Why Are Theist So Sure Of Their God?

I see you are a Christian.

So what actual objective evidence can you give to prove your god?

BTW, I use to be a Christian.

Edit; Could have worded that better, but don’t care too busy working on something.

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I appreciate that, I hope I’m able to have some productive dialogue here.

To address your first comment, that is the typical reply from an atheist/skeptic/etc. but to say you are a skeptic, or that you do not believe X, implies that you do in fact believe something else (say, Y). So you believe something other than X, not just simply “not X”.

Second, my evidence for God is that without Him, you can’t prove anything. That is to say, unless you presuppose God (X), then Y doesn’t even make sense, nor are you able to make sense of it.

Third, yes, I am absolutely making a circular argument. This, however, is no different than any argument you make, except for the fact that I am appealing to something outside of myself to account for my belief.

And to respond to your second comment, the Bible is actually proof, and I will use it as such. If I came to you with the claim that I was the strongest man in the world, and you said to me, “okay prove it, but you can’t use your strength.” it would be absurd. Some arguments are necessarily (and virtuously) circular (like the strongest man example), while others are not. The Bible is a virtuously circular one. The reason is that I can appeal to the God of Scripture as the standard for logic, reason, morality, etc., which is outside of the circular appeal to my own logic, reason, morality, etc., which is not virtuously circular, but rather reduces your argumentation to absurdity – this is the state of atheism.

Yes, I am a Christian. See my reply to David_Killens below, I’d rather not retype the whole thing.
& no problem I got you.

That is not what a skeptic is. Just because one does not accept a proposition without proof, that does not mean they have another alternate explanation or preference.

It is really simple.

You claim there is a god. I am not convinced, please convince me there is a god.

What does that have to do with a god or the bible?

The same book that advocates slavery, beating slaves, treating women like property? The bible is not a virtuous document. It doe shave some aspects within it, but it also contains barbaric and cruel practices.

Just because you concede that the bible is a circular argument, that does not mean it is true or to be accepted. Circular arguments are a fallacy, a failed argument.

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The Bible was written by man and most of it can be debunked.
Most of what happened in that bible never happened, as most of it is based on fiction. Use it as your proof all you want but that is still not objective evidence to prove an actual god.

By The Way some of these people know the bible better than I do, and I was a Christian close to 47 years of my life.

But please if you have anything new for evidence please share it.

This is called an argument. Not evidence. You have not provided evidence to support your argument. WHY I have to presuppose your god, is the question.

If you are the strongest man, you have the most strength. This is not circular, it is a tautology. Using the Bible as evidence for itself is not a tautology because it involves presupposing itself, not just restating it as was done in your example.

Sorry, what? This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Outside the circular appeal? Virtuously circular?

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To say that you are not convinced of a god is the same as the statement, “I believe there is no god.” To deny this is, I believe, is intellectually dishonest. This is because to “believe” and “to not believe” are both knowledge claims. Hopefully you understand my point here.

It’s an example of a virtuous circle. You said I can’t use the Bible to prove Christianity, and I’m declining on the basis that the Bible is necessary in a debate regarding the God of the Bible.

By what standard? If God doesn’t exist, you have no way to account for your objection to things you think are “barbaric” or not “virtuous”. In a world without God, 1. Who cares that there is immorality (whatever that means according to a world without God"
2. Immoral according to whom? If there is no God to condemn immorality, all there is, is people (or system) pretending to be God by declaring things right or good, and even in doing so are appealing to some ultimate standard by calling those things (whatever they are) “right/good”

Apart from the God of the Bible, you don’t get anything objective. There is no reason to prove anything to you apart from an ultimate objective standard, that being the God of the Bible. This goes back to my original premise: the proof of God is that without Him, you can’t prove anything.

I’m saying that without God, your worldview (any worldview without Him) is reduced to absurdity.

As to the rest of your comments, I think you are misreading my argumentation. My answer to your first question (“Why I have to presuppose your god”) is in the quote: “then Y doesn’t even make sense, nor are you able to make sense of it.”

and as to tautology – No, it isn’t. Saying I have strength and demonstrating it are two different things. I say I’m strong, you say prove it, I can’t just say “I’m strong” more emphatically lol. I have to actually use my strength. So in the same way (were that convo about the Bible): I say the Bible is true, you say prove it, I use the Bible to demonstrate its truth. Both are circular.

The reason this has to do with the first response (the quote above), is that any person who does not appeal to God as their ultimate standard of truth, is themself their ultimate standard (to make it simple, let’s just say for truth) of truth. However, you have to utilize your own logic, reasoning, senses, etc. in order to even justify them. This is circular in the same way that saying “the sky is blue because the sky is blue.”

I’ll demonstrate it this way – answer this for me: Give me an account of your reasoning without using your reasoning.

In this way, everyone’s reasoning and logic is circular. The difference is that I’m appealing to something outside of my own senses and reasoning in order to account for them. Yes, I’m consistent enough to admit that it’s circular. But every act of reasoning you do is circular as well. This is why atheism is reduced to absurdity.

A lack of belief is not the same as denial. I lack a belief because I have not been presented with appropriate evidence or proof. I have never stated I deny a god, I have continuously stated that I lack a belief in a god.

I am the one being completely honest. If there is any dishonesty it is twisting the words of another to suit your agenda.

“Belief” is a faith claim. “Know” is a knowledge claim.

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Sounds like the fallacy of the inverse.

Anyway, according to your statement, pretty much everyone here is dishonest. Why would you come to debate with people you think are dishonest? :woman_shrugging:t6:

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@ derekreedball

Can I just get this straight. I prefer simple straight-line argument. You have consulted one anthology of ancient stories of questionable provenance, even more questionable content, translation and accuracy and hold it as proof absolute of your particular god?

Am I right in condensing your argument to that? You have book, therefore god?

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Huh?

A god is not needed for either to prove or not prove a thing.

Your god is also only one in many too.

Just tell the other 3,199 other religions they are wrong, and see how far it gets you.

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That only raises more questions and answers nothing.

Let’s go through this together. You are the subject, and strength is the quality you need to demonstrate. Similarly the Bible is the subject and saying the truth is the quality. If you are strong, you possess strength. If the Bible is truthful, it possesses truth. This is a tautology. You are not using YOURSELF to show that you are strong, you are using YOUR STRENGTH to do so. If you said “I’m strong” and I asked you to prove it, you can’t say “I exist, therefore I am strong”. That’s what your analogy points to. Hope you understand.

We do not use our own logic or reasoning. These are things that are observed to be universally true and the best methods to attain as close to the truth as possible. If you take your faith as a standard for truth then anything and everything can be true on faith. Let me ask you then: how do you know that you’re appealing to something outside of your senses? Aren’t you using your reasoning to reach that conclusion? How do you know anything of that sort even exists outside of your mind?

You’re also consistent enough to keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Btw, atheism is a lack of belief in a deity or deities. If I have a jar of gumballs and you say that the number of gumballs is an even number, I say “I don’t believe you”. It’s not the same as saying “I believe the number of gumballs is an odd number”, as you suggest it is.

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I am an atheist. That means I do not believe in god(s) (due to a lack of empirical evidence)

Not believing in god(s), I am also unable to believe in divinely inspired writings of any kind. I accept the New Testament as the mythology of Christianity. That above all, the religion we call Christianity was invented by Saul of Tarsus and is based on some hallucinations he allegedly had. He never met Jesus.

Your post is simply yet another unfounded claim ,and one which is trotted out here regularly.

It is my position that god(s) cannot be argued into or out of existence. I demand empirical evidence and will accept nothing less.

Sadly, you have a major problem. ( I do not because I’ve made no claims) As far as I’m aware all claims about god(s) are unfalsifiable. That means that so far in human history nobody has managed to demonstrate such claims, pro or contra, by providing empirical evidence.

Religious beliefs are not based on reason, evidence or on anything as vulgar as facts. Religious beliefs are based on faith, which is the antithesis of reason.
No less a person than Jesus himself is reported as admonishing his followers to believe blindly. The 'doubting Thomas incident:

John 20:29 “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (KJV)

In fact, the historicity of Jesus has not been established. The closest I’ve seen to a consensus is that AT BEST a wondering rabbi called something like Yeshua/Yoshua bar Yusuf may have existed in first century Judea, etc etc etc.

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To which bible do you refer? I refer you to “Misquoting Jesus” by Bart Ehrman.

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Acts that promote the overall well-being of humanity (usually on a localised scale) in the immediate future, while avoiding unnecessary harm to both the humans themselves and the environment around them, are what can be considered to be “moral”.
Furthermore this is an OBJECTIVE standard of assessing moral actions.

While you can subjectively have a moral compass of your own, it is condemning to use it in every situation you encounter due to the personal bias that comes along with it. Fairness is valued.
It also creates heavily unstable societies.

Scripture contains moral rules for that very reason; people cannot regulate themselves and often favour their own benefit.
The modern objective standard that I use as described above (which is also the working basis of most moral standards I’ve seen in the world), works in that same way.

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Morality from the bible? The same bible that endorses slavery, stoning unruly children to death, forcing a raped woman to marry her rapist? I consider such practices as immoral.

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I disagree, and I’m prepared to bet I know better than you what I think.

However please demonstrate the most compelling objective evidence you think exists for any deity?

Not me, as it has absolutely nothing to do with evidencing any deity. Anyone suggesting it does is using Ian argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, a god of the gaps polemic.

Wrong again, firstly pointing out what you think are gaps in our knowledge, isn’t evidence for anything. Secondly atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, we are all born atheists. You’re dishonestly implying bias against this “evidence” yet you’ve not offered any? And do stop telling me what I think champ, you know fuck all about me or what I think until I tell you, beyond the fact I’m don’t believe in any deity.

Why is it theists never start with the best most compelling piece of evidence they think they have I wonder?

I would suggest you look up argumentum ad ignorantiam, it’s a fallacy in informal logic you’ve just used.

I would also suggest you’re demonstrably wrong, as every single scientific fact we have neither includes or needs an extant deity.

Still not one shred of objective evidence from you, just biased
guff about atheist being biased, an all too familiar line in theistic spiel.

Which deity are you claiming is real?

What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?

Start there, and leave the nonsense about atheists being biased alone, as it looks like trolling to me.

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Ah, you mean Thor then, no wait Apollo, no it must be Zeus…

Dear oh dear…you might be happy to use argument from assertion fallacies, but irrational claims are going to get short shrift.

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Wrong. I suggest you look up the definition of atheism, I’d also suggest you stop telling us what we do and do not believe.

That’s not evidence, it’s an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, and it is demonstrably wrong, as not one single scientific facts needs or includes superstitious belief in any deity.

Another fallacy in informal logic.

Proofs are used in mathematics, the bible is a book filled with archaic superstitious claims, no objective evidence at all though.

That one is called a false equivalence fallacy. No is saying you can’t use the bible, they’re saying that it demonstrably has no objective evidence. Anymore than the claims in Harry Potter are evidence for wizardry.

Circular arguments are irrational by definition.

An hilarious and demonstrably false claim, given the number of logical fallacies you’ve used thus far. On here we’ve had countless theists tag the word logic onto their arguments as a soundbite, nothing but vapid rhetoric, when like you, they have peppered their arguments with known logical fallacies, showing they clearly haven’t even the most basic grasp of informal logic.

You have repeatedly shown that you don’t even know what atheism means, I’d suggest next time you want to engage with atheists, that at the very least you consult a dictionary and learn what atheism means, and do us the courtesy of not telling us what we think.

Sadly this is pretty typical of the kind of theistic spiel we have witnessed countless times before.

FYI, I set the same unbiased open minded standard for all claims and assertions, and that is that sufficient objective evidence is demonstrated to support them.

So I ask again…

What objective evidence can you demonstrate for any deity?

So far you’ve offered naught but subjective irrational arguments, in a fatuous attempt to reverse the burden of proof.

Theism is a belief, beliefs are the affirmation of a claim, a claim carries a burden of proof.

Atheism is simply the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, and nothing more.

You’re wasting everyone’s time, including your own if you don’t even know what atheism means.

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