theredbaron

Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
No kidding! You think that A on his forehead stands for France?

Originally posted by: JediSage
I thought about ordering the Wii, but I'm thinking my kids will benefit more from language lessons if I can afford them. They can go another year with their GC and DS.

Originally posted by: theredbaron

I didn't say that the burden of proof lies with you and other atheists to disprove God's existence, I said that the burden of proof lies with you to prove that all religions are bullshit. There is a difference. And you really haven't produced any hard evidence. It is hearsay, because all you've mentioned is basically 'a bunch of guys at some conference sometime all of a sudden realised that religion was bullshit'. That is really all you've said - no names, no sources, no quotes, no comparison of texts to suggest how they may have unanimously come to this conclusion. The definition of that, my friend, is hearsay.

Well, with regards to the Jesus Seminar you can verify and research that yourself since i have included a reputable, verifiable and highly reliable source that is well known to serious scholars of the New Testament.

The Jesus Seminar was a group of Bible scholars that went through all the quotes, sayings, and teachings of Jesus and decided which ones had more documentation than others. They voted on the authenticity of particular words or deeds of Jesus, based on degrees, using coloured beads. It wasn't a quest to disclaim or disprove Jesus' existence or even to discredit his teachings - it was a quest for the historical Jesus. The Seminar didn't disprove Jesus' existence at all - if anything it probably bolstered it - and you can take that one to the bank.

As for "all religion is BS"--the human origins of every religion are clear and well known by scholars. Everyone on the planet accepts that the Greek religions and the Nordic religions and the Egyptian religions and the Roman religions, for example, are all bullshit--simply because they are seen as "unbelievable" and "impossible" "myths" of ancient lore that were made up to explain natural phenomena not understood by primitive man. But what is the difference between these and the more "modern" religions like Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism? Not much. Only the social entrenchment, much like how a Roman living in AD 50 would have accepted the cult of Jupiter as a valid establishment in the same way that an American accepts the cult of Christ as a valid establishment.

To say that all of these religions are 'not much different' from each other is ignorant and ridiculous. I thought you'd studied religion in some capacity. If they were so much the same, you could take a crash course in one and become an expert on them all. Looking at the Greek tragedies and comedies, it is pretty clear to me that a large cohort of the Greek people didn't even take their gods seriously, resigning them to flaws, foibles and human-like drama atop Mt. Olympus. They were the Days of Our Lives of Ancient times.

The supposedly unique thing that seperates modern religions from "primitive" "false" ones like the Roman or Greek ones is the illusion of a historical basis. Firstly this is not unique--in attempts to rectify ones religion as the "true" one, many have fabricated evidence and claimed historical places as a means of grounding their myths in reality. Heracles' and Mithras birthplace was claimed to be found by the Greeks and Persians, and all sorts of similarly wild means have been used ad nauseum by various cults and sects of religions. But the fact is that every supposed historical reference to a deity of modern religions has been uncovered to be a forgery. In the case of Jesus there are a handful of early first century references that have been upheld by some but that have been proven through historical research to be false. Not one single actual reference remains. The most recent one was the "James brother of Jesus" bone box that was discovered to be a fraud.
But getting back to my initial point about people dismissing Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and other ancient myths as "myths" but then inexplicitly accepting the exact same things in modern "religion"--if Roman and Egyptian mythology is accepted as "false", for instance, then the lineage of modern religions in origin to these "false" myths would therefore render them false as well. Because when you actual study it that is what happens--one religions flows into and borrows from the next. In fact, there is a term invented just for this occurance--syncretism. Ideas and beliefs don't just pop up overnight, the way they would had some revolutionary deity come down to earth from heaven and astounded the world--the develop slowly and naturally as part of the socio-political system of their birth. In the case of Christianity, it was mainly borne from the Platonic "Son of Man" cults that were overtaking the middle east and parts of Rome in the first century in response to the chaos uprooting the world at the time. These eventually gave rise to Paul and his Messianic Son of Man, whom was later called the Christ, which then melded with the savior passions of the Mystery Cults that Rome was infused with. These types of beliefs were not unique or new--they were the prominent philosophies of the region. This confounded early scholars who began with the assumption that Christ was a real person--they discovered that certain Christ cults were springing up randomly in different regions with wildly different belief systems. It was because those followers were simply adopting the philosophy of the Platonic Christ cults on their own, and this was a common occurance to simply adopt religious belief in those times because polytheism allowed multiple gods to co-exist together. It wasn't until the second and third centuries that these beliefs became organized together after an ananymous author combined them and committed them to paper in the form of a document called the Gospel of Mark, which then was copied and transformed by various other authors and which formed the Christian Church; there were so many different local variations on the Christ myth that a council was created to select which ones were to be considered part of the canononical mythology (the Council of Nicaea) after the Church gained the authority fo Rome due to Emperor Constantine's conversion. The critics of Christianity were then silenced by death--because everyone from the Mystery Cults knew that Christianity was just another Mystery Cult, but Christians who by that point were being born over a hundred years after the supposed death of their savior, began believing that their myth was historical because the Gospel of Mark document placed the Son of Man/Sacred King passion in an earthly setting. This is why most forged historical records stem from this period.

Islam of course is an offshoot of Christianity in the same way that Christianity is an offshoot of the Platonic Christ cult and Mystery Cults. Buddhism and Hinduism are even more ancient and basically come from the same source that ancient Egyptian mythology did--in fact, many still debate as to whether Hinduism fed into Egyptian myth or Egyptian myth fed into Hinduism. Likely it was a back and forth process. But if the myths of Osiris and Horus and Ra are considered "false" and "mythical"--wouldn't that make Hinduism and Buddhism the same. What do we have that disproves the glorious Osiris or ominipotent all seeing eye of Ra as false deities? None, really, if you are looking for some kind of objective proof, some type of "confessional" by an Egyptian priest; but a search for such a document would be futile because that isn't even the nature with which mythology is created.



Universiality between philosophy, yes--most humans have a basic underlying philosophy and way of life that is similar, and many disconnected civilizations arrive at similar conclusions. Hell, the Ten Commandments is identical to the Code of Hammurabi, a secular code of conduct from many thousands of years prior that had such universal tenates as "thous shalt not kill", etc.

At the end of the day, we're all placing our faith in something.

Originally posted by: theredbaron

I didn't say that the burden of proof lies with you and other atheists to disprove God's existence, I said that the burden of proof lies with you to prove that all religions are bullshit. There is a difference. And you really haven't produced any hard evidence. It is hearsay, because all you've mentioned is basically 'a bunch of guys at some conference sometime all of a sudden realised that religion was bullshit'. That is really all you've said - no names, no sources, no quotes, no comparison of texts to suggest how they may have unanimously come to this conclusion. The definition of that, my friend, is hearsay.

Well, with regards to the Jesus Seminar you can verify and research that yourself since i have included a reputable, verifiable and highly reliable source that is well known to serious scholars of the New Testament.

As for "all religion is BS"--the human origins of every religion are clear and well known by scholars. Everyone on the planet accepts that the Greek religions and the Nordic religions and the Egyptian religions and the Roman religions, for example, are all bullshit--simply because they are seen as "unbelievable" and "impossible" "myths" of ancient lore that were made up to explain natural phenomena not understood by primitive man. But what is the difference between these and the more "modern" religions like Christianity, Islam, or Hinduism? Not much. Only the social entrenchment, much like how a Roman living in AD 50 would have accepted the cult of Jupiter as a valid establishment in the same way that an American accepts the cult of Christ as a valid establishment.
The supposedly unique thing that seperates modern religions from "primitive" "false" ones like the Roman or Greek ones is the illusion of a historical basis. Firstly this is not unique--in attempts to rectify ones religion as the "true" one, many have fabricated evidence and claimed historical places as a means of grounding their myths in reality. Heracles' and Mithras birthplace was claimed to be found by the Greeks and Persians, and all sorts of similarly wild means have been used ad nauseum by various cults and sects of religions. But the fact is that every supposed historical reference to a deity of modern religions has been uncovered to be a forgery. In the case of Jesus there are a handful of early first century references that have been upheld by some but that have been proven through historical research to be false. Not one single actual reference remains. The most recent one was the "James brother of Jesus" bone box that was discovered to be a fraud.
But getting back to my initial point about people dismissing Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and other ancient myths as "myths" but then inexplicitly accepting the exact same things in modern "religion"--if Roman and Egyptian mythology is accepted as "false", for instance, then the lineage of modern religions in origin to these "false" myths would therefore render them false as well. Because when you actual study it that is what happens--one religions flows into and borrows from the next. In fact, there is a term invented just for this occurance--syncretism. Ideas and beliefs don't just pop up overnight, the way they would had some revolutionary deity come down to earth from heaven and astounded the world--the develop slowly and naturally as part of the socio-political system of their birth. In the case of Christianity, it was mainly borne from the Platonic "Son of Man" cults that were overtaking the middle east and parts of Rome in the first century in response to the chaos uprooting the world at the time. These eventually gave rise to Paul and his Messianic Son of Man, whom was later called the Christ, which then melded with the savior passions of the Mystery Cults that Rome was infused with. These types of beliefs were not unique or new--they were the prominent philosophies of the region. This confounded early scholars who began with the assumption that Christ was a real person--they discovered that certain Christ cults were springing up randomly in different regions with wildly different belief systems. It was because those followers were simply adopting the philosophy of the Platonic Christ cults on their own, and this was a common occurance to simply adopt religious belief in those times because polytheism allowed multiple gods to co-exist together. It wasn't until the second and third centuries that these beliefs became organized together after an ananymous author combined them and committed them to paper in the form of a document called the Gospel of Mark, which then was copied and transformed by various other authors and which formed the Christian Church; there were so many different local variations on the Christ myth that a council was created to select which ones were to be considered part of the canononical mythology (the Council of Nicaea) after the Church gained the authority fo Rome due to Emperor Constantine's conversion. The critics of Christianity were then silenced by death--because everyone from the Mystery Cults knew that Christianity was just another Mystery Cult, but Christians who by that point were being born over a hundred years after the supposed death of their savior, began believing that their myth was historical because the Gospel of Mark document placed the Son of Man/Sacred King passion in an earthly setting. This is why most forged historical records stem from this period.

Islam of course is an offshoot of Christianity in the same way that Christianity is an offshoot of the Platonic Christ cult and Mystery Cults. Buddhism and Hinduism are even more ancient and basically come from the same source that ancient Egyptian mythology did--in fact, many still debate as to whether Hinduism fed into Egyptian myth or Egyptian myth fed into Hinduism. Likely it was a back and forth process. But if the myths of Osiris and Horus and Ra are considered "false" and "mythical"--wouldn't that make Hinduism and Buddhism the same. What do we have that disproves the glorious Osiris or ominipotent all seeing eye of Ra as false deities? None, really, if you are looking for some kind of objective proof, some type of "confessional" by an Egyptian priest; but a search for such a document would be futile because that isn't even the nature with which mythology is created.



Universiality between philosophy, yes--most humans have a basic underlying philosophy and way of life that is similar, and many disconnected civilizations arrive at similar conclusions. Hell, the Ten Commandments is identical to the Code of Hammurabi, a secular code of conduct from many thousands of years prior that had such universal tenates as "thous shalt not kill", etc.

At the end of the day, we're all placing our faith in something.

Originally posted by: C3PX
Actually, I was thinking of writing something to the same effect, but decided against it. You seem quite confident that there is no chance of a God existing and anyone who thinks differently is a moron. I am of the belief that there is no way to 100% prove the existence or non existence of a God.

This then leaves us with the belief that there must not be one. You must believe in a negative until a positive is proven. There is no way of proving that an invisible, undetectable leprachan named Fred secretly controls the universe--and who are we to say its impossible? But there is no way of proving or disproving it either way. Therefore we must accept that, until it is proven positive, we must assume the negative. This is called burden of proof. Its why religious wackos like the scientologists are considered idiots.



That depends on your definition of god, an often overlooked aspect. Is god supernatural? Does he submit to natural law? Or is he "above" such things, being more of a traditional "magical" type deity? If he is the latter then it would indeed be impossible to prove such a thing--god would be supernatural, as in not part of the natural universe, in which case science no longer applies. If god exists in the natural universe then he would be provable but also not omipotent since he would be regulated by the same laws of physics that we are and hence not fit many peoples defintion of god.

Only a fool decides the answer is no without really thinking about it and studying it on his own (which means not just believing it because our parents, teachers, or other influentual people in our lives thought this way). In the same way I think it can be foolish to believe in god for these same reasons.