What is this evidence of God atheists talks about?

You don’t even need hallucinogens to experience weird stuff. When I was a kid, I could on one occation actually fly. I flew from the sofa in our living room to the doorway to our kitchen. No strange substances consumed. And I didn’t even leave the sofa. But I did had a high fever, which I suspect might have had something to do with it :thinking:. I still remember the “flying” quite vividly, though, even if it was just fever fantasies.

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I’m going to keep the sarcasm to a minimum, but I find it highly implausible that for thousands of years, every or even many priests who entered temple shrines, and came out telling stories about walking, talking statue-gods, were experiencing fevers. This is special pleading.

Are you opposed to the idea that priests were simply lying about early gods? if so, why is that idea unacceptable to you?

Not at all.
BUT lying, or the accusation requires more than…

”an untruth told with intent to deceive.”

You did share one description which was (I believe, but I’m going by memory) similar to how “gods” ate back then. Also the practice of the “wine/bread” turning to “blood/flesh” (of Christ) once consumed.

Are these “truth” statements? I would say no! HOWEVER their followers and those that tell them these untrue practices (ie parents, ministers, etc) aren’t practicing with an “intent to deceive”…and to qualify that - for selfish motive, self-adoration (ie malice)

I do not doubt that you can establish the falsehood of the statues literally eating and drinking. AND today it is an obvious lie … BUT human ability to believe and furnish self-evidence (in mind) is strong. Many who reject the truth of an obvious lie do so with a belief of supernatural.

@JoelInbody
FYI
I am not trying to be combative in a bad way. I just “look” at today’s obvious “lies” and believers in the lies and the tellers of the lies and it doesn’t appear as “cut and dry” for the underlying motive of the ancient priest-class or the followers.

One last thought. For myself I am highly sensitive to “suggestions” of how I’m suppose to be viewing something or how a writer meant something, etc. because I can make up my own mind. Our society is saturated with opinion tainted as fact and I look for the oasis of well presented information without biased suggestions.

Should you feel the need to insert your opinion as to their “motivation or thinking” perhaps do it at the very end, after presenting facts.

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Right, I shared a quote from the Sumerian hymn Utu E, which says statues of Enlil and Utu ate bread and drank alcohol. I think I also shared quotes from Egyptian temples about Horus and offerings, e.g., “The deity eats the pieces and drinks the blood”, “I have accepted your offering… I have drank the wine…” I have other texts like that about Nut, Isis, Ptah, Amun-Ra, etc. (“Food of all kinds hast thou tasted”, “You [the statue] open your lips, you eat the white bread”, etc.). I also have texts about Mesopotamian gods, e.g., “You feed the seven gods”, “May you eat well, Enlil”, “Let me [Ishtar] fill my cup and drink from it…”, etc.

I don’t appreciate the insinuation that my opinion is a biased suggestion, but I understand your concern. I guess I don’t feel like this is the right place to post a block of text. If you want me to do that, I can, but I don’t want to make a giant post. That’s my concern.

It isn’t insinuated. We all have opinions. They are all biased. My suggestion is to remove yourself from your conclusion and offer up the facts and the text as written.

The partial texts you posted are fine, but don’t support an opinion of intentional deceit- no more so than any other religious text wherein the god requires a sacrifice. Also … religious people “up the game” by making shit spiritual or symbolic. The people of the time may have understood the context of the ritual.

HOWEVER- write what you will. I’m no archeologist or historian or ancient text god studier.

As a lay person, I just tend to not necessarily esteem information when presented in a preset way. I like questions and facts that allow me to draw my own conclusions.

Please tell me what is symbolic about the statement, “I have drunk the wine,” or, “May you eat well, Enlil.” Where is the symbolism? Where are the symbols? Your argument is a cop out.

That isn’t what @Get_off_my_lawn suggested. Seriously, that chip on your shoulder seems to be growing quickly.

:roll_eyes:… in context?

Ever hear of “spiritual food?”
OR
At the cross, he drank the wine of his Father’s wrath down to its very dregs, and he did so for us—
OR
don’t drink the kool-aid

Do you know the spiritual understanding the people at the time had in regard to the physical rituals?

I have mentioned this before, but: In the christian holy communion, they say “This is the body of Christ” and “This is the blood of Christ”. Imagine that one of the few things that survived about christian practices were short descriptions of the ritual of the communion, but with the small detail about the items actually being bread and wine missing. Then, in 4000 or 5000 years, how do you think the future professors in the field of “superstitions of ancient times” will interpret this? That this was a celebration of the by then extinct practice of carnivorism or something more symbolic?

Now imagine that the detail about the bread and wine was known. Would these future professors now think this was an actual carnivoric ritual or something symbolic? What is the central difference between these two cases? Hint: missing information.

Next, consider this news article from almost a year ago:

Contrary to what science says, the Greek Orthodox Church insists it is impossible for any disease — including the coronavirus — to be transmitted through Communion.

“In the holy chalice, it isn’t bread and wine. It is the body and blood of Christ,” said the Rev. Georgios Milkas, a theologian in the northern city of Thessaloniki. “And there is not a shred of suspicion of transmitting this virus, this disease, as in the holy chalice there is the Son and the Word of God.”

This is proven, he said, through “the experience of centuries.”

When Rev. Georgios told this to the press, was he consciously lying or was he just deluded? How can you know for sure?

Edit, to add:
Another example, this time from 2009:

A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics has taken to the skies over Israel, praying and blowing ceremonial horns in a plane to ward off swine flu.
[…]
“We are certain that, thanks to the prayer, the danger is already behind us,” added Mr Batzri was quoted as saying.

Here’s reportedly a video of the event:

Now, were those rabbis lying through their teeth or deluded?

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What you are not considering, is the human ability to overlap fantasy/imagination onto reality and once complete - voila! Religion. Ritual.

For fuck’s sake fundies today freak when they see a triangle. Or cover one eye. Or a myriad of other “things” that religious people attach a meaning/energy/spirit to.

They put the food before the god. All physical. They say their “magical bullshit words”. The people imagine the god eating and drinking the offerings on a spiritual level. Eventually the priests take and eat or distribute some to the poor - whatever.

In about grade 5 our teacher had us bring a fork to school. We were to imagine ourselves 1000 years in the future where they ate with :chopsticks: chopsticks and imagine what else a future archeologist may think it was. A simple exercise for kids - but one that drove home the point.

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Not only that, but they actually believe, unironically, that two pieces of wood, one shorter than the other, laid on top of each other at a 90 degrees angle, offset from the center of the longest one, can physically protect them against evildoers and heal diseases. How’s that for an interpretation in 4000 or 5000 years: “People of ancient Yuropea and Muricania held the belief that a stick of wood formed like a sword - a weapon of war - could rid their bodies of infectious agents and reverse the abnormal behaviour of cancer cells.”

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I’m making an argument, I get to do that. I am confident in my argument because of the texts I’ve read. Don’t you make arguments? Aren’t you confident in them?

I’ll reply to other people in this thread later tonight.

Just like ancient religious stories, the alien abduction stories have multiple accounts, from different times and different people. Yet the alien abduction stories achieve a higher level of evidence because many of the people who told their stories are alive and can be cross-examined.

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I did a casual Google search on that statement and had many returns.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/04/did-ancient-mesopotamians-get-high-near-eastern-rituals-may-have-included-opium

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Give me the Date, Time, Place, and person, who invented the Christian God.

You asserted it was invented by a priest. Well, demonstrate it with the Date, Time, Place, and individual. No other evidence is relevant. Without these facts, you are merely making assertions.

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Indeed

During world war one there was the Angel of Mons.

I’ve already said my bit. I think the horse is dead about our friend’s burden of proof.

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I appreciate you linking me to these sources. I will look at them and respond once I’ve carefully considered them. Just looking at the blurbs, to my knowledge, neither opium nor cannibals is a hallucinogen. That said: your counter-argument is valid- I don’t agree, but I see value in debating it- and I will get back to you.

To Cognostic: I don’t remember asserting that Christianity was invented by a priest, but I more or less agree with that position, so if I said it I’ll defend it. Let me either change or clarify priest to Christian elder. Here goes:

Name: Polycarp of Smyrna, perhaps with the help of other Asian elders, elders like Papias, Aristion, and John (not the apostle) who forged The Gospel of John, introducing the Greek logos as the Christian god or demigod perhaps (“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was divine/a god/god”).
Date: early to mid-2nd century when the Johannine texts were forged, and proto-Luke was turned into The Gospel of Luke (I encourage you to read Joseph Tyson’s Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle)
Place: Smyrna, Hierapolis, Ephesus in Asia Minor

I’ll create a separate thread when I’m ready to make this argument more coherently. I’ve been looking into this for about 6 years, and I’ve only recently started putting these thoughts to “paper” (Google Docs).

My post was a counter to your assertion that …

I have established grounds that your assertion may not be on a solid footing. That is all. I have no interest in engaging in a “debate” with you for the following reasons.

  1. Your recent conduct which is emotionally charged and excessively confrontational.

  2. If you desire to determine the validity of those web sites I have linked, then take it up with them. I am not an expert on that field, I am just the messenger.

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