Debate God

Discussion in 'Off Topic' started by Nitrous, Dec 17, 2008.

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  1. RabidZergling

    RabidZergling Ancient
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    This will need clarification, but from the way I read his argument he is saying that we have to trust that the Bible was truthfully written in the same sense that we have to trust that Caesar truly existed, which is untrue.


    ^^^From a few pages back.
    I'm going to make a quick list of the differences between a typical scientific textbook and the bible.
    Bible:
    1) Authors of questionable origin
    2) Little to no evidence provided
    3) Methodology unknown - Making things up? Inspired by God?
    4) Cannot be refuted - Either seen as an unchanging moral compass, misinterpreted to in such a way as to not understand what it really is, or seen as a guideline that must be changed to fit our current morals (which also don't change)
    5) Testable - Untestable - the entire basis of religions is blind belief
    Textbook:
    1) Authors known and reachable for questioning of methods
    2) Evidence well documented, displayed, and explained
    3) Methodology clear - striving for the truth and/or the best that we can currently offer
    4) Open to refute - Anybody who has problems can find answers
    5) Testable - Most information is easily testable or provable through logic - Gravity, magnetism, etc. That which cannot be is still far more well documented, better understood, and still testable by those with the resources

    Nope, I can't prove to you that everything written is correct, but if you are so quick to be skeptical about science, something which is far more logical than religion, you should be absolutely spiteful towards religion's numerous insanities.


    Also, I went in an refuted your quote just for funsies.
    The funny thing about [science] is everyone is following a book. They didn't film it or the people who were witnesses are not living. Nope, the original statement changes meaning when science is applied. I'm pretty sure we can easily detect, either with our own eyes, cameras, or other sensory equipment, everything has been stated as scientific fact. So they wrote a book I believe is called the [insert science book], which was written by ordinary people just like the man who wrote Cat in the Hat was ordinary. Alright, ordinary people is fine for me, theres no other kind of person. So should we go around believing that there is a seven foot cat that wear a hat and plays with children on rainy days. No, that's ignorant to say. Well if the book were like a science book and provided piles of proof that there is, in fact, a seven foot cat, then I would believe it.

    [Science book] has also been rewritten hundreds of times until today where it's still being modernized. Yep, that's why science is so great.
     
    #2261 RabidZergling, Aug 9, 2009
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2009
  2. Monolith

    Monolith Ancient
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    Please remind me.. I've quoted myself for this thread, so now you can quote for me.

    Thnx
     
  3. RabidZergling

    RabidZergling Ancient
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    I'm not going to waste my time looking for it. If you go ahead and use that argument again, go ahead, but the end result will be the same as last time.
     
  4. Monolith

    Monolith Ancient
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    ... ... ...okay, then I'll use that argument again... ... ...

    Please provide your "evidence" that Julius Caesar existed.
     
    #2264 Monolith, Aug 9, 2009
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2009
  5. GR4V3mind117

    GR4V3mind117 Ancient
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    #2265 GR4V3mind117, Aug 9, 2009
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  6. Nitrous

    Nitrous Ancient
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    Notice at the very very beginning he says, "The Bible says." You must show the Bible to be accurate on all points to conclude anything this man says past the 3 second mark is true. Though, it is a very nice, uplifting and inspirational video.
     
  7. GR4V3mind117

    GR4V3mind117 Ancient
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    Thank You. My youth pastor showed it to the 7th grade today

    I did not understand what i highlighted in red, But your Right About what is green
     
    #2267 GR4V3mind117, Aug 9, 2009
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2009
  8. aMoeba

    aMoeba Ancient
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    ... lol

    Its clear you misunderstood. I realize how different a science book is from the Bible. Read the following post, most specifically the second point:

    http://www.forgehub.com/forum/debates/48913-god-60.html#post989065
     
  9. Shatakai

    Shatakai Ancient
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    You're argument doesn't help your case. I don't think anybody here is doubting that Jesus actually existed, atleast the ones who truly understand what they're arguing against. What they're arguing against is not that Jesus didn't exist, but that he wasn't the mystical being the bible portrays him to be.
     
  10. Nitrous

    Nitrous Ancient
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    OK, I'll dumb it down a little.

    Original:
    "Notice at the very very beginning he says, "The Bible says." You must show the Bible to be accurate on all points to conclude anything this man says past the 3 second mark is true."

    Revised:
    "At the very beginning, the preacher says, "The Bible says" and then says all these nice things about Jesus. Now, anyone can write a book from Harry Potter to Twilight to The Bible. What we must do is show that the Bible is 100% the word of god, contains no errors, and is correct on all points to conclude the Jesus really is what the preacher said he was. If we cannot do that then this entire video is a statement of opinion and not fact and in which case I could just change Jesus to Hitler (if that were my mindset) and would not commit any fallacy.
     
  11. What's A Scope?

    What's A Scope? Ancient
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    I lol'd

    At the beginning of the video, he says "The Bible says". In other words, "according to the bible". Basically, he is citing the Bible as his source. If you have ever written an essay where you had to cite your sources, you could do so in that manner. Nitrous is saying that the Bible must be proved completely true to make anything he says correct (excluding the citation.)
     
  12. RabidZergling

    RabidZergling Ancient
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    ..No, the words can't be replaced with anything and keep the same meaning. Notice the last paragraph where I address how the paragraph changes. When people follow science they aren't just following a book that tells them what is true and what isn't. They are following something testable and ever changing to fit our current knowledge.

    Since I've already done this once before, I'll make it quick.
    Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. First, we are told that the bible is the word of god, the almighty creator of the universe and ruler of everything and given absolutely no proof. That's a pretty extraordinary claim, and requires some amazing evidence to be believed. Second, we are told that there was once a man called Caesar- given proof - numerous historical documents, works of art depicting his figure, biographies of his life, etc. etc. That isn't too extraordinary compared to the idea of God and has far more proof. Enough to be fact. While you could still argue that it was all faked, the chances of it being so are astronomically smaller.
     
  13. aMoeba

    aMoeba Ancient
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    They wouldn't keep the same meaning because they're fit to your subjective premise. When you are taught science in school, until you begin to actually experiment, you have to believe the book because what it says is tested, and you believe it by faith. You haven't personally observed everything you've learned from a textbook. The point I'm making is that you could replace the words and mean the same thing to someone else. Its definitely ambiguous when you fail to directly address something.

    It would make me a conspirator to say that science is wrong unless you've observed it all and its just a conspiracy, but that's not what I'm saying. I know the difference between science and theology, I know that science is testable and is always changing. The fact of the matter is that you can switch the words science and theology and someone who is a Christian would take it in the exact same perspective. I'm not arguing against science, or for theology. I'm arguing against his ambiguous wording.
     
  14. Monolith

    Monolith Ancient
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    You're comparing what's more believable than the other. The fact is, many historical people today cannot be proven to truly exist, and it seems that you guys are willing to believe in those people, yet you don't even suggest that there may be a possibility that a higher form exists.

    ..So (in your case):
    The day Julius Caesar truly exists, will be the day God truly exists.
     
  15. RabidZergling

    RabidZergling Ancient
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    I have explained numerous times that it is possible for god to exist. But when I say that it is possible, I say so in the same sense that a monkey writing the next great piece of literature is possible. Hell, the monkey could press random keys and write something beautiful, but it's so unlikely that if you were to ask somebody on the street, they would say that it's impossible.

    Nothing can truly be proven. Everything has a different level of probability to be true or not. Nothing is truly fact. The key is to discern between things with so little proof or logic that the chances are close to 0, and things like Julius Caesar's existence, with far more proof and far fewer extraordinary claims.



    By the way, I doubt a single person in this thread doubts the existence of Jesus. He existed, and there's proof. The difference is that we see him as a really great illusionist, not the son of god.

    @aMoeba: Our current argument isn't really too important so I'm just going to forget about it.
     
    #2275 RabidZergling, Aug 10, 2009
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2009
  16. Monolith

    Monolith Ancient
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    Illusionist. haha. Wow, I think I could quote myself on every argument from now on:

    How could you see God as nothing? Don't you see the idea He has created? Through faith he can see true followers. There's a reason why there isn't "evidence". It's because He doesn't want there to be any.

    Atheists are just becoming too damn arrogant, and only see the front side of the idea.. Not the back, left, right, top, bottom, no, not those.. Just what they seem to choose to see. If anything, Christianity has brought billions and trillions of people to do good for once. To say honor your father and mother.. Otherwise kids would go off and die on their own. To say don't murder.. Billions of lives have been saved just because of one single commandment.

    What I'm getting at, is that if you see Jesus as a hell raising illusionist, then you're dumb as hell. IF ANYTHING, Christianity brought the idea that life should be used to help others. So I'm asking why the hell would you want to disagree with that idea? THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO REASON TO HATE CHRISTIANITY.. so why are you guys pushing down and burning the Bible? And even if Jesus said you should slave.. Do you see people relying on that passage? No. They aren't relying on it. True Christians see the good in an idea.. An idea that has been used to promote warmth throughout this chilled and frostbitten world.

    Why would you trying to smother this? Why?



    ..And with that I'm leaving this debate.
     
    #2276 Monolith, Aug 10, 2009
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2009
  17. RabidZergling

    RabidZergling Ancient
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    I'm starting to see a pattern- when a religious person runs out of logical rationale they get mad and base their beliefs off of faith.


    In response to your second quote:
    By the way, THIS GUY MUST BE THE SON OF GOD OMG LOOK AT WHAT HE CAN DO. HE DEFINITELY ISN'T TRICKING US IT'S TOTALLY THE REAL THING.
    YouTube - Criss angel magic trick with food
     
    #2277 RabidZergling, Aug 10, 2009
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2009
  18. RadiantRain

    RadiantRain Ancient
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    Ok Mr All knowing Scientific Atheist, you use knowledge as your foundation.

    [​IMG]

    Science can only be applied for tangible ideas. This is why science does not know what caused the big bang what was before the big bang, what other dimensions look like, what is in front of us in the image above they can't explain how our brains works and why we have such a large amount of emotions.

    Who cares if we are animals, obviously we are, but why are we so far advanced compared our closest related species us and Primates are more then 20,000 years apart in evolution, we can go to the moon, a monkey eats fleas of another monkey.

    Religious or not we are still thinking and functioning like a Atheist human should, Atheists are arrogant and ignorant to claim that because we want to believe in a comforting after life, we are stupid or don't think clearly. I'm not going around calling Atheists idiots because they don't want to believe in an after-life.

    How many religious people do you run into yelling at you to believe or they will burn you at a stake each day. 0, and considering that you live in a world of religious people why are you so dammed surprise you are asked to join a religion every so often.

    Starting to think about it, my entire life I've only had one group of two christian teenagers coming at my door and giving me a pamphlet to go to a church.
     
  19. RabidZergling

    RabidZergling Ancient
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    Here are a few more polls:

    1. Thomas Howells, 1927
    Study of 461 students showed religiously conservative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

    2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
    Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward… atheism."

    3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
    Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, aged 10-16. Found a negative correlation between religiosity and IQ as measured by the Terman intelligence test.

    4. Thomas Symington, 1935
    Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability… There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence…"

    5. Vernon Jones, 1938
    Tested 381 students, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal attitudes to go together."

    6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
    At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."

    7. Donald Gragg, 1942
    Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

    8. Brown and Love, 1951
    At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

    9. Michael Argyle, 1958
    Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

    10. Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
    Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the results at the University of Wisconsin.

    11. Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
    Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.

    12. James Trent, 1967
    Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.

    13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
    The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.

    14. Robert Wuthnow, 1978
    Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.

    15. Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
    Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.

    16. Norman Poythress, 1975
    Mean SATs for strongly anti-
    religious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly anti-religious (1108), and religious (1022).

    17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
    Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's."


    STUDENT BODY COMPARISONS

    1. Rose Goldsen, 1952
    Percentage of students who believe in a divine god: Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43; Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; North Carolina 68.

    2. National Review Study, 1970
    Percentage of students who believe in a Spirit or Divine God: Reed 15; Brandeis 25; Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41; Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57; Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65; Marquette 77.

    3. Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977
    Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5 percent in "low" ranked schools to 17 percent in "high" ranked schools.

    4. Niemi, Ross, and Alexander, 1978
    In elite schools, organized religion was judged important by only 26 percent of their students, compared with 44 percent of all students.


    STUDIES OF VERY-HIGH IQ GROUPS

    1. Terman, 1959
    Studied group with IQ's over 140. Of men, 10 percent held strong religious belief, of women 18 percent. Sixty-two percent of men and 57 percent of women claimed "little religious inclination" while 28 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women claimed it was "not at all important."

    2. Warren and Heist, 1960
    Found no differences among National Merit Scholars. Results may have been effected by the fact that NM scholars are not selected on the basis of intelligence or grades alone, but also on "leadership" and such like.

    3. Southern and Plant, 1968
    Studied 42 male and 30 female members of Mensa. Mensa members were much less religious in belief than the typical American college alumnus or adult.


    STUDIES Of SCIENTISTS

    1. William S. Ament, 1927
    C. C. Little, president of the University of Michigan, checked persons listed in Who's Who in America: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Universalists, and Presbyterians [who are less religious] are… far more numerous in Who's Who than would be expected on the basis of the population which they form. Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numerous."

    Ament confirmed Little's conclusion. He noted that Unitarians, the least religious, were more than 40 times as numerous in Who's Who as in the U.S. population.

    2. Lehman and Witty, 1931
    Identified 1189 scientists found in both Who's Who (1927) and American Men of Science (1927). Only 25 percent of those listed in the latter and 50 percent of those in the former reported their religious denomination, despite the specific request to do so, under the heading of "religious denomination (if any)." Well over 90 percent of the general population claims religious affiliation. The figure of 25 percent suggests far less religiosity among scientists.

    Unitarians were 81.4 times as numerous among eminent scientists as non-Unitarians.

    3. Kelley and Fisk, 1951
    Found a negative (-.39) correlation between the strength of religious values and research competence. [How these were measured is unknown.]

    4. Ann Roe, 1953
    Interviewed 64 "eminent scientists, nearly all members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences or the American Philosophical Society. She reported that, while nearly all of them had religious parents and had attended Sunday school, 'now only three of these men are seriously active in church. A few others attend upon occasion, or even give some financial support to a church which they do not attend… All the others have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and the church plays no part in their lives… A few are militantly atheistic, but most are just not interested.'"

    5. Francis Bello, 1954
    Interviewed or questionnaired 107 nonindustrial scientists under the age of 40 judged by senior colleagues to be outstanding. Of the 87 responses, 45 percent claimed to be "agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22 percent claimed no religious affiliation. For 20 most eminent, "the proportion who are now a-religious is considerably higher than in the entire survey group."

    6. Jack Chambers, 1964
    Questionnaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "The highly creative men… significantly more often show either no preference for a particular religion or little or no interest in religion." Found that the most eminent psychologists showed 40 percent no preference, 16 percent for the most eminent chemists.

    7. Vaughan, Smith, and Sjoberg, 1965
    Polled 850 US physicists, zoologists, chemical engineers, and geologists listed in American Men of Science (1955) on church membership, and attendance patterns, and belief in afterlife. Of the 642 replies, 38.5 percent did not believe in an afterlife, whereas 31.8 percent did. Belief in immortality was less common among major university staff than among those employed by business, government, or minor universities. The Gallup poll taken about this time showed that two-thirds of the U.S. population believed in an afterlife, so scientists were far less religious than the typical adult.
     
  20. Transhuman Plus

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    They run out of logical rationale pretty quickly too.

     
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