I'd probably rephrase this a little, Trav, although I know what you mean.

>>Surely, considering that you are an enlightened homo sapien at the top of the animal kingdom, your powers of imagination are sufficient to provide a hypothetical scenario whereby you could come to believe in some kind of higher power.<<

Can I imagine a scenario where other people come to believe in some kind of higher power?

Indeed I can. I can imagine that belief in a God is a great comfort to people who fear the unknown - in particular, the unknowns "how did we get here" and "why are we here"?

Can I imagine a scenario whereby I could come to believe the same thing? Not really. I am quite content to accept that not everything will become clear in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I take great delight in each new discovery that humankind makes about the cosmos.

>>that's why the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 vs 3-8 that he "received" the message that Jesus rose again. And he goes on to list witnesses to the event.<<

Unfortunately for this theory, he actually lists himself as one of those:

"...he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also"

We know for a fact (he says so himself) that Paul never met Jesus. Yet here he is, saying that he did, along with 514 others.

>>My view is that the evidence is highly compatible with a resurrection and difficult to explain with other explanations.<<

Sure. That is pretty much what defines you as a Christian. But your opinion differs from mine. You find it difficult, whereas I find it quite easy to explain the whole miracle-and-resurrection thing, as allegory.

After all, if you were founding a new religion, you'd need something pretty special to kick-start it, wouldn't you?

OUG- The worms will get my body but my spirit is with God (The Almighty God) and I have the assurance of the Holy Spirit and the word of God (the Bible).
Guess what, God promises to provide me with a new body just like His when He returns. I trust in His promises...contained in His word and He doesn't change His mind.
He does love me and He does love every person He has created but do they accept Him, do they accept His gift...the gift of His Son??

I wonder if all atheists have a Holiday (meaning- HOLY DAY) at Christmas and Easter (the Birth of Jesus and the Death and Resurrection of Jesus). Our country is based on a Christian heritage.

Jesus 12 disciples saw Jesus after He rose, naturally they took awhile to comprehend
because they thought He was going to be an earthly king. On the road to Emmaus two of the disciples didn't even recognise Jesus untilHe broke bread and drank wine with them as He had done at the last supper.
After the resurrection Jesus spent 40 days alive on earth and met about 500 people so 500 = the 12 disciples would have spread gospel message and the message is spreading around the world as fast as ever.
The New Testament contains books written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John(The Gospels) James, Peter and Timothy also wrote books which are also in the New Testament. And a Roman named Saul killed Christians then met (saw) the resurrected Jesus and became a changed man renamed Paul has written quite a few if the Letters in the New Testament. He wrote letters encouraging new believers in Rome, Corinth, Phillippi, Galatia, Epheasis. He also wrote Revelations.
These men walked and talked with Jesus..that's good enough for me. That is absolutely awesome for me.

Trav,

I don’t see much point in continuing further here. While there are points I don’t make as clear as I could due to word limits, some of your posts addressed to me contain responses to things I didn’t even say or meanings that weren’t even there.

<<There is a problem that permeates all response. EVERYONE has presuppositions!>>

You’re right. Why do we even bother forming opinions or believing anything if we’re so inextricably bound by our presuppositions? None of it’s reliable anyway.

Seriously though...

<<It is very, very difficult, perhaps even impossible, to interpret evidence without letting your presuppositions get in the way!>>

Impossible? You really have a habit of overstating things, don’t you, Trav? Like your “hard evidence”.

If that’s the case then why don’t I believe in a god anymore? According to your logic here we can’t have much confidence at all in the court system. Like with you logic in regards to our ability to reason, there’s little use in us ever trying.

<<I would advise you to avoid jumping on your high horse and claiming that you can complete this near-impossible task, and instead demonstrate your ability to do so through your writings.>>

And how haven’t I done that? In fact, considering no-one has yet shown why any of my arguments are wrong, what opportunity have I even been given to do that?

<<You claim that I am indulging in “mental gymnastics” by building assumptions on top of assumptions.>>

Example #1 of a response to something I didn’t say.

It’s not the act of building assumption upon assumption that made what you said “mental gymnastics”. It’s the disjointed logical process you went through to arrive at your conclusion.

<<But really, all you’ve done is bang on about the objectivity of evidence and the worthlessness of opinions (whilst giving your own opinions to counter mine!) but obviously that will get us nowhere.>>

Example #2 of a response to something I didn’t say.

I said that opinions don’t constitute evidence, they’re formed on it. But yes, they’re worthless as evidence because opinions can be wrong.

Continued...

...Continued

I like how you used the term “bang on” as if what I said was irrelevant to the discussion, though. It provided an intriguing insight into your attitude to anything that doesn’t support your arguments.

<<Earlier you made the claim that monotheistic religion is a divisive force (an opinion).>>

Yes, an opinion! When did I ever claim it was evidence for anything? I’m really wasting my time here, aren’t I?

<<...given half the world follows [Christianity/Islam], and given the assumption (your opinion) that they are both divisive forces, would we or would we not expect to see more than 7% of wars fought in the name of religion? I say yes, of course we would!>>

Yes and you saying, “Of course we would”, is not evidence. It’s an opinion. Yet you presented it as evidence and hence my “banging on”...

“This is the evidential weight, the reason I credit religion as a mostly peaceful force is the LACK of violence comparative to what I would expect given the sheer number of believers and their devout belief.” - Trav

Besides which, I said the Abrahamic religions are ”inherently divisive” (John 14:6, as just one example.), as in divisiveness is a characteristic of them. That doesn’t mean that that divisiveness is necessarily going to show through in every believer nor does it mean that it’s going to show to the same extent. There are external factors that come in to play when people decide how they’ll interpret and cherry-pick the teachings of their religion (hence my poorly-worded point about people not following their religion 100%).

But that doesn’t mean we let religion off the hook and lay the blame on human nature alone as you attempted to do. My point about taking one less motivation out of the equation still stands there.

<<Billions of followers basing their lives on divisive teachings, and yet 7% of wars are fought in the name of these divisive belief systems? Something seems wrong here.>>

Yes and I suspect it’s your 2-dimensional way of thinking. Your intuition isn’t evidence either, by the way.

Continued...

...Continued

<<Yet, it’s atheist countries who have the biggest militaries, and it’s atheist leaders who committed most of the worst crimes of the 20th century...>>

HA! I was wondering how long it would take you to pull this one.

For this to mean anything, you’d have to point to something within atheism that supported what they did, or at the very least, demonstrate how taking up a religious belief would have stopped the communists doing what they did, which - considering the stats I’ve provided - would really be pushing [censored] up hill.

But until you do, though, all you prove by pointing this out is that political ideologies can be just as divisive as religion.

<<All of those three specific arguments for God could fail miserably (as you believe they do)...>>

No, as I “know” they do and I’ve already explained to you once before why that is.

<<...and that would still be rather irrelevant to the general question I posed.>>

Oh they’re very relevant because they are some of the main “proofs” used for the existence of god, they were derived by Christian thinkers, they are modified by Christian thinkers and are often presented by Christian thinkers.

But like I said, all the thinking in the world is of little use if you start with a presupposition that you do not permit yourself to deviate from in any way whatsoever.

In regards to Hitler, not much of what you said was new to me and although we’ll never really know for sure, I’m quite comfortable with the idea of him being an atheist because, like with Communism, there’s nothing within atheism to support what he did and there’s nothing to say that a religious belief would have done anything to stop someone who was clearly mad to begin with anyway. So playing that as a trump card only makes theists look stupid and desperate.

So there you have it, Trav. All this time we’ve spent and so far you’ve still failed to make the slightest bit of headway.

How much longer are we going to keep doing this?

AJ Phillips

I always read your posts, I don't have the patience to sift through the "if the bible says it - it's true" style that many (fortunately not all) religious use as debate.

I also tire at the aspersions cast on people (any non-Christian including atheists). I know people both Christian and not who are inspiring, thoughtful and compassionate - I would posit that my Christian friends would have these qualities irrespective of their religion.

You have the patience of a saint.
P)

Trav

Rhetorical question: Have you ever considered that casting aspersions on people who do not share your beliefs and have the temerity to disagree with you, is in itself; a divisive act, lacking in charity and it is behaviour like this, throughout world history, has lead to war?

The control of belief = power.

I am not going to respond to you I would simply ask that you consider what I have posited.