Not recently.

>I don’t believe in any of those things because I haven’t seen any evidence of them, just like you haven’t seen any evidence of God. On the other hand, I see evidence of God daily.

Again, I question your definition of “evidence”.

>This has been a great discussion and has caused me to look inward at what I truly believe. And like you, I stand by my original position.

Fair enough. I don’t expect you to change your beliefs. I hope I’ve provided food for thought on what constitutes evidence. I hope you can at least understand why many of us don’t agree with you on your “evidence”.

I can’t believe you missed leprechauns! (You’re not really Irish, are you?)

I don’t believe in any of those things because I haven’t seen any evidence of them, just like you haven’t seen any evidence of God.

On the other hand, I see evidence of God daily.

This has been a great discussion and has caused me to look inward at what I truly believe. And like you, I stand by my original position.

So, Squatch, do you believe in fairies, elves, goblins, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Zeus, Thor, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Boogie Man, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Om, or Diskworld? Because there’s no proof of the non-existence of any of them.

You’re falling victim to the common fallacy of equating belief with faith. Belief is what you think you know. The difference between science and faith is not over belief – both are used to justify beliefs. The difference is the basis of justification: evidence, rational thought, and critical evaluation, or desire, emotional comfort, and “’cause that’s what I was told”.

It is just not sensible to live your life believing in everything you’re told until you prove it doesn’t exist. We all practice filters for evaluating claims, believing in some things and not others. Most of the time we do not have evidence it doesn’t exist, we just have nothing to convince us it does. That is the skeptic position – show me some evidence or I will refrain from accepting the truth of the claim.

As to seeing the Sun pass over head from horizon to horizon, the only “proof” that offers is the Sun appears to pass overhead. If you are looking at the scientific process, one cannot draw other conclusions from that observation. Science doesn’t like conclusions that exceed what is observable. Conclusions beyond what is implicated by the evidence are called hypotheses.

Astronomers had much more than the Sun to examine the position and movements of the Earth, the planets, the Sun and the Moon. They had the night sky, they had observations of the Sun from different latitudes on Earth, and they eventually had the Sun’s reflected light on the Moon once they figured out that was the explanation of Moon’s phases.

None of these observations and conclusions have any relationship to your faith in a god. I don’t have “faith” what I observe is true. I conclude that what I observe is the best explanation of the evidence I have. I know that conclusion is based on evidence which might be erroneous. I don’t need to have “faith” in the scientific process. Instead, I can observe that the results of the scientific process are valid. I can observe that the conclusions of the scientific process are valid. I can test and verify science. It isn’t a matter of “faith”.

One might draw the wrong conclusions and have to correct those conclusions when more evidence is discovered. But one doesn’t draw scientific conclusions specifically based on faith regardless of the correctness or incorrectness of the conclusion.

It is a fallacious argument to equate faith in the observable and measurable with faith in some supposed inner feeling that a god exists or faith in a religious text that was not based on careful systematic observation of the world.

Being of mostly Irish descent I have never doubted divine approval of drinking.

Coincidence would have been finding the holder. Being able to spot it while driving pushes it a little beyond coincidence (you must have been looking for one?) Being able to spot it while DRINKING and driving pushes it way beyond coincidence. Finding it in such short order brings it closer to a blessing. Finding one with a PIN-UP GIRL (in my humble opinion) pushes the laws of probability beyond the limit. If it had been planted there by one of your friends and they told you what stretch of road it was on, I doubt you would have been able to find it on purpose!

My God is always with me and helping me out with the most seemingly insignificant of things. I’m sorry that my lamest example (spare change) received the most attention. Your example was more along the lines of what I was looking for. Why he would have you find what you did I could only speculate. Maybe he had some angels around and was saying, “Watch me mess with this atheist!” (My God can actually be pretty funny) Or maybe he did it so I would have something to respond to in this conversation.

Science doesn’t have to be beautiful. In it’s purest form it is simply math. Things can move and act on each other without much fanfare. You couldn’t create an original artistic masterpiece using science alone. And the more science you apply to jazz music, the worse it becomes. Improvisation provides some of the most beatiful music, the finest art and funniest comedy. I have no proof that improvisation exists. Scientifically, everything is in order, but improvisation is not.

As a race, we are in our infancy. Historically speaking it hasn’t been that long since skeptics could honestly complain that there was absolutely no proof that the earth revolved around the sun. Every shred of evidence they had pointed otherwise. (“Just look at the sun! Don’t you see it going around?”) I think a blanket statement that something DOESN’T exist without proof is as scientifically irresponsible as saying it DOES exist without proof. If there is no proof it DOESN’T exist it is merely your belief, no different (and no more or less valid) than mine. Belief is built on evidence. I may not have proof, but I do have evidence.

For some people personal experience and pyschological-emotional-cultural need may over-ride this absence of verifiable, repeatable logical evidence.

As long as they don’t try to impose their faith on others esp. unwilling others by force, legislation or constant pestering, or turn it into a means of social control that adversely affects other individuals in our species (chimpanhuman) then fair enough and good luck to’em.

If we can discuss these point of opinion / belief differences rationally – &, better yet, humerously so much the better. It certainly beats the alternatives of crusades, jihads and persecutions.

Thanks again to the BA & others who’ve participated here. There’s been some interesting discussion.

Edited for typops aNDspacing -claritee&readability.

For some people personal experience and pyschological-emotional-cultural need may over-ride this absence of verifiable, repeatable logical evidence.

AS longas theydon’t try toimpose their fiath onothers or turn it into a means of social control thatadversely affects other individuals inour species (chimpanhuman) fair enough and goodluck to’em.

If we can discuss these point of opinion / belief differences rationally – &, better yet, humerously so much the better. It certainly beats the alternatives of crusades, jihads and persecutions.

Thanks again to the BA & others who’ve participated here. There’s been some interesting discussion.

Personally, I find the Norse & Greek pantheons more convincing because they are human chracters – but then so too are are smart charismatic, sincere and, arguably, truly good “prophets” like Jesus (or Issa as the Muslims call him, prob’ly most accurate form of his name was Yoshua), Muhammad, Guatama, Abraham, Kun-Fu-Tze, etc ..

Coupla small pounts :

Uh, Christian Burnham – Do you realise you’ve inadvertantly (?hopefully, I assume?) called ‘Sticks’ a murderer – ie. “the next time you’re up in court ..” rather than if you’re ever up in court charged with murder. Thought I’d just point that out. Valid point though…

& Squatch, I was out with my brother, a while ago . We stopped and picked up a beer each, but he had only one stubby holder handy in the car.
By co-incidence or divine providence, then as we were driving along about a minute later and saw a stubby holder with a pin-up girl on the side of the road … Is that Evidence of Divine approval for drinking and immodest women?

By your “evidence” (convenient loose change, good feelings) yep!

By my reckoning just an awesome and very convenient co-incidence that was memorable, useful and caused by nothing more than a fluke chain of events. Well probably ..

Although I do hafta love the concept of a God that says : “Here ya go – have this at just the right moment its just what you need for drinking & viewing pleasure even though you really don’t believe in me, follow any of my 1,001 plus faiths, rituals and sacred texts or do anything for my causes ..!”

There is no evidence of any gods interacting with people, with the Universe, no evidence of gods having inspired the Bible, having communicated with people, ever. There is plenty of evidence human societies developed all manner of belief systems that included supernatural explanations for how their world worked. Among the things which religion developed from were beliefs in life after death, praying and sacrificing rituals to try to affect natural events, and priests manipulated beliefs for their own personal advantages.

Yet those who hold on to such supernatural explanations today don’t seem to recognize their religion is no different that the many religions they dismiss as myths. Christianity is a religion, but the Greeks had myths. Islam is a religion, Pele is a myth. Hinduism is a false religion because it has more than one god. There is no logic to these conclusions one can provide.

The best explanation of the evidence is they are all myths. Now that we have better observation skills, we understand the Universe better, we no longer need mythical explanations. Lightning isn’t thrown by the hand of Zeus, it’s the result of electrical differential generated by clouds, heat, the Earth and moisture. And hurricanes are not sent as punishment by gods, they are a result of temperature and moisture variations, the geography and the spinning Earth.

As to the confusion some here are having with what is evidence, faith is not evidence. And while you don’t have to see evidence you do have to detect it in some way. If you want to label some inner feeling you think supports your belief in gods, you’ll have to find a way to describe it, measure it, test it. For example, test if prayer has an effect in a blinded placebo controlled study. So far no one has succeeded in detecting the presence of gods in this way.

Evidence does have a definition. You cannot just claim your gut feeling is evidence and make it so. You may not like the idea your feelings are not evidence , but they simply are not.

However, as far as feelings themselves, you can define and measure them including love. It is a mistake often made that such things as love are intangible and unmeasurable. You have to identify which components of love you want to measure. Take infatuation, you can look at brain scans or hormones or design a survey of questions. With the survey, you have to test your instrument to verify it measures what you claim if you wish to claim any conclusions from the survey.

For example you might determine which questions or observations correlate with staying married longer. You might have a psychological test that identifies parents who lack bonding with their children. There are many observable measurable, quantifiable bits of evidence for love. It is real, it exists.

You cannot say the same for gods. You can find social benefits from church membership and perhaps other emotional well being measures from believing, but you cannot show those are evidence of gods. If there were gods, you should be able to detect their effect on the Universe. Yet none have been detected. All you have are myths.

The importance of the non-biblical hostile sources is that they describe the life of Jesus the Christ and corroborates the NT account.

(I’m not…)

Sorry if it sounds like I’m making fun of you, but when it comes down to it, you have to admit that there is no real evidence for the truth of the Bible.

These hostile sources:

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (69 – 112AD)
Cornelius Tacitus (c.. 56-117 C.E)
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny The Younger) 61-113AD
Flavius Josephus (37 – 100AD)
Various Rabbis whilst compiling the Mishnah and Gemares, known collectively as the Talmud

All outside of the biblical texts confirm he at least lived. As to the veracity of the New Testament, at least with Luke and Acts we have covered that one with the work by Sir William Ramsay to prove that the writer Luke was a very accurate historian.

Has Ozprof run away, as I have trying to fill in for him here and I wondered if he was better at this than me.

“The body went missing so it must have ascended to heaven.”

The example you’ve given is not proof of anything. We don’t have a historical account of the life of Jesus, except that given in the Bible- which is hardly an impartial work.

Even if it were demonstrated that the body did go missing under mysterious circumstances- there are million ways that this could have happened which don’t involve supernatural events.

After all, David Copperfield and other magicians make things disappear all the time- in front of a whole audience of onlookers and television cameras.

No

It was offered in the absence of Ozprof putting up his evidence. Anyone heard from him again?

In the account given by Matthew a guard was placed on the tomb because Jesus had said he would rise from the dead and the authorities did not want the disciples stealing the body and falsley claiming he had risen from the dead. Depending if you want to give any credence to the Matthew account, the authorities knew from before day one, the body was important and therefore a guard was placed on it. (There is the quibble if it was Roman or temple guards but I digress)

The point is TPTB at that time (TPTBATT) recognised the claims and that the body was key. It was crucial that they have a body they could produce, and given the persecution that followed, attested to in writings outside the NT, they wanted to stop this movement in it’s tracks. They were unable to, and the disciples died horrible death, something they would not had done if they had stolen the body.

The body had gone missing, and neither TPTBATT or the disciples had it. Even if the tomb had been mis-identified by the women as they arrived TPTBAAT would still have had access to the body.

This body was more important than any other body that may have gone “missing”, because with it TPTBATT could have killed off a movement they did not like.

So what happened to the body?

So atheists can’t be looking for the truth? Yes, we have an agenda: finding the truth, scientific investigation, basing claims on evidence, and using good logic and reasoning. So you note a correlation between those seeking the truth and atheists. Perhaps there’s some causitive connection you’re missing?

If there is indeed nothing new under the sun, then explain to me why we have planes, automobiles and quantum theory now- and we didn’t 200 years ago.

There is such a thing as progress. Science moves on. Even religion is modified to suit contemporary mores.

Coincidences are not proof of God. They are inevitable, which is confirmed by probability theory.

I can’t prove God doesn’t exist- but I can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the God of the Bible (and every other religion I know of) doesn’t exist.

There is not a single religious text that comes close to describing the origin of the universe as described by modern physics. Same goes for evolution. Same goes for electrons. Same goes for every discovery made after those texts were written.

It is inconceivable that a being who creates a whole universe would not mention any of the above in a ‘Bible’. Not only do the religious texts not mention these things- they are in direct contradiction to them.

People evade this by claiming that the Bible is not a science book. OK then, but then why does it go to the trouble of describing a whole cosmology including how animals and humans got on this planet?

Bodies go missing all the time. That doesn’t mean that they ascended to heaven.