Religion

[darmstadt]

“I tell everyone the fast track to atheism is to read the bible. This book is a faster track . . . and it has pictures.”

Personally I think over the years people have just made stuff up that suits them and put it in the bible, much like other religious tracts, and the outcome is that it is no longer a book upon which you can base your life...

[scooterscot]

“I tell everyone the fast track to atheism is to read the bible. This book is a faster track . . . and it has pictures.”

Personally I think over the years people have just made stuff up that suits them and put it in the bible, much like other religious tracts, and the outcome is that it is no longer a book upon which you can base your life...

Hilarious. He says he's Swedish but I could have sworn he's Welsh. Knowing this interpretation I don't know if I would feel more or less comfortable swearing an oath on the bible the next time I'm before the judge. How antiquated.

[NotAllThere]

It's impossible to prove a negative

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus

From this we can derive:

1. If an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god exists, then evil does not.
2. There is evil in the world.
3. Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

There you go. It's not impossible to construct a proof that God doesn't exist. Not that this argument is definitive - philosophers and theologians have been arguing over this specific proof for centuries.

[Zero Liability]

My point is that Christianity is more than an arbitrary postulation invented in a moment, whereas our tasty carbonara friend obviously isn't. Christianity derives from multiple sources including eye witness accounts, the great tagliatelle one (may he bless us) derives from one source, and that source says they made it up.

None of which proves existance in God, which as I said, is unproveable either way in my view. If you think you can (dis)prove it, your notion of God is perhaps different from mine.

How does this put it on a firmer footing than UFO sightings? I mean even those make more sense.

[tractor]

....

My point is that Christianity is more than an arbitrary postulation invented in a moment, whereas our tasty carbonara friend obviously isn't. Christianity derives from multiple sources including eye witness accounts, the great tagliatelle one (may he bless us) derives from one source, and that source says they made it up.

None of which proves existance in God, which as I said, is unproveable either way in my view. If you think you can (dis)prove it, your notion of God is perhaps different from mine.

As were Tesco profit forecasts and accounts. It makes them believable but does not make them accurate. It is not inconceivable that such accounts were derived in collusion with one another. The reason (not for the Tesco forecasts of course) may have been honorable and well intentioned but it does not make the subject any more or less real and certainly is not proof of existence.

[AtW]

As were Tesco profit forecasts and accounts.

Those were actually audited as well...

[SpontaneousOrder]

From this we can derive:

1. If an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god exists, then evil does not.
2. There is evil in the world.
3. Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

There you go. It's not impossible to construct a proof that God doesn't exist. Not that this argument is definitive - philosophers and theologians have been arguing over this specific proof for centuries.

Zzzzzzz.... that's idiotic. You haven't proved that God doesn't exist - you've proved that contradictions don't exist. You've proved that a God that couldn't exist, by definition, does't exist. If such a God did exist, there would be no such concept as benevolence or evil - so the question is malformed.

In the same way, showing that an a priori untruth is not true, is not proving a negative.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Rubbish is it. Fermat's last theorem: there are no integers which satisfy x^n + y^n = z^n, n>2.

Alternatively you could have just said "true != false" and saved yourself some typing

[SpontaneousOrder]

As were Tesco profit forecasts and accounts. It makes them believable but does not make them accurate. It is not inconceivable that such accounts were derived in collusion with one another. The reason (not for the Tesco forecasts of course) may have been honorable and well intentioned but it does not make the subject any more or less real and certainly is not proof of existence.

Although, to be fair to unixman, I don't think he's suggesting that there is proof. Just evidence.

[tractor]

....

Those were actually audited as well...

'Derived from multiple sources'???

That was what I was actually illustrating.