I think you mean claiming to prove etc etc…I’d be stunned to learn that they had any objective evidence for any deity, or especially proving the bible is inerrant, when it is filled with errant nonsense.
I’m dubious. There are, insects and other arthropods that have modified their legs for other purposes, such as predation, burrowing, jumping, and sensing. They appear to have 4 legs, but in reality, they have 6.
Hi @PureLeaf
People can’t prove unfalsifiable things false. There is no way to prove invisible things like god or some “divine guidance” doesn’t exist. This is why it is incumbent on the person making the claim of “divine guidance” to prove that it exists. There are over 3000 religions and most of them claim something to this affect all without empirical evidence. They believe it because the want to (faith), and if they try to justify it with logic, it will quickly run into a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Just as a matter of principle, I wouldn’t approach religious believers initially with contractions or problems of this nature. This is because if they already believe a bunch of invisible stuff is real, they can easily explain away contractions and inconsistencies. I see this all the time, even in their apologetical works.
I agree with @Cognostic, unfortunately some atheists try to make claims they don’t understand at an epistemological level. That is why I always start with epistemology and caring about truth as the basis for any religious conversation. Unfortunately, there are many atheists out there with bad epistemologies. When I hear about atheist becoming Christians, with very little digging I can pretty quickly tell they never had much of an epistemological foundation.
A pretty big problem is that a lot of theists seem to value experience over evidence. In fact they will often cite personal experience as the best evidence for their deity.
Pointing out that this method can’t be examined let alone tested, doesn’t seem to make a dent. Nor does explaining that theism isn’t a single belief but many thousands of different beliefs, with theist who cite personal experience as evidence, believing in mutually exclusive deities.
Bottom line is that people will believe what they want to believe, even if its unevidenced or errant nonsense.
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Hmmmmmmm… So, Belief is a choice?
I was just reading a psychology article on “Excuses and Ego or Self Image Protection.” I am not sure that Belief is actually a choice or that "People believe what they ‘want to believe.’ I suspect they are engaged in some sort of ‘ego protective’ behavior. It’s not a choice but a defensive mechanism. Self-preservation of how they see themselves in the world around them. I literally think these poor sods are slaves to their beliefs. The idea that they have a free choice and have freely chosen their belief seems as foolish as calling a murderous failing God who creates a Hell to torture the beings it created, “Loving.” One must be delusional to accept such a proposition. And once accepted, it must be defended to the nth degree, less one actually admit, they are wrong, foolish, and have been duped.
That does make some sense, and I’m not sure how much choice can be involved if you’re indoctrinated into a religion as a child of course, plus the fact that everyone around you holds the belief. I remember seeing some research where a group of people were asked a series of questions by researchers.
Now the small groups only actually had one test subject, who was unaware all the others were themselves researchers. The test subject gave correct answers to the simple questions, but after a while the plants started to give obviously wrong answers. in every group the researchers noted that the one test subject eventually started to modify answers they knew were correct, to bring themselves in line with the answers the group gave. Group behaviour is perhaps a more powerful motivator than we realize.
My family always claimed I was argumentative as a child, perhaps that’s where my scepticism stems from, that desire to challenge claims even when it can cause acrimony? It wasn’t until I heard Christopher Hitchens assert he was a contrarian, and that being argumentative was very good thing, that I started to view it slightly differently. I always rained it in, as people often don’t like having ideas challenged in that way. Now we have the internet, and chat forums, so it’s less likely to piss off the people around me? 
< is there proof the bible isn’t the truth?
The bible repeatedly states whatever you ask, you will receive.
I have 16 numbers written down on a piece of paper like so:
XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX
Go ask Jesus for the 16 numbers I wrote down on this piece of paper. Post the answer he gives you in this thread. It will be trivial for an entity who rose from the dead and created the entire universe to provide you with a measly 16 numbers, I am sure, especially when all you have to do to receive, is to ask, according to the bible.
Welcome malachi2-3!
How did jesus get my credit card number??
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Welcome! I’m assuming your tone is sarcastic/humor. Hard to tell sometimes with new ones (we get theists who would make the same claim) lol 
Well if we’re asking for something, let’s have next weeks lottery numbers. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m happy to share. It’d be god’s will after all.
In this thread, has anyone actually defined what “truth” is?
I enjoy reading the Bible as a piece of literature . . . but it isn’t a textbook on mathematics, astronomy, history, and/or biology.
If we treated the Bible as a textbook of absolute truth, then women would still be dying from sepsis of childbirth because of the immorality of a doctor washing his or her hands before attending a woman in labor.
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In formal logic “Truth” is undefined. It can’t tell you what is true or not, only what is consistent with a set of agreed upon premises.
So when people argue about “truth” they are really just trying to agree upon some premises to proceed from.
In most theologies “Truth” is something else all together.
But any definition of truth, at least in formal logic classes, tends to lead to contradiction.
Is tricky…
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Thank you very much. I’ve never taken a logic class.
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Okay, I’m not a theist. I used to be a Christian. I can’t fathom why God is good when clearly the old testament shows that he isn’t.
The bible says he is Love when clearly the bible seems more like:
Believe in me, obey me or die.
I’ve been indoctrinated heavily in Christianity. For years I’ve believed God exists.
Now I don’t want to but my mind won’t let me.
I am here for a discussion and need honest answers I don’t want to base my life on the bible anymore the bible and religion isn’t healthy for me or anyone else. I need someone to help me rationalize that God doesn’t really exist and that the bible is truly errant instead of inerrant. It’s difficult to find the answers I’m looking for because of indoctrination and because the bible has its ways of making itself look true and justifying God existing and being good.
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Here, this should destroy your latent notion that the Bible in somehow inerrant:
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The bible is the claim, not the proof. One cannot prove or disprove a god purely by the bible.
BUT … let us examine definitions.
The Christian god is described as all powerful, all knowing, and loving. Thus this god has intimate knowledge on what each person will experience and do during their lifetime. Yet, innocent children die from horrible diseases such as cancer.
There is an obvious contradiction, this christian god described in the bible can not be all knowing and loving, yet allow innocent children to suffer and die.
Thus I am comfortable in claiming that based on the definition of the christian god as described in the bible, there is an obvious contradiction and this christian god can not exist. I can rule out the christian god, but that does not rule out the possibility there may actually be a god.
“errant instead of inerrant.”
@PureLeaf I suggest you put in some time learning the true history of the bible, who wrote it and when. It is just a collection of stories by unknown authors. The bible has more holes in it than a colander.
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If you tried to base your life on the bible you would be mentally torn into multiple pieces.
Whether a god does or does not exist does not depend on a book of claims that it does.
I do not, as an atheist, believe any of the Abrahamic ( judaeism, Christiniaty, Islamic) claims for their Canaanite thunder/war god.
I do not, as an atheist, believe any of the claims for the various gods in Homers “Iliad” or Virgil’s “Aeneid”.
The books are claims. That is all. Pastors make claims, that is all.
A god or gods may or may not exist, so far no evidence of a convincing and impartial nature has been presented to convince me otherwise.
Do your research, on the bible if you wish, and you will discover the claims of divinity have no basis in reality.
I am quite happy to share with you the fruits of my studies if you wish to PM me with specific questions., or ask me here.
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I think Einstein was on to something.
quote The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. … For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. — Letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind on January 3, 1954
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Hey Guys, I’m new here and a little late to the party. However, as a Christian, I would argue that the existence of God can be (and is) proven by the impossibility of the contrary. That is, without the God of the Bible, it is impossible to prove anything, since the necessary preconditions for proving things (i.e. logic, truth, and knowledge) cannot be accounted for in any other worldview.
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Could you tell us the method of this proof?
/e Or better yet: could you just post the formal proof?