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The Forum > Article Comments > God meets a different standard of proof > Comments

God meets a different standard of proof : Comments

By Richard Shumack, published 1/8/2013

Celebrity atheist Lawrence Krauss will face off against Christian apologist William Craig, but will they meet the appropriate standard of proof.

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Hi AJ,

Iron chariots? Sorry, I'm talking serious philosophy here.

In any case, my article grants that the arguments are not conclusive. But that is different from being debunked. Even the articles you refer to recognize that the arguments are valid, the question is how strong the premises are, and, again, that is a live question.

Cheers,

Richard
Posted by Richard Shumack, Thursday, 1 August 2013 10:37:29 AM
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Richard Shumack,

<<Iron chariots? Sorry, I'm talking serious philosophy here.>>

Yes, so am I.

And what’s wrong with IronChariots? It’s run by some very reputable “counter-apologists”.

But like I said, there’s plenty more sites out there for you to choose from. Simply utilise Google (http://tinyurl.com/5j9pzv). We live in the future now.

<<…Even the articles you refer to recognize that the arguments are valid, the question is how strong the premises are…>>

No, they point out why the premises are flawed too. And if the premises are flawed, then the rest falls down.

Valid or not.
Posted by AJ Philips, Thursday, 1 August 2013 10:57:17 AM
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'Scientific'? How about just believable. There is actually very little non-Biblical evidence of the existence of Jesus. Early references to the existence of Jesus in non-Christian texts, are generally accepted, even by Christian Biblical scholars, as almost certainly forgeries, probably placed there by Christian Monks, as they copied the old documents to preserve them. Considering how famous the New Testament makes Jesus out to be, this is rather peculiar.

The Bible itself is also written in a way to suggest that the authors weren't actually there. For just one example, consider The Garden of Gethsemane scene. This contains the words prayed by Jesus, but Jesus sent most people away and the ones there were asleep. So who actually observed what Jesus said to write it into the Bible?

Personally, I'm fairly sceptical that Jesus existed in the way he is portrayed in the Bible. Given the available evidence, that's not an unreasonable position.
Posted by SilverInCanberra, Thursday, 1 August 2013 11:18:43 AM
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Hi Aga -- substitute 'Mohammed' and 'Buddha' for Jesus in your first post, make a few minor changes, and you have an equally valid argument for Islam or Buddhism. So which one is right, and why? The success of a movement based on unsupported stories may be evidence of the psychological power of those stories, but it says nothing about their truth.

And Richard, you can't have it both ways. If religion wants to compete with science on a level playing field, then it must open itself up to empirical testing, in the way that science does. If not, then it's obliged to hang out in the locker room with homeopathy, ESP, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and all the other unsupported assertions that are put before us every day.

It's a common tactic of Christian apologists to treat 'science' as something remote and outside everyday experience, so they can make a false dichotomy between 'science' and 'religion'. But it's not; science is the application of exactly the same methods you and every other rational person use every morning to decide what to have for breakfast, how hot to make your shower, what route to take to work. 99.99% of your daily decision making is already based on the methods of science; why are you so desperately keen to sequester the remaining .01%?

Science is just rational decision-making applied a little more rigorously; while religion, of course, is merely organised fantasy.
Posted by Jon J, Thursday, 1 August 2013 11:25:16 AM
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Richard,
A refreshing article on this subject. You are right to emphasise the personal dimension. However, I still find the debate about the existence of God, including your approach, to be mandated on the idea that God is a being among other beings and can be described with the same language we use for other beings. This is the result of the idea of the univocity of being, introduced by Duns Scotus (1266-1308). He argued that we must have a single way of talking about all things, including God, because we cannot be left without a language to talk about God. This filtered down through the ages until Luther and Calvin, for example, unconsciously ascribed to the notion. Now we all do. This destroys the tradition understanding of God as transcendent, that we cannot know Him. Read the church fathers, Augustine and nearer to us Karl Barth for whom God is the wholly other. This means that God can only be talked about in terms of paradox. For example the power of God is revealed in the deriliction of Christ on the cross. My problem with debates about the existence of God is that we automatically assume a kind of being like our own.
Posted by Sells, Thursday, 1 August 2013 11:27:27 AM
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Peter, if we 'automatically assume' God is a 'kind of being like our own', that can only be because alleged experts on the subject like yourself have completely failed to come up with any remotely plausible alternative, despite having tried for centuries to do so. Give us a coherent and convincing account of what God actually is, and explain how you know, and you will be hailed as the saviour of theism and be up for a Nobel Prize.

The truth is, of course, that people like to tell and hear good stories, and stories about ineffable beings don't really make any sense. You might as well try to sell a novel about parallelograms, or put on a play about rocks.
Posted by Jon J, Thursday, 1 August 2013 11:50:10 AM
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