Christians are easily startled, but they'll soon be back. And in greater numbers 36:11

[Gethelred]

Welcome to the Ask an Atheist thread II.

Previous part:

Win Prizes - Ask an Atheist - Shoe's on the other foot now!

Alright, we're going to have a change of tack. As I'm sure you can see, the thread title has been changed to Ask an Atheist. People who have a question to ask of the atheists who populate this thread - more than the christians do - should feel free to ask questions of them. If you've still got...

www.bigfooty.com

Standard board rules apply.

 

[evolved2]

Have you ever prayed, really fervently prayed?

Yes. Have you?

 

[Vdubs]

Like, really scrunched up your eyes?

Those of us who have really prayed know that our prayers have been heard; that we need to pray is another thing. But it's direct communication with Christ.

 

[Vdubs]

Yes. Have you?

Daily.

 

[evolved2]

Daily.

Are you comfortable with your prayers and testimony undergoing scientific evaluation?

 

[Vdubs]

If this song has no provocation of thought for you, your heart is truly hardened

 

[Vdubs]

Are you comfortable with your prayers and testimony undergoing scientific evaluation?

certainly.

 

[Total Power]

Have you ever prayed, really fervently prayed?

For years, very sincerely. My father even more so...

 

[Total Power]

certainly.

There are many scientific evaluations of actual prayers, look up.

Unfortunately it won't appeal to your bias.

 

[Total Power]

Are you comfortable with your prayers and testimony undergoing scientific evaluation?

You think anything will convince these lot? once you are convinced it works, you will be blind to any evidence.. see below

Is the Scientific Study of Prayer Legit? - Science for the Church

Bible & Science—Ministry Resource: Is the scientific study of prayer legit? It's complicated, and we'll walk you through the reasons why.

scienceforthechurch.org

One reason was scientific—the noise factor. Why would God favor a recruited group of intercessors over the loved ones who are also praying for the patients or those in the control group? (Myers probably could have also added concerns about how overall care and social support differ among the 1,802 patients.)

Myers’ other reasons were biblical and theological. For example, he said the prayer being tested was akin to magic. God does not only work via miraculous healing but also through doctors and nurses. Our prayers do not alter the ways God is always working for good in the world. As J.I. Packer writes, prayer “is not an attempt to force God’s hand, but a humble acknowledgement of helplessness and dependence.”





It's pointless, i will actually believe if 'thoughts and prayers' actually solved any of the worlds real problems. Oh wait, God act through people.....i mean yeah, Jesus' home is burning he is busy appeasing white men in first world countries. I mean he can speak to Netanyahu , afterall YWH is Jesus!

Lol

 

[Total Power]

Those of us who have really prayed know that our prayers have been heard; that we need to pray is another thing. But it's direct communication with Christ.

Put it to test, ask for peace in Gaza, immediately, i will convert if he gives you a certain date. Deal?

Remember Matt 7:7-8? i am not even asking for myself...but thoughts and prayers didn't help the lives of 30,000 children! Maybe not ALL prayers are answered. You have the direct hotline, you ask the dude, why don't you? you said you're up for scientific evaluation so lets try?

Now waiting for a bunch of excuses on why it won't work....

lol

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Those of us who have really prayed know that our prayers have been heard; that we need to pray is another thing. But it's direct communication with Christ.

So, if you really really concentrate, your thought waves somehow leave your cranium and float through space to this guy who died two thousand years ago?

Yep, checks out.

 

[Total Power]

So, if you really really concentrate, your thought waves somehow leave your cranium and float through space to this guy who died two thousand years ago?

Yep, checks out.

lol! I can never get over the bizarre way religion warps your perspective. Jesus was a failed apocalyptic preacher venerated because of centuries of violence. I don't think he taught anything particularly unique, nor anything particularly profound that cannot be found elsewhere.

 

[Vdubs]

So, if you really really concentrate, your thought waves somehow leave your cranium and float through space to this guy who died two thousand years ago?

Yep, checks out.

He is indeed ALIVE. Christianity is about following the RISEN Jesus Christ.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

He is indeed ALIVE. Christianity is about following the RISEN Jesus Christ.

Yeh so you keep saying, and yet your only proof is that you believe it.

So I ought to consider the value of what you believe... because you believe. Not a super strong case, you'd have to agree.

(I'd just stress, we're talking about this strictly as an intellectual point and I reiterate my appreciation that you don't proselytise on this forum.)

On a side note, though I loathe what the internet has done to society in so many ways, one thing I do thank the internet for, is allowing the absurdities of religious belief to be presented even more starkly than when talking face to face.

Here's two people who have almost certainly never met IRL, and one of them is typing into a keyboard so that words appear on a screen owned by the other. And what Person One is typing, is that Person Two really needs to understand that Person One's typing what they think inside their head in order that that thinking appears as words on Person Two's screen... is a convincing case for what Person Two ought to do with their life.

 

[Vdubs]

Yeh so you keep saying, and yet your only proof is that you believe it.

So I ought to consider the value of what you believe... because you believe. Not a super strong case, you'd have to agree.

(I'd just stress, we're talking about this strictly as an intellectual point and I reiterate my appreciation that you don't proselytise on this forum.)

On a side note, though I loathe what the internet has done to society in so many ways, one thing I do thank the internet for, is allowing the absurdities of religious belief to be presented even more starkly than when talking face to face.

Here's two people who have almost certainly never met IRL, and one of them is typing into a keyboard so that words appear on a screen owned by the other. And what Person One is typing, is that Person Two really needs to understand that Person One's typing what they think inside their head in order that that thinking appears as words on Person Two's screen... is a convincing case for what Person Two ought to do with their life.

one person telling a practicing believer his faith is delusional, can 't be real, is absurd, , no evidence- that's what I read.
No believer is telling anyone what to do, but you ask for our reasons , they are given, and you demand scientific proof- that shows your concrete thinking, and lack of respect for believers

 

[Kram]

Yes. Have you?

Sounds like supporting Fremantle.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

one person telling a practicing believer his faith is delusional, can 't be real, is absurd, , no evidence- that's what I read.
No believer is telling anyone what to do, but you ask for our reasons , they are given, and you demand scientific proof- that shows your concrete thinking, and lack of respect for believers

I never said you were delusional. I said telling another autonomous human being that what is inside your head is the truth because you say it is inside your head and is the truth - isn't a super-strong argument.

Yes, I use concrete thinking. Anything else is too unreliable to be of any use. Miracles aren't miracles, they are unexplained phenomena. Just because science says something is unexplained doesn't mean religious believers have any right to declare it a miracle.

Prophecy is not prophecy, it is someone predicting a future outcome with some accuracy. Good on them when they get it right, but it's no basis for rational people to attribute anything to it other than a variable mix of perspicacity and dumb luck.

I don't disrespect believers. I respect the sanctity and dignity of all humans.

I disrespect belief and its unearned prestige in our discourse.

 

[Kram]

Religion to me just seems silly and illogical.

But if someone wants to believe in that and it makes them happy then fair play. As long as they dont annoy or upset other people with it of course.

 

[Vdubs]

Religion to me just seems silly and illogical.

But if someone wants to believe in that and it makes them happy then fair play. As long as they dont annoy or upset other people with it of course.

Sure.
Thread title?---- it's guys discussing the "virtues" of Christianity ad nauseum, hoping some believers jump into the discussion to justify what they think they know about believers and faith.
'Thread was started by a Christian, to try and explain belief, but as it became a s--t-fight over time, certain mod stepped in and tried to quell the situation.
Nobody comes here to proselytise- it's all about explaining how real it is for believers, and in some cases, why and how it came to be.
Every Christian knows that it's impossible and meaningless to try converting complete strangers, let alone close family non-believing members.
So upsetting people HERE is irrelevant when Christians are asked to explain things that would not be tolerated in any other thread.

 

[Total Power]

Sure.
Thread title?---- it's guys discussing the "virtues" of Christianity ad nauseum, hoping some believers jump into the discussion to justify what they think they know about believers and faith.
'Thread was started by a Christian, to try and explain belief, but as it became a s--t-fight over time, certain mod stepped in and tried to quell the situation.
Nobody comes here to proselytise- it's all about explaining how real it is for believers, and in some cases, why and how it came to be.
Every Christian knows that it's impossible and meaningless to try converting complete strangers, let alone close family non-believing members.
So upsetting people HERE is irrelevant when Christians are asked to explain things that would not be tolerated in any other thread.

Lol sh1t-fight. Never heard of critical thinking have you? here's what you follow:

Written by anonymous authors in a foreign language 40-70 years after this individuals death with zero eyewitness testimonials?

Pretty hard to claim the gospels were works of god.

Although Christian tradition assigns the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to the canonical gospels, mainstream New Testament scholars, including some Christian scholars, tend to doubt that they were the actual authors.[13] Unlike other ancient works and even other books in the New Testament, the gospels do not explicitly state who wrote them.[13] On manuscripts of the gospels, later scribes gave them unusual titles like „the Gospel according to so-and-so“, thereby distancing them as authors of the works.[13] Out of the texts that we have, Irenaeus (~180-185 CE) was the first church father to explicitly name the gospels when he quoted them.[13] Decades before Irenaeus, church father Papias (c. 60–c. 130 CE) had indicated that Matthew and Mark had written down accounts about Jesus, and that Mark had gotten his information from Peter.[13] However, the surviving text of Papias does not quote Matthew or Mark’s works, and his descriptions of Mark and Matthew do not appear to strongly match the texts that we have today. He was also an unreliable source who told tall tales about Judas literally exploding and was described by Eusebius as a man who „seems to have been of very small intelligence.“[13] One apologetical response is that it would have been unlikely for books to be falsely assigned less illustrious authors like Mark the tax collector and Luke the physician of Paul. But many non-canonical texts were also attributed to less well-known figures, such as Philip, Thomas, and Nicodemus.[13]

Source


All the evidence points towards the text being wholly unreliable. So all you really have left is blind faith, the followers of Mohammed will say the same exact thing about the Koran or Hindus about existence of Krishna. Your position is indistinguishable to me.

 

[Total Power]

I never said you were delusional.

You are being nice now the dude speaks to a bloke who never existed.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Christians are asked to explain things that would not be tolerated in any other thread.

What sort of things?

 

[Roylion]

one person telling a practicing believer his faith is delusional, can 't be real, is absurd, , no evidence- that's what I read.
No believer is telling anyone what to do, but you ask for our reasons , they are given, and you demand scientific proof- that shows your concrete thinking, and lack of respect for believers

You can believe what you like, but I see no good reason for myself to accept that belief is in fact true.

 

[dorianyates]

You are being nice now the dude speaks to a bloke who never existed.

You write as if you’re an authority on something that nobody has ever been able to prove or disprove when you say « The dude speaks to a bloke who never existed. »

I believe that Jesus existed. Are you denying that a man called Jesus ever existed or was never crucified or are you denying His divinity?

 

[Total Power]

You write as if you’re an authority on something that nobody has ever been able to prove or disprove when you say « The dude speaks to a bloke who never existed. »

I believe that Jesus existed. Are you denying that a man called Jesus ever existed or was never crucified or are you denying His divinity?

This has been covered multiple times in this thread. No one denies a bloke called Jesus (or Yeshua) once existed. The stories written about it are made up stories written by anonymous writers decades after he died (see my wiki post above). Much of what Jesus said came from Paul, who never met Jesus but appeared in front of him when he had a heart attack on his way to Damascus.

Gospel of John is an outright fabrication. Much of it was added centuries after the death of this individual.

Gospel of John - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Jesus's teachings in the Synoptics greatly differ from those in John. Since the 19th century, scholars have almost unanimously accepted that the Johannine discourses are less likely to be historical than the synoptic parables, and were likely written for theological purposes.[137] Nevertheless, they generally agree that John is not without historical value.

Reference > Bart Ehrman's How Jesus became God. (He never called himself God, divine yes, but not God outside a couple of times in the Gospel of John, you would wonder if him being God was that important he would have mentioned it in the synoptics).