Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

[Achilles]

Of course the idea is important, but it must be taken in context. In any case, one cannot, sadly, be an expert on everything, and failing that, as a general rule it is best to follow the experts, no?

Which experts?

 

If there are two sides of a debate and both sides have "experts" on them, then the tie-breaker has to be the merit of the arguments themselves. To carry the point further, how many important discoveries are made by people willing to accept the status quo and try to quiet dissenting ideas simply because they don't match "conventional wisdom"? I would argue "not very many".

[Totenkopf]

Of course the big problem also becomes how you rationalize to yourself that one idea is necessarily better than another in the first place, especially given how spotty the evidence probably is in the first place.

[Jae Onasi]

@Achilles--I thought you were asking your question in an attempt at humor. How do you prosyletize? Talk about atheism as fervently as and with the same amount of faith as any theist, which you do. You even have a convert in Arcesious and perhaps a few others (no offense meant to Arcesious btw).

 

You can say that you don't know if God exists or not and claim that is a neutral position. However, the fact still remains that either God exists or He does not. Your lack of knowledge on God's existence (not being snarky here) has no bearing on God's actual existence. You choose to say ''I don't know'', but your actions and statements clearly indicate that you have chosen to _act_ as if He does not exist until you receive some kind of divine intervention. That is no longer neutral.

 

Invisible pink unicorn--is it omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, existing outside the time-space continuum of this universe, and having all the other traits of a supreme being? Then you may as well call it what it really is (God) and quit calling it by the wrong name. Is it any less than that? Then it is nothing more than a silly little man-made construct and has no relevence here, and in fact is a disingenuous technique by the atheist community meant to confuse people.

 

In regards to the tablets--

Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 refer to a messiah that would suffer and die for Israel's (and the world's) redemption. Seeing that mentioned in archaeological evidence is no surprise, and in fact could serve as more supporting evidence for the veracity of the Bible. I'm not sure why people are so surprised that themes that run through the Bible happen to have been discussed outside the Bible. There are a zillion concordances, commentaries, devotionals and other books about the Bible on bookshelves today. Now we have an ancient equivalent discussing the major themes of the Old Testament--the Messiah and redemption. That does not prove that this is a common theme in all religions, btw. All it proves is that someone a few millenia ago studied the Old Testament and decided to chisel his thoughts about it into some stone.

[Arcesious]

You even have a convert in Arcesious and perhaps a few others (no offense meant to Arcesious btw).

 

All hail Achilles... All hail Achilles... lol.

[jonathan7]

All hail Achilles... All hail Achilles... lol.

 

Greek half human deities seem to be making a comeback...

[Arcesious]

Greek half human deities seem to be making a comeback...

 

You know who I mean...

[jonathan7]

You know who I mean...

 

I was splendouring (new word!) in the irony of Achilles being deified!

[Arcesious]

You should hear all the never before invented words I've come up with... Some of which are not necessarily proper english...

[Q]

All hail Achilles... All hail Achilles... lol.

Oh, no. Just what the man needs: worshippers.

[Achilles]

@Achilles--I thought you were asking your question in an attempt at humor. How do you prosyletize? Talk about atheism as fervently as and with the same amount of faith as any theist, which you do.

I'm afraid this misses the point. You cannot "covert one's faith" if no faith is involved in the outcome. By definition your comment in patently false, however I did want to extend to you the courtesy of an opportunity to explain what you meant. Since it appears that you're stuck, I'll just accept the comment for what it is and move on.

 

You even have a convert in Arcesious and perhaps a few others (no offense meant to Arcesious btw).

Interesting that his decision to examine religion critically came well after (and quite separate from) my attempts to point out the flaws in his former arguments. Therefore, I cannot take any credit for his choices.

 

You can say that you don't know if God exists or not and claim that is a neutral position. However, the fact still remains that either God exists or He does not.

Indeed that is the case. However since we cannot know which of these two scenarios is true, I don't know what we stand to gain by pretending that we know the answer. I choose not to pretend to know the answer, therefore I choose to adopt the only rational position, which is neutrality.

 

Your lack of knowledge on God's existence (not being snarky here) has no bearing on God's actual existence. You choose to say ''I don't know'', but your actions and statements clearly indicate that you have chosen to _act_ as if He does not exist until you receive some kind of divine intervention. That is no longer neutral.

Of course it is neutral. Making some positive statement regarding "His" (big assumption) existence or non-existence would be to leave that neutral position.

 

Invisible pink unicorn--is it omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, existing outside the time-space continuum of this universe, and having all the other traits of a supreme being?

I don't have an answer. Using the exact same rationale that you present for the existence of god, then we should assume that all of these characteristics are present. Why? Because someone (anyone) can say that they are. And why should we believe them? Because the invisible pink unicorns themselves told the person that was the case. Why should this be convincing to anyone? Frankly, I think I've spent the better part of a year trying to get you to answer that one for me.

 

Then you may as well call it what it really is (God) and quit calling it by the wrong name.

On what basis do you presume to know what the "right" name is? Who gave you the authority to speak definitely regarding the nature of god? For a religion that claims to hold humility as a virtue, it sure does seem to produce a lot of presumptuous followers.

 

Is it any less than that? Then it is nothing more than a silly little man-made construct and has no relevence here, and in fact is a disingenuous technique by the atheist community meant to confuse people.

I certainly apologize if I've confused you, Jae.

 

The point of the argument is that since we can't speak definitively for them and we can't speak definitively against them, then we cannot rule them out. And if we can make presumptions about god's characteristics without any evidence then we can make those same presumptions about invisible pink unicornes without any evidence either. So at the end of the day, it's impossible to distinguish between the silly man-made construct some of us call god and the silly man-made construct we call invisible pink unicorns.

 

Once someone opens that door, anything can pass through it.

 

In regards to the tablets--

Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 refer to a messiah that would suffer and die for Israel's (and the world's) redemption. Seeing that mentioned in archaeological evidence is no surprise, and in fact could serve as more supporting evidence for the veracity of the Bible.

Please expand upon this. I'm not sure I follow how a potential self-fulfilling prophecy can constitute supporting evidence for any claim.

 

I'm not sure why people are so surprised that themes that run through the Bible happen to have been discussed outside the Bible. There are a zillion concordances, commentaries, devotionals and other books about the Bible on bookshelves today. Now we have an ancient equivalent discussing the major themes of the Old Testament--the Messiah and redemption. That does not prove that this is a common theme in all religions, btw. All it proves is that someone a few millenia ago studied the Old Testament and decided to chisel his thoughts about it into some stone.

Except that anyone that has studied other religions would know that it is common in other religions

 

Now, according to this, we are led to believe that it was present in judaism too. One of those, "et tu, Brute?" moments, if you will.

[Totenkopf]

@Achilles--I thought you were asking your question in an attempt at humor. How do you prosyletize? Talk about atheism as fervently as and with the same amount of faith as any theist, which you do.

 

I'm afraid this misses the point. You cannot "covert one's faith" if no faith is involved in the outcome. By definition your comment in patently false, however I did want to extend to you the courtesy of an opportunity to explain what you meant. Since it appears that you're stuck, I'll just accept the comment for what it is and move on.

 

 

Actually, you're being completely disingenuous, achilles. You claim to take a neutral position, but then proceed at any and every opportunity to ridicule and belittle theistic povs. Fact is, as has been stated numerously, that neither side has a lock on the truth. Atheists trust that an insuffiency of empirical evidence exonerates their belief that there are no gods or even a God. Since neither side can answer the question unequivocably, the antitheistic side (yours, frankly) really ought to learn some humility of its own.

[mur'phon]

Tot: But as far as I know, Achilles haven't stated: "there is no god", rather he goes with "there is no evidence for a god, and hence it's no reason to believe in one". You don't need to deny a gods existence to be an atheist, simply not believing there is one is enough.

[Totenkopf]

Problem is, he speaks out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. It's neutral to say that you don't know whether such entities exist, but choose not to BELIEVE untill more evidence comes in. Another to belittle the other side of the issue b/c it doesn't meet your requirements of rationality. Given that I'd have to look at too many posts to make sure he didn't utter the words "there is no god" verbatim, that has been the position of many of his posts. One of the reasons he so strongly embraces the FSM concept and tries to bludgeon the other side. I agree you can be an athiest and neutral so long as you recognize that it's your belief, and not established fact, that such entites don't exist.

[Arcesious]

Being neutral isn't neutrality in the eyes of those who are not neutral.

 

Whoever said there were two sides to every question and answer was wrong. I have to say that there are three. A side positive, a side unknown, and a side negative.

 

We can't fully prove or disprove anything, but we do what we can. It would be impossible for anything to make any advancements if judgements of the value of something is never made. There will always need to be Athiests, and there will always need to be thiests. Agnostics don't really make many strong points in arguments because we consider all sides equally possible. Thiests will argue that agnostics are the opposite of their beleifs. Somewhat true, yes, but it is not efficient to examine a question or debate without judging all sides equally. I hold more to the athiest side, as does Achilles, and thiests usually hold mostly to the opposite side.

 

We all make judgements of the relevence of things- to not do so would make us never get anywhere. The reason I stick to the athiestic side is because it seems to have more solid method of judgement, known as the scientific method...

[Totenkopf]

Being neutral isn't neutrality in the eyes of those who are not neutral.

 

 

A 2x edged sword, I'm sure you can appreciate.

 

 

 

Whoever said there were two sides to every question and answer was wrong. I have to say that there are three. A side positive, a side unknown, and a side negative.

 

The question of is there or isn't there really only offers 2 possible solutions (like any other yes/no question). Yes, but...and no, but... are merely nuances on that issue.

 

 

We can't fully prove or disprove anything, but we do what we can. It would be impossible for anything to make any advancements if judgements of the value of something is never made. There will always need to be Athiests, and there will always need to be thiests. Agnostics don't really make many strong points in arguments because we consider all sides equally possible. Thiests will argue that agnostics are the opposite of their beleifs. Somewhat true, yes, but it is not efficient to examine a question or debate without judging all sides equally. I hold more to the athiest side, as does Achilles, and thiests usually hold mostly to the opposite side.

 

So.....if mankind actually managed to discover "God" tomorrow, would there still be need of atheists? Or just anti-theists (ie who cares, it's evil whatever it is)? Agnostics only make the undefeatable point so far that neither side has conclusively proven their case. I'm afraid your friend Achilles has already chosen his side, not merely "leaning toward it" as you put it.

 

 

We all make judgements of the relevence of things- to not do so would make us never get anywhere. The reason I stick to the athiestic side is because it seems to have more solid method of judgement, known as the scientific method...

 

The scientific method can only deal with issues empirically. Either I have hard evidence to base my hypotheses and conclusions on or I don't. It is not geared to deal with what are likely more metaphysical concepts due to insufficient data. Any good scientist knows that a lack of data doesn't necessarily equate to nonexistence and therefore tries to deal with things that he can measure, not merely dismissing things that he can't. FTR, I believe it's possible that no such entities exist, but won't arrogantly reject them out of hand b/c they don't fit into my desired paradigm.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

ITT: ACHILLES' SPIRITUALITY MEGATHREAD

 

Whoever said there were two sides to every question and answer was wrong. I have to say that there are three. A side positive, a side unknown, and a side negative.

Bleh. There's always a solution to a problem that's better than any others, even if you don't realize it (tl;dr: ignorance isn't an excuse). Accordingly, there's a right answer and a wrong answer.

[Achilles]

Tot: But as far as I know' date=' Achilles haven't stated: "there is no god", rather he goes with "there is no evidence for a god, and hence it's no reason to believe in one". You don't need to deny a gods existence to be an atheist, simply not believing there is one is enough.[/quote']Good post

 

Being neutral isn't neutrality in the eyes of those who are not neutral.

Ouch. *rubs forehead*

 

We can't fully prove or disprove anything, but we do what we can.

Depends on the context of your statement. We can prove that 2+2=4. It is a fact that the earth revolves around the sun. We cannot prove or disprove the hypothesis that gravity is caused by invisible flying monkeys that live in my sock drawer. A thorough and enlightened discussion about gravitons may or may not render this latter hypothesis unnecessary, but that isn't the same things as stating that my sock-monkeys aren't real.

 

and there will always need to be thiests.

Why?

 

This is akin to saying that there will always need to be people that believe the earth is flat or that human actions are controled by animal spirits. I don't see why such beliefs should be considered a necessity (let alone a benefit).

 

Agnostics don't really make many strong points in arguments because we consider all sides equally possible.

Err...depends on what you mean by "agnostic". When you start getting into what it means to be atheistic and what it means to be agnostic, the lines get pretty blurry in some parts.

 

Thiests will argue that agnostics are the opposite of their beleifs.

I would tend to think that anti-theists would be the opposite of theists. One holds a specific, positive belief about the non-existence of god. The other holds a specific, positive belief about the existence of god.

 

Anyone unsure or without a belief would seem to belong a different spectrum altogether, wouldn't you think?

[Arcesious]

Anyone unsure or without a belief would seem to belong a different spectrum altogether, wouldn't you think?

 

I guess I'm trying to use 'Agnostic' as the most neutral position. Although if there is a term for soemthing truly neutral besides... I dunno, 'Neutralist' (Is that even a word?), then I'll start using that term.

 

As for always needing people of opposite veiws, I'm trying to make the point that it's important to always have someone who questions other beleifs, in order to make progress. IE, two people of opposite veiws argue about something and come to a whole different conclusion than the two sides they had first limited their debate to, making progress.

[mur'phon]

Achilles: Great minds think alike:D

 

Arc: Opposing wievs are great for making progress, peace on the other hand tend to be harder to achieve in such a situation. Anyway, I don't really see theists and anti theists add much to progress by virtue of their beliefs, not that that tend to harm progress either.

[Achilles]

I guess I'm trying to use 'Agnostic' as the most neutral position. Although if there is a term for soemthing truly neutral besides... I dunno, 'Neutralist' (Is that even a word?), then I'll start using that term.

I guess I don't view agnostics as being "neutral" so much as "uncommitted". Thinking that it's equal parts likely and unlikely that god exists isn't exactly a reasonable position either.

 

As for always needing people of opposite veiws, I'm trying to make the point that it's important to always have someone who questions other beleifs, in order to make progress.

I agree that's true, but to my point, do you think we still need people around to argue that the world is flat to keep the "world is round" people in line? We absolutely need to have an open forum in which ideas can be challenged, but I don't think purposely maintaining a populations of bad ideas for this purpose helps anyone.

 

They don't admit fat, sweaty guys into the Olympics just to keep the athletes on their toes do they?

 

IE, two people of opposite veiws argue about something and come to a whole different conclusion than the two sides they had first limited their debate to, making progress.

Right, but how much progress can be made when a bunch of time is wasted refuting bad ideas? Keeping with the theme, how much effort would we be able to put into important, groundbreaking stuff like quantum physics if we still had to devote a substantial amount of time to debate with flat-earth proponents?

 

We can still have a debate within the scientific community without having to cater to flawed thinking.

[Totenkopf]

I guess I don't view agnostics as being "neutral" so much as "uncommitted". Thinking that it's equal parts likely and unlikely that god exists isn't exactly a reasonable position either.

 

Yet more rational than claiming they do/don't when the evidence doesn't support your position. And, frankly, "I don't know" is a much more neutral position anyway.

 

I agree that's true, but to my point, do you think we still need people around to argue that the world is flat to keep the "world is round" people in line? We absolutely need to have an open forum in which ideas can be challenged, but I don't think purposely maintaining a populations of bad ideas for this purpose helps anyone.

 

Well, unless your going to use your defer to authority fallacy, people need to understand why those ideas are considered bad in the first place. At the very least, you'll need to explain why and where they fail.

 

 

They don't admit fat, sweaty guys into the Olympics just to keep the athletes on their toes do they?

 

What, you mean academic forums and organization seriously entertain the flat earthers, creationists, etc...?

 

Right, but how much progress can be made when a bunch of time is wasted refuting bad ideas? Keeping with the theme, how much effort would we be able to put into important, groundbreaking stuff like quantum physics if we still had to devote a substantial amount of time to debate with flat-earth proponents?

 

Since when have these people seriously blocked the road to such higher learning in the modern age? There are enough secular sources of funding on the globe to continue down the track of further discovery. Of course it also begs the question of how much more could be accomplished if scientists egos didn't get in the way by trying to reinvent the wheel and get all the credit? Seems the real problem in this era is financial investment and payoff in ideas, not "backward thinking yokels".

 

We can still have a debate within the scientific community without having to cater to flawed thinking.

 

I'm sure that goes on all the time currently anyway.

[Lance Monance]

Problem is, he speaks out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. It's neutral to say that you don't know whether such entities exist, but choose not to BELIEVE untill more evidence comes in. Another to belittle the other side of the issue b/c it doesn't meet your requirements of rationality. Given that I'd have to look at too many posts to make sure he didn't utter the words "there is no god" verbatim, that has been the position of many of his posts. One of the reasons he so strongly embraces the FSM concept and tries to bludgeon the other side. I agree you can be an athiest and neutral so long as you recognize that it's your belief, and not established fact, that such entites don't exist.

 

If there's no evidence for something, the question whether it exists or not does not even arise in my mind. If you are labelling that a belief in nonexistance, then knowledge that is considered to be fact is a belief as well.

 

And essentially that's correct, we can never be 100 % sure about anything. But that stance doesn't get us anywhere. Therefore we tend to say "X does not exist" when there's no evidence for it.

 

I wonder why some people keep pointing out that we can't know for sure only when it comes to religious stuff.

[Achilles]

Therefore we tend to say "X does not exist" when there's no evidence for it.

Or, if I may, "there is no reason for us to think that X exists" when there is no evidence for X. A vast majority of people (including many participants in this thread) have absolutely no problem applying this thinking to every god that has ever been imagined, save one (hint: theirs).

[KinchyB]

I wonder why some people keep pointing out that we can't know for sure only when it comes to religious stuff.

 

Ohhh, I can't resist!!! I don't know, and may never know, for sure what heritage I am. I got 6 nailed down (well, 5 technically, the 6th is fairly generic) but I'm pretty sure there are a few more. But seriously...I don't know blah, oh well, just had to break the trend of not knowing only in religious stuff.

 

Anyway...

 

A vast majority of people (including many participants in this thread) have absolutely no problem applying this thinking to every god that has ever been imagined, save one (hint: theirs).

 

I would tend to agree with this in general. When it comes to faith I think for the most part people are not open minded (may be willing to learn but learning is not necessarily being open minded). For myself, I'm not open minded in the fact I need physical proof of existence. If I didn't need physical proof I would have to accept all religions as being true and the probability of all of them being accurate is 0. So, until there is physical proof of the existence of any god (even the ones the built the pyramids ) I'm going to be skeptical, so much for being open minded I guess...

[Totenkopf]

Not sure why some people object to having it pointed out to them that they don't know what they think they know. There's no problem, in my mind anyway, with people choosing not to believe something due to insufficient information. But saying, I don't have sufficient info to demonstrate the existence of X (gods, ghosts, bigfoot, ufos, etc), therefore I have no reason to believe in them is not the same as saying they don't exist. It's pretty straightforward. Nothing wrong with skepticism, though.