis does not make you delusional or wrong. It is just an opinion, which you can't prove.

But where you diverge from science is when you turn your hypothesis "god may have done it" into an assertion "god did it" when that hypothesis is not supported by reality. An untestable hypothesis is essentially useless. If you can't know that it's true there is no reason to believe that it is. "Atheism" is the default option. Did god create the universe? Well I can't prove there's such a thing as god, but I'll believe it exists anyway. Did unicorns create the universe? Well I can't prove there's such a thing as unicorns... I would hope you'd take the "athiest" approach in regards to the unicorn.

Originally Posted by Alric

So really you are looking at peoples observations, and considering if they are reasonable. For example, if you say, I believe Jesus was special because he lived a life that would be impossible for a normal human to live through. This is reasonable, very few people could live that kind of life. Maybe he was special. If you believe it is because he is the son of god, that is a reasonable hypothesis.

Since when is explaining something totally mundane by needlessly adding on "and also he had god magic"? Hint: Jesus did not survive his life (duh). He didn't even die of natural causes. He was murdered. Are you not even familiar with the basics of the stories you're talking about?

Oh, but then again he magically came to life, didn't he?

Originally Posted by Alric

People have conscious and they have morels. We are clearly different than all the other animals on earth. This is a legitimate observation. If you believe it is because we have a soul, that is fair belief. If you believe it is because of evolution, that is a fair belief as well. They don't even necessarily conflict, because one could also believe that the soul of a person is created by higher brain activity. Though you are getting more into philosophy.

They don't necessarily conflict because "a soul" is extremely vague and undefined. What is a soul? What does it do? If evolution can explain how we have developed morals and consciousness, what reason is there to believe there is a soul?

Originally Posted by Alric

However, if you say the earth was created in seven days, because the bible says so. Well that is just stupid. Any observation that is entirely proven untrue, shouldn't be used in building a hypothesis on weather god exists or not. This explains why as time goes on less people believe in god. There are less unexplained things, and so less reasons to look towards god as an answer for them. However many of the key philosophical reasons for believing in god will probably last a very long time. Because religion really is a philosophical practice.

Which philosophical reasons?

Originally Posted by Alric

What is the difference between a Christian who thinks there is a god but isn't sure, and an Atheist who doesn't think there is a god but isn't sure?

One is making a baseless assertion.

Originally Posted by Alric

The Christian person sees that religion helps a persons spirituality and personal growth and helps them better form bonds within their community. Since you admit freely you might be wrong, you are obviously not delusional. So why take the stance that their might be a god, when you can just easily be wrong, because religion has other benefit and tries to provide answers to other philosophical questions you might be trying to understand. Your not stupid or crazy or delusional for looking to religion, while considering philosophical questions.

So it is possible for a reasonable person to be a Christian.

It is possible for a reasonable person to be a Christian, but you have not provided any reasonable basis for believing in god.

Suppose a book falls off a shelf for no apparent reason. Someone says "Well clearly a spirit of the dead knocked it off." You might wonder, why would a spirit of the dead knock that book down? How does that person know it was a spirit of the dead? How can spirits manipulate physical objects? What are spirits made of? There are a ton of unanswered questions that would make it completely unreasonable to accept that explanation. It is an insane leap of faith on the order of jumping the grand canyon lengthwise. God is no different.

No one ever said god created life magically. That was never mentioned. Do you see the word magic any where, in any of my posts at all? It sounds like you assumed a great many things, which I didn't say.

If god existed, then nothing he does would be considered magic. It might look like magic from the perspective of a person witnessing it, because they lack the knowledge to comprehend it, however it would not be magic. Any thing he does within our world, should fit within the laws of reality for the world we live in. It is theoretically possible that god lives outside our universe and the laws of our universe do not apply to places outside our universe, but trying to understand the laws of reality in other universes is way beyond current human understanding.

Any way, if God does something, then that means it is possible. If it is possible, then there is some explanation of why it happen. Magic doesn't exist, and by definition isn't real, so God couldn't use magic. Just because you don't understand something, doesn't mean you should jump to the conclusion that it is magic. Otherwise you are just as bad as the people as people who believe in magic.

Opinions are just that, opinions. Everyone thinks differently and see things differently. That is why when you present information to different people, they see different things. You seem to be making the argument(as well as others here) that if something seems unlikely, then you shouldn't believe it is right. However that is an extremely arrogant way to view things. Just because something is unlikely, doesn't mean it isn't true.

Now, that doesn't mean you should accept any random thing a person claims. Which is why I keep mentioning reasonable arguments. If you ask yourself, why are so many religions alike, even from different areas? A reasonable opinion may be that they share a lot, because they touch on some elements that are true. It is possible. Another opinion would be that people all came from the same areas, and so even though they ended up in different places they still had things in common when they started creating religion. The second one is probably a better opinion, and is more likely. However that does not in itself make it true. A person could still believe the first, and not be insane.

God's supposed powers are indistinguishable from magic. He is said to be able to make an effect by the power of his will via some mysterious force. Without suggesting a method by which this can happen what we're left with is essentially magic.

Originally Posted by Alric

You seem to be making the argument(as well as others here) that if something seems unlikely, then you shouldn't believe it is right. However that is an extremely arrogant way to view things. Just because something is unlikely, doesn't mean it isn't true.

Then again, there's a big difference between an idea being unlikely and an idea being totally unfounded. I think it's unlikely there is any kind of a creator-being. I think it's totally unfounded to say the god of the Bible, or any similar, specific character created the universe, guided evolution, etc.

Originally Posted by Alric

Now, that doesn't mean you should accept any random thing a person claims. Which is why I keep mentioning reasonable arguments. If you ask yourself, why are so many religions alike, even from different areas? A reasonable opinion may be that they share a lot, because they touch on some elements that are true. It is possible. Another opinion would be that people all came from the same areas, and so even though they ended up in different places they still had things in common when they started creating religion. The second one is probably a better opinion, and is more likely. However that does not in itself make it true. A person could still believe the first, and not be insane.

First of all, a person can be rational, civilized, sane and deluded all at the same time. It's likely most people are deluded in some way or another. It is a mistake to say "Look at this guy. Look how reasonable an intelligent he is. He can't be deluded."

And yes, you do keep mentioning reasonable arguments but I've yet to see you make one. All you've got in this post is an appeal to popularity. Pretty weak, man.

The reason I wasn't making specific arguments for people to believe in a Christian god, is because I don't really believe in him myself. If someone asked me, I might say I was a Christian out of simplicity but I am really not. I do believe in the teachings of Jesus and stuff, but only because they are just good things to believe. I would believe them totally regardless of if there was a god or not. In my opinion God isn't an important part of my belief. I believe in being a good person and I have faith that if there is a god he isn't going to harm a good person, and if he would then screw him.

Out of the holy trinity, I think Jesus was just a man, God is probably a cosmic force that created the world and not an anthropomorphic figure, and the holy spirit is just the goodness inside of people.

The reason I often defend Christianity is because they do actually have some good beliefs and stuff, and you can study it and actually gain useful insight in the world from it. To really learn things, you need to think about it, and through thinking about Christianity, and their beliefs you can learn a lot. While if you outright reject everything, then you learn nothing.

The reason I don't believe in the story of Jesus, is because it fundamentally goes against what I believe in. Jesus may not have been the son of god, but he was a damn good person. He should not have died. I can understand looking for the silver lining in a bad situation, but killing an innocent, good man is a a horrible thing. Someone should of stopped them from killing him, and the fact they didn't was a great failure of man, not a joyous moment in history.

I do think there may be a god, but I define god as the creator of the universe. It could be some kind of being, and if it was it would be far beyond our current understanding. However it might not be a living thing at all. Like I said god can be a hard thing to grasp. It is common for early stories, like some things written in the bible, to use anthropomorphism on forces. Which is basically giving human like traits to things that do not possess them. Which is actually a common way for humans to think. Often when you see an animal(especially pets) do something, you think in terms of how a human would see it. And that is why people think a dog might do something out of spite when a dog is totally incapable of thinking in that way, and can't do anything out of spite. So there are cosmic forces people were trying to understand, way before science is what it is today, and they gave them human like traits. Which is probably how they came up with god.

The holy spirit I do believe in, because that is sort of like a human's soul. Though I am looking at this from a philosophical point of view. I don't think your soul can be separated from your brain, since they are very closely connected. Instead I think a person soul is created by the human brain, and further understanding of the world and logic. In a way it is created by reaching enlightenment, which isn't just an end point but a process.

My main point is that when one considers the universe and where we came from and how things began, and where we are going, it is natural for a person to consider god. And then you must accept the fact that some will come to different conclusions than you do. Often times you can not prove or disprove things in philosophy, however you do need to use critical thinking and the answer you come up with should make sense.

You know, most didn't even listen to epdawg62 questions, or even discussed his opinion(thankfully a couple did reply to them). He was asking how consciousness grew out of nothing. Why people feel good and evil. And he makes a valid point, that evolution doesn't address the entire good and evil thing. An action could be beneficial to a person and even the entire race, yet still be seen as evil. How did we evolve to think a beneficial action is wrong? I think it is more a cultural thing than a brain thing. So we are not even talking about evolution of human beings but the evolution of human culture. He spoke of free will, which is a long debated idea.

If you think they are a reasonable person, then even if you think they are wrong you should be able to discuss the topic with them in a sensible manner without personal attacks and stuff. Which was the original poster's main concern.