Does Jesus's Prayer Show Christianity Is False?

[Gary]

Yeah. Do you have a response because I have no reason to think you know what you're talking about, especially as someone who has considerable reading in philosophy.

Nick, you need to step out of your evangelical/conservative Christian cocoon, sometime. In the world of science and medicine, your views look silly and preposterous, just as my views look silly and preposterous to you and your Christian colleagues. Go to a major public university on one of the coasts and try to convince the audience that a supernatural raising of a dead man is more likely than that a first century Jew would move a buried corpse. You would be laughed off the stage, my friend.

[Leonhard]

You would be laughed off the stage, my friend.

Argument from ridicule fallacy.

[Apologiaphoenix]

Still waiting for an actual argument.

[Leonhard]

Philosophy is a dying field, my friend. Just ask a philosophy professor at any major university.

The only ones thinking philosophy is a dying field, are white male new atheists.

Take instead the feminist atheists, such as typified by Rebecca Watson (whom I'm still a fan of despite our disagreements on sexual health issues) and her crew, they slam routinely, along with several atheist philosophers like Massimo Pugliachi, and even just ordinary scientists in the blogosphere like Steven Novella and Sean Carroll that this anti-philosophy stance is a really dumb approach for atheists.

[psstein]

I realize that philosophy is highly respected among theologians and I think as a field of study it has contributed greatly to the advancement of mankind. So I am not saying that it is a useless or trivial field. But when it comes to the issue of "what is reality", I think most people in western society have accepted the scientific method and reason as the basis of reality. I don't think the majority of society is interested in sitting around debating whether or not one truly exists or is the figment of someone else's imagination. The issue is settled for most people: We trust science and reason to determine truth. I know that theologians don't like that, but that is the way it is.

If you use reason, you end up with God. Reason and faith aren't antithetical. Read Ed Feser's Aquinas.

Philosophy is far from a dying field. In fact, philosophy of religion is more alive now than ever before.

[psstein]

Nick, you need to step out of your evangelical/conservative Christian cocoon, sometime. In the world of science and medicine, your views look silly and preposterous, just as my views look silly and preposterous to you and your Christian colleagues. Go to a major public university on one of the coasts and try to convince the audience that a supernatural raising of a dead man is more likely than that a first century Jew would move a buried corpse. You would be laughed off the stage, my friend.

You mean like when Gary Habermas gets laughed off the stage?

You need to stop talking about things you don't know about.

[Apologiaphoenix]

Go easy on him a bit Stein.

He's not familiar with this because he stays in his cocoon of avoiding reading scholarship.

[Adrift]

True. But I believe that there is ample evidence that proves that Yahweh is a fictional ancient middle-eastern character in an ancient Jewish holy book, and the argument that there is ONE, monotheistic God is also very weak. There may well be a Creator, but we have no idea...yet...at least, who he, she, it, or they is/are. See the video I posted above. So there is no proof of the existence of any supernatural being with supernatural powers. They might exist, but until better evidence comes along, I choose to ignore all supernatural claims and alleged supernatural beings.

Maybe we should start our discussion by debating the existence of Yahweh.

I imagine the best place to start is simply with the existence of a divine being or a disembodied mind before you make the leap to specific divinities like Yahweh. If you can get to the idea of the existence of a divine being, then probably the next step would be to investigate the possibility of a non-deistic, hands-on divinity. And only then seeing if the characteristics of this divine being lineup with that of the Hebrew Yahweh. Again, this is all where the study of natural theology is essential.

Going by the sardonic tone of your posts on this forum, though, I'm not at all convinced that you're seriously interested in narrowing any gap between yourself and the believers here. The overall theme of your posts suggests that your reason for posting (as I've mentioned before) is frustration caused by your suspicion that you were duped into belief, and you think blogs and webforums are decent soapboxes to exact petty vengeance against Christianity and a god you no longer believe in.

[Gary]

I imagine the best place to start is simply with the existence of a divine being or a disembodied mind before you make the leap to specific divinities like Yahweh. If you can get to the idea of the existence of a divine being, then probably the next step would be to investigate the possibility of a non-deistic, hands-on divinity. And only then seeing if the characteristics of this divine being lineup with that of the Hebrew Yahweh. Again, this is all where the study of natural theology is essential.

Going by the sardonic tone of your posts on this forum, though, I'm not at all convinced that you're seriously interested in narrowing any gap between yourself and the believers here. The overall theme of your posts suggests that your reason for posting (as I've mentioned before) is frustration caused by your suspicion that you were duped into belief, and you think blogs and webforums are decent soapboxes to exact petty vengeance against Christianity and a god you no longer believe in.

I have no problem admitting that I have no idea whether or not a god or gods exist. I have no problem admitting that there may possibly be a Creator...or Creators. The issue I have, though, is this: Until we have good evidence to identify who this Creator or Creators is/are, let's just respect his/her/its/their creation and be open to the possibility of one day discovering his/her/its/their identity. But before that happens, lets not just jump to conclusions that one of the ancient gods of the Mediterranean is the Creator without good evidence.

If you have good evidence for Yahweh being the Creator, please provide it.

[Gary]

Go easy on him a bit Stein.

He's not familiar with this because he stays in his cocoon of avoiding reading scholarship.

[Apologiaphoenix]

And still no response....

[Adrift]

I have no problem admitting that I have no idea whether or not a god or gods exist. I have no problem admitting that there may possibly be a Creator...or Creators. The issue I have, though, is this: Until we have good evidence to identify who this Creator or Creators is/are, let's just respect his/her/its/their creation and be open to the possibility of one day discovering his/her/its/their identity. But before that happens, lets not just jump to conclusions that one of the ancient gods of the Mediterranean is the Creator without good evidence.

That's precisely what the post you quoted said we should do. Are you even reading these posts, or are you skimming through them, and then replying to what you think the average Christian poster (ie. you, back when you were a fundamentalist Christian) should have said?

If you have good evidence for Yahweh being the Creator, please provide it.

As I JUST made clear from the post you quoted, we'd have to start before that. We'd have to investigate the evidence of the existence of any divine being or bodiless mind before we can wonder if the god of the Hebrew Bible is characteristic of that divine being.

But also, as I just got done saying in the post you quoted, I don't think you're open to this sort of thing. Your motivation for posting here isn't to examine the evidence, it's to vent. Taking that into consideration with the fact that you're apparently not even reading the posts you're replying to, I see no reason why I (or anyone else) ought to waste their time providing anything you demand.

[Adrift]

I left this message on a skeptic/atheist website regarding my conversation here:

Why do you feel the need to tell us about sharing your arguments with people on this forum with people on other forums, blogs or friends? Why do you think we should care about this? If this is just a forewarning that you're looking for backup from like-minded individuals and that you'll be sharing their two cents here? If so, that's pretty silly. If others have a say on the matter, I'm sure they don't need you to act as proxy.

[Gary]

And still no response....

to WHAT, Nick?

[Gary]

That's precisely what the post you quoted said we should do. Are you even reading these posts, or are you skimming through them, and then replying to what you think the average Christian poster (ie. you, back when you were a fundamentalist Christian) should have said?



As I JUST made clear from the post you quoted, we'd have to start before that. We'd have to investigate the evidence of the existence of any divine being or bodiless mind before we can wonder if the god of the Hebrew Bible is characteristic of that divine being.

But also, as I just got done saying in the post you quoted, I don't think you're open to this sort of thing. Your motivation for posting here isn't to examine the evidence, it's to vent. Taking that into consideration with the fact that you're apparently not even reading the posts you're replying to, I see no reason why I (or anyone else) ought to waste their time providing anything you demand.

I am open to discussing your evidence, Adrift. Go for it. But remember, I am not an atheist. I do not assert that there is no god or gods. I simply believe that there is insufficient evidence to say for certain there is a god or gods.