Atheists who attack Christianity

See --the way it works is if someone makes an outlandish claim --THEY have to prove themselves right.

Not the reverse.

however when one goes against accepted beliefs they are required to prove thiers. Since atheists are still a minority yall are the ones who need to prove us wrong. Now since by your own admission, its unknowable you can't therefore prove us wrong, so we are back to square one.

The logic is quite dizzying... I feel as though I'm going in circles...

Sorry --I never bow to mob rule.

Even if I was the only athiest in the entire universe, you have not proven the existence of your "God" to me. Neither have you even proven the existence of "Jesus of Nazareth",
or "Moses", or "Noah" or any of the other fanciful figures and idols you pray in abject fear to.

I do not have to prove you wrong, I only have to demonstrate where your proof is not sufficient.

How dare you pretend to tell me what I believe? That's the very definition of arrogance. It even rhymes with ignorance.

I realize that nuances may be lost on you, Kevn, but philosophically there is a wide gap between "there is no God" and "I hold no beliefs about gods". Both can be atheistic philosophies, but they are not the same thing. When it comes to magic invisible men who live in the sky, I hold what computer programmers call a "NULL value" - it's not zero, it's not a negative, it simply doesn't exist. Eg., the translation of atheism, "godless", applies exactly to my thoughts on that matter.

My personal value system, on the other hand, holds family, integrity and charity very highly. But that doesn't have a damned thing to do with your gods.

NOTE: Josephus had no real, first-hand knowledge of Jesus (but then neither did the authors of your gospels). He was writing about the beliefs of his time and repeated the verbal accounts he had heard.

Today he'd be laughed out of the historical society, but I realize he's about all you have to rely on as far as the historicity of your man-God.

He hasn't proven himself right either.

Sure he has. It's right there in the Bible.

my point exactly, there is no right or wrong in this. Noone can prove either way, its all a matter of picking sides. You either believe in a higher power or you don't *. Now I ask, how hard is it to understand?

*Yes I know there is a middle ground

Why do we *need* to prove anyone wrong? If someone believes in the tooth fairy, I'll let them. Don't want to shatter their make-believe world.

Everyone thinks they are right, or they wouldn't think the way they do. I argue my position from a "belief" my position is correct, based on my experiences and from the information I have accumulated, I don't assume to know everything, or even very much.

I would assume you do the same, gathering "facts" you are willing to believe, and attaching those in a string to form your belief system.

Everyone has a belief system, even those who deny it. It's just a matter of what one believes.

Atheists don't have anything to prove. They are'nt advocating theres an invisible sky pixie.

If you want to claim any god exists in a debate, YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO BACK UP THE CLAIM. Atheists have made no such claim and have nothing to prove. Kevn has made such a claim and needs to prove it.

If you want to claim that no god exists in a debate, YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO BACK UP THE CLAIM. Christians have made no such claim and have nothing to prove. Several of yall have made such claims and need to prove it.

Atheists just aren't claiming there is a god. They aren't claiming ANYTHING.

Christians are claiming there is a god. They are claiming something.

The one who claims has to prove.

and the one who refutes must as well, thats how debates work. Which goes back to the original point I made, noone can prove it either way. It will be a never ending debate because noone can fully debunk the other. Which, as I said earlier brings us back to square one.

I made no claims to suggest I know factually there is a God. I believe, from my experiences and from information I have accumulated, that it isn't logical to assume all we see was a big freak accident.

I have had other experiences that I don't feel the need to share here that support my beliefs.

You really need a good class in debate rules, Billy. That's not how it works.

That said, there are plenty of philosophically sound arguments against the claim that gods exist. Most involve the logical fallacies that come packaged with theism.

1. The traditional conception of God implies that if God exists then he knows how to, wants to, and is able to prevent all suffering. If such a God existed, though, then we would expect him to prevent all suffering. Suffering, though, is a familiar part of the world around us; it has not been prevented. There is, therefore, no such God.

2. Paradox of the Stone: Can God create a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it? Either he can or he can’t.
[left]If he can’t, the argument goes, then there is something that he cannot do, namely create the stone, and therefore he is not omnipotent.[/left]

[left]If he can, it continues, then there is also something that he cannot do, namely lift the stone, and therefore he is not omnipotent.[/left]

[left]Either way, then, God is not omnipotent. A being that is not omnipotent, though, is not God. God, therefore, does not exist.[/left]
[left] [/left]

[left]3. There is a conflict between the idea of Omniscience (god) and Free Will. If a god knows the future with infallible certainty, then what this god knows will necessarily happen - there is no possibility for anything else to occur. We are, then, incapable of altering the future. If we have Free Will (a different debate), then it pre-empts Omniscience.[/left]

[left]4. Sartre's argument in Being and Nothingness: since existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning of the term sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi ; a consciousness who is also an en-soi: being-in-itself; a thing; which is a contradiction in terms. The argument is echoed thus in Salman Rushdie's novel Grimus: "That which is complete is also dead."[/left]

[left]5. If the Universe had to be created by God because it must have a creator, then God, in turn would have had to be created by some other God, and so on.[/left]

[left]I'm not taking any up of those arguments, but I wanted to demonstrate that the arguments both for and against the existence of God are purely philosophical, not empirical. But to claim that atheists have no proof or reason behind our position is patently wrong.[/left]

Then I say let's find this gent named Noone and settle this once and for all!

Noone! Get your ass on these forums! Pronto!

you missed the fact that I took the post directly above that one and just changed the words Christians and Atheists. And I could quote Bible verses till I'm blue in the face but you will discredit that. So like I said there is no end to this debate and until someone dies and then comes back to life and tells what happens, we will never know will we?

sorry typo

Yes because that would be circular reasoning: using the Bible to prove the Bible.

Like I said, take a good debate class first. Those making the first claim that something exists bear the burden of proof, not those who doubt it.

and THAT's the point.

You don't know -- yet you offer an answer anyway. An unprovable answer

WHAT???

hmm lets think about what I said shall we? We were discussing the existance of God, not the validity of the Bible. So using the Bible to prove that there is a God would be legitimate. We could also use the Koran and the Talmud as extra sources in the existance of God, but thats not what you want to discuss is it? Now I ask you to take a reading comprehension course.