What would it take for the atheist to believe in God?

[rogue06]

On the contrary many fictitious individuals are placed in real world settings. Just think of Hugo's Les Miserables, or Lindsey Davis' first century "detective" Marcus Didius Falco, or the saucy goings-on of Ann Golon's at the court of Le Roi Soleil..

Perhaps you should have thought of that before starting to babble?

[rogue06]

On p. 139, Keener cites Quadratus as noting that some of the people Jesus raised from the dead were still alive in his time; the end-note suggests a date ca. AD 70-130.

Another early Christian apologist.

And here we have Hypatia_Alexandria handwaving off an eyewitness because they believed what they were saying and for no other reason.

[rogue06]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shows there were witnesses to Harry's "death and resurrection". And?

So there really is/was a Harry Potter? Same with Ron and Hermione?

Care to make some other half-baked brainless quips?

[seer]

You know nothing about me.

Just that you are an odd duck indeed....

[NorrinRadd]

This is about me, isn't it?

Pretty sure it's about me.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

People whom don't have these experiences are rather odd too - like you...

You know nothing about me.

[tabibito]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

The consensus around the classical documentary hypothesis has now collapsed.^[5] This was triggered in large part by the influential publications of John Van Seters, Hans Heinrich Schmid, and Rolf Rendtorff in the mid-1970s.^[7] These "revisionist" authors argued that J was to be dated no earlier than the time of the Babylonian captivity (597–539 BCE),^[8] and rejected the existence of a substantial E source.^[9] They also called into question the nature and extent of the three other sources. Van Seters, Schmid, and Rendtorff shared many of the same criticisms of the documentary hypothesis, but were not in complete agreement about what paradigm ought to replace it.^[7]

As bad as the Documentary Hypothesis is, the proposed alternatives seem not much better - inasmuch that proponents have a habit of finding inconsistencies where none exist. I can't claim to have investigated every claim of inconsistency, but those that I have don't pan out.

[5] Carr, David M. (2014). "Changes in Pentateuchal Criticism, p 436. - [As early as] 1928 it was proposed that any multiple sources that might have existed did so at the pre-literary level. {{the proposal seems tenable}}

[7] Van Seters, John (2015), pp 28-29. The Pentateuch: A Social-Science Commentary - Three models of compositional structure have been proposed. 1/ The "Fragmentary/Story-cycle/Block Model." Individual stories or blocks were brought together and imperfectly collated. 2/ "The Supplementation or Expansion of a Basic Text Model" The basic content of the Torah has been supplemented or expanded, with those additions introducing inconsistencies and discontinuity to the original coherent text 3/ "The Source/Document/Literary Strata Model" Inconsistencies in the Pentateuch result from varied sources, "while the breaks in coherence and cohesion point to the redactional activity of combining them."

So - JEDP is dead in the water.

[seer]

Not to their face. However, some of these people who claim to have had these experiences are often rather odd.

People whom don't have these experiences are rather odd too - like you...

[Cow Poke]

Not to their face. However, some of these people who claim to have had these experiences are often rather odd.

This is about me, isn't it?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Not to their face. However, some of these people who claim to have had these experiences are often rather odd.

[seer]

That is why C. S. Lewis' Aslan, the equivalent of Christ in Narnia, "is not a tame lion". He could not be shown to unbelievers, as though he were a lapdog subject to human whims & manipulation. And neither can the Christ in Whom Christians believe and hope. That is why appeals to Christians (on YouTube, say) to "show me your God" cannot be complied with - the God in Whom we trust, is not our plaything, but (so we believe) the Creator of our being, our existence, and our lives. We are (in some sense) from this God, as being His handiwork - He is not from us, nor in any way subject to us.

[shunyadragon]

On this matter of the lack of/search for objective evidence, since this is a rather important issue, here are a few ideas as to why it is not given.

ISTM that the quest for that kind of evidence, is a mistake in method. It is methodologically inappropriate. Friendship with another person, is shown by living it, and practicing it. Not by trying to calculate its atomic weight, its specifc gravity, its angular momentum, or its half-life. Some things can be assessed in those ways, and not in others - but friendship is not testable in those ways. It can't be treated as though it were amenable to measurement by the methods proper to the natural sciences. It can be experienced, and is known by being experienced - but it is not amenable to testing by the methods proper to the sciences, to demonstration by reason, nor by mathematical demonstration.

The experience of being a friend of someone cannot be known in the abstract - ideas about friendship, and analyses of it, are not the thing itself. The mutual love of a married couple is friendship; Cicero's essay "On Friendship" is not friendship. but a book about friendship. Loving the book, and even admiring its author, are also not friendship. Only friendship can be friendship. The definition & analysis of it, is not it.

In the sciences, entities are (so to speak) ecumenically verifiable. That is, anyone can verify that a thing is a meteorite, regardless of the verifier's ethnicity, sex, age, academic record, moral character, and other personal details. The scientific method is the same for everyone. All that is needed in order to recognise a thing to be a meteorite, is some intelligence, and the possession of some info. So within wide limits, anyone can know a meteorite to be the meteorite that it is.

Knowledge of God, by contrast, requires one to be a certain kind of person, for one can have eyes to "see" God, only if one has begun to become a certain kind of person. Intelligence and wisdom, though very desirable & valuable, are not enough.

One has to "do" friendship, & be in it, in order to know what a friendship, as a relation between persons, is. "Head-knowledge" about it, isolated from it, is too impersonal, too objective, too static, too lifeless, to communicate the dimensions of the experience itself. Friendship is a dialogue of heart with heart, a dynamic communion of souls; it cannot be reduced to being objective, because it is a meeting of acting subjects. Its subjectivity and dynamic character make it unscientific.

The point of all that talk is, that the Christian experience of God is somewhat like human friendship. It is subjective, dynamic, alive, inter-personal, transcendent, not reducible to human calculation, dialogical, heart-to-heart. Not a quantitative, measurable, material, ecumenically verifiable object in the universe. There are differences between "Friendship" with God & human friendship, but there are also similarities; so the comparison is limited, but not wholly valueless.

That is why C. S. Lewis' Aslan, the equivalent of Christ in Narnia, "is not a tame lion". He could not be shown to unbelievers, as though he were a lapdog subject to human whims & manipulation. And neither can the Christ in Whom Christians believe and hope. That is why appeals to Christians (on YouTube, say) to "show me your God" cannot be complied with - the God in Whom we trust, is not our plaything, but (so we believe) the Creator of our being, our existence, and our lives. We are (in some sense) from this God, as being His handiwork - He is not from us, nor in any way subject to us.

That does not reply to all that you asked, but I hope it helps.

This is a 'subjective' theistic view of a believer from a narrow Christian perspective,which is part of the problem it does not address the reasons Philosophical Naturalists would reject the belief in God I believe in God, but the above is not meaningful to me. In part, because it does not consider a universal perspective of what would be God if the 'Source' of what diverse conflicting believers who consider God of God(s) exist. I was presenting the view of how the atheist and other Philosophical Materialists, who would not consider the above an adequate argument either, but from a materialist perspective. .

[Rushing Jaws]

To the non-believer, yes, the lack of objective evidence is the elephant in the room, but also the subjective contradictory diversity of beliefs in God or God(s) mostly reflecting the diversity of the cultures over the history of humanity, leads to the question; Which God or God(s) is the real God or God(s) are truely real.

On this matter of the lack of/search for objective evidence, since this is a rather important issue, here are a few ideas as to why it is not given.

ISTM that the quest for that kind of evidence, is a mistake in method. It is methodologically inappropriate. Friendship with another person, is shown by living it, and practicing it. Not by trying to calculate its atomic weight, its specifc gravity, its angular momentum, or its half-life. Some things can be assessed in those ways, and not in others - but friendship is not testable in those ways. It can't be treated as though it were amenable to measurement by the methods proper to the natural sciences. It can be experienced, and is known by being experienced - but it is not amenable to testing by the methods proper to the sciences, to demonstration by reason, nor by mathematical demonstration.

The experience of being a friend of someone cannot be known in the abstract - ideas about friendship, and analyses of it, are not the thing itself. The mutual love of a married couple is friendship; Cicero's essay "On Friendship" is not friendship. but a book about friendship. Loving the book, and even admiring its author, are also not friendship. Only friendship can be friendship. The definition & analysis of it, is not it.

In the sciences, entities are (so to speak) ecumenically verifiable. That is, anyone can verify that a thing is a meteorite, regardless of the verifier's ethnicity, sex, age, academic record, moral character, and other personal details. The scientific method is the same for everyone. All that is needed in order to recognise a thing to be a meteorite, is some intelligence, and the possession of some info. So within wide limits, anyone can know a meteorite to be the meteorite that it is.

Knowledge of God, by contrast, requires one to be a certain kind of person, for one can have eyes to "see" God, only if one has begun to become a certain kind of person. Intelligence and wisdom, though very desirable & valuable, are not enough.

One has to "do" friendship, & be in it, in order to know what a friendship, as a relation between persons, is. "Head-knowledge" about it, isolated from it, is too impersonal, too objective, too static, too lifeless, to communicate the dimensions of the experience itself. Friendship is a dialogue of heart with heart, a dynamic communion of souls; it cannot be reduced to being objective, because it is a meeting of acting subjects. Its subjectivity and dynamic character make it unscientific.

The point of all that talk is, that the Christian experience of God is somewhat like human friendship. It is subjective, dynamic, alive, inter-personal, transcendent, not reducible to human calculation, dialogical, heart-to-heart. Not a quantitative, measurable, material, ecumenically verifiable object in the universe. There are differences between "Friendship" with God & human friendship, but there are also similarities; so the comparison is limited, but not wholly valueless.

That is why C. S. Lewis' Aslan, the equivalent of Christ in Narnia, "is not a tame lion". He could not be shown to unbelievers, as though he were a lapdog subject to human whims & manipulation. And neither can the Christ in Whom Christians believe and hope. That is why appeals to Christians (on YouTube, say) to "show me your God" cannot be complied with - the God in Whom we trust, is not our plaything, but (so we believe) the Creator of our being, our existence, and our lives. We are (in some sense) from this God, as being His handiwork - He is not from us, nor in any way subject to us.

That does not reply to all that you asked, but I hope it helps.

[shunyadragon]

To the non-believer, yes, the lack of objective evidence is the elephant in the room, but also the subjective contradictory diversity of beliefs in God or God(s) mostly reflecting the diversity of the cultures over the history of humanity, leads to the question; Which God or God(s) is the real God or God(s) are truely real.

[shunyadragon]