ScepticalPyrrho:
Hello, this is nairaland.

Now, if you guys aren't bullshitting, why do you expect a person who has no belief in the existence of something to provide a proof for his claim.

The op is a lame attempt to push the burden on all of your fellow faithfuls to present proofs for something you dedicate your time, energy and sweat worshiping.

Common, you guys are being ridiculous.

It's a shame though.

You guys should really stop further embarrassment and show some respect to human intellect.

Dont mind the retarded people.

Just like i look at a field and i dont see anything and you look at the same field and you see a garden, baseball court and a house.

Please who should do the describing in this case ? is it not the person that claims he sees everything. That person should point where all the objects he sees are not the person that is allegedly blind to it.

The people go to church every weekend and midweek, they pay their tithes, they pray, prophesy, speak in tongues and they expect atheists to do the describing for them.

They are now telling atheists to prove that there is no god in the universe while thy cant present their god to anyone unless the person agrees to believe before they prove it. What a stupid copout.

Instead of them to use this opportunity to present evidence for their god and prove once and for all to all ears that their delusion is real.
For once let them act like elijah and the prophets of baal.

damogul:
[/b]

Since you know this thread is not about the bolded why are you trying to derail it? When that thread is opened then you can grace it. Until then stop derailing this one.

You just dey scatter vex everywhere. Behave more like your christ please

PDBonline:
LiberaDeus, jonbellion if you are agnostic and you are here, you created the confusion because the title is clear.

Nevertheless if you have a claim that it is not possible to know whether or not God exist, you may want to provide the same Scientific proof of how you arrived at that believe. It's the same as you've asked theists.

I have previously stated that lack of capacity to know on your part doesn't equal impossibility. And you cannot call other people's personal experiences as false because you don't believe it. You don't believe it is different from it is not true or it is not reliable.

I never your called your personal experience false.
Your personal experience is real very very real. But if it can't affect me then it is just subjective to you.

There is a difference between saying you have a burning feeling in your stomach and claiming that fire is burning on your stomach.
If you have a burning feeling then it is your feeling and I understand that and you understand that I do, we know it can be caused by so many things and i can also experience that burning feeling too.

But when you claim that real fire is burning your stomach now. Not a feeling but real flames then there must be an effect on the surrounding environments especially if I am around you. If you claim something is real and it can't affect reality in any way then it is only real to you and you alone.

I don't just choose to disbelieve or believe your personal experiences. I reject them as my truth because they do not alter reality only when I believe them. Your experiences are based on faith and faith alone.

I don't choose to believe. That's what I used to do when I was a Christian. Choosing to believe in something.
The reasonable thing is to accept something as fact because of incontrovertible evidence that can't be denied.

Stop claiming that we lack capacity to know. Any one can claim that for any false and fraudulent claim. Its also not my fault that you lack capacity to know that there is a pink unicorn flying over Lagos now. Inability to know does not equal impossibility as you claim so don't disbelieve the fact that there is a pink unicorn over Lagos now.

Don't you think it is outright arrogance for you to claim that a finite human being like you claims to know and have a relationship with the creator of a universe that spans over a trillion trillion miles in diameter.
It is very arrogant for you to claim to know what mankind has sought over thousands of years and still not provide an iota of objective proof that would not depend on blind faith.

Can't you see that faith is mental weakness. With faith, all things can be true and proven and all things can be false and disproved too.
In your world anything is possible, any and everything that happens to be mentioned in your holy book is elevated as fact no matter how absurd it sounds.
In my world, fact and truth must be strong enough to be undeniable . I don't believe in cheap facts or truth that are elevated in your mind because you helped it to become true by denying every contradiction and using blind faith.

Am still waiting for when you will dedicate a thread to show how your god is the one true god out of all the god concepts

PDBonline:

LiberaDeus don't start it again. There is a clear statement about what we expect from you in this thread.
What you've just done among other things is exactly the Shift of Burden of Proof I am complaining about. It's a known informal logical FALLACY.
Then to that you are adding Hasty Generalization. Christians are in different stages of knowledge and maturity. And our Bible tells us that who ever thinks he knows anything as not known it as he ought to- meaning that knowledge, talk less knowledge of God is inexhaustible.
So anyone among us who is truly knowledgeable also knows that there is more to know. Rather than allow the lack of knowledge to led us into hasty conclusions and spiritual laziness, we have not given up, calling God all sorts like those who left our camp does.

The same ignorance that has led to broken relationships when one partner decides to stop seeking to know the other and adjust to the responsibility that the knowledge brings, that's what has led to many leaving our camp. And you can read the anger and disappointment they express towards a God they claim doesn't exist.

LiberaDeus, you have all the opportunity here to scientifically proof to a logical conclusion why you hold on to the idea that there is no God because you have suggested that this is what Christians should do while shutting your eyes and heart to all the evidence already existing around you. You even have the liberty to quote the works(research) of those senior atheists like Dawkins.

I don't know why you don't read my posts totally and jump to conclusions. I am not an atheist but an agnostic.
I never made a claim that no god exists.
My belief is that there is most likely a number of higher intelligent beings[ call it god or not] that exist in the universe and can most likely exist in other universes. I can't claim that I know how or when or why the universe was created. Its you theists that make that extraordinary claim so you guys must prove it.

You are funny. Do you know that your acceptance of Christianity is a hasty generalization that you took most likely when you were younger and didn't think critically.

Examine these facts
- you are alive and you know you came from somewhere

-you know the earth must come from somewhere and something can't come from nothing

- you see inherent design in nature and purpose

Considering these facts above, you jumped into a conclusion that a god specifically created the universe and his name is Yahweh, his sons name is Jesus, he chose the jews as his chosen people. That's a very big mother of all leaps and a very hasty generalization. You did this most likely because it was introduced to you at a very young age when you couldn't object or think critically. You might have decided to become more devout as you grew older for reasons best known to you.

When I left christianity, I undid the hasty generalization that I did when I was younger and when I was older.
The logical stance is to wait for incontrovertible proof of your gods existence not accepting it by blind faith.

Don't wait for me to give you proof. I am not an atheist.
As you are waiting for atheists to give you proof I hope one day you will open a thread that shows how the universe was purposely created by your Yahweh.

damogul:


On the contrary its not my responsibility. I HAVE COME TO KNOW WHAT YOU DO NOT KNOW yet you who DO NOT KNOW SEEMS TO THINK YOU KNOW MORE THAN I DO WHEN YOU SAY YOU ARE SURE THE GOD WHOM YOU DO NOT KNOW CANNOT BE YAHWEH.

So its either you are weighed down by gross confusion or you are on the precipice of mental strangulation or you have somehow seen all the gods that ever existed, interacted with them, compared their characteristics and then drew a conclusion. Which is it?

Am sorry Mr man. You have come to know what I don't know but you can't offer proof of it. Do you know how that sounds?

I know that there are UFOs . I have come to know that aliens exist cause I have one with me in the room now. If you like doubt it that's your business. You can't have or know what i share with my extraterrestrial friend. I can make this claim for 4000 years like your Jewish and Christian brethren have done and no one can disprove it . Have you searched the whole world to know my alien friend doesn't exist. Even if you can't see him, I can assure you that he is invisible and you can never know.

That's how you Christians sound.

I don't have time for insults.
I don't have to investigate all gods in the world to come to that conclusion. Religious people across the world make claims about universal gods and fail to provide proof of it and you think I should believe it.
Since I haven't investigated them all, you know what, I will believe in all the gods that have ever existed since the beginning of history.
I can't disprove Zeus, Ra, Odin, Baal, Allah, Brahman. So I will believe the possibility that they exist in short I will believe them alongside Yahweh.
Its when you now try to tell me to drop just one of them like Brahman that's when I will tell you to apply the same reasons to Yahweh and lets know whether or not he should exist.

As for your claims of knowing god and I not knowing. I can categorically tell you that if your so called knowing can't be corroborated in reality then they are no different from that of lunatic in an asylum.

KingEbukasBlog:


Yahweh sure gives the atheist a heck of a headache . Na wa oo



He does not know , He does not know but when it came to Yahweh he certainly knew .

So many reasons why I don't take them seriously .

I can tell you that I don't believe any so called god be it Allah, Vishnu, ahura Mazda etc are not the creators of the universe. I can say that as long as the followers of these gods keep on churning contradictory claims about their god and also keep on defending their religion with blind faith then they aren't to be taken seriously same with you Yahweh worshippers.

damogul:


First you say a lot of YOU DONT KNOWS in your statement then you assume that this God whom you do not know is not Yahweh. So can you tell me how you arrived at not knowing about Gods character yet you say he MUST not be Yahweh.

That is your responsibility. You are the Yahweh worshipper. If I claim my father is a minister of the federal republic, I shouldn't be telling you to prove to me that am not a ministers son. It would be met responsibility to show you.

I should direct the question to you follower of Yahweh. There is a god that created the universe, I don't know him but you claim to know him and know that his name is Yahweh, care to show any proof.

PDBonline:

1. My point is not to respond to Noah's ark but to the global flood. Noah's ark is just part of the story and that it hasn't been found is no proof that it didn't exist. What if at a point in history it had been destroyed?

2. Bringing Gary up was not my end but to quote the statement that shows who he was and you tried to discredit a respected researcher just because he is Christian. You ignored the fact that his work was based on the works of all manner of historians.

3. On the flying us. If you say that, I will be should be blamed of Fallacy of appeal to common sense (incredulity) if I responded by saying it is unbelievable so it cannot be true- without attempting to check out your backyard.

That is even different from categorically stating that Your flying us does not exist at all. If I tell people, "That horse DOES NOT EXIST(different from "Is not at the backyard" to be taken seriously, I must have come to your backyard and if I didn't see it there I must have made sure I checked other places in your house and elsewhere too-- because it is a flying horse we are talking about and I made a claim that it doesn't exist.

Otherwise I should just agree that I am restrained by time and capacity to do such a search. In that case, it is my inability to verify the claim that is problematic and makes my claim a fallacy.
The God of the Christian is revealed in the Bible to those who read relying on the help of the Holy Spirit for clarification while acknowledging their tendency to get it wrong for lack of capacity. This is where you missed it altogether- you decided to throw away your believe to accept as fact something you cannot prove. You sound like you've once experienced God in a personal way but now your experience is no more real, theories are more real than your experience.
You got swindled by your enemy the devil and you fell for it. It's not to late to come back home. Your Father is still waiting for your return. Seriously speaking. Arguments aside

1. Concerning Noahs ark, you are going to believe it by faith and wait till 20000 years to when it shall be proven. I have no issue with a global flood theory, but the noahs ark story is clearly a myth that developed from it. If you are going to be patient till Noahs ark story is proven and you are even going to believe before hand then why don't you believe that Alexander the great was descended from the gods and Julius Caesar was a god also. Why don't you be generous with your beliefs and accept every claim made in the world by faith.

2. You didn't bring his argument but his statement. You wanted me to accept a claim because of one mans statement. That is clearly appealing to authority, why don't you accept there is no god because Richard Dawkins said so . In these cases please bring the person's arguments in your own words. Mind you, countless of debates have gone on between Christians and atheists where both sides recorded victors. So using a debate victory to prove a fact as important as the existence of a particular creator is not very beneficial.

3. Now coming to the horse analogy. You claim there is a god somewhere, now did you say that god is in your backyard?
You happen to know this god, you can't show him to unbelievers. I can accept that you can't show him since you claim he is too big to be seen. But at least you can show his powers can't you.
If I claim that my flying horse exists but is invisible, but I also claim that the horse has endowed me with supernatural powers of flying myself, then you don't even need to see the horse, you can start evaluating my so called flying powers.
You Christians Will never show us god, fine
At least show us the power of your god. You guys are 2 billion and counting in number, we must be able to observe something supernatural about you Christians. By the way, its written in your gospel that those who believe will do greater things than Jesus.


The god of the Christian is not revealed to those who read. The god of the Christian is revealed to those who believe that he exists without verification and those who believe that his holy spirit exists.
Please is that not fraudulent?
If a Muslim tells you that the Quran is the most holy book in the world and has the ability to reveal Allah to you and goes ahead to tell you to try it and see if you won't believe. If you are about to read the Quran and suddenly he tells you that in order to see you must believe everything he told you first. Would you see that as honest.
How can you make a claim about something and when one is about to verify the claim you now tell the person that he must believe the claim first, then what's the use of verifying.

The funny thing about Christianity is that even if one decides to close his mind and believe, if the person doesn't see proof and he starts doubting, he is urged to keep on believing because the moment you lose your faith you will never see the power of god.
Whatever thing that has been revealed to you will not be disputed by me, your experiences are real but they are only real in your head. They are purely psychological.

I used to be a devout Christian but I followed the path of truth and reason and I discovered that Christianity is a man made religion built on baseless claims and Jewish mythology. I don't believe in your devil the same way I don't believe in your god.

N.B I have experienced the power of the so called holy spirit and all sorts of mysterious feelings. They are not proof of what is real and not, they are only psychological and subjective. People of other faiths experience them.

PDBonline:
Can you also show how you scientifically came to know how God MUST look like and MUST behave in all circumstances, so much so that you are convinced that if God exist, certain things should not happen or should happen.

I will be very glad to see an atheist come up with the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE for his/her stand that there is no God, NOT against other people's believes.
This is very fair since that's what you say you believe in and I have seen a lot of atheists say, "Logic!" here on Nairaland while making fallacious claims. Let's put your "No God or gods" claim to LOGICAL TEST too and let's see the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE as explained above,like you demand from others.

PLEASE NO ONE SHOULD RESORT TO INSULTING ANYONE OR REPLYING AN INSULT. LET'S FOCUS ON THE ISSUE.

Expectant.

Thanks.

I don't know how god is or should behave. It's you who claim that you know his character and you know he is loving and all powerful and omniscient. When we see things in the universe that contradict that nature we call it out.

If I claim to be 6feet 5 inches tall and one day you see me and see that I am as short as Kevin Hart, won't it be stupid for me to ask you how you know what I must look like considering the fact that I made the claim first.

Maybe I am not in a position to answer the question since I am an agnostic and I don't believe we can know if gods exist or not, the only thing I am curious about is how you know there is a god then suddenly jump a million miles into a conclusion that God is Yahweh the father of Jesus Christ.

PDBonline:
Have you seen an atheist proof that indeed God does not exist?
What I see is arguing against the believe of others not for there own bold assertions.

Arguments goes like, "if you believe God exist then produce the God let's see", or "if there is God, why did he allow this to happen or why didn't he make that to happen" as if the existence of God means that man is no longer responsible for anything.

Can any atheist please pause for a moment from asking people who share other believes to give the evidence he or she is not ready to accept, stop using anecdotes like "I was like you before but I have graduated" and actually bring forward the SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that has proven beyond all doubts how every possible realm of existence have been discovered and searched out or at least how just this universe of ours have been completely explored (not suggesting this is sure proof) and God was not found.

The universe hasn't been searched thoroughly. Science doesn't know up to 2 percent of the possible knowledge in the universe. We don't know if VOD exists or not. I personally believe that there must be other intelligent things existing within and outside the universe.

Now for you theist or Christian. You know fully well that the universe hasn't been discovered fully, you know man can't aspire to know things that are beyond him. But ironically you don't just accept that there is a god, you claim to know him, to know his name and the name of his son, you also claim to hear from him, you claim to know when and how he created the earth, you claim to know his will for your life and what turns him on and off.

You my friend are making the boldest claims ever, for such extraordinary knowledge you claim to possess, you have put a very big big burden of proof on yourself. If you have made such a claim, then you must prove it.

For me I am not interested in the claim of the existence of a god, am just interested in the claims of those who know the god personally and understand his will and are chosen by him. It's you theists that am interested in.
Please don't shift the burden of proof.

There is a big difference between me claiming that there is a sky and you claiming that you know there is a sky and you also know that in the sky, there is a blue colored mansion with a golden door, plus a beautiful blonde haired lady guarding the mansion, plus a flying horse encircling the mansion and tons of gold in that mansion.
Such claims cannot just be taken at face value, you must prove it totally because the claim is so specific.

So you theist, prove that your god Yahweh is the creator of the universe. Am waiting for your answer

PDBonline:

I didn't see how you came to the conclusion that I don't believe in Noah's Ark is unscientific.
By the way, I have never intended to prove to you that because anything not "scientific" is not possible. I and many others have had supernatural experiences that current knowledge in science cannot explain or reproduce. That's logical for someone who knows he/ she is dealing with God.

I also need to mention that I AND MANY OTHERS who have been freed from different addictions supernaturally DIDN'T NEED A REHAB CENTRE. You will talk about empirical evidence, but you will discard people's personal experiences as not true without any scientific basis. Yet you will be calling for scientific evidence. I studied a little science and I have not seen individual cases discarded when gathering data. Rather, it is several individual cases that are used to produce data.

You can deny your experience with God and call it "PURELY PSYCHOLOGICAL". Mine is a combination of spiritual, psychological and physical because God created the principles and laws that work in all these areas. Science only discovers them and I don't see how lack of discovery, better still, lack of capacity to discover or accept spiritual claims equals falsehood of such claims. [/colour]

If you know anything about fallacies, you should know that many of your conclusions and that of other atheists are assertions with faulty foundations:

- hasty generalizations (e.g "you Christians are lazy"

- appeal to ignorance: assuming your claim is correct because you've not been or cannot be proven wrong

- appeal to silence: making conclusions that God, the resurrection of Christ etc are not true because YOU have not seen evidence

- argumentum ad hominem: claiming a position is incorrect because of something about the person, rather than because of something about the position itself (e.g. Dr. Gary being a Christian apologist, therefore the result of his research is invalid) and so on.

I have noticed how common this is in atheists' arguments and, in fact, your continuous assertion that there is no God is fallacy judging by the standard you like to subject religious believes to and the game of atheists is to shift the burden of proof as if they also don't have a position they are maintaining.
THAT YOU HAVE PROOFS-- EVEN WHEN THEY ARE AUTHENTIC PROOFS- AGAINST SOME OTHER PEOPLE'S POSITIONS DOESN'T MAKE YOUR OWN POSITION VALID. SO YOU SHOULD DO BETTER JOB IN PROVIDING YOUR OWN EVIDENCE THAT, OF TRUTH, THERE IS NO GODAfter that you have all ground to condemn people who believe in God.

I don't need to come to a conclusion, you just have to give me a reason to believe it. You were the one who first claimed that science proves the biblical claims.
You brought out a link to show that Noahs ark story was being proven. I showed you that the link said the opposite.
The onus is still on you. Please bring out scientific proof concerning your biblical claims. If you can't then just roll back into the canopy of blind faith and stay there. I have a problem when you religious people try to use double standards. You want to use faith and science at the same time. But science and blind faith can't work together so kindly choose your method of observing truth cause I have chosen mine and it isn't blind faith.

Am happy you said that several individual cases are used to provide conclusions. The key word is several. Am not dismissing your experience. But your experience is just one out of many experiences and it is gonna be arrogant for you to place your experience above all others including Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus etc. In your mind now, because of your personal experience, your god is real and every other god is fake right?


The fallacies you talked about will be addressed now

1. Yes I know many lazy Christians. But I also know not all Christians are lazy. That statement wasn't meant to be accurate, just like you telling someone that he is crazy. You might not mean it in its entirety but you still use the word. We are humans and we can make such mistakes. Coming to the accurate description, your claim about Noahs flood was lazy because you posted an article and didn't bother to read it till the end. Such lazy claims do your argument no good.

2. Appeal to ignorance. Now I want to personally tell you that I have a flying horse in my backyard. Please don't doubt me because you can't prove that i am wrong. If you say that I am wrong, you are only appealing to ignorance since you don't know if I am right and you can't prove it.
Now how does my logic sound to you? Cool right
Back to reality, if I make such an extraordinary claim like having a flying horse in my backyard, then the burden of proof rests on me to prove it to you. If I can't prove it to you then there is no reason why you should take it as real. If you choose to disbelieve me after years of me failing to prove it to you then you are doing the right thing.


3. Appeal to silence. The same as above. I can tell you that in my village in Nigeria, just last week a man raised 500 dead people, walked on a river, healed every cripple in the general hospital, brought down fire from heaven, caused a solar eclipse, caused an earthquake, pulled crowds of up to 10000 people throughout etc. Will you believe that something like that happened in Nigeria last week and no one heard of it. You can't believe that because you know that things far less shocking than that attract crazy media attention. So won't it be stupid for me to claim that you disbelieving my fairy tale is a fallacy that appeals to silence?
In such a case, silence is impossible. That's the same with your Jesus, silence to the wonderful works described in the gospel is totally impossible especially during the Roman literary classical period. He exhausted quite alright but all those things didn't happen.

4. Ad hominem. There is no fallacy there because the position of Gary Habernas is very clear from the start. You were the one who tried to appeal to his authority and I told you his authority is a Christian authority not a universal one. What if I told you god doesn't exist because Richard Dawkins said so, won't that be stupid? For me to expect you to disbelieve your God because an avowed atheist said so.

The reasonable thing to do would be to present Dawkins ideas and arguments to you. Ideas and arguments don't have flesh,blood and spirit. They are logical constructs that can be dismantled or upheld.
You didn't do that. Instead of bringing Habernas ideas to the forum so we can dissect them and analyze them, you brought Habernas himself and appealed to his authority expecting me to bow down to a supposed scholar. Well I can't bow down to him but instead I dismissed him because his position is biased.

There was no ad hominem there, the only thing I did was to dismantle your appeal to authority fallacy. Next time please list out Habernas arguments and I will face them. Bring the arguments not the man.

PDBonline:

I must have interpreted what I read wrongly. And I did show you what lead to that in the response you replied to.

I'm a Christian. And one of the things that happened to me when I surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus is that although I formerly struggled with a lying habit, now I have lost interest in lying and the more I know Jesus, the more I drop things that some other people won't count as deceit. I used to think it's not possible to go a day without lying but now I can't even remember saying or doing things deliberately to deceive. And I know this is what God has done in me-- one more reason I can't doubt the existence of God and the power of life-transformation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Its good that you have accepted the fact that Noahs ark is not scientific.

As for your personal experience. I understand how you feel. When I had my own strong conversion experience, I dropped some habits too. When you have an emotional conversion, the force of it can make you drop some habits. Its purely psychological. Not only Christians experience that.

Secular institutions achieve much harder feats. Think of being addicted to cocaine, that's much worse than lying addiction. But rehab centers use secular methods to achieve it over and over and over again.
My friend, people have epiphanies, eureka moments, turn around points etc in their lives and these moments are characterized by unusual emotional strength that leads to changing a lifestyle.

You have to consider something, you are using your subjective experience to determine a much much larger universal truth.
If two events occur, the first being that the acclaimed word of god is proven to be contradictory and false and the second being that you had a wonderful experience that you attributed to god.
Which one should you use to base your belief in god on?

Most people like you will choose the latter. But realistically that's wrong. A universal truth cannot be determined by subjective facts and feelings that's why I asked for empirical evidence. Evidence is the thing that should make any religion be chosen as the right one.

PDBonline:
Now the experience of LiberaDeus with the ABC News has given us all an evidence that what you already believe will colour your interpretation of what reality is. That's why elation of "emperical evidence" doesn't solve any problem for someone who is not open to believing something different from what he currently believes.

And Atheism, Diesm, Agnosticism, Theism, Nihilism can all be believes. Don't tell me atheism is not a believe because it is a believe that there is no God.

Why are you christians lazy. An article i read yesterday.
Now i am going to give you excerpts from the article and you can tell me what they mean

[/b]"It probably was a bad day," Ballard said. "At some magic moment, it broke through and flooded this place violently, and a lot of real estate, 150,000 square kilometers of land, went under."

The theory goes on to suggest that the story of this traumatic event, seared into the collective memory of the survivors, was passed down from generation to generation and eventually inspired the biblical account of Noah.[b]

[/b]Ballard does not think he will ever find Noah's Ark, but he does think he may find evidence of a people whose entire world was washed away about 7,000 years ago. He and his team said they plan to return to Turkey next summer.

"It's foolish to think you will ever find a ship," Ballard said, referring to the Ark. "But can you find people who were living? Can you find their villages that are underwater now? And the answer is yes."[b]

The above shows that he believed that a catastrophic flood happened within that region a while back. Now where in the account does he claim that he believes that a flood wiped out all life on earth as stated in the bible.

Please i challenge you to show me where in the whole article where it was stated that the accounts of Noahs flood in the bible actually happened as stated. No place in the article claims that the world was destroyed by a flood.

Scientists worldwide accept that at the end of the ice age, floods occured as a result of melting ice sheets. These floods were experienced by various cultures. This cultures created stories out of it, the mesopotamian version inspired the jewish account. Michael Ballard is only trying to discover the ruins of an ancient flood that destroyed life in the middle eastern region of the world. I believe that if he searches well, he will most likely find because its not a coincidence that so many cultures have their own flood myth. This doesnt in any way prove the biblical account of Noahs flood that claimed that the world was destroyed totally by water.

Michael Ballard doesnt believe in the biblical account but he knows a real flood inspired the embellished biblical account.

Please you havent proven anything with this article. Read the article again and show me how you have debunked me. You christians are unbelievable. DO you actually know that lying is a sin according to the bible?

PDBonline:
LiberaDeus its actually good that you agreed that Jesus truly lived. Do you also by any chance agree also that he had eyewitnesses who wrote about him?

I agree he existed, the name and movement of christianity wasnt pulled out of someones ass.

My claim is that his life was very normal but his teachings were revolutionary in the light of judaism, the miracles and claims have no basis in historical fact.

He had eyewitnesses and disciples as most rabbis and jewish leaders of the time had.

The gospels were written in greek. All his disciples and followers must have spoken aramaic at the time and as the gospels themselves claim, they were most likely illiterates.

The gospels you see were not eyewitness accounts but a compilation of oral traditions and accounts passed down after the creation of christianity.

PDBonline:

EVIDENCE IN SUPPORT OF NOAH'S FLOOD

Source ABC NEWS: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/evidence-suggests-biblical-great-flood-noahs-time-happened/story?id=17884533

Guy please read this whole article and tell me how it supported Noahs flood. The title was just sensational and intended to attract a lot of christian folk.

The investigator clearly stated in the article that he doesnt believe in the noahs flood story but in a flood that happened before it that gave rise to the flood myth in the middle east.

Please this is not evidence but actually a proof of my claims.

PDBonline:
ON THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
Source: Wikipedia (Dr. Gary Habermas)

Read the summary of the findings Dr. Gary made on information gathered from historians from 1975 here:

http://garyhabermas.com/articles/dialog_rexperience/dialog_rexperiences.htm

The conclusion is that there was no doubting the fact that the disciples of Jesus truly believes Jesus rose from the dead and they passed the message on orally.

Guy Gary Habernas is a renowned Christian apologist.

You could as well cite William Lane Craig, David Wood and Frank Turek as objective scholars. All these are renowned Christian apologists.
And even if Habernas won the debate then, it still doesn't move the scholarly consensus in the side of the resurrection. Do you know how many debates Bart Ehrman has won?

PDBonline:
ALSO ON RESURRECTION


Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_and_origin_of_the_Resurrection_of_Jesus

Guy read before you lost something.

This just shows that at the beginning of Christendom, resurrection was a central belief in the early church. Please when does having a belief equate to reality.

We can also say since most Greeks in the classical era believed in mount Olympus, that means mount Olympus must have existed and since most Greeks believed in Hercules then that means Hercules must have existed.

What you posted doesn't prove the fact of a resurrection occurring the same way the existence of Islam doesn't prove that prophet Muhammad rode to heaven in a flying horse named buraq.

PDBonline:


Reference to the bold text: those are very false claims. Do more research. And don't be selected about whose"evidence" you are willing to check up.

My reference to imperfection is a summary of thoughts because there are many sides to that. The Bible will be contradictory and full of errors to you when you are not a student willing to learn. There are things I considered errors, contradictions etc before but the pursuit of knowledge proved me wrong.

I have done more research than you can imagine. Stop selecting christian sources as objective sources because they come from your standpoint of conviction and blindfaith and will use science in a deceptive, dubious way to prove their already preconceived notions.

In case you feel i have not done research, let me post the widely acclaimed conclusions on the biblical claims that i posted earlier

1. The resurrection - no objective scientist disputes the fact that there was a jesus of nazareth. But no objective scientist can provide any evidence of any resurrection. The evidence points to a Jesus that wasnt popular at the time of his death and thats why there have been no contemporary mentions of Jesus within the timeframe of his existence by all the notable historians that lived alongside him. The later mentions came when christian doctrine was spreading. There is no institution or reputable historian that will apply the scientific method and get to the conclusion that a Jesus of nazareth died, resurrected, appeared to disciples and ascended into heaven. Only christian converts or apologists do that. Remember that this is your belief and so the burden of proof rests on you. Please show me any scholarly evidence that supports the fact of the resurrection and please dont show me articles from career christian websites or apologists.

2.The most notable egyptologists all agree that there is no comprehensive proof of any enslavement of israel and exodus. In case you think the egyptians would be biased in their records, then consider the fact that notable Jewish historians and archaeologists like Norman Finkelstein who dedicated years of their life to unearth the exodus story have reached the conclusion that no such thing like the exodus happened. Once again the burden of proof is on you, post any evidence from objective( non christian apologetic) materials confirming the exodus story. The whole thing from the enslavement to the 10 plagues to the red sea crossing and the wilderness encampment have no basis in modern archaelogy.

3. Historians and archaeologists have been looking for the famed temple of solomon and his famed wealth. Till today the search is still going on. The conclusive scientific proof is that solomons golden temple was purely mythological. Solomon was never known as the richest man in the world during the time period he should have existed. Once again the burden of proof is on you. A simple google search will suffice and show you that solomons temple has not been found and that solomons wealth was only mythological.

4. The time of king herod was known as the Pax Romana. It was also the classical roman period where literary explosion occured. There were tons of writers, poets, historians etc. A genocide of jewish babies in search for a jesus would have caught attention of people. Once again i can confidently tell you that such an event never occured and it is widely accepted in the scholarly world that such an event never occured.

5. The empire of david. Read on Norman Finkelsteins "unearthing the old testament".

6.Noahs Flood. There is no geological proof that a worldwide flood occured 6000 years ago. A simple google search will suffice for you. Use your initiative and think of how possible it is for 8.7 million species of animals to be stuffed into an ark the size of a storey building, what will the carnivores eat? and if the lions and tigers ate the other animals then some species were lost in the ark since yahweh instructed that just a male and female of each kind should be put in an ark.

Guy all i have to tell you is " Do your research yourself"

PDBonline:

What I observe is that you atheists make a lot of assumptions and you go from assumption without evidence to conclusions.

1. Does contradiction in report prove something did not occur? God's word is perfect but humans are not. God has not stopped using the imperfect to communicate His perfection. That's why He is God. Nothing is beyond Him and He doesn't have your anxiety and worries. He knows how to get His message across even with human errors.

2. You mean you've not seen them? Or that you have your perception about how they should be that they are not- like you know anything before? These things happen every day in different ways, not because we want to prove anything but as God wills- because He knows who really needs what.

3. Many in that field has put many proofs forward but again this "law of paradigms and perception" comes to play: YOUR BELIEVE DETERMINES YOUR INTERPRETATION.

1. Your first claim that god is perfect but humans arent debunks christianity already. If imperfect humans corrupted gods word then how do you know the extent to which it was corrupted. What if the whole religion is corrupted. Lets examine this facts
- The over 50 messianic prophecies werent fulfilled by Jesus in any way
- The claim of god being loving is totally contradicted by the behavior of yahweh in the old testament and the existence of a place of eternal torment for sinners
- The historical claims of the bible are very bogus and inaccurate
- The scientific claims of the bible are questionable and primitive

The above mentioned errors are not just slight errors that we can attribute to human failures but humongous monumental contradictions that cant be glossed over. These contradictions show that the whole stuff is man made.

2. There are 2 billion christians in the world. According to the gospel of mark, christians should heal the sick, raise the dead, drink poison and generally perform miraculous feats. Even if half the christians are heretics, the number is so large that we should see real life effects of this power. Independent investigations into faith healing claims have proven that no miraculous healing can be confirmed only remissions, psychosomatic effects of religion etc. This isnt rocket science. We all know that christians are normal human beings that can be sick, poor, rich, dumb, wise etc. There is nothing in your lifestyles and belief that show there is a seperate effect or power working on the life of the christian.

3. Many in which fields. The only people that put proofs forward are christian apologists like Ken Ham, Institute of creation research, discovery institute etc. Please show me any reputable unbiased scientific body that has confirmed biblical claims as fact. Let me list some biblical claims for you
- The resurrection claim
- The exodus of israel
- The wealth of Solomon
- The genocide of King Herod on babies in the gospels
- The miraculous stunts of Jesus
- The empire of David
- The existence of the garden of eden
- Noahs Flood
- Tower of Babel

There is no reputable institution or scientist in the fields of history, archaeology, geology, linguistics, anthropology etc that can confidently tell you that these claims are facts. The claims above are totally unscientific, unverified and outright mythological.

There is no paradigm affecting me, the facts are clear for everyone to see and a proper observation and weighing of the facts lead to the conclusion that these things never happened.

PDBonline:

Emperical Evidence like what exactly? And who will conduct the experiment, with what? What is the evidence that guarantees that the test WILL prove to YOU who the true God is.

Before I talk about miracles, but I realise that many atheists are not even ready accept idea of miracles. Not ready to accept anything else as evidence except some ideas in their heads that cannot be proven.

Let's first get started by defining what that evidence YOU will accept as such is like. And please don't create a distracting reply. Let's talk about evidence.

Ok since you asked, let me reply you.

These are your claims and correct me if i am wrong

1. You know God the father and you have a relationship with him
2. His name is Yahweh and his sons name is Jesus.
3. He created the world 6000 years ago and created the first 2 human beings named adam and eve
4. He sent his only son to die for humanity and cleanse humanity of its sins.
5. He has given you his spirit and spiritual gifts like speaking in other languages etc
6. His word is the holy bible which is the inerrant, perfect word of god.

Am sure as a christian you believe all the above.

The empirical evidence you can show me should start from the last of the above claims

1. Prove to me that the holy bible is the inerrant word of an almighty creator. If i am to analyze the book, i will find over a 1000 errors and contradictions which have been documented http://www.answering-christianity.com/101_bible_contradictions.htm in the link. The biblical errors already destroy one of the major claims of christianity

2.If you have the spirit of god and other christians have the same spirit then lets see some of the spiritual gifts you guys claim to have. You ar the one making the claim so you should be the one showing us the proof of your supernatural powers

3. Prove to us scientifically that the claims in the bible concerning the age of the earth, the beginning of death and original sin, the claims of the exodus etc can be verified.

I dont need to ask you for much proof. There is already a branch of christianity dedicated to this stuff and they are called christian apologetics. It has been going on for centuries. I doubt if you can bring any tangible proof since your predecessors havent been able to do that. In the end you guys always revert back to internal conviction and blind faith which is no proof at all.

PDBonline:

It is not "what", it is "Who".
And that's the essence of all I have been saying. You cannot know God by reasoning it out or just taking the Bible to read, however important these are. It is by a divine revelation... and until then, you can change from "believing"(ordinary mental assent) to unbelieving or doubting and you can change from one religion to another... Until God reveals Himself to you, you cannot know the difference between the original and the fake because He lets you know that in your heart.

That's the reason I said earlier on that if you don't think God is worth knowing, you won't seek to know Him. But you don't dictate to Him; He is not under obligation to reveal Himself to you if you don't care to know Him.

You Christians are so so funny.

Let me ask you a question

How do you know your divine revelation of god is the real one ?

You claim god revealing himself to you will let you know the original and the fake , now think for yourself, do you think members of other religions don't have that conviction that they are in the right place and god has revealed the right thing to them.

If God reveals himself to me, why would I think my own divine revelation is better than that of others. In the end, you can't use internal conviction to determine truth cause then you would have over 1000 truths.

Why do you Christians feel you are the only guys with a deep conviction and the only ones that receive divine revelation. If you realize that many other Muslims, Hindus and members of other religions receive divine revelations and have convictions of truth then you would look to the only thing that can be used to determine truth which is - EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE.

If your God is real then the truth of his existence must have an effect on reality that can be measured.

blueAgent:






Like i said before Catholics brought most of pagan traditions into christainity,so you cannot use them as a yardstick to judge christains.you will understand me better if you have knowledge about Bible propheices

All other religeons believe in polytheism and worship several objects,animals or things. but christains worship the creator and not the creatures.

Do you use holy water?

Do you use rosaries?

Do you have portraits of Jesus hanging in your church?

If you do any of the above then you are an idolater based on your logic

EyeHateGod:

You mean Madonna the musician?

Nah, I meant the virgin Mary.

blueAgent:






The Ark of testament in the old testament was not an Idol. it was never a symbol of worship. muslims worship and bow to the black stone in mecca.
I have said it several times that Catholics. is the Babaylon prophiesed by the Bible long ago. it was the catholic church that brought worship of Mary and pagan customs in christainity.
All other creation accounts still endup as myths and most defy logic.

You can google about fullfilled Bible prophecies.
www.stevenmcollins.com/html/usa_in_prophecy.html

Stop lying to prove a point.
If Muslim worship the black stone then Catholics worship the Madonna statue.

I am not a Muslim but I know fully well that Muslims believe that there is no god but god. They also believe that he can't be known fully, his form can't be defined and it is a taboo or banned for any Muslim to make any image or representation of Allah.

Stop defaming other religions. There is no major religion that worships an animal or idol, they just use them as symbols just like Catholics.

@OP its because of this your view point that KingEbuka can equate atheism with nihilism.

Why should we end it? In this vast and mighty universe where our planet is like an atom in a baseball field, we have been given the gift of consciousness. Think of life like a fashion walkway where different models get their chance for like 7 seconds. You have been given a chance to live between the late 20th century and the late 21st century. Enjoy that chance, do all you wish to do when you have the opportunity. This realization should make you enjoy every moment of life.

blueAgent:



The God of the Bible which is the christain God is
the only true God. gods of other religeon are
worshipped and referenced through
objects,material things like India's religeon were
they believe cattle is scared.
but God can only be worshiped in spirit becos he
is a spirit.
Only the God of the Bible. has given us clear
narrative or view about the origin of man and the
Universe.gods of other religeon don't claim to
have made man or the Universe.
Bible prophecies given over 3000yrs ago have
been furfilled and more will still happen.
All the other religeons have several stories and
myths about man and his origin. only Christainity
affirms that man was created,no other religeon
has given reasons or solution to world problems
only christainity has given us The reason for this
problems with a promise to end it.

Guy you make me laugh. Let me debunk your points one by one.

1. You say gods are referenced through material things. Sorry to burst your bubble, Zeus is not worshipped through any idol, Allah is not and has never been worshipped by any idol. The Catholics have statues of Christ and pray before that statue.
The cattles that the Indians revere do not refer or represent their major supreme being which is Brahman. The cattles represent lesser gods. Brahman is not worshipped through idols but if you claim so then I can say Jehovah is worshipped through idols, the old testament Jews had an ark of the covenant which can be called an idol, Christians also have statues of Mary, Christ etc.

The only religion that has no idols is Islam.

2. What are you even saying about origins. Even the amadioha priest in my village can tell you how amadioha created the world. All religions have stories of how the world began. Zoroastrianism had it before Christianity, the Greek religions had an earlier creation story than Christians or even Jews and their story has been used to create movies like clash of the titans, Ifa religion has a creation story. Hindus have theirs, Chinese have theirs also. So your claim is so false that I can't even imagine why you would make it.


3. Please tell me any specific prophecy in the bible that has been fulfilled. Even the most important messianic prophecies have not been fulfilled that's why the Jews reject your Jesus.

4. Any solution you feel Christianity has given then I can tell you that others have given such solutions.

Guy your claims are not befitting of a forum like this.

winner01:
Why do these people say the same thing over and over? We have addressed this issues severally. Are y'all out of accusations?

I honestly dont think atheists are going to be bringing new arguments against christianity anytime soon.

What arguments have you guys debunked. The contradiction in the synoptic gospels has been seen for over a 1000 years and till date those contradictions have never been reconciled.

Please if you have a rebuttal to the contradiction between Matthew and Luke on genealogy of Jesus kindly share it and enlighten everyone.

Thank you

promisechuks:


but, would any NL atheist be that humane?

Yes they will.

We do it everyday but we don't pray or hope for the supernatural. We just encourage the person and use whatever resources we have at our disposal to help.

bennyann:


LiberaDeus

Let me start by saying my write up was drawn from the conclusions extracted from the Op. I hope you'll agree with me when you read through.

1. I think I remember telling you in a certain thread that what keeps a Christian going is the love for God. He said we should love Him with all our hearts and then love our neighbors as ourselves. Love is the drive force of a Christian. God is bigger and more satisfying than the mansions you believe it's what Christians are fighting for. Christianity is about constant relationship with the father. God is the center of attraction and not paradise.

Those whose eyes are fixed on material things instead of Jesus easily get diverted. The focal point is God and not material things. Anyone who understands that has found the secret in standing firm.

Besides, in the real world, especially in Nigeria, it isn't hidden that most atheists are part of those hiding under the guise of Christianity. So you can't say for sure if it's Christians doing all those stuff you mentioned.

AND we shouldn't forget easily that those called Christians are those who obey the commandments of God. Those who follow the Bible.

So if you call those who obey the commandments of God selfish, well, I'll leave that to your conscience.

2. I agree with you that I don't know what's in anyone's heart. Infact I never said I knew so please don't get me wrong . I only said the atheists are witnesses to themselves about what goes on in their hearts. Infact each of us are the only witness to our hearts apart from God. So I don't think I erred there.

We shouldn't forget here that the conclusions were drawn from the Op. But I wouldn't deny the fact that several related stories pointed out that most became atheists so as to please their flesh which doesn't lead to happiness. I'm beginning to see reasons in it and if possible, truths.

3. Talking about which God. Since you don't believe God exists and since you're trying to prove to me I'm not the only one having a God. And believe me I believe there are other gods. Well, here goes the answer :

The God of all gods. The Creator of the universe. The Creator of everything. The One who has no beginning and ending of days. The One who says yes and none can say no. The One who gives life to the flesh. The One who cannot just destroy only the body but also the soul, the spirit. The God who every other gods or spirits bow to and give accounts of all their dealings.

That's the kind of God I'm talking about.

Blessed are they who have such a God as their God.

1. You say love for god is the attraction. I agree. But that statement is true only in theory. In chemistry there is something known as the ideal gas which is a model for how gases should behave, in reality no gas ever behaves that way cause reality kicks in. There is the ideal gas and there is the real gas.
The same for Christianity, there is the ideal Christian and then the real Christian. I have never seen a Christian that obeys the golden rule of love your neighbor as yourself. I have never seen a Christian that lives god with all his heart. It is practically impossible for a Christian to obey that rule. And I am sure you have never seen a Christian doing that too even though you might not admit it here but the facts speak boldly for themselves.

2. I can't believe you just proposed that. So in Nigeria that atheists aren't even up to 1 percent of the populace, you actually think that we are responsible for all the horrific and vile vices that occur in Nigerian society. This is the best case of " no true Scotsman". So atheists hide and do it. Even if we are up to 3 percent it won't still be enough to account for Nigerian immorality. But ironically in a state like Sweden and Czech republic that has over 20 percent openly irreligious people, the crime stats are so so low. Please listen to yourself.

When will you Christians accept your failures instead of using the no true Christian fallacy. So a person accepts Jesus and tries to live a reasonable life but fails blatantly because of the absence of power and you guys heap all the blame on the person and claim that he was never a Christian and your religion is freed from blame.
Please think it through again.

Your Christian colleague is caught in adultery and the person is no longer a Christian immediately, if you are to interrogate that person he/she will simply tell you that they ain't perfect Christians and come to think of it, are you perfect? Can you say that you are perfect, so the moment you lie you are no longer Christian?


3. Atheists become atheists because they can't stomach or do what you do which is " clearly see the flaws in a supposed holy book and still keep on believing that the internal feelings they have are a witness of the truth of such a religion even when the external factors point to failures and errors"

Freethinkers are too intellectually honest to do that. You are too attached to the so called love of your strongman deity that you just blatantly ignore all the logical contradictions in your faith. I don't know how you stomach it but you just do it and I can't. Will you tell me that you haven't seen errors in your holy book? Do you need me to spell out a few?
Please view the link below
http://www.answering-christianity.com/101_bible_contradictions.htm
If you view it and you still continue serving the purported author of that flawed book then the undue attachment to pleasure is yours not ours. The pleasure you are attached to is the pleasure of emotional security, protection, intimate virtual communion with a supergod etc. Those pleasures are internal but very strong and addictive.

4. As for your description of the god. I asked for his name. If you tell me its Jehovah then I demand to know why its him not Allah . Can't you see that the fact you religious people get his identity wrong shows that you guys are in grave error, you can't even get your story straight.

4everGod:


No i am fine. I actually do detest it when people who did not even bother to ask about what the OP went through and how long he did and how much his family suffered during that period. Who did not know the number of disappointments and sacks he has experienced for no reason and how prayer and revelations led us to the point of open doors would come here to say rubbish.

Thats my annoyance.

I commend what you did for him.
I might not believe that what happened was supernatural but I commend the fact that you could take out your time and pray for him and you counsel him. That's a very humane thing to do.

blueAgent:



The reason we are having this argument is becos of the conflict among the gods posing to be the true God. only God of the Bible is the true God all other gods of other religeons are man made gods.

Please what makes god of the bible the true god. I want to know .

I don't want to argue, please I want to believe

Can you kindly give me 3 facts to support that claim
Thanks in advance

blueAgent:


You claim you have More knowledge than Christains.
I laugh at U. i have never seen any Athiests that can match my knoweledge in any area even if i am in a Coma.

Oh sorry Einstein. I don't wanna cross you.
What a joke