God


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

You could have saved some effort & just typed scripture

So you can't tell the difference between conclusions based on scholastic research and those that are theological in origin?

Both John the Baptist and James the Brother of Jesus are considered to be historical figures and James references Jesus. The historian Josephus refers to John although his description is very different to the one in the Gospel of Mark and he also refers to James. The entry for James does refer to Jesus but was probably edited at a later date. Sceptics claim that was probably the work of Christians but Josephus is known to have altered entries himself later in his life.

You believe what you want but the consensus among scholars is that Jesus was a historical figure although the Gospels are considered very unreliable and largely works of fiction.
 
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Agnosticism relates to the nature of god or what can be known of god.

Judging by your words, it appears the Loch Monster is your idea of god.
So my point would be why do gods get special treatment and special words.
Why isn't there a word for "I don't know whether or not The LNM exists, therefore I have to be open minded?"
Answer: because that would be ridiculous.

The starting point for the LNM is that it is so incredibly unlikely that we're down near 0 until some real evidence is provided.

But, of course, with gods the rules are different, right?
 
Going to disagree again there.
Some definitions from random google searches:

"To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods."

"a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods."

(for clarity, disbelieve means "be unable to believe." rather than being the opposite of belief, i.e. this doesn't mean a certainty of there being no gods)

" someone who does not believe in any god or gods"

Actually, the "a" in a-theist denotes "not". ie not a believer

On that, the term you are looking for is "gnostic". Having actual knowledge on such matters vs agnostic, having no knowledge

The term atheist also originally included Christians. It was what the Romans called anyone who didn't believe in their gods.

the consensus among scholars is that Jesus was a historical figure

No, there is consensus among christian scholars who have a vested interest in confirming their bias. There is no independent verifiable evidence of the existence of Jesus/Yeshua. But you carry on believing in fairy tales.
 
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If you are presuming then you can take into account other information such as:

  • I have no idea who you and your other half are
  • I don't know where you live
  • I have a partner already
  • I would never cheat on my partner
  • I would never sleep with the partner of a Sunderland fan
  • I have no spare slots in my diary of more than 1 hour for several weeks

...plus loads more.

We know lots about the laws of nature. Granted there is stuff we do not yet know and maybe never will. We know the stuff written in The Bible that God (let's assume we're only talking about one god here) reportedly did would take extraordinary evidence to back it up. It is incredibly unlikely, based on our understanding of the world, that any of that is possible. That is not to say it is impossible, but we would need extraordinary evidence to back it up.

The starting point for both concepts is not 50/50. Based on our understanding of the world we can start at "pretty fecking unlikely" and work towards an answer of 0 or 1.


I worked as a scientist for 7 years and every single experiment I carried out was to answer a question. The answer to that question is binary - e.g. yes/no, works/doesn't work, true/false. That's why I was drawn to Science at school, college and uni. The answers to the exam questions are either correct or wrong. Not like some other subjects where there is a grey area and so long as you build a good argument and use references correctly then two completely different answers can both get good marks.

The question in the experiment has a starting expectation which is not "I don't know" (50/50) but can reasonably be towards the "I expect this to work" or "I expect this won't work". It is perfectly reasonable to start along the scale between 0 and 1 when we have previous understanding around a subject.

If something can only either be true or false it does NOT mean that both are equally as likely.

Nothing unscientific about that.

In which case we're moving away from a simple conversation around a priori probability and more towards probability theory and Bayes' Theorem. I'll choose to bow out here as its been many years since i've studied this!
 
No, there is consensus among christian scholars who have a vested interest in confirming their bias. There is no independent verifiable evidence of the existence of Jesus/Yeshua. But you carry on believing in fairy tales.

That's bullshit. Again you can't differentiate between scholastic research and theological argument. There are very credited scholars who are not Christian such as Robert Eisenman who translated the Dead Sea Scrolls and discovered the greater significance of James compared to Jesus. I've just said that the Gospels are mainly works of fiction so why should I believe them. Can you read effectively?
 
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So my point would be why do gods get special treatment and special words.
Why isn't there a word for "I don't know whether or not The LNM exists, therefore I have to be open minded?"
Answer: because that would be ridiculous.

The starting point for the LNM is that it is so incredibly unlikely that we're down near 0 until some real evidence is provided.

But, of course, with gods the rules are different, right?

Yes, gods are (imaginary or real, physical or supernatural - who knows?) objects of worship that have played a role in the nature and development of humans throughout our evolution. This is the finding of anthropologists and neuroscientists after centuries of research.
 
If nothing else it provokes a bit of thought. When I was working in Africa, I had quite a bit of time setting up and monitoring transformer oil pumping, and filtering equipment. I spent some time just watching the ants running about and it intrigued me, in the way in which they rarely travelled more than 3 or 4 metres from their nest, and that I could, to some extent control them by dropping bits of bread, or placing a dead fly for them to find, then watch them communicate, and work, up and down their line. They have no concept of much, past their immediate vicinity, and I doubt that they have any idea that they are on planet earth, or know anything else of the world outside of their 3 metre zone. What if we are the same ? Just something very small, but part of something much much larger, that we can't begin to comprehend, and that we can be controlled to a certain degree ?
 
That's bullshit. Again you can't differentiate between scholastic research and theological argument. There are very credited scholars who are not Christian such as Robert Eisenman who translated the Dead Sea Scrolls and discovered the greater significance of James compared to Jesus. I've just said that the Gospels are mainly works of fiction so why should I believe them. Can you read effectively?

Eisenman? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Again with the confirmation bias. There are some huge leaps of faith there & he even says at the end that he doesn't want the reader to go to secondary sources. He just wants the reader to swallow it whole.
 
Eisenman? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Again with the confirmation bias. There are some huge leaps of faith there & he even says at the end that he doesn't want the reader to go to secondary sources. He just wants the reader to swallow it whole.
I don't remember him saying that. At the end of what? Can you provide a more accurate quote and source? He is Jewish not Christian. Most of his work is about James and he considers Jesus of much less significance by comparison. In other words Jesus is secondary to James.
 
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Eisenman? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Again with the confirmation bias. There are some huge leaps of faith there & he even says at the end that he doesn't want the reader to go to secondary sources. He just wants the reader to swallow it whole.
That's up there with someone telling me about their holy book being right because it even tells them to go and read more sources - because they see that as a good thing (which it is). However, none of them actually do it, so they simply add more weight to the 1-book by adding "it even tells me to read other books, even though I haven't".

Confirmation Bias-tastic :lol:
 
I am agnostic.

I have known religious people who were very loud about it and weren't particularly nice people. Also known religious people who were low-key about it, and who were some of the best humans I have encountered.

I suppose you judge folk on their actions, rather than their words or their faith.
Exactly live and let live.

If people have a faith and it makes them happy great if people don’t have faith and they are happy fair enough.

However some of the evangelist aethiests on here are as bad as some Christian evangelists. 😀

Live and let live.
 
I would presume, rightly or wrongly, because of your wee picture you are not a believer?
Replying to myself here cos don't know why I posted that, was a stupid post sorry, wasn't making it into anything just commenting on your picture. In my defence I have a horrible virus and am tired.
 
So probability becomes fact by your logic?
No, I did not write that.

I wrote that where the answer to a question can only either be true or false, it doesn't necessarily mean both outcomes are equally likely and that we can use other information to reasonably move our starting point from 50/50.
They are funny though. They have found absolute truth even though it is just a probability. The main reason for these threads is to insult and ridicule theists but it's pretty obvious why, as theists avoid it like the plague. :D
But that just is not true. I have been perfectly reasonable on this thread and provided reasoned arguments.

Some others have said such beliefs are ridiculous (in today's times). It's difficult to disagree with that perspective.
I would presume, rightly or wrongly, because of your wee picture you are not a believer?
You would presume correctly.
I don't believe in anything just on faith. As a rational person I do need some evidence.
Also.... I just don't have time.
 
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They are funny though. They have found absolute truth even though it is just a probability. The main reason for these threads is to insult and ridicule theists but it's pretty obvious why, as theists avoid it like the plague. :D
I’m no expert but ultimately nobody knows for certain on either side of the argument until they die if there is God and afterlife so ultimately it comes down to faith.

Faith ultimately lies with the individual and who is to say if it’s right or wrong.

In terms of religion if we are talking about Christianity rather than other faiths there have been many bad Christian’s down through the years and you can see why people without a faith have a go.

As a counter to that I have helped my local Foodbank for a number of years and it is run by a group of Christian’s who quietly go about serving their community without any fanfare.

Like I said live and let live for me on this one.

I have to say I think @Kent_Mackem is a cracking poster but we disagree a little on this as he is a bit of an evangelical arthiest but I still think he is a good lad. 😀 God bless him 😉
 
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I’m no expert but ultimately nobody knows for certain on either side of the argument until they die if there is God and afterlife so ultimately it comes down to faith.

Faith ultimately lies with the individual and who is to say if it’s right or wrong.

In terms of religion if we are talking about Christianity rather than other faiths there have been many bad Christian’s down through the years and you can see why people without a faith have a go.

As a counter to that I have helped my local Foodbank for a number of years and it is run by a group of Christian’s who quietly go about serving their community without any fanfare.

Like I said live and let live for me on this one.
And as a non-believer I put in hours and hours of voluntary work for my community. The charity argument doesn't work. There are believers and non-believers who are both good and bad.

Of course there is no way to prove a god does not exist. The chances are pretty remote though based on every sensible understanding we have.

Anybody going through their life hoping for "the next one to be better" is utterly deluded and they won't know any better when they die.

Of course live and let live - no problem with that. But can we also ask that believers don't indoctrinate children or mutilate their bodies, that they stay away from law-making, they pay their taxes and they don't hurt or kill others in the name of their beliefs. Once those boxes are ticked then religious believers just become harmless individuals with their own set of odd beliefs.
 

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