Damocles said:
I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here and refute some of your arguments. The simple reason for this, is that if there is one thing that Bluemoon Off-Topic has taught me over the years, it's that people's faith is unnecessarily bastardised for the enjoyment of a few; something that I've been quite a large voice in, and it's a little unfair on them to say "PROVE YOUR GOD EXISTS!!~". To the general populace on here, admitting you are a faithful person is paramount to saying you're a idiot, and that's out of order.
I don't think it is that unfair to ask the person who claims that their God is real to prove or at the very least (since proof is hard to come by for anything) give reasons and/or evidence, which are compelling enough to be entertained seriously, as to why they know that their God exists. If someone believes that something exists out of cultural tradition or because it makes you feel good, or gives you hope, then, and I say this as nicely as possible, you may aswell be a idiot. Sorry, but it's true.
Damocles said:
Anyway, as you probably know, I'm a slave to logic, so I'll use this to counteract the claims that have been made.
1. Religion has caused more suffering than anything else
This is false, and shows a bias in the reading of historical events. Yes, certain wars have been religious, but a number of them (including the two biggest last century which killed more than any) weren't. I would say that culture clash has caused more suffering than anything else. Communism vs Capitalism vs Fascism was the new cultural imperialism; before this, the British, before this, the French/Spanish, before that the Persians/Ottomans, before this the Romans, before this the Norse, etc.
Wars are fought for territory and for resources, to extend the power of a certain nation. Whether they were religious or not is irrelevant. People used to find allies through similar cultures, which extends in to similar religious beliefs. That said, Christians still invade Christian countries, and have done since the dawn of time.
The whole Civil War in Britain is an often used religious war excuse, and especially the actions of Henry 8th, Queen Mary, etc.
Again, at the root of this, you have a single monarch who wants to increase their powerbase. It's very rare in history to find a person who wants to conquer based entirely on religious aspects.
Whilst I don't necessarily subscribe to the claim that religion has caused the most suffering it is right up there.
There's also more to suffering than just war. Tho it is understandable to go straight to the topic of war because it is far more noticeable. Millennia of day to day mental and physical suffering due to religious doctrine must account for a large portion of it all.
There's also the fact of the dark ages and the more general case of religion holding back and attacking science. If left alone we'd be a century further on in scientific terms atleast. How much death and suffering could that have averted?
The worst thing about religious suffering, imo, is that it was/is completely unnecessary.
Damocles said:
2. God causes more pain than the Devil
Presuming that these two actually exist, there is no verifiable way of saying who caused what to happen, therefore the whole argument is mute.
Never heard that before.
Damocles said:
3. The Bible is just too much of a fantastical story to be true.
Again, the logic in this is heavily flawed. If I were to travel back two thousand years and explain posting on an internet forum to a man, they would say that it was too fantastical to be true. The historical accounts at the time support a person known as Jesus. This is all again presuming that the Bible is literally true.
We have no real way of knowing the events of Nazareth/Jerusalem around this time, as proper historical documentation doesn't particularly exist, most was passed through word of mouth and then written later. Yes, this introduces the possibility of bias, but the possibility of bias and actual bias are two different things.
The probability of bias and the "chinese whispers effect" is very high.
Jesus may or may not have existed. It's not certain either way.
The bible is heavily flawed. It's rife with contradictions for starters. A number of alleged occurrences have been dismissed by Jewish historians, including Exodus.
Whether it is too fantastical to be true depends on whether you take everything literally or not. Christians have to take some parts literally otherwise Jesus, if he existed, was just some philosopher who stirred things up and possibly used the OT to do so.
Damocles said:
4. The Bible was written by journalists, which makes it unreliable
This is akin to saying that 9/11 was reported by journalists, therefore didn't happen.
Hmmm, I've never heard this specific argument. I think the more common one is the fact that the Bible wasn't written until 30-100 years after Jesus allegedly died and the way in which the different books were chosen.
Tho if The Sun had anything to do with it we can all dismiss Christianity out of hand ;)
Damocles said:
5. Scientific standards don't apply to scripture
I'm surprised at this assumption. Scripture has some real hardcore scientists examining them, dating them, translating them etc. It isn't easy to translate a dead language, and compromises have obviously being made from the original to English. There is a whole argument that states that the Virgin Mary was never a Virgin in the original scripture, and was actually just 'young' which was mistranslated. Again, it's an ongoing process of translation and knowledge, and the real religious scientists are doing their best to get the intended story out there. It isn't their fault if Christian sects don't accept it, or whatever.
I'm not sure what the argument, you're responding to, is trying to say tbh but, yea, science should look into every piece of history.
Damocles said:
6. Physics supports the assumption of a Creatorless universe.
This is a personal bug bear of mine actually, and I can never see where people come from with this. In Physics, there is a rare term used known as a Singularity. A Singularity is an event that happens where some laws of physics break down, and cause-effect rarely exists. The Big Bang is probably the most well known Singularity, but others such as Black Holes.
Actually, that's a bit of a simplified answer, which doesn't do it justice. What I should say, is that a singularity is where the variables in an equation reach infinity, and there is no such thing as infinity in Physics, thus it breaks the known laws.
Anyway, the point being that nobody on Earth can prove what happened at the moment of creation. We know what happened several billionths of a second after it, and can follow it all the way through to now. However, the exact moment of creation is unknown to all, and if you have an answer for it, you better buy a suit as you'll be receiving a Nobel Prize.
There is a space for a creator within physics. Not just the moment of creation but the formation of the laws too. For example, we know that Pi is always the ratio between a circumference of a circle and the diameter (well, in Euclidean geometry anyway), Why is this? Doesn't it seem funny that we have a bunch of constants in the Universe? The Gravitational constant is a bloody good one, as well as things like the Divine proportion or Phi.
The Divine proportion for those unaware, is 1.6180339887. This is a number that appears just everywhere in nature and in the galaxy. There is also a large amount of sacred architecture that conforms to this ratio.
Again, there is room for faith within this equation, and discounting it entirely is a little close minded.
The fine tuning arguments I don't find compelling tbh. If we imagined that the Universe came into existence via a "dice throw" - 35 % of all "throws" would result in Stars.
With the Big Bang/Singularity all we can say atm is "we don't know". Even if it supported a creator the Christian is still left in the same position of justifying why his/her particular religion is true. There are reasons to suspect a "multiverse" tho I believe and I've read stuff about quantum fluctuations, which in all honesty go way over my head. The problem is is that the argument as to why the universe needs a God (the first cause)actually argue against itself. They say God is timeless (or resides outside of time) and doesn't need a cause.... but then God just seems redundant, since an "omniverse" from which our universe came from could be timeless and uncaused
Damocles said:
7. God doesn't exist because the Vatican is evil.
There's no real logic behind this. Discounting the Christian God, just because some of his followers are idiots, is like saying that all humans are paedophile murderers because Ian Huntley exists.
I don't think I've ever heard this one either.
PS. FFS Damocles, next time don't write so much! :D
